For a Few Chickens More

Beware the postman bearing news! In my case it was my placement as a member of the elections committee in the recent municipal, regional and European parliament elections. Oh. The. Joy. Still, being a civic-minded individual, I showed up and had my weekend scedule screwed up for the last weekend. And if you add my weekend with the young Master, that should explain my "disappearance" for the last 3 weeks.

I called my partner-in-crime Thanos from Miniatures and Terrain and scheduled another game of Napoleonic skirmishing using Song of Drums and Shakos. We had another game, over a year ago. Once a year is hardly enough for the cool games that Andrea writes up over in Ganesha Games. Do visit and support him, as he is one of the few people I know who prices his games reasonable and makes a living out of them.

Song of Drums and Shakos is cool as it allows you to run off-the-wall scenarios. In this case, the situation was rough in the Iberian Penninsula. Both the French and British were running low on provisions, so foraging parties were sent out to seek out victuals. Thanos had painted farm animals from the Pegasus set, and had a beautiful pig sty (there's a contradiction in terms if ever there was one). He brought them over at the Führerbunker for another afternoon of iced coffee and dice-rolling.

Here was the set up. A road divides the board and 6 bases of cows, fowl and pigs were placed so that each player had easy access to half of them. We added some special rules to make the game more fun:

1. Each base of farm animals was worth one point. Whoever had collected more points at the end of the game would be the winner.
2. Collecting a base of livestock meant either killing it (we set the Combat value of all animals at 0) and carrying it out of your table edge, or coming in contact with it and herding it (after a successful Quality roll) towards your table edge.
3. If one failed at his Quality roll to herd the animals, these would wander off in a random direction (1 Short for fowl, 1 Medium for pigs and cows). If you ceased to be in contact with the animals you'd have to roll to succeed in "herding" them again.
4. Carrying a base of dead animals dropped your movement by one category.
5. If a base of animals randomly moved off the board, it was lost to both parties.
6. If a figure carried a base of killed animals off the board, it could not reenter.

These might seem complicated, but they are not. Plus the added possibility of Riflemen and dragoons chasing pigs or failing to kill chickens added to enjoyment factor. What follows is the AAR, mostly from the British side. I am sure Thanos will be posting about the French within the next couple of days.

The British force: Rifles Officer, 2 Chosen Men, 2 riflemen, 1 center company NCO, 2 center company fusiliers.

The forces of the Corsican Ogre: Officer on foot, 4 fusiliers, 2 Dragoons and 1 Old Guard Grenadier.

The French decide to move in and try and get some chickens for the pot. The fusilier succeeds in his Quality check and guides his feathered friends towards the French table edge. Two of the fusiliers and the grenadier advance through the field using the wall as cover. The dragoons move down the road, ready to cut down any British foragers. The remaining fusilier and the officer try to bag some more chickens and some beer for the pot-au-feu.

The British using some desultory rifle fire to keep French heads down. And then, turnover.

The fusilier fails to herd the remaining chicken base, guiding perilously close to the table edge. The forces in the tilled field move on before (you guessed it), turnover.

Two of the riflemen advance in the woods, securing the right British flank. The fusiliers move down the road, finding strength and confidence in their numbers. One of the Chosen Men reloads and before yet another turn over (there were several of those in this game).

Thanos is tired of getting plinked by the riflemen, so he decides to send one of his Dragoons to clear the road. Tactically, it was not a bad decision. 

However, there were another 4 figures ready to assist the poor Rifleman. Maybe he would have been better off trying to fight the fusiliers and NCO. Two furious rounds of fighting take place with the Dragoon getting mobbed by 5 figures. He survives for one round, even dropping temporarily one of his opponents.

However, the result was never in doubt. After getting bayoneted repeatedly, the poor Dragoon is hors de combat. To add insult to injury, one of the Frenchmen manages to drive one of the cow bases out of the game. Now Thanos has to secure the remaining cow or pigs in order to win.

And after all this crappy rolling, the dreaded snakeyes come up, forcing Thanos to end his turn at this critical point.

The British dress their ranks and one of the Chosen Men walks up to the cows and calmly shoots them. Meat is meat.

One of the riflemen enters the pigsty where he (unsuccessfully) tries to kill some pigs. 

At this point, the British are firmly in control of the center. They have a base of animals out, like the French. The fusiliers fire to keep the Grenadier's head down and succeed. So far so good.

After two rounds of fighting with the dreaded pig, one of the riflemen kills it and starts dragging the carcass towards the British table edge. Mad with hunger, the Dragoon charges. The British line holds it's ground and after some fighting manages to repel the horseman. In the next round volley fire wounds the last Dragoon and secures the center for the British for good. 

At this point we decided to call it a night. The French were close to having another base of livestock out of their table edge, but lacked sufficient force to take the last one before I killed it and left with it.

All in all, this was a fun and different game. The location of the animal bases gave you the choice of going for a quick draw (nothing wrong with that) or trying for victory. Also the choice of killing (and then losing a figure who would carry the carcass off the table) or trying to herd one of the animals was a good one. Once again, it came down to the luck of the dice and the dice liked me tonight. Thanos managed to wing a couple of my men, but failed to incapacitate any. Poor rolling will get you any time. Song of Drums and Shakos is easily adaptable as everything can be boiled down to a combat or quality roll. Thus some more interesting scenarios can be played without much trouble. After all, how many times can you storm the farmhouse before it become old?

Bridge Across the River Die

It's been nine months since I last wrote here. Wow! You can have a kid in this amount of time. Well, real life conspired to keep me away (moving to a new home, camera knocked out of action during move, my personal computer shortly after). Still, I've kept up with painting plastic crack and here is a celebratory come-back with nothing less than a battle report. My opponent was none else than Thanos, the extremely talented modeler of the Miniatures and Terrain blog.

Although my primary areas of interest are fantasy and WWII wargaming, I recently dabbled in Napoleonic wargaming. Ah, yes, the time when real men got their hair curled and wearing pink, green and riding boots was a fashion statement. And lace. Let's not forget the tons of lace and pipping you'll have to paint. So I picked a rule system that is light on rules and even lighter on figures, Song of Drums and Shakos from Italian Ganesha Game. SDS uses the Song of Blades and Heroes engine which is rules-light and forces you to make some interesting tactical decisions on allocating actions to your miniatures. Being a skirmish game, it uses a small number of figures, typically no more than 20 per side. It took me about two months (including the normal break times for work, the Mistress complaining and the Young Master falling ill) to complete all the figures and terrain for this particular game. I'm pretty sure that someone could do it in half the time though. Although the figures used were 1/72, I used the scales for 15mm figures, mainly because my current gaming table is 60cm wide (normal playing area for 1/72-28mm figs is 90cmX90cm).

The scenario details are as follows. A group of French line infantry (together with their officer and two members of the Old Guard) have been stationed in an old farmhouse, next to a bridge. Their orders are simple: hold the bridge against British probes. A small force of British troops (five Riflemen and their officer together with some center company infantry with their officer and NCO) have been ordered to force a crossing, essentially conducting a reconnaissance in force. The south side of the map is covered in woods, except for the road leading to the bridge and the north side is essentially open, other than the farmhouse and its low wall. Thanos decided to use the British and that left me to defend the honor of the Emperor and France.

Turn I found the redcoats split into three groups. The center company infantry was positioned on the road leading to the bridge, three riflemen and their officer on the right flank and two more riflemen on the left flank. All groups advanced cautiously, with the center company NCO being a little more zealous and running to the top of the bridge. The French had one of their line infantry together with the grenadiers hold the north end of the bridge while the rest of the fusileers holding the south wall of the farm. The officer was behind the line of fire able to command both groups. The flag-bearer was close by acting as a rally point should things go sour. The French line infantry on the south wall fired on the Rifles skirmish line, forcing one of them back, deeper in the cover of the copse. They reload. One of the  Old Guard fires on the foolhardy NCO, forcing him to drop for cover and reloads.

In Turn II the British start using the longer reach of their rifles. The British riflemen on the left fire, missing one of the grenadiers. More determined rifle fire on the British right forces two of the French infantry to drop for cover behind the stone wall. The British CO however rolls snakeyes leading to a changeover. The French have had enough of this pesky rifle fire. The Grenadier that got shot returns fire, killing one of the riflemen on the left and then  reloads. One of the line infantry moves from the south wall to the bridge, but the French officer also rolls double "1"s leading to a turnover.

On the beginning of Turn III, the British right flank advances, leaving the tree line. The center squad of redcoats advances and crosses the bridge at a run. The NCO manages to stand up. The rifleman on the left flank fires and misses. The French decide to fight the British hand to hand. One of the redcoats is killed and one is pushed back, with the Grenadier following on his advantage.

The British CO correctly deduces that this is the turn that will make or break the battle. He advances and fights hand to hand against the French. End result, he and one of the infantrymen are wounded, forcing a morale roll for the NCO and remaining redcoat on the bridge. They both fail and decide to run like crazy (wise decision). On the French left, the infantry stands up behind the stone wall and fires at the Rifles officer. After three shots, the officer falls wounded and the troops decide to fall back running, except for a brave fellow who stands his ground.

End result: 4 British dead  and wounded (including both officers), not even a scratch for the French. This was a pretty solid win for the French. In the post-game discussion with Thanos, we determined that he would have been better off moving his entire skirmish line of riflemen on his left flank and used it to fire from a defiladed position to the French holding the north end of the bridge. That, or some cavalry, which is next on the painting block.

That's all for now from sunny Athens.