Pendraken 10mm FPW Bavarians

A couple months ago I finally bit the bullet and sent out orders for two 10mm Arab Revolt armies to be painted. Shortly after that, I realised that I should have ordered some German Asian Corps figures too, but by then the figures had been sent to the painter. I decided I want them bad enough to buy a pack of the figures and paint them myself (30 figures - how hard can it be?), and since I was paying postage, I decided to get a pack of the Bavarians to add to my FPW army - ironically, when I bit the bullet and had my FPW armies painted years ago, I left the Bavarians out too.

The Germans were a breeze to paint - I will show them once I have done their bases - and I was beginning to think that 10mm wasn't really that difficult to paint... then I started on the Bavarians.

Compared to the relatively sparse WW1 figures, FPW figures had a lot of details on them. A lot of *fine* details. I mean, the figures had facial hair, and there were cockades on the helmets, and straps on the canteens on the backpacks!

I painted 18 of the figures as line infantry, and the remaining 12 as jaegers - this gives me a battalion of each under the rules. Ideally I should have an entire division of them, but I don't think I can summon up the energy to paint all those figures myself.

Spicheren Play-by-WhatsApp Game

Last weekend I decided to umpire a game of To The Last Gaiter Button for FG and Martin via WhatsApp. I used the Battle of Spicheren scenario, and trimmed the order of battle down to two divisions per side, with two battalions per brigade instead of three.

Martin, playing the Prussian, was told to take the road and rail to the west end (near side in our photo - the town of Forbach) to enable the army to pursue the fleeing French. FG, playing the French, was told to hold the Prussians off while the remainder of the French army prepares to fight off a Prussian flanking attack further to the west.

I took photos of the table from both the Prussian view and the French view, and sent them to Martin and FG respectively, and they gave me their orders. Playing in this manner, we were able to play the game over Saturday and Sunday afternoons, between lunch and dinner time.

On his left Martin sent the 27th Brigade on a headlong charge to the French position on the wooded ridge across from them - the result was a bloody repulse. Seeing the Prussians in retreat, the French in turn charged from their position, and were decimated by Prussian artillery, and finished off by the Prussian cavalry.

On the right Martin sent his 28th Brigade up the wooded ridge in an attempt to get close to Forbach, which FG withdrew his French into. Here the Prussians found that their artillery was ineffective against the infantry in the town, or the chasseurs in the woods, and that their rifles were outranged by the French.

Late in the afternoon the Divisional artillery finally arrived, and the Prussians were able to take the woods - but by then it was too late to press the attack into Forbach.

The last time Martin and FG played TTLGB was literally years ago, but since I was making all the moves and resolving all the attacks for them, they did not need to know the rules and could just give their orders. The process did take a lot longer than it would have if the game was played face-to-face, but unusual times call for unusual manner of gaming.

The lockdown will end this weekend, and while the law says that we may now gather in small groups, it does not mean that we *should* do so. I am planning to wait a couple weeks and see how the situation goes before resuming face-to-face gaming again; in the mean time, we can probably try some WhatsApp gaming again.

Froeschwiller Solo Game

The Prussians enter the table

I decided to play a solo game of To the Last Gaiter Button since I had a few off days, and could afford to let the game sit on my table for a few days while I slowly played it to a conclusion. Instead of randomly generating a battlefield using the rules, I wanted to see how the game would play out with a historical scenario.

I picked the Froeschwiller scenario from 1870. It was of course not possible to play out the entire battle, so I decided to play only the southern end of the battle, pitting the Prussian 22nd Division versus the French 4th Division.

The TTLGB rules work well for an attack-defence game, since it has a 'running clock' mechanism that allowed a player to trade initiative for time. In this scenario the Prussians had superior artillery (don't they always?), and could in theory just sit tight and pound the French into submission - but due to the running clock they could not afford to do that.

The 42nd Brigade attack the French position in Nieder Wald, supported by the Divisional artillery.

In my game the Prussians slowly chipped at the French left, hoping to slowly roll up that flank before launching a two-prong attack on their centre. It worked well too, until I got bored.

As much as I enjoyed the rules, playing without a human opponent just wasn't engaging enough for me to see the whole battle through. It did, however, show me that with some thought about the distances, the rules can be used to replay historical scenarios.

Getting the figures and terrain out also reminded me of how much I enjoy the spectacle of a 10mm game; as a result, I went on a little shopping spree and bought myself enough stuff to start an Arab Revolt project.

The Arab Revolt had been on my wargaming bucket list for a while, but I have been putting it off until now. As the stuff I ordered arrive over the next few weeks, I hope to update the progress of this project on this blog. Stay tuned.

10mm Franco-Prussian War terrain

While I haven't do doing much wargaming this past year, I have been making purchases and making terrain for wargaming. What you see in the photo above is the result.

The playing surface is a 6' x 4' mat from Deep Cut Studios, with 15cm grids. I chose this primarily to use with the To The Last Gaiter Button rules, but also with the hope of finding a set of grid-based Napoleonic rules to use - if you have any suggestion, do let me know in the comments!

The woods are made using Woodland Scenics tree trunks and clump foliage, hot glued to black mounting board. I will post a tutorial on how I made these another day.

The village/town pieces are made using the buildings from Perry Miniatures' Travel Battle game, which are sold separately in sprues - they are closer to 6mm in scale, but look effective with 10mm figurines too. They are based on pre-textured paper, again from Woodland Scenics, which was glued to plasti-cards for sturdiness.

The swamps are just green transparencies cut into irregular shapes, with tufts applied.

Elevation is created by placing books under the mat.

Last but not least, the figurines were previously unceremoniously dumped into tins after our campaign several years back - I magnetised their bases and organised them into tins according to nationality and type.

We are ready for some FPW games.

A closer view, showing the comparative scales of the figurines and the buildings.

A low-angle view, showing the ridge created by books.

A closer view of a swamp terrain piece. I like how the 'grass' is darker nearer its bottom.

I need a lot of woods terrain pieces, I think; but while I was making more just now I cut my finger badly, which means no more handicraft for the weekend.

The fact that books have to be placed under the mat to create elevation means that the table cannot be set up in advance - in TTLGB the players spend points to place terrain as part of the game, which means less playing time. To overcome this I think I will instead play through the scenarios provided in the 1870 Grand Tactical Rules book.

The FPW was one of the 'bucket list' periods I just had to play, and I spent quite a bit to have them painted, so I am pretty happy that the new products on the market (the gridded mats from Deep Cut Studios, presumably created for To the Strongest!, and the Perry Travel Battle buildings created just for their game) made it easier for me to revisit the period with better-looking terrain.

Now I can only hope that Plastic Soldier Company release some Arabs and Turks under their Great War system so I can do my other bucket list period: The Arab Revolt...

FPW Campaign Finale Redux

Well, we did it right this time, and the battle was a closer affair.

We kept the terrain placement and deployment from the previous game.



Once again the French Cavalry Division sacrificed itself to buy the Corps a few precious turns.

And once more they were destroyed and the Prussians began to mass.

But the funneling effect of the terrain meant that they still could not deploy quick enough to attack the fort. The final picture shows the Prussian troops taking the wooded hill to the south of the fort as the sun begins to set. From this position they will be able to shell the fort, but it was clear that they will not be able to take it today...

I think we all enjoyed the short campaign. Coming up next will be our Warring States China campaign, the test game which is scheduled in about 3 weeks.

FPW Campaign Finale

Edit: We actually played the clock roll wrongly... a rematch has been scheduled in two weeks' time. I apologise for the error.


It's almost 4 months since we started the FPW campaign (the planning and purchasing of figures and rules preceeded the actual play by many months though) but this afternoon we fought the final battle in the series.


(This means that I've played three 3-person games, two 2-person games and three solo games this year, an average of one game every three weeks, which isn't too shabby...)


By the time the terrain was laid down, I thought the French would be eliminated before the second Prussian Corps arrives...


wahj placed the fort smack in the middle of the table, and Martin quickly placed clear squares from his side of the table towards it. This gave the Prussians a straight line of attack to the fort. wahj remedied the situation by placing a village on one side of the road, and a wooded hill on the other.

The French have suffered heavy casualties from the first two games, and to add insult to injury I have rolled very bad dice for them during the recovery phase, while the rolls for the Prussians were much more favourable.

The Prussian main line of advance will come down the main road, while the other Corps will arrive on the turn after the clock passes 20 - which by the laws of averages will be Turn 7.



However, as Martin forfeited the railway table/game, this meant the French 3rd Division and their Cavalry Division start the game at full strength. wahj capitalised on this by placing the entire French Cavalry Division on the road, ready to sell their lives dearly to save their country. The First Division was deployed at the village to punish the Prussians as they try to move towards the fort, while the Second Division was deployed to the far left, in anticipation of the other Prussian Corps. The bulk of Third Division was held at the fort, with its artillery and some elements deployed on the wooded hill in front of the fort, which overlooked the Prussian route of advance.


As the lead elements of the Prussian Corps arrived the Cavalry Division launched itself into an attack, and lucky die-rolls meant that the cavalry continued to harass the head of the Prussian column, buying the French several turns - we played the rules wrongly here, forgetting that a repulsed unit takes one full turn to recover, but in any case the French cavalry always managed to keep a unit in that square, and wahj managed to seize the initiative each turn.
Both players also rolled high values for the clock, which meant that even as wahj traded time for initiative, the clock ran faster than expected; by turn 4 the second Prussian Corps had entered the table!
After they finally eliminated the French Cavalry Division with concentrated artillery, the Prussians begin to envelop the village from both directions, but for by sundown the Prussians had not pushed a man beyond the middle-line of the table.

I am personally quite surprised by the outcome of the battle - even taking the rule-error we made (and extending the clock by 20 to make up for it) the French pulled off a remarkable forward defence. I suppose part of the problem was that the Prussians had only two routes of entry because Martin forfeited a game; this meant wahj could concentrate his forces and defend against only two sectors instead of three.


I enjoyed the campaign very much, from the rules, the figures, the terrain, and to the actual gameplay. We are quite taken with the grid system and our next project - Warring States China - will also utilise the same; well, wahj did spend quite a bundle on the felt sheets...


I also handed Martin the 15mm Mediterranean card buildings from PaperTerrain this afternoon; he seems rather enthused and is planning to actually put the monastery set on a hill! With the frequency which we play at, however, his handiwork might only see tabletop play around Christmas!

*****

Looking back at the "work plan" I set our little group at the end of last year, we are about a month behind schedule. Next up is the Warring States campaign, the rules for which wahj and I have had many hours of discussion over. Hopefully we can get a test game done this month and move to the full 4-game campaign afterwards.

In the meantime Martin will have a few months to build the 15mm buildings and select a set of rules for our Peninsular Campaign, which will see us till the end of this year.


I am still not sure what project to take up when the baton comes back to me next year - like the guys said: who knows what new rules or period will hit the market by then?


I do have a complete set of figures painted for the Indian Mutiny (the name of the blog was originally chosen on account of this planned project), but I am not sure if we will want to play something just 50 years after our preceeding project... The number of paired armies we have in common give many possibilities: Hittite vs. Sea Peoples (wahj has been eyeing the Baueda Troy for years now...), Romans vs. Sassanids, Dark Ages Britain, First Crusade, Wars of the Roses... and in between we can always play filler games of Strandhogg (I am bidding on more dwarves - need more dwarves with shields if I am to capitalise on the Shieldwall rule, you see...) and FUBAR 40K (now that I have the droids I am looking for...).


Well, we'll just take it as it comes, what?

6mm Vauban Fort

The finale of our FPW campaign will be centred over this Vauban Fort from Paper Terrain.

This is actually their 6mm scale fort, but as it measures 7" per side, it's just the right size for our purpose - their 10/12mm scale fort is about twice that size.

The entire kit also gives you barrack buildings (intact and ruined forms) as well as a demilune, but the basic structure will have to suffice for now.

The whole thing probably took me about 6 hours to put together over 3 evenings in front of the television, and even though I am not too good with the knife it turned out "wargame standard" enough, I think.

The figures are painted by Realistic Modelling.

FPW Game 2

We managed to get the second game of the FPW campaign done after a break of more than 2 months - this is why I design my campaigns to be short.

The battlefield in this game was a standard one, which meant wahj did not have the advantage of a river to slow Martin's forces down.

Martin had thrown 2 infantry and a cavalry division into this game, abandoning the planned third game to wahj, which gave him a vast numerical advantage here. His good die-rolls during the terrain placement phase also gave him a clear corridor down one flank.

wahj tried to overcome this by placing wooded hills where he could conceal his forces, and which will screen them from Prussian artillery when they withdraw.


The Prussians came down the clear axis as expected. At this point only two French batteries are visible.

The Hussars charge towards the guns. As the Prussians mass, two French regiments on a wooded hill reveal themselves and begin to engage them in a firefight.

The Hussars drive the artillery into the village, and are in turn pushed back by the infantry deployed there. Meanwhile, the Prussians deploy the guns and begin to bombard the French infantry as their own infantry deploy.

A brigade of Prussians march past the French on the hill and move towards the village. The French Chasseurs and Mitrailleuse in the middle of the battlefield are ineffective at causing casualties on them. In the background you can see the other division of the Prussian Corps bearing down on the French infantry holding the other flank.

In the end the regiments on both hills were eliminated by Prussian firepower, but the French managed to extricate the bulk of their guns and some of their infantry.

The Prussians managed to drive the French off the table in just 40 on the clock, which means they will arrive at the final game on time.

The French suffered heavy losses in this game, but the Prussian strategy of abandoning one of the tables means that the French forces deployed there will now enter the final game intact. More importantly perhaps the Prussians will now have only two points of entry on the final battlefield, which at 9 grids x 6 means they will spend a lot of time getting into position.

FPW Game 1, Umpire's Cut

I see wahj has beaten me to the post while I was writing about my goblin king...

Well, here's my version of the story and I'm sticking by it.

I drew the 'River' table, which had the French 1st Division bolstered by their Corps Artillery reserve facing the Prussian 13th and 14th Divisions.


As you can see wahj has cut enough felt squares for us to use it to indicate the terrain.

I did not have enough figures to represent all the forces involved (I bought enough for one full division per side, and the Prussians brought two to this fight) so I ended up using a 2-base system with a tab for each unit - the tab indicated the unit designation and has a number of '0' on it to indicate the Combat Effectiveness - we simply checked one off each time the unit took a hit, which allowed me the umpire to be able to have a record of the unit strength after the battle.


I mounted my camera on a tripod and stopped it down to f22, so you can see the players in action. The French have effectively divided the battlefield on the east bank into two by their terrain placement, and the Prussians have returned the favour.

The Prussians mass their guns on their left flank...

As the combat heats up, drawing in the French reserves, the 15th Division arrives by the other road and begins to cross the river.

Fierce melee at the riverbank sees both sides taking heavy casualties.

Eventually the French manage to extricate themselves just as the sun sets, preventing pursuit. The 1st Division had stalled the Prussians, but paid a heavy price in return. The Prussian infantry have taken a beating themselves crossing the river under Chassepot fire and charging into the mouths of the French guns, but their artillery have emerged from the battle unscathed and will lend their full weight at the final battle.

FPW Game 1

(Cross posted on my own blog here)

The first of 4 games played between me (French) and Martin (Prussian), this one was the "river" map. The larger aim for the French is to either reduce the Prussian forces, or to delay them, such that the Prussian forces approaching along this route would arrive late, or diminished, for the final battle (the fourth game).

The top of the map is East, and the bottom of the map, from which French forces must retreat and Prussian forces give chase, is West, towards Paris. Game mechanics allowed for competitive placement of terrain, and I chose as many pieces of difficult terrain as possible - three hills overlooking the river, and swamps to obstruct movement. Martin got to place the two bridges though, and they were placed in the only remaining avenues of movement.

I set up the Divisional Commander in the village, with the reserve (a regiment of Zouaves, hidden) so he could move them to whichever bridge the Prussian main attack developed on.

On the right side of the table, the southern bridge was held by 2 regiments of the division, with the bulk of the divisional artillery.

As it turns out, the main Prussian attack came across this bridge.


With a 2 to 1 advantage, and a preponderance of artillery, the Prussians quickly forced the crossing, and established a bridgehead.

The French reserve was committed from the village towards the Southern bridge ...

... where the most bitter fighting of the game occurred.

In the end, I made the maximum time limit to delay the Prussian forces, and barely kept the routes of retreat open for the French forces to live and fight another day. A final charge by a lone unit of Prussian Hussars just missed shutting the door on the retreat.

The French lost one entire regiment (the 45th, which I knew from the start was a forlorn hope), and most of their Divisional artillery (ouch). The Prussians lost fewer units, but received casualties throughout, and these two Divisions will arrive late for the final game.

The next two games are going to be tougher: this was the only map with the opportunity to channel the Prussians into clear lanes of advance covered by fire.

The Railroad and Open map are going to see Prussian superiority in artillery tell, I suspect

Franco-Prussian War Game 0

A test-run of the new rules, this was an exciting game that showed the potential of the square/grid based ruleset over conventional "measure and move" rules.

The boards need a bit more dressing up, but on the whole, we were quite pleased with the way this game looked.

Since this was the test-run for the campaign, I'm calling this Game Zero, so we number them right =)

FPW 2.3

Set-up

The French player will receive 4 envelopes, marked 'Standard', 'River', 'Railhead', and 'Reserve'. He will write down on a piece of paper the formations and units he plans to commit to each battelfield.

He will then hand over the first 3 envelopes to the German player who will, without looking at the contents of the envelopes, similarly write down the formations he plans to commit to each battlefield, and then places the pieces of paper into the corresponding envelope.

(We can consider the option of letting the German player look at the contents of one envelope before committing his forces to simulate German scouting and intelligence.)

At the beginning of each session the umpire will randomly draw one of the envelopes and announce which battlefield is being played.

The French player will set up his forces first, but not reveal units which are out of line-of-sight to the German player.

The German player will move his units onto the tabletop according to the sequence given in the rules - he does not have to reveal the size of his total force.

Post-battle sequence

Units which have lost bases may roll to recover them.

German units recover each base lost on a 5 or 6 on 1d6. French units recover lost bases on a 4,5 or 6 if they have moved off-table before the end of the game, or if they can trace a line to their LOC; units which cannot trace a line to their LOC at the end of the game are considered to be captured as POWs and lost for the rest of the campaign. (This is given in the original rules - we can change the odds if we wish.)

It is not important to determine beforehand which units have sustained the losses (we can simply decide which units to name the units after the game so we don't have to label units on-table), but units may not be broken up to 'top-up' units to their full strength - i.e. you may not combine 3 units with 3 hits each into 2 units of 4 and 5 hits respectively.

The updated army list is then noted on the slips of paper and returned to the umpire - they will enter the 4th (finale) battle in that state.

4th Game

For the final game, the French player nominates one square at his 2nd row (we will use a 9 x 6 grid) as the fort.

The German player nominates 3 LOCs, and has the choice of which one to use as the entry point of his forces from one of the 3 battles. The French player then selects another as the entry point of the German forces of one of the two remaining previous battles. The third LOC is used as the entry point for the German forces from the remaining battle.

FPW 2.2

German OOB

VIIth Corps (Zastrow)

13th Div (Gluemer)
2 Bde Cmd
7 Jgr (1 Bn)
13 Regt (3 Bn)
73 Fus (3 Bn)
15 Regt (3 Bn)
55 Regt (3 Bn)
8 Hussar

4 x Arty Btty

14th Div (Kameke)
2 Bde Cmd
39 Fus (3 Bn)
74 Regt (3 Bn)
53 Regt (3 Bn)
77 Regt (3 Bn)
15 Hussar

4 x Arty Btty

VIIth Corps Artillery
6 x Arty Btty


VIIIth Corps (Goeben)

15th Div (Weltzien)
2 Bde Cmd
8 Jgr (1 Bn)
33 Fus (3 Bn)
60 Regt (3 Bn)
28 Regt (3 Bn)
68 Regt (3 Bn)
7 Hussar

4 x Arty Btty

16th Div (Barnekow)
2 Bde Cmd
29 Regt (3 Bn)
69 Regt (3 Bn)
40 Fus Regt (3 Bn)
72 Regt (3 Bn)
9 Hussar

4 x Arty Btty

VIIIth Corps Artillery
6 x Arty Btty

3rd Cavalry Division (Groeben)
8 Cuirassier
7 Uhlan
5 Uhlan
14 Uhlan

1 x Arty Btty

FPW Campaign 2.1

French OOB

5th Corp (Failly)

1st Div (Goze) *
2 Bde Cmd
13 Ch (1 Bn)
18 Regt (3 Bn)
96 Regt (3 Bn)
45 Regt (3 Bn)
1 Zv (3 Bn, elite)

2 x Arty Btty
1 x MG

2nd Div (L'Abadie)
2 Bde Cmd
14 Ch (1 Bn)
84 Regt (3 Bn)
97 Regt (3 Bn)
49 Regt (3 Bn)
88 Regt (3 Bn)

2 x Arty Btty
1 x MG

3rd Div (Lespart)
2 Bde Cmd
19 Ch (1 Bn)
17 Regt (3 Bn)
27 Regt (3 Bn)
30 Regt (3 Bn)
68 Regt (3 Bn)

2 x Arty Btty
1 x MG

Cav Div (Brahaut)
2 Hussars
12 Chasseur
3 Lancer
5 Lancer

Corps Artillery
6 x Arty Btty

I propose for the purpose of the campaign we allow regiments to be cross-attached to other divisions. This includes the cavalry Division, whose component cavalry regiments may be attached to infantry divisions.

* - I have switched the units in this division with those of the 1st Division of 1st Corps so we can use the Zouaves unit I have...

A Franco-Prussian War campaign

Here's a re-post of the campaign I proposed:

I'm thinking the following will make a manageable 4-battle campaign.

We will pit 1 French Corps vs 2 German Corps - historically we can use the units from the French 5th Corps and the two corps from the German First Army (VIIth and VIIIth Corps), which clashed at the Battle of Spicheren.

This gives the French 3 Infantry Divisions (39 battalions), a Cavalry Division (4 Regts), and a Corps Artillery Regiment (8 batteries). The infantry Divs have a total of 6 gun and 3 MG batteries.

The Germans will have 4 Infantry Divisions (48 Battalions), a Cavalry Division (8 Regts), and two Corps Artillery Regts (12 batteries). The infantry and cav Divs have a total of 18 batteries. The Germans have bigger battalions (5 bases to the French's 4) and so have an overall 1.5X advantage in infantry, and have double the artillery, which also outclass the French guns.

For the operational situation I envision the Germans advancing along a 3-prong fashion towards a French fortress, which the French Corps is hoping to fall back on. The the preliminary battles represent the battles along the three prongs, and the final battle the battle at the fortress. Each player decides how much of their forces to commit along each prong - the French can sit some of his forces at the 4th table to avoid them becoming casualty. 3 standard battles (7 x 5 grid) are then fought, with each side using the number of units they have committed to each table. At the end of each battle, the attackers recover 1/3 of their lost bases. The defender recovers 1/2 of their lost bases for the units that have exited the table, or can trace a clear line to their Line of Communications - i.e. units which are surrounded by Germans are totally lost. Other than the usual timing, the game also ends if there are no French units left on the table.

The final game can be fought on a 9 x 6 grid table with bases counting as double strength, and with the Germans having 3 points of entry - one for each prong. The timing for the start of arrival of each prong depends on the time their brevious battle ended - so a German force that fought until 80 on the clock the previous game will arrive at clock 40, while one that ended at 60 will arrive at clock 20, and those that finished before 60 at clock 0. If at the end of the final game the French hold their fortress, it's a victory for them.

To add variety to the 3 preliminary games, we can have one prong involve a river crossing (French player may place river sections in the second and third row, German player places 2 bridges), one involving a railhead (German player may place a Clear column from one edge to another), and one standard board.

The final battle will allow the French player to place a small fortress grid (ignore 3 hits).

The players must decide how many units to deploy at each table from the very start - so it's a matter of guessing whether the other player will decide to put more forces at the difficult table (river for the German and railway for the French), or choose to throw that table away, hoping to delay and attrite the enemy at the table where the advantage is his. At each table there is also the decision for the defender to whether extricate more forces but accept faster German arrival at the final game, or to sacrifice numbers to delay them at the final game. Enough operational decisions to make it fun, I think.