Field of Battle 3 Weissenfels scenario at Ulster Wargames Society

Club meeting today (extra one in January in lieu of December session) and I put on another 15mm Napoleonic FOB3 game.

Scenario was Weissenfels 1813 (adapted from GDA scenario again) with French attacking Russians.

Four players took part with Jeremy D and David B commanding the French and 'the other' Jeremy and Paddy controlling the Russians.

French pre-game scouting totally failed (too many Cossacks about) so they set up their initial 2 Infantry Brigades on their left with little hint of Russian dispositions but with remaining Brigades waiting to enter later (2 per subsequent Move card)

Russians for their part chose to set up well back from the stream with their more numerous cavalry massed on their right and with the lowly Brigade of 3 small (3UI) Cossacks to their rear. I would have put these skirmishing out front but at least they stayed safe which may have been good idea as on D4 defence.

French commenced to advance with their Light Infantry in skirmish order (allowed them to cross the stream unhindered) with 2nd Brigade following in march column.

French pushing forward to waiting Russian lines (Ivans on left)

The Russian cavalry (under Paddy) could not resist and charged at first opportunity routing 2 French but seeing 1 Uhlan unit rout from some lucky skirmish fire.

French then had a fair period of ascendancy as they won several large initiatives and had an good run of cards and some stellar Move rolls (3 segments and Even) with their Brigades, and with their reserves appearing tout suite.

Reserve French Cavalry (under David B) crossing bridge in column, they were lucky enough to get both units across, then deploy into attack column and charge the Russian Dragoons (just at 5 o'clock from the bridge) routing them. 

Correspondingly the Russians had poor card draws and never seemed to get an Even roll to optimise options and with several of deck re-shuffles (due to drawn initiative - today was possibly the most drawn rolls I have seen) they seemed to pull their 2 Lull cards with uncanny frequency !

This saw Russians suffer a lot of Army Morale loss (not least to Jeremy) and all seemed lost.

French conscript Brigades (under Jeremy D) pushing forward on right. Despite being 'stuck' in march column for what seemed ages the Russians were unable to get to grips to exploit this before the French changed combat formations.

But after they had actually gone to zero Morale and having seen French turn 7 cards to good effect the Russians suddenly came good with their seven cards, getting them in good sequence and with combinations of charges on Move cards and Melee cards.

This saw them cause severe losses on French with 6 French units Routed or Destroyed for loss of only 1 Russian unit, and the French Army Morale plummet from gaining enemy chips to a significantly lower level.

Russian foot (under Jeremy) these later done terrible damage to French infantry.

However satisfying as this was for the Russians it was too late as their 7th card (lucky in itself) was an Army Morale Card which test they of course failed and they quit the field much to relief of the French.

This was a great game to watch/umpire and despite having to persuade the Russian CinC not to surrender several times it proved a much closer game than it at one point appeared.

FOB works well for multi-player games that can be fought to a conclusion (think we played just over 4 hours including a lunch break) with plenty of action and player input/interaction.

Also at club Leslie and Phil had a 28mm game with Teutonic force against Peasants (?) using Lion Rampant rules (I have no experience of these) from the Osprey stable, however I saw very little of this.

  

 

Battle Command - Seven Years War solo try

Decided to try new Battle Command (Bat Cmd from hereon) rules today as a solo venture using my 15mm Prussians and Russians.

Used Seasons of Battle cards to select a table top and just set up 2 forces with no real thought to balance. 

An interesting experience with new rules and to compare with my trusty FOB3, and the bulk of it was very familiar with movement, firing, close combat and rallying all essentially unchanged with only couple of minor additions/changes. Army Morale Points and Unit Integrity et al remain integral to system. 

BUT the new card and initiative system is radically different despite the cards having same nominal functions, but with only 8 basic cards (I did not use optional Event card which can cover a myriad of occurrences) in a deck instead of the 27+ in FOB3. 

Lull and Major Morale cards do not use the Matrix nor does the good old Tactical Advantage but again only 1 each of these per deck.

So despite basic similarities to FOB3 card play is a different animal.

Rolling for initiative is a fairly constant occurrence as only 1 or 2 initiative per player so it comes around very quickly. No more turning possibly multiple cards (up to 11) each initiative and this felt rather restrictive initially until I understood the Action Matrix.  

Decks being so much smaller they are exhausted and re-shuffled much more frequently (often in FOB3 a game ended with at maybe only one re-shuffle in my experience)

One then rolls the respective CinC dice vs a D6 on the Action Cards to establish what options you have with the Army as a whole or with individual Command Groups, this is cleverly achieved via the Action Matrix and the trusty Odds or Evens rolls.

So one might turn the single Move card but unlike in FOB where this allowed each Brigade to attempt to Move 1-3 segments, now your 'Action' roll might allow that same Movement option or 1-3 secondary action options for only 1 Brigade or indeed with a Even winning roll you can give each Brigade a different action from those allowed. Depending on Action card turned these secondary options differ.

As an example in FOB3 each side would generally have 3 Move cards and 1 Move One Command card in their deck here there is but 1 Move card but depending on dice rolls you might get a Move as a secondary option on an Infantry Firepower, Melee or Leadership card which might be applied to only 1 (or more) Brigade or the whole Army.

Lots of decisions to make on each card and often not easy if options limited by Action odd roll, but with generally few 'dud' cards (I encountered such only once by only having Infantry Fire or Leadership as options when neither applicable at that present time)  

I found it pretty easy to pick up, although I would say its not just as solo friendly as FOB and indeed felt like it would be less slick for multi-player due to choices required on Action Matrix as opposed to more fixed FOB system 'here is your card here is what you can do on it' (but that might be down to my familiarity with old favourite ?) 

Couple of thoughts I had were that seemingly not just so easy to tweak things for scenarios,  for instance in FOB I often give SYW Prussians an extra Move card to simulate better drill or Austrians an extra Artillery card to simulate their superior Artillery, not sure if able to effect this sort of nuance in Bat Cmd ? 

All in all a fun and interesting test, would I replace FOB with Bat Cmd ? hmmm, not replace but I would certainly consider as an excellent alternative. 

I think FOB suits better for multi-player/solo but Bat Cmd will shine in 2 player match ups. 

Of course having only tried once and solo its tad difficult to know.

A plethora of pics (it still looked and felt like a Piquet/FOB game)

 

Battle Command obtained

Battle Command by Brent Oman from the Piquet stable of rules just published and I purchased the Pdf version ($25 so roughly £22), not a big fan of Pdf (fine for reading less so for use during a game without printing out) but with all printed set costs nowadays being high ($45 for ules additional $8 for small card deck and goodness knows what in postage) I decided to go with Pdf.  

Quick read through reveals that the core move/firing/combat systems are essentially that of FOB3 with a few minor tweaks here and there (new optional Pursuit rules, new Evade process and some changes to dice ups and downs - UP 2 for firing/melee reduced).

The big change (and what author touts as making it a new game system) is the Initiative and Card Decks. 

A deck for each side now consists of a mere 8 cards each (optional 9th Event card) and only a maximum of 2 Initiative per player !

This is certainly a change from Initiative ranging from 1 - 11 in FOB and 27 card deck.

However cards now allow (based on Commanders roll) more options for actions/choices with Secondary Actions using an Action Matrix for each card type.

This looks very interesting and in theory more dynamic than FOB (which I already thought was very slick) with lots of decisions to make. It may however be a tad harder to teach than FOB with its more 'hard-wired' options per card.

Hope to get a game up and running with BC soon as.

The Action Matrix (which is included on each period specific QRS)

Peter 'Gonsalvo' Anderson has done a nice AAR using rules and his outlining of new Action Cards is worth repeating (ie blatantly plagiarizing), but see more at his excellent Blog:

https://blundersonthedanube.blogspot.com/2023/01/battle-of-ocana-1809-with-battle.html

Speaking of Decks (and Turns), that's the first major area where Battle Command differs from Field of Battle. The entire deck for each side now consists of only eight (sometimes nine) cards. There are 5 Action cards, namely ARTILLERY FIRE, INFANTRY FIRE, LEADERSHIP, MELEE, and MOVE,, 1 Modifier card, TACTICAL ASVANTAGE, and 2 or 3 Trigger cards, namely LULL, ARMY MORALE, and sometimes, a SPECIAL EV ENT (9th) card. 

The possibilities for the Special Event card are almost unlimited, but the rules lists many possibilities. Special Events defined in the rules include (uncontrolled) Advance, (low on) Ammunition, Cowardly Retreat, Fanatic Action (often used for speedy Native advances in colonial era games),  Frenzied Charge (likewise), Ragged Fire, Rash Advance, Reinforcements Arrive, Resolve (a sort of Morale test within a certain distance of the enemy determined by the enemy Defense Die type - I could see this being really useful for future Ancient, medieval, and/or Renaissance variants, or applied to, say the French Old Guard infantry), Sneaky Heathens (move for Natives, placed in the European's deck!), Sniper (target enemy leaders except the C-in-C; we used this card in a classic Piquet American Revolution game years ago), Timid Advance, and Wild Card. Although not included, weather eventas would be another obvious use - the snow at Friedland, the thunderstorm at Znaim, the ground drying out at Waterloo, etc. 

It is interesting that Jared and I had had a discussion some time along these lines, i.e. breaking up the sequence deck into 3 sub decks to slightly lessen the potential asymmetry, should, say, all of a sides MOVE cards be at the bottom of a 20+ card deck. It certainly makes setting up the deck at the start of a game easy-peasy! Custom cards for Battlefield Command will be available (and you'll see below why you might want them), but really, you can do perfectly fine using the cards from any previous edition of Field of Battle. Color images are provided in the rules for printing your own cards, which would be easy enough as well!

Obviously, with a deck of only 8 cards, rolling the opposing C-in-C Leadership dice and applying the difference would be even more radical, so Battle Command (? BatCom for short) uses a new system. The enemy C-in-C's still roll their opposing Leadership dice and compare the results, but they are interpreted differently:

1) if the rolls are TIED, the decks are immediately shuffled, and any unused TACTICAL ADVANTAGE card is lost back into the deck; this happened twice in our game!

2) If the winning die roll is ODD, then both sides get one card; the winning side choses whether to act first or second.

3) if the winning die roll is EVEN, then both sides get two cards, with the winning side once again choosing whether to act first or second with both cards. 

When an Action card is turned, both sides roll the Leadership Die of their C-in-C, in this case a D12 for Soult vs. a D8 for Aréizaga. The result is compared to a Matrix included on the QRS (and the BatCom specific cards):

A) If the side with the initiative rolls a ONE, then the card is applied to all commands in the Army, with no options, essentially as per standard Field of Battle.

B) If the side with the initiative loses or ties, but does not roll a one, then the entire army may act on the card as usual, OR just ONE command can chose the one listed alternative, which varies by card, and the rest of the army will do nothing. 

C) If the side with the initiative wins the roll by 1 or two, they will again have the primary action shown on the card, plus the same alternate action as the above. Win by 3 to 5, and their will be two available secondary actions. Should the side with the initiative win by 6 or more, then there will be three secondary actions available. 

Finally, in case C) only, if the winning die roll is ODD, the side must chose the primary or one of the available secondary actions, and apply it to ALL of the commands in the Army. If, on the other hand, the winning roll is EVEN, then each command in the army may choose and act upon any of the available actions, and each command can choose their own option. Obviously, if you have ever played Field of Battle,  the option of such a choice can be huge! However, each command can still only perform ONE of the available actions per card regardless. 

Commands & Colors: Ancients last bash with son

Had a final board gaming session with son before his departure back to England on Thursday.

He is quite taken with Commands & Colors Ancients so that is what we played completing 3 scenarios. 

He took Carthos this time around in each scenario so I was Romans who came out winners in 2 out of the 3.

An easy game to teach and play although I had forgotten in earlier games that Leaders effect adjacent hexes in combat.

I regret not expanding C&C collection beyond base game as so many expansions are now out of print or massively expensive here in UK, although I have not played every scenario in base game yet.  

Was great to get some play in with Steven and hopefully more visits next year.

 

More boardgame goodness with son

Another session of board wargaming gaming with my lad.

We played another Combat Commander scenario set in Arnhem with he as Huns and I as Brits and this fairly whizzed by with numerous Time events giving Huns very little time to push forward.

Then it was 4 games of Commands And Colors: Ancients which is always a fun game to play.

Steven stuck with Romans in each game so I was Carthaginians (I only have original volume) and Carthage was in ascendancy in each.

Great stuff.

Boardgaming with offspring

Son over from England for Christmas and we managed to get a gaming session in yesterday.

Played Colonial Twilight which he stuffed me at as French and then a scenario form Combat Commander with my Yanks annihilating his Huns.

L'Art De La Guerre - another couple of games

More practice games for Mr B with LADG

First game I used Sassanid against his Ostrogoths and this was a close one and I had decent dice throughout.

Second was Mr Bs Late Romans against my Galatians (not a great match up but sort of thing one can get in a competition), and Galatians were pants and dice not so friendly this time.

Two pics from early stages of Persian vs Goths

Only one fuzzy shot from start of Galatians vs Romans