How To Be Sporting in Games

Someone wrote this up some time past and I saved it. It strikes me that while much of it applies to DBA (or Triumph, which I play instead of DBA now), much of it is simply good advice for sporting play.



The following basic points of etiquette have been recommended by DBA gamers for both tournament and regular play and are collected here for ease of reference:

• All games should be conducted in a spirit of good sportsmanship for the purposes of fun and friendly competition.
• To avoid confusion over often similar looking elements in a game, it is customary during the deployment phase to identify your army list, identify each element deployed by type, and indicate which element is your CnC. This includes identifying any elements set aside for use as a littoral landing force.
• It is permissible to pre-measure move distances and/or to check distance shooting ranges at any point during either player’s bound, and to use markers to help indicate zones of control, and special rulers to assist in wheeling lines of troops.
• All movement should be carefully measured to ensure that elements do not exceed their allotted movement allowance. When moving an element, the initial starting location and/or the proposed ending location can be marked so that the move distance can be verified by measurement and/or the element restored to its original position if the movement is challenged.
• Once an element has been moved, as in chess, the move is final and should not be retracted or adjusted unless correctly challenged by the opponent.
• If you are not sure when moving an element whether it will end the bound in or out of ZOC, in or out of shooting range, in or out of bad going, etc., it is appropriate to communicate your intentions to your opponent and then mutually agree on the final location and status of the element. For example, Player 1 might say -- I want to move this element up, but end just outside the range of your archers. Player 2 would respond by indicating range line or by agreeing that the element is outside of the shooting range in its current location.
• Dice should be given a good, solid throw, bouncing on impact and landing within plain view of your opponent. Use of a dice cup or dice box are encouraged. Avoid rolling dice into your opponent’s figures. Any thrown dice that rolls out of your opponents view (e.g. off the table) or does not end up flat on the rolling surface is “cocked” and should be rerolled.
• When an issue can’t be resolved amicably by the players using the published rules, reference should be made to the tournament umpire or a neutral third party if no referee is readily available, or by use of a standard reference (e.g. the WADBAG Unofficial Guide) or, if necessary, resort to a dice roll.
• Players should not handle the figures of other players or using their dice or gaming implements without their knowledge and consent and should always be careful to avoid causing damage to all game components.
• At a tournament game, players should arrive on time, ready to play, and should be available to continue play at the start of each scheduled round.
• Players should avoid engaging in activities of a distracting nature (e.g. talking on a cell phone) while involved with a game.
• At the conclusion of a game, it is customary to shake hands and thank your opponent .

KF 1757: Supporting Mechanisms

Models of Austrian military wagons and limbered gun, Wagram Museum (http://ultimaratioregis.com)

Attrition

Attrition is a fairly simple mechanism in Kleiner Feldzug. Jolly simple, but jolly deadly.

From a different war...

Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead : [Adendorff has explained the classic Zulu 'buffalo' battle formation]  It looks er... jolly simple, doesn't it?

Adendorff : It's, er, jolly deadly, old boy.

In Kleiner Feldzug, troops have to take attrition checks when they take actions that may cause substantial non-battle losses. These include force marches, marching when out of supply, marching during the winter, marching through hostile terrain (primarily in Europe marching through mountain passes, though extensive swamps or other dense, unpopulated terrain would count). Simply sitting still, if in a fortress under siege, will cause an attrition check, though sitting still while otherwise out of supply will not (some amount of foraging will supply basic needs, though it cannot replenish military supplies).

Attrition checks happen for each instance so, for example, if one force-marched two points, one of them over a mountain pass, while out of supply, one would take four checks.

Attrition checks are fairly brutal. One rolls a die per attrited unit; two-thirds of die rolls will result in one or two SPs of losses. Most units have 4-9 SPs, with average units possessing 6 or 7. So that rash command in the example just mentioned that takes four attrition checks will suffer from 0 to 8 SP losses PER UNIT, with an average loss of around 3 SPs per unit. Needless to say, for a force composed of mediocre to average troops (4 to 6 SP per unit), this would be crippling; even for a force composed of good troops (7, 8, or 9 SP per unit), this would be a severe blow.

The lesson? Don't undergo attrition checks if you can avoid it!

Dispatches

Beautifully painted Minden jäger zu pferde delivering a dispatch (altefritz.blogspot.com)

This subject is not addressed directly in the original Kleiner Feldzug rules. Since we're playing this online by email, I thought it would make life ...interesting...for players if they could not communicate immediately and directly with each other unless the officers they were playing were loacted at the same point.

Thus players wanting to send messages to other players (friendly or, I suppose, enemy) have to send them to the umpire. The umpire then determines if the messages get through, get lost or delayed, or get captured/intercepted. Since commanders were likely to send dispatches via multiple couriers, these results are not exclusive of each other--one copy of a message might get delayed, while another got through and another was intercepted.

For the moment, I'll leave it at that.

Kleiner Fledzug 1757: Results of April I

April I Map

Here's the state of the board after the operations of the first turn.

Precis of Operations

The Prussian flanking columns moved forward cautiously, crossing different parts of the Sudetes mountain ranges into Bohemia from Saxony (Winterfeldt) and Silesia (Schwerin). Arenberg's Austrian column fell back from Karlsbad on the west while Hadik's column advanced up towards Schwerin's advancing troops in the east.

FM von Browne, the Grand Old Man of the Austrian army, pushed forward into Zittau, with Prince Henry falling back before him. Though battle briefly threatened, Mars kept his countenance and no combat ensued.

The two dueling commanders in chief, meanwhile, took very different approaches. Prince Charles of Lorraine (brother to the Empress's husband and husband to her sister) took a portion of his forces and moved west from Prague to Schlan, leaving the remainder as a garrison of Bohemia's ancient capitol.

King Frederick, by contrast, led a mighty blue-clad flood across the border, moving swiftly and decisively to Aussig, a crossroads from which he may now strike west, east, or south at Prague itself.

As the armies moved forward, it became known that the Austrians had cleverly prepositioned supplies near the frontier, ready to supplement their main supply bases deeper in Bohemia at Pilsen and Bruenn. Three of these were originally established, but two were expended in the first weeks of the campaign, that at Budin being called on to support Arenberg's retirement over the mountains to Saaz and the one in Jungbunzlau being used up supporting Browne's march into Saxony. This leaves one supplementary depot in Koeniggratz.

Next Steps

Moving on to the April II turn, the CINCs will get to nominate raid or recon targets, then when the results of those are distributed, commanders will submit their next orders.

Questions and Clarifications

Several questions came up about general officers which left me thinking I had not explained the limitations of command well enough. Here's my attempt to remedy that.

Leaders and Movement

Each side has a number of officers. Some of them are rated for army command (Poor, Average, Good, Great). Those leaders can lead commands (groups of units on the map: call them armies, columns, corps, or divisions).

Other leaders are capable of directing troops in battle, but are not able to lead commands on the map. These should all be marked "subordinate only" on players' orders of battle, but the dead giveaway is that they have no army command rating (Poor, Average, Good, Great).

Units do not need an army commander to hold their position and defend it. They do need an army commander to move on the map.

Eight of the nine Prussian officers are rated for army command. Only four of the seven Austrian officers are. This, unfortunately, is a cross the Austrians have to bear.

Leaders Moving Without Troops

In other questions, one player asked, "How fast is a general moving alone?"

So, in design terms, I don't want to encourage players to start sending generals off on their own. Unless there are historical examples I've missed, that doesn't sound like something commanders at this level did (jumping around from army to army). So I'm going to say, as a provisional rule, that if they really need to, they can strategically reposition, but that this takes them out of play for a turn. They may leave the board at the beginning of Turn X and can be placed at the beginning of Turn X+1 with any friendly force they could have traced a route to free of enemy armies and fortresses.

Replacements for Attrition

Another question that came up: "Can armies that lose troops to attrition replace them?

In the context of a single campaign season, generally no. Armies were prepared over the winter and early spring, then marched out on campaign. Some drafts of replacements might be sent out from depots to individual regiments but, by and large, the forces one had at the beginning of a campaign were those one had to fight that campaign. In case of dire emergency, forces already in the field in a different theater might be diverted to shore up an army after a disaster, but a steady flow of replacements were not forthcoming.

Camp Defenses

One question that came up revolved around field fortifications: "Can armies construct fortified camps?"

There isn't a standard mechanism in Kleiner Feldzug for field fortifications, but given that armies often constructed defensive works when remaining in place for some time, I'm going to allow commands that remain stationary for a turn to acquire defenses. It wouldn't take a whole two weeks to build something, but giving up the local initiative should gain you something, in my opinion. What will result will not be anything like a fortress, but more like the defenses constructed by the Prussians at Hochkirch or the Russians at Zorndorf.

Whether you're playing in the campaign or watching at home, please feel free to post in questions, if you have any, about the campaign.

More Quick Briefings on Kleiner Feldzug

A very fine wargame.

All right, well, this didn't end up being the next day. But here we are to finish off describing Kleiner Feldzug.

I mean this brief precis to be enough of an explanation for players to muddle through our campaign or for readers here to follow along. It is not an attempt to provide all the detail of the rules themselves, which are available as part of Sam Mustafa's Might & Reason tabletop battle rules, and which I highly recommend the discerning wargamer to purchase for a paltry fee on his website.

Raids and Reconnaissance

During the game, at the beginning of each turn, each side's commander in chief (CINC) gets to make the "recon and raid" decisions for the army.

Each CINC gets to choose one enemy force to either raid (possibly attrit) or recon (possibly determine some information on its makeup) with a chance equal to his "raider" value. The defender gets a save against a successful raid but none against a reconnaissance. Normally in Kleiner Feldzug, each side gets only one of these checks per turn: in this scenario, I am giving the Austrians two (2) checks per turn provided at least one is of an enemy force inside the Austrian borders, to represent their historical superiority at ISR (intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance) in friendly territory.

Movement and Supply

Armies normally move two (2) spaces per turn unless they are 100% cavalry or commanded by a Great general, in which case they can move three (3) spaces. Force-marching is allowed, with capabilities definded by each scenario. In this campaign Austrian troops can force-march one (1) additional space per turn but will suffer (additional) attrition. Prussians can force-march up to two (2) spaces, but will undergo additional attrition in each.

Normally troops only check for attrition if they move(/evade/retreat) along a mountain path, move while out of supply, or spend a turn in a besieged fortress.

Armies must stop on entering a point occupied by an unbesieged enemy fortress.

Commanders may move by themselves. Troops may not move by themselves; they must have an officer capable of army command to lead them. As might be expected, the Prussians tend to have more of these independent-minded and initiative-seizing gentlemen than do the Austrians.

Troops can be left at a point by themselves. They will not be able to move, but they can defend adequately.

Supply extends six (6) spaces from a supply source (Austria's are Pilsen and Bruenn; Prussia's are Dresden, Goerlitz, and Breslau) but do not extend through a point with an enemy corps, enemy-held city, or unbesieged enemy fortress.

Battle and Siege

Armies may attempt to evade enemy armies they do not want to fight. This is easier to do if one's army contains light/irregular cavalry units and/or is lead by a Good or Great general.

Likewise, if armies decide (or are forced) to fight, they have an advantage in pre-battle scouting and post-battle pursuit based on having light/irregular cavalry units and better generals than the opposition.

To besiege fortresses, one needs an army with more units than the total of the fortress value (usually 3) and the enemy infantry and artillery sheltering inside. Sieges may reduce a fortress over time and/or by means of assault.

Armies' Starting Positions

Here is a map of the campaign and the forces deployed at start. I should have an update this weekend with their new positions. Refer to the previous post for a version of the map with no units, so you can see all the place names that are obscured here.

Some basics about Kleiner Feldzug

So...erm, how does it work?

Frederick after the battle of Kolin (Carl Röchling retouched by kabinettskriege.blogspot.com)

So we have the map set for our campaign, and the armies are being marshalled. The scenario determines the starting positions of the Prussian and Austrian commands (call them armies, corps, or columns--terminology was a bit loose at this point). But while the approximate size of each force is known, and the starting position of most of the general officers, some details are still unknown, to be determined by the commanders in chief (CINCs) on each side.

While we wait for them to make these decisions, let's review the rules by which the campaign is governed. I won't post the whole ruleset here (they are part of the Might & Reason battle rules, which can be found for sale at the author's website), but let's go over some of the basics.

Victory

The most important question of any military campaign, and of any game--how do you win? As I mentioned in the first post, each army is seeking to occupy each other's supply sources (Dresden, Goerlitz, and Breslau for the Prussians; Pilsen and Bruenn for the Austrians). The Prussians also want to capture and hold Prague, the capital of Bohemia. And each seeks to defeat the other's armies in battle. If the Prussians manage to accumulate at least two more victory points than the Austrians do by then end of the campaign, they win. If the Austrians get more, or even if the Prussians are a head by only a single point, Austria has defeated the invader.

The Seat of War

The area of campaign constitutes most of the northern portion of the Austrian-controlled Kingdom of Bohemia, as well as parts of Saxony (conquered by Prussia the year before our campaign, in 1756) and Silesia (a part of the Lands of the Bohemian Crown lost by Austria to Prussia in 1742 in the treaty ending the First Silesian War). From these two conquered territories, emboldened Prussian armies make ready to plunge their knives into Austria, front and flank.

Each of the points on the map represents a town, a city, or a fortress. The points marked with a circle represent towns and cities without substantial or well maintained fortifications, while the diamonds represent fortified locations, whether a city or town or simply a fortress located at a strategic site. Three Prussian fortresses and two Austrian-controlled towns are marked as supply centers. Armies in the field will depend on those places to keep their men from starving and running out of munitions.

The lines connecting points follow the roads available for movement and mostly represent distances of 15 to 25 miles. Paths through more difficult terrain--especially the routes marked with small triangles, corresponding to mountain passes--represent shorter distances, as these defiles will take more time to negotiate. For the sake of simplicity, no other terrain is represented; assume that river crossings, dense forests, and poorer than normal roads are factored into the frequency of routes. The mountain passes will cause more attrition (explained later) to troops crossing them than other routes.

The campaign will last for five months of game time; it begins at the beginning of April and ends at the end of August. Each turn represents two weeks of activity.

Prussian grenadiers advancing at the battle of Leuthen (Carl Röchling)

Armies

Each army in the campaign, Prussian and Austrian, is represented in the game by several commands. Each consists of one or more general officers and a number of units. Each unit is roughly the size of an 18th century brigade, something like four battalions of infantry (perhaps with attendant light artillery), ten squadrons of cavalry, or several batteries of medium or heavy artillery.

Units possess varying numbers of strength points (SP), which represent the combat power of the formation--a combination of manpower, training and discipline, experience, and morale. A unit with solid esprit de corps but fewer men might still have a higher SP total than a larger unit of untrained recruits or militia of limited experience and training.

Units cannot move operationally by themselves. To move, they must be under the direction of an army commander. Each side has a number of these individuals, of varying skill and ability.Several commands may be present at a point. Troops may be left at a point by a departing general if he wishes to garrison it, but they will have to remain there until another commander arrives to take charge of them.

Frederick the Great addressing his generals before the battle of Leuthen (Drawing by Menzel)

Officers

These commanders mentioned above are rated for command ability, for personality (how aggressive they were), and whether they typically showed exceptional signs of valor in battle. Not all generals are cut out to be commanders, however. A general in charge of an army will need subordinates to command elements of his army in battle, and some of these subordinates were remarkable enough to be called out as individuals; other subordinates may appear at battle time but are generic enough they fade in the background at the level of the campaign. Each commander has a seniority level (the lower the number, the more senior), and whoever is most senior in a force if and when it comes to a battle must command.


Tomorrow:

Raids and Reconnaissance, Movement and Supply, and Battle and Siege

New Kleiner Feldzug campaign starting

With the help of the gamers in the Army of Central Maryland, I'm starting a new run at the 1757 campaign of Prussia against Austria (the "Kolin" campaign). You can read all about the historical events here on Wikipedia's page about the Third Silesian War.

Here's the map we'll be using:

Without giving anything away that the players won't know to start off with, the Prussians start with corps at Dresden, Freiberg, Zittau, and Landeshut.

The Austrian forces start at Prague, Karlsbad, Reichenberg, and Koeniggratz.

Each army is seeking to occupy each other's supply sources (Dresden, Goerlitz, and Breslau for the Prussians; Pilsen and Bruenn for the Austrians). The Prussians also want to capture and hold Prague, the capital of Bohemia. And each seeks to defeat the other's armies in battle.

More posts to come on the generals, the armies, the history, and of course the campaign!

Tomorrow to fresh woods and pastures new...

So, with time at home on my hands, I've been nosing around a couple of options for a new miniature wargaming project, mostly because (inconceivably, given all that I have to work with) I'm bored with my current projects. (Admittedly, if I actually enjoyed painting figures, I'd be happy as a sandboy; I guess I far prefer organizing and planning to painting and modeling.)

Of course, actual gaming is pretty hard to do right now in any case. I've heard of folks having some success playing games through the Tabletop Simulator module in Steam, but I haven't explored it yet.

Options I'm thinking about:

New Zealand Wars: I ordered some Empress Miniatures figures to see what they're like. From reading about the campaigns, these seem like they would be largely small battles with troops firing dispersed in the dense NZ terrain or British/colonist forces trying to capture Maori pa's (forts). Eureka also do some nice Maori and European figures.

Indian Mutiny: I got a few of Iron Duke's figures too. I wrote to them and pointed out that they have only one mounted leader for the Indian forces (the maharaj' on his elephant). They wrote back right away and said yes, sorry, they hadn't got around to it and probably won't for a while because of all the new lines they're starting. *gloomy face* Who *are* these people who can't stick to one thing and finish it properly before moving on? ROFLOL.

Wargames Foundry does have a good line with pretty of options, as does a company called (appropriately enough) Mutineer Miniatures; it will be interesting to see how they scale to each other. 

I do have some of the Dixon 15mm Mutiny figures, some of which I had painted up. They are handsome figures; the only problem IMO is that like many older UK ranges they have only one pose for a good many of their figures. Sikh, Highlander, Gurkha, mutineer in uniform, mutineer in civvies--all a single figure pose. Some of the Wargames Foundry packs are like that, but most have at least three poses. Whereas Iron Duke had 14 different sepoy packs, each of which has four different poses in it.

Earlier (or later) Indian Wars:  I find that from somewhere I acquired a small collection of Redoubt figures for their Wellington in India range--British troops, sepoys, and Maratha and other local opponents. I could probably field enough for a small battle, but more would be needed to really put on a game. Redoubt are still available, and they're not bad figures, but they are huge compared to other 28mm (they're probably 32mm) so one would have to make do with whatever is in that line. Perry and Wargames Foundry and Artizan Design also have figures for the Afghan wars, the Sikh wars, and various other Victorian entanglements.

Nine Years War/War of the League of Augsburg/Great Northern War: A string of late 17th/early 18th century wars that Warfare Miniatures sell some nice 28mms for and which Khurasson does nice figures in 15mm. The NYW and the WLA have some appeal for me because they're the last time the Dutch were a big power on the battlefield. :-) The NYW is the Irish and Scottish elements of the Glorious Revolution, which was very quick in England but not so quick in the other three kingdoms. Barry Hilton and the LoA folks have always done a good job of making this seem very appealing to do in 28mm. I have a collection of siege equipment in 15mm I bought to use as props for a semi-board/semi-miniature game I planned for a convention once but never carried out. I have some field army troops in 15/18mm but sadly only a small number and from a maker (Venexia) whose 17th century line has sunk without a trace.

Tudor/Valois/Hapsburg warfare: I'm a great fan of a series of books set in the mid-16th century, part of which touch on the warfare among England, France, Scotland, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Ottoman Empire. Khurasan make a couple of nice lines for this period in 15mm, and The Assault Group has some lovely figures in 28mm. Wargames Foundry has some appropriate bits too and Artizan.

Sub-Roman Britain: I re-read a set of novels recently that got me thinking again about this period. Both Gripping Beast and Footsore Miniatures make nice figures for this period, as do Artizan Design.

Roman urban conflict? While looking at the Footsore site, I was introduced to their Gangs of Rome line. While I'm not all that fascinated by gang-fighting games, I'm a sucker for diverse civilian figures and scenery bits, and the range of buildings they have for this game is just stunning. Again, Foundry has plenty of figures that would supplement those Footsore offers.

Things I'm just not going to look at: The Perry lines of Carlist Wars, samurai, or Korean figures. Footsore's Barons War line. Eureka's 28mm French Revolution line. Steel Fist's Italian Wars and samurai lines. Just not looking, nope, nope, nope. 

Currently neglected projects: Things I could get my head back into, if my head would cooperate, include 6mm, 15mm, and 28mm Napoleonics; 15mm and 28mm American Revolution; 6mm WSS and SYW; 28mm SYW small actions; 6mm and 28mm WWI; 28mm Anglo-Scottish war; various Triumph! armies; various 6mm late 19th century European armies; 15mm wars of the French Revolution; and 15mm WWII. 28mm French and Indian War. Wars of the Roses and other late 15th century European fighting. 28mm Scottish border reivers.

Rules

I'm quite happy, for larger battles of almost any of these periods, with the Carnage and Glory rules

Of course, at the end of the day, what one lacks most is a good set of rules for playing smaller actions, the sort that one instinctively wants to play with larger figures that take up a lot of table space and budget and so prevent you from acquiring them in gigantic heaps. I have yet to find a good set of rules for recreating what *I* would call skirmishes. Most that are available these days are simple and easy to learn but don't give the sense of recreating an actual battle any more than the average Hollywood movie does. They consist mostly of moving unformed mobs of figures back and forth and are won mostly by rolling dice better than your opponent, not by employing actual military tactics.

In my opinion, the best of a bad lot, ironically, are Black Powder, the latest in the long line of products from the brain of Warhammer designers Rick Priestly and Jervis Johnson. They're generic horse and musket rules, and they have their silly side, but they are simple to learn and to mod, they don't involve figure removal (a game mechanism I find wildly unrealistic), and they have broad distribution. They have earlier period cousins in Pike & Shotte and Hail Caesar. Pike & Shotte, ironically, do least well at handling the pike & shot period, as they had to be retrofitted for units that consisted of both pike and shot!