On the Painting Table (April 2017) part 2

Following on from my games of The Men Who Would Be Kings (see previous post), I realised I had a box of Perry plastic 28mm British Afghan/Sudan figures sitting in my ‘to-do’ box. So, I decided to make up and paint a couple of British units to add to my collection. My existing British units all wear sandy coloured khaki, but flicking through the Black Powder supplement, Blood on the Nile, I noticed many of the units were painted with grey jackets. Although I don’t know how common this was, I decided to paint my new units wearing grey to differentiate them from, and add some variation to, an otherwise homogeneous force. I’m sure that a gamer with better knowledge of the period will point out that mixing the two colour patterns is incorrect, but I’m sure it will not impact on my enjoyment of the period. I also painted an officer wearing a classic British red jacket to represent the sort of ‘Charlie’ who would both dress for dinner and dress for battle; I just wish I had modelled him with a cricket bat rather than a sword! I also painted one of the dogs included in the box. I would have painted him as my current dog, ‘Snowy’, but the fur was too long, so instead she was painted as my previous dog, ‘Sasha’.

I based the figures in the same style as the others in my Sudan collection. The unit is based on a single 12cm frontage stand, using some spare bases that I have no other use for. The desert texturing is only half completed, I’ve run out of the sand texture paint required (I hope to buy some more pots at Salute next w/e). The whole army requires some further basing work to finish off.

Review of The Men Who Would Be King rules

The Men Who Would Be Kings (TMWWBK) by Daniel Mersey (Osprey Publishing #16, 2016). These rules were published prior to the release of Pikeman’s Lament, and I bought them at the time of publication but did not have a chance to read or play the rules until now. In my recent review of Pikeman’s Lament (see earlier blogpost, Feb 2017), I was majorly disappointed in the originality and the lack of “Oh, that’s different” moments within Pikeman's Lament. I therefore approached TMWWBK with a degree of trepidation. I am glad to say I was pleasantly surprised at the number of interesting changes made from the core Lion Rampant mechanisms.

The first change was the use of randomised Leadership values for each unit, which are diced against to determine activation. Now different units of the same type can differ in their characteristics. I really like this because it adds ‘colour’ to units within an otherwise homogenous tribal horde or regular force etc. Units stand out and you play to the strengths or weaknesses as appropriate. In my second game, we did simplify the system by not adding ‘traits’ to all units, because the speed of play meant that we often forgot who had what trait, or we neglected to remember to apply the trait. We did lose some of the flavour of the rules but play was smoother.

With regard to orders, the Close Order/Volley Fire for Europeans was routinely used; sacrificing some speed for the greatly improved fire effect was an obvious advantage. The new ‘Go-to-Ground’ order for Tribal troops took more getting used to; sure it protected your troops at long range but they were not doing anything. By my second game I had started to appreciate their use, particularly against ‘isolated’ Colonials. Rather than just attack frontally, you Go-to-Ground and concentrate on flanking moves by other units, then if the targeted unit turns to face this new threat, you rise up and continue your attack. This tactic forced the Colonial forces to adopt a mutually supporting formation, such as a square.

The most significant change in the rules was the use of default orders for each unit type (Fire for Regulars, Move for Tribal Infantry etc.). These orders do not require dicing for activation, the unit automatically passes. Previously in Lion Rampant etc. a player would attempt to activate his first unit to undertake an ‘obvious’ action and fail, shifting the initiative back to his opponent. Clearly this would be disastrous in a colonial setting as your steady square faced an on rush of tribal hordes, and then failed to fire upon them! Now your plucky Brit’s will fire, and your noble Natives will move. Of course, if you want units to do other things you risk losing the initiative by having to roll for activation. I think this single change to the order system greatly improves the whole game, brilliant!

Another significant change lies in the combat system where you now roll dice equal to the strength/number of figures in the unit, rather than either 12 dice or 6 dice depending on whether the unit is above/below half strength. Now, whittling units down does have an incremental effect (a cause of concern for the colonial player especially). Tribal units also start with a higher strength (e.g. 16 compared to the regular 12), so it is important to weaken them before they contact you otherwise you will suffer in Hand-to-Hand. Hitting the advancing horde hard and pinning them down is vital for survival.

The final ‘novel’ component of TMWWBK is the addition of a solo gameplay system; ‘Mr Babbage’. I have used this twice now and enjoyed the results in both games. It allows a randomised placement of Native units in different sectors/ranges in relation to moving colonial forces, plus there is a re-cycling of the Native units into the game. The non-player units move and act in a semi-random way determined by dice and a set of ‘Standing Orders’. I think this simple system worked really well and I would recommend players to try it out. Apparently you can play a ‘reverse’ game where you control the Natives rather than the Colonials, but I have yet to try this.

Finally, I would like to mention that, so far, I have only played TMWWBK using 28mm Sudan armies on a 6’x4’ table using 24 points per side. It would be interesting to see how these rules scale up to  larger armies, maybe using a smaller figure scale, on this table size. I do have more 28mm Sudan figures available but I suspect the table would become a bit cramped. Alternatively, I do have a pair of 10mm Zulu War armies which I might try out.

Review of Din of Battle

Review of the Din of Battle (2^nd Edition; Eric Burgess, Piquet Inc., 2011) colonial supplement for Piquet (2^nd Edition; Bob Jones, Piquet Inc., 1998) wargame rules.

I have played Piquet many times over the years using the Napoleonic (Les Grognards) supplement, and I intend giving a more detailed review of the basic rule mechanisms using this supplement at a future date. A few weeks ago I bought the colonial supplement (Din of Battle) primarily because I was looking for a set of rules to use with my 15mm Plains Wars armies. In addition I own Zulu Wars (10mm) and Sudan Wars (28mm) armies, which could also potentially utilise these rules.

The Piquet rules mechanisms tend to divide wargamers into distinct camps; you either love or hate them! My view is generally very positive, but there is a major proviso: Piquet, in my opinion, is a primarily solo experience. The random, fluctuating, non-IGOUGO initiative system can make an unlucky player feeling stranded and sidelined in an opposed game. In addition, combat results can be more ‘extreme’ compared to other rule sets, which can upset some gamers. The author freely admits he is looking to move away from the (possibly bland) trend of most other rules to create “average” results. Piquet games seem to me to create great narratives or storylines, which reflect historic battle accounts very well. Units occasionally make those surprising heroic break-throughs or last stands, which don’t seem to happen often enough in other games but frequently are found in historic accounts. The rules are very amenable to ‘house’ rules e.g. I find Morale Chips to be used up far too quickly, so I rule that disorder (and rallying from disorder) does not cost a Morale Chip.

So, what do you get with Din of Battle (DoB)? A 96 page booklet illustrated with B&W sketch drawings and a few colour photos, 2 sets of QRS (standard and squad levels), and 16 A4 light card pages printed with cards necessary for the game. Cutting out the cards is a bit of a pain and took me an hour. They are reasonably durable but I think I will use card sleeves for added protection. Almost half of the booklet is taken up with army characterisation details covering 13 different colonial wars. A copy of the main Piquet rules is required but DoB does duplicate some of the rules and card definitions. There are not that many new or altered rules: Natives have a new formation, ‘Mass’, and they cannot bring ‘Out of Command’ units back in to command. Colonial Powers have new ‘Mounted Infantry’, and will tend to utilise the ‘Extended Line’ formation more often. Well ordered cavalry can evade from infantry charges, and Plains Indians cavalry can evade US cavalry charges. Troops can move Cautiously (half speed) and improve their cover. Machine guns and modern breechloading weapons make an appearance, as do gun-boats, armoured trains and balloons. The main addition provided by DoB is the ‘Trouble and Delays’ (TAD) deck, replacing the usual ‘Dress Lines’ card. Essentially the TAD deck is a second, small card deck that contains primarily ‘Dress Lines’ cards with a few additional army specific cards. The TAD deck increases the range of unique cards available without distorting the main sequence deck, and is a good variant in my opinion. If you are already familiar with Piquet then DoB will be easily assimilated, and your main focus will be on the army characterisation section. My interests are Plains Wars, Zulu War and Sudan Wars, and the lists all appear OK. I would like to have seen some Zulu riflemen, even if they would be poor quality, and I think generally the Native melee values might have been a dice type higher.

So, how did DoB perform on the tabletop? I first tried Plains War using my 15mm Peter Pig forces and playing using the standard inches scale. The Lakota army consisted of 8 mounted units and 4 foot units; The US cavalry had 6 mounted units and 1 mounted Crow unit. The Lakota army threw poor dice throughout the game so my judgement is probably coloured by this. They did manage to KO a couple of US cavalry units, but otherwise they lost heavily to mounted carbine fire and frequently routed. The evade option worked OK but the US cavalry were shooting too well, which negated this Lakota skill. The ‘Counting Coup’ card was a nice addition, giving period colour to the game. I initially forgot the rule that mounted breechloaders require 2 PIPs to reload but I don’t think this dramatically affected the game. I did intend to dismount some US cavalry units to improve their shooting, but the good US dice rolls forced the Lakota back, so no US cavalry needed to dismount. After about 3 turns, the Lakota army ran out of Morale Chips (always a bad situation) and the army really began to fall apart, and by the 4^th turn the US cavalry were closing in on the Lakota camp and total victory. The game I played was a straight head-to-head encounter which is probably not representative of actions in this war. I think future Plains War games I play will require a more imaginative scenario design to better reflect this conflict, possibly allowing more hidden (perhaps random) Indian deployment. Overall, I felt the rules worked but the inch scale could be halved for 15mm troops.

Next I tried DoB using my 10mm Pendraken Zulu Wars armies, with a cm (rather than inch) scaling.

 I used the OOB’s from another set of rules: Principles of War, 2^nd edition. The British forces were the ‘Flying Column’ from the second invasion of Zululand. In this game British firepower was devastating, the Zulus advanced and were blown away. When the Zulus managed to get into to melee combat, they rarely drew the required ‘Melee Resolution’ card. When they did manage to fight their melee dice types were too low to give them a chance of victory. This game did throw up some real concerns for me:- The number of British units was too great and needs to be reduced in future (this is my fault not the rules); The Zulus need improved melee dice types (at least up 1 type) to increase their close combat threat; I think the Zulus require more (another 2 cards) Melee Resolution cards in their deck to compensate for their lack of firepower. I also think the provision of some Zulu rifle-armed skirmish units in the army characterisation would help.

Finally I played a game using my 28mm later Sudan Wars armies. Again, the native army was defeated. Frontal attacks against disciplined European infantry is not a good idea (realistic), and the advancing Mahdist infantry died in droves. This game it was not as one sided as previously; in one turn the Mahdist cavalry surprisingly routed both British cavalry units against the odds,  a skirmish unit inflicted significant hits against the Camel Corps and routed them, plus a unit of Fuzzy Wuzzy’s over-ran the British artillery section before it could reload. Unfortunately the Mahdists could not follow these successes up, the main British ‘square’ remained intact, the Mahdists ran out of Morale Chips and the game was effectively over.

So, what did I think of DoB? The rules gave fast moving battles that were fun to play and generated historic outcomes. Luck, as in all Piquet games, remains a major influence but this is OK in solo settings. I felt the Plains War game was the most balanced, even though the Lakota were defeated. They did take out some US cavalry and with a little better luck, could have caused some worries for the US side. The Zulu War and Sudan War games were a hard slog for the Native sides. Frontal attacks don’t work, and more focus needs to be placed on manoeuvre and flanking attacks. I think the rules need to be tweeked to give the native side a bit more of a chance:

1. Native melee factors could be increased by up 1 dice type.
2. Zulu forces should have some rifle armed skirmish units, and therefore some Opportunity Chips (divisor factor of 4?).
3. Native Opportunity Chips could be given an additional use i.e. Opportunity Melee Resolution. This would greatly help the native player. Too often the European forces were able to shoot multiple times before the native Melee Resolution card was drawn, thereby driving off the attackers before they could strike. This rule change would ensure more native attacks once units were engaged.