GAME OF KINGS - wargaming rules for battles in mid-18th century central Europe (part four)

MORALE
Test any unit which, during a half-turn (a turn consist of Player A's actions and then Player B's), has lost effectiveness to firing or has lost a melee.
Roll a die, needing the following minimum score to avoid losing a further 25 percent effectiveness: elite, 3; regular, 4; poor, 5.
+1 if a general is attached to the unit (he is eliminated if the unit is eliminated).
+1 if a friendly unit (not light infantry or a gun) is to the rear and could reach the testing unit in two normal moves (a friendly unit can only add support in this way to one unit per half-turn).
A unit that fails its morale, and a unit that loses more hits in a melee regardless of whether it fails a morale test, immediately retreats one move (with the normal possible Variation), ending with its back to the enemy.
On subsequent turns, action points must first be used to try to rally retreating units. A 5 or better is required to halt the unit so that it can return to normal action on the following turn. A general with the unit gives +1 to the rallying throw.
A retreating unit is eliminated of the first move of a retreat is obstructed by horse or foot (except light infantry). If the blocking unit is friendly, it must take a morale test, unless it is horse retreated into by foot.
Formed foot lose their firing order when retreating and so have an 8cm move.

Looking from behind the French lines at my refight of the Battle of Sahay

WEATHER
This, with minor amendments, comes from Charlie Wesencraft's With Pike And Musket.
At the start of the game, roll dice to determine the weather according to the weather gauge below.

A simple weather gauge

2 = fog
3 = light rain
4-10 = fair
11 = light rain
12 = heavy rain
At the start of each subsequent turn, roll one die to determine if the weather has moved down one notch (a throw of 1 or 2), stayed the same (3 or 4) or moved up one notch (5 or 6).
Weather affects units as follows:
Fog = visibility reduced to 6cm (unseen foes cannot be fired at); movement reduced by 50 percent.
Light rain = all musket and carbine firing suffers -1 per die.
Heavy rain = movement reduced by 25 percent, all musket and carbine firing suffers -2 per die.
Fair = no effect, unless the gauge stays on the same fair number for a third turn, in which case extreme heat reduces movement by 25 percent for as long as gauge does not move.

RANDOM TERRAIN GENERATOR
For non-historic battles, a random terrain generator can be used.
Because my figures are 10mm scale, and the move distances and firing ranges are suitably small, my 6ft by 2ft 6in table might seem overkill.
In fact I deliberately went for an oversize table to prevent the flanking edge-of-the-world effect that in my opinion spoils too many wargame set-ups.
Anyway, here is how the random terrain generator works.
1. Mentally divide the board into 12 sectors (two rows of six) each 1ft by 1ft 3in.
2. Roll a die for each sector, a 4-6 indicating a terrain piece.
3. If a terrain piece is indicated, roll again: 1-hill, 2-water (stream, river, lake or marsh, etc), 3-wood, 4-built-up area (anything from a farmstead to a walled town), 5-Player A's choice, 6-Player B's choice.
If the exact nature and size of the feature cannot be agreed by the players, more dicing will be necessary. This is also a good way to decide the route a river takes across the board.
Note that on average a battlefield generated under this system will have six terrain features, but a stream or river might well run through several sectors while still counting as a single feature.

NATIONAL/ARMY CHARACTERISTICS
Decide these on a battle-by-battle basis.
For example, Prussian foot at my Mollwitz refight added 1 to musketry throws and suffered no penalty for wheeling. Prussian horse in melees inflicted a hit on a throw of 5-6 instead of 4-6, and all wheeling cost half a turn.
At Dettingen, British and Hanoverian infantry battalions firing muskets will have a 50:50 chance of adding 1 to each die thrown that half-turn.

VICTORY
Unless specific objectives have been agreed, an army has lost when its army points total falls below half the starting total.
A general is worth 3pts, an infantry battalion 2pts and all other units 1pt each.

GAME OF KINGS - wargaming rules for battles in mid-18th century central Europe (part three)

MUSKETRY
A unit can fire within a 45-degree arc of its front.
Musket range: 8cm
Carbine range: 6cm
Roll a die for each 25 percent of effectiveness remaining and in a single line of bases.
Minimum score for a hit: regular foot in firing order, 4; light foot, 5; regular foot not in firing order, and dismounted horse, 6.
-1 if unit moved this turn.
ARTILLERY
A gun can fire within a 45-degree arc of its front.
Canister: 0-6cm. Roll a die and halve the score to get the potential number of hits.
Roundshot: up to 24cm. Roll a die and quarter the score to get the potential number of hits.
Halve the number of potential hits if the gun's effectiveness is 50 percent or less.
If the final result is a fraction, round the number of potential hits to the nearest whole number, but if the fraction is exactly a half, roll a die with a 50:50 chance of becoming a potential hit.
For each potential hit, roll a die. A 4 or more means a hit on foot or horse, but a 6 is needed if the target is a gun.

Artillery was often sited on a hill

MELEES
A melee occurs when bases of rival units come in contact.
Foot cannot initiate contact against horse.
Guns and light infantry never initiate contact and never inflict melee casualties (exception: light foot in a wood or built-up area can melee as regular foot).
A gun can only be contacted if it has no friendly regular foot within 4cm. Guns so contacted are automatically eliminated.
When a melee occurs, roll the following numbers of dice for each 25 percent of a unit's effectiveness (casualties are inflicted simultaneously by each meleeing unit):
Enemy unit:...……..H/MCav...Lan...LCav...Inf (ff)...Inf (oth)...LInf
Own Unit
H/MCav...…………….1...…….2...…..2...…..1...……..3...…….….2
Lan...………………….1...…….1...…..1...…..1½...…...4........…….4
LCav………………….1...…….2...…...1...….1...……..2...…….…..3
Inf...…………………..1...……..1...…..1...…..1...……..1...………..1
H/MCav = Heavy or medium cavalry
Lan = Lancers
LCav = Light cavalry
Inf (ff) = Infantry in firing order and attacked frontally
Inf (oth) = Close-order infantry at other times
LInf = Light infantry
Inf = Close-order infantry (remember, light infantry cannot inflict melee casualties except when in a wood or built-up area)
Add one die per 25 percent when attacking in flank or rear, on higher ground, defending a river bank or defending a built-up area from troops outside the built-up area. Bonuses are cumulative. A half die has a 50:50 chance of becoming a full die.
A unit meleed from the rear only rolls half its normal entitlement of dice.
For each die rolled, a 4 or more is a hit.

SAVING THROWS (for hits from firing and in melees)
Cuirassiers suffering a hit roll a die, needing a 6 to cancel it.
Troops suffering a hit when behind cover roll a die, needing a 4 or more to cancel it.

A large cavalry melee during my 275th anniversary refight of the Battle of Chotusitz

GAME OF KINGS - wargaming rules for battles in mid-18th century central Europe (part two)

COMMAND & CONTROL
I HAVE tried everything, from going without command and control altogether (Neil Thomas's preference), to Bob Cordery's card-based system from The Portable Wargame, which is essentially a stripped-down version of Brent Oman's Piquet set-up.
But in the end I found that what works best is Phil Barker and the Wargames Research Group's Pips, or action points as I like to call them.
How it works in Game Of Kings is that an army is divided into three sectors - typically a centre composed of foot, the general and probably guns, and two flanks, each composed of horse and possibly light infantry (but the exact composition of each sector will partly depend on the particulars of the battlefield).
Players move alternately. When on turn, a player rolls a 10-sided die - this is the only time a die other than a six-sided one is used - to see how many action points the centre gets, and two distinguishable, eg differently coloured, ordinary dice to see how many action points each flank receives.
For each sector, use action points in the following order, the player choosing which sector goes first.
1. Try to rally retreating units (this is the only compulsory use of action points).
2. Fire guns.
3. Move units (a gun that has been fired cannot also be pivoted, limbered or otherwise moved).
4. Fire muskets, carbines and any other missile weapons.
5. Resolve melees.

Two battalions of Bavarian Kurprinz Foot flank a 9pdr gun. Behind them a half-battalion of Kurprinz Grenadiers are beside a horse-and-limber team, illustrating why I no longer use limbers (the space they take up is disproportionate) 

MOVEMENT
Foot in firing order and so able to fire volleys: 6cm
Other foot: 8cm
Limbered guns: 6cm
Heavy and medium horse: 10cm
Light horse and generals: 12cm
But see The Variation below
As mentioned in the caption to the picture above, I no longer use limbers for my guns as I think they look out of proportion to other troops, but a marker can be used to show if a gun is limbered.
It takes a Pip for a foot battalion to adopt firing order, and it may not otherwise move or fire that turn. However, a battalion can fire even when not in firing order, but, as will be seen under Musketry, the chances of it being effective are much reduced.
Heavy-cavalry troopers carried more equipment than their medium-cavalry brethren, but had better mounts, hence their movement rates are identical.
A gun needs an action point to limber or unlimber, but the gun may be pivoted as part of unlimbering.
Foot and horse can make a 180-degree about-face without loss of movement, although it does cost an action point, but a second about-face in the same turn reduces movement by half, as well as costing a second action point.
All troops can pass through friendly light foot without penalty to either group, provided they have enough movement to take them beyond the light foot. Similarly, light infantry can pass through any friendly troops.
There is no bonus for charging, either in terms of movement or melee effectiveness - such matters are deemed to be at a tactical level far below the immediate concern of the general.
When a unit wheels, measure the distance covered from the front-centre of the unit.
The Variation
Dice are generally used to help decide the effectiveness of musketry, artillery fire, hand-to-hand fighting and morale, but in most rules movement distances are fixed.
I believe this is unrealistic - a general can order a squadron of dragoons to try to seize a hill, but he cannot know exactly how long they will take to reach the hill. Perhaps an unsuspected feature of the terrain will hold them up, or maybe they will be inspired to gallop faster than an enemy squadron trying to take the same hill.
Accordingly, uncertainty is added by rolling a die if a unit is moving three-quarters or more of its maximum move distance. If 6 is thrown, add 25 percent to the distance covered; if 1 is thrown, subtract 25 percent.
Exception: if a unit has been ordered, say, to line a river bank, it would be absurd to make it overshoot and enter the water thanks to The Variation rule.

My regular wargaming opponent is a huge Francophile, and his hero is Maurice de Saxe, shown here with the Picardie Foot and Gendarmes de la Garde

GAME OF KINGS - wargaming rules for battles in mid-18th century central Europe (part one)

INTRODUCTION
I HAVE decided this is a good time to publish the latest version of my rules, and some of my thinking behind the rules, ahead of our delayed 275th anniversary refight of the Battle of Dettingen.
The rules are, to a large extent, old school in their deliberate simplicity. I always want victory to go to the player with a better understanding of generalship, rather than a better understanding of the rules.
They are adapted, heavily at times, from Neil Thomas's inspiring books, specifically Wargaming: An Introduction and Napoleonic Wargaming.
To fully comprehend the thinking behind the rules, you will need to read his books; most of my explanations here will be about those instances where I have drastically changed his concepts.

Neil Thomas's books are old school, but slot into the more recent section of my chronologically arranged shelf of wargaming books 

Game Of Kings is designed to put you in the position of a mid-18th century European general.
He would not have known exactly how many men he had under his command. Instead, he would have known his army consisted of so many battalions of foot, squadrons of horse and guns of artillery.
European armies of this period tended to resemble each other in terms of arms, formations and tactics, eg battalions fought in lines rather than columns, and squadrons, including so-called dragoons, charged home rather than engaging in caracoling firefights.
Unit strengths varied between armies, but they varied much more within an army. Sickness, desertion and unreplaced casualties meant the fact that nation X's squadrons had a paper strength of 15 troopers more than nation Y's squadrons was of little relevance to what turned up on the battlefield.
That is why battalions, squadrons and guns in Game Of Kings are represented by the same number of figures in each army. However, that does not mean their fighting abilities will be the same.
One of the main features of Neil Thomas's rules is that his armies have a set number of units. I think this can work well with ancient armies, where the reported numbers for the contending sides are often pretty fanciful and hard to reconstruct accurately with any confidence.
This is much less so with the 18th century, especially when most battles have multiple contemporary accounts rather than a single author writing possibly centuries after the event.
So, in Game Of Kings, when refighting a historic battle, the number of units in each army will reflect the original strengths.
There will certainly not be a 1:1 ratio in terms of battalions, squadrons and guns, but there will typically be many more units than in Neil Thomas's armies.
This is turn required me to speed up combat mechanisms in order to prevent battles dragging on to the point where players might start looking at their watches.
Another difference between Game Of Kings and the books is that I have introduced simple command & control and morale rules.
Even so the rules, stripped of their explanations, comfortably fit on two sides of a sheet of A4 paper.

ORGANISATION
An army consists of a general on a base 20x20mm, and units of foot, horse and guns on bases 40x20mm.
A foot battalion has two bases in a line, each containing eight musketmen arranged in two ranks, and an 'officer' - it could be a drummer - to indicate the unit's state of effectiveness.
The officer is placed centrally behind the bases when the unit is at 100 percent effectiveness. After it suffers a "hit," which reduces the unit's effectiveness to 75 percent, the officer is moved to behind the righthand base.
After a further hit, reducing effectiveness to 50 percent, one of the bases is removed and the officer is placed centrally behind the remaining one. A third hit, reducing effectiveness to 25 percent, sees the officer removed, and a fourth hit means the remaining base is removed.
Note that this does not mean the unit has been wiped out, nor does losing 25 percent effectiveness mean the unit has suffered 25 percent casualties. Instead it represents a loss of effectiveness, which may be a combination of casualties, faltering spirit and disorganisation.
Light infantry is organised similarly, except that each base has three figures.

George II overlooks four battalions of British and Hanoverian infantry (left to right): Klinkowström at 100% effectiveness, Royal Foot at 75%,  The Buffs at 50% and 5th Marines at 25%

Cavalry can be heavy, medium or light, but each squadron consists of two bases, each with three troopers, and an 'officer'.
Heavy and medium horse can be distinguished by their equipment, eg a heavy cavalryman often wears a cuirass, while light horse should be placed on their base in ragged formation.
Cavalry bases are positioned one behind the other. Neil Thomas, who uses a similar system, explains this is to reflect the way cavalry kept a reserve when going into combat (and remember that a tabletop squadron represents several real-life ones). The exception is that light cavalry in a screening role may operate with bases in a line.

Prussian horse parade past an isolated farmhouse led by Brandenburg-Schwedt Cuirassiers at 100% effectiveness, followed by Posadowski Dragoons at 75%, Prinz von Preussen Cuirassiers at 50% and Bayreuth Dragoons at 25%

A gun and four gunners are arranged lengthways on a single 40x20mm base. Loss of effectiveness can be shown with a marker, eg a miniature boulder.

An Austrian 12pdr gun alongside Grenzer light infantry. There is no marker beside the gun, and the Grenzer officer is centrally placed, so both units are at 100 percent effectiveness
 

Toy Soldier Collector - issue 82

THE June/July edition of Toy Soldier Collector arrived today.

Ancient Britons feature on the cover

I cannot say there was anything in the mag of particular interest to me, but that's OK - I quite enjoyed just flicking through the pages, admiring the pictures.

Adding Stability

ONE of the (many) things I am old-school about in wargaming is bases.
I want mine to be as unobtrusive as possible, so as not to detract from the figures on them.
What I particularly dislike are thick bases with so much flocking that it looks like the troops are standing on plinths.
That is why I buy 1mm-high galvanised-steel bases from Products For Wargamers.
My War Of The Austrian Succession foot, horse and guns are fixed on bases 40mm x 20mm, with generals on bases 20mm x 20mm.
I recently ordered extra 20mm x 20mm bases and have used them to add stability to my trees, which proved tricky to keep upright, especially on a slope.

Not much danger of these trees toppling before their time

The picture shows a pine forest with, in the foreground, an oak wood.
Between them is my newest cavalry squadron, Saxony's Königlicher Prinz Kürassiere, followed by their fellow-Saxon Leibgrenadiergarde.

Slingshot issue 317

THE March/April 2018 edition of the Society of Ancients journal arrived today - always a highlight for me.

Sarmatian cataphracts from Trajan's Column feature on the cover

Most interesting of the articles from my perspective is Richard Taylor's discussion of the "curved" elephant lines at the 317BC Battle of Paraitakene (or Paraitacene).
His take, to sum it up briefly, is that "curved" is a mistranslation that should be replaced by "angled."