Countdown to COW for Corporal John

Yes, only 3 more game evenings before "Va t'en guerre" is unleashed upon the wargaming public at this year's COW, so some playtesting opportunities still to be taken.

Following on from the last game, when I'd started to change things round a bit to accommodate more of Nosworthy's views, I'd had a more coherent re-write covering Platoon Fire and the French "a prest" tactics. I've also added extra benefits for fighting in line and allowing a place for the cavalry to re-group. For this game the French are to the left, with the Anglo-Dutch to the right.

I start by winning the initiative, and press forward to cross the stream and boggy ground. Phil, who is running the Anglo-Dutch has been playing "Shako" over the weekend, so he had some helpful comments to make.

Because it's a Marlborough game you have to have a big cavalry melee in the centre, don't you? I don't have enough space toys or time to do a proper battle refight at COW, so I'm aiming to do a sort of extract of the centre at Blenheim. Here we are, surging towards each other.

Mixed results all along the line, but happy with how the rule changes are shaping up. I've had two units routed, but I broke one of Phil's and have fought him to a standstill elsewhere.

Alas I have run into Phil's infantry support, and one of my cavalry units receives a full volley, disrupting it badly. I have a slight concern that musketry is too effective but I want the game to move along and not get bogged down. Plus this'll teach me not stand in front of fully formed infantry with loaded muskets.

On the left flank I emerged from the marsh and delivered my volleys. Alas I failed to inflict damage all along the line, so some of my units fell into disorder.

I've rather been driven back in the centre. Hmmm.

On the left we start to close. Shouting "Vive le roi" my men storm across the marshy ground, ignoring the rippling stream of lead from the Anglo Dutch Platoon Fire. It's a mixed outcome, with some being driven back by defensive fire, whilst on the left victory is nearly ours.

Over on the right we're finally getting into action, with musket fire being exchanged.

The battlefield is now wreathed in smoke. I'm just about holding my own, but Phil is gaining the upper hand.

In the centre I've been able to push my infantry forward to allow my cavalry to reform in relative safety.

We ended when the battle for the village was just hotting up and I had reformed my horse sufficiently to guard against Phil's returning marauding cavalry.

Phil remarked at the end that what I'm good at is getting period detail into a game, but what I'm less good at is laying out how you win a battle, - what sort of thing makes a brigade/division/army break and flee. I think that's fair comment. I usually put in a paragraph about army break levels and then just ignore it on the grounds that it should be obvious who has won. This can lead to a bit of "last man standing" gaming at its worst.

Still, something to think about, but otherwise progress is good, - and it looks like 18th century linear warfare, so that's positive.

Not all wasted

It has been a bit quiet around here again. Lots of issues with an elderly relative being in hospital then going into care has been taking up time, and I've also been working on something not entirely wargamerly too.

As I may have mentioned before I'm a member of the Northamptonshire Battlefields Society. We have a public meeting most months with a guest speaker on a historical subject related to military history, the history of Northamptonshire and its surrounds, or medieval history in general. As I used to do a bit of lecturing/training at work and have a degree in history I mentioned to the man who arranges our talks that I'd be up for doing a session.

So for reasons too arcane to go into now I ended up doing a joint presentation with Phil on the evidence for the Battle of Edgcote in May, and I'm in the programme to talk about William Boteler in July.

July's the slot speakers don't often want to do as it falls in the academic holidays - we don't meet in August for similar reasons - so a member of the Society is the easy way to fill the gap. Last year we had our Secretary Peter, talk about archery, and very good he was too.

So, William Boteler. Or Butler. Who's he then?

Boteler is a man who has virtually disappeared from history, but for a few short years was an important man in Northamptonshire and the surrounding area under the Protectorate, being appointed Major-General for the region. His reputation did not survive the Restoration, when he was described as a "proud, insolent, domineering Turkish Bashaw". Tough talking about a dead man unable to defend himself.

I first came across Boteler when I was at University (so that's nearly 40 years ago) and there were a couple of things that interested me about him. At the time I didn't live in Northamptonshire and had no intention of doing so, so I didn't follow up that much. Well, not at all, really. I did think at the time that there was a proper book to be written about the Major-Generals period of history, and I'd have pitched that for my PhD but instead  went off and got a proper job, got married, had a family etc, etc.

Fast forward a few years, - to 2005, in fact, according to my Amazon order history - and the book I would have written was actually written, and a jolly good book it is too. This re-introduced me to  William Boteler and the world of the Major-Generals, and I reflected, not for the first time, that it is good to be able to read a proper history book from cover to cover without being under pressure to mine it for an essay or seminar paper. There's enough stuff on him in this book to make you want to know more.

Although of course I never followed up and found out anymore, because sometimes you just don't.

When I came to needing a subject for a talk, however, I reckoned there was enough to fill 40 minutes without any serious digging. I was able to supplement Durston with my notes from way back when, and, joy of joy, photocopies of pages from the Thurloe State Papers. (John Thurloe was Cromwell's secretary of state, and his collection of letters is a terrific resource, - and all available at British History On Line, too, now). So I had all of that to read too.

And then it was off to the local history section of the library to look at what they've got, and to cross check assertions made in other, more general works. And then it all sort of started to get more interesting. The only decent length biographical essay on Boteler* describes him as "the most execrated" of the Major Generals. His entry in the most recent Dictionary of National Biography (he didn't make the first edition) written by no other than Ivan Roots describes him as "an unappealing personality". What had he done to make himself so unpopular?

It was in the cross checking that it started to get interesting. I'm not, nor ever have been, a professional historian, but I was unable to verify all of the accusations against him, and we seemed to have a case not of history repeating itself but historians repeating one another. It didn't seem to occur to anyone that you didn't make yourself popular in Restoration England by suggesting that Cromwell's henchmen might have been nice guys, actually.

I was also lucky enough to study not only the Protectorate period, but also Religion and Belief in the 16th and 17th century, which I recall being tremendous fun. This lead me to read Christopher Hill's wonderful "The World Turned Upside Down" which is full of vibrant characters and overflowing with well chosen quotations from contemporary documents and leaflets. It is a terrific evocation of a time when ideas were flowing and being debated by all levels in Society. In the case of Boteler I went back to it to remind myself what the early sectaries, including Quakers, were like and what they believed in, as Boteler had several run-ins with radical groups. Having read that chapter I had to stay with the book and read a few more.


Finally in terms of background I turned to S R Gardiner's epic eight volume history of The Great Civil War and the Protectorate. Although it is a hundred plus years old it is still valuable as the chronology is correct and, well, I enjoy the prose. The volumes on the Commonwealth and Protectorate were regular companions during my final year at University. A few years ago, - it may be more than 10 - I found a pristine set of all 8 of them in a second hand book shop, marked down at £2 each, so I bought them, and they have sat proudly on my study book shelf ever since.

So, not all my time at University wasted then, as I at least know where to look to verify information on a completely obscure 17th century individual no one really cares about.

Now, enough of this displacement activity and back to working on my talk.

And if any of you are around Northampton on the 26th July it would be great to see you at the Northampton Marriott Hotel. We start at 7:30pm. It's £5 on the door, or free to NBS members.

*Written by Paul Hardacre, and American History Professor in the 1940s, and published in the Huntington Library Quarterly. I misread that as "Huntingdon" and had foolishly assumed it was written by some local history buff out in the Fens, not an eminent US History Professor writing for a prestigious academic library.

A Marlburian Shake Up

So I read Nosworthy, and it set me to thinking. He doesn't exactly disagree with Chandler, but then he doesn't exactly agree with him either. It did clarify my thinking a bit about the tactical philosophies used by the opposing armies and how it might be embedded in the rules even more than now.

So as I was sitting waiting for my Monday Night opponent to arrive I started to  make a few adjustments, focusing on whether troops were trained to rely on musketry or cold steel. I was only part way done when Phil arrived, but by the end of our evening's session my ideas were well enough formed for the rewrite I put together afterwards.

I threw together some bits and pieces for a simple encounter battle. French to the right, British to the left.

I'd set the armies up a bit off set. No one was in column, so we advanced towards each other in line.

My cavalry in the centre got the worst of a volley from Phil's foot, and retired behind my infantry line. One other of my cavalry units came unstuck and were soon being pursued off the table.

Bottom left Phil tries a frontal attack on my infantry, only to be held at bay by a combination of musketry and hard fighting.

On the right flank my cavalry mass came up against some steadfast infantry

Bottom left Phil throws in some more cavalry to try and deal with my recalcitrant foot. Elsewhere volleys are exchanged.

The extra horse do the trick and my line stumbles backwards.

Elsewhere we have a stalemate favouring the British, so we called it a night. We'd been speaking of other things, and so only got in 4 or 5 moves. None the less I got a lot out of the game from the point of view of game mechanics, so an evening well spent.

Battle Day 2018 Delayed

Well, we finally got round to this game. The Society of Ancients Battle Day for 2018 was Parataikene, the monumental draw between Antigonus and Eumenes. I was intending to do the game with Basic Impetus, and I also got a load of figures painted so I could swap out the interlopers from previous games. No Assyrians or Gauls lurking in the background for this one.

Then, of course, Mrs T and I booked our epic holiday to New Zealand, which happened to clash with the Games Day. That meant that rather than run it on the actual day I would need to put aside some Shedquarters time to do it.

The obvious choice was 19th May, well away from TV shows and street parties commemorating the Royal Wedding. My protagonists were Chris A and Phil. Alas Will was unwell, so we thought there would only be three of us. Luckily MNG irregular Graham S phoned Chris part way through and unveiled his availability (well, he was looking for someone to play a board game with actually), so he joined us - of which more anon.

Eumenes is this side, Antigonus opposite. Phil and I ran Eumenes, and Chris took Antigonus along with Graham S when he arrived.

Taking the advice of the Battle Day organiser I made a big open space on the Eumenid right wing. This meant that the Antigonid light horse could pull out wide and occupy the Eumenid heavies. As you can see from the picture players never like the historical set up, and Phil is moving his right wing elephants across sharpish.

Chris' peltasts take on one of Phil's elephants. Note that the elephant is a modified BI unit, - I've added light infantry bases and changed the factors. I also put in a rule about horse not being able to charge them. This gave a better result compared to the base rules, but still isn't perfect. However unlike some of the early play throughs elephants weren't the battle winning weapon, which is more authentic.

In fact, the peltasts did for the elephants pretty quickly.

Out on the other wing it was a bit more crowded and cagey.

In the centre the Antigonid peltasts were lining up to have a go at the Eumenid phalanx.

This didn't go well for them, and they soon retired behind their own phalanx. BTW I up-gunned the Silver Shield/Hypaspist factors for this game, as those in the base rules don't allow them to perform as well as they did historically.

The peltasts had broken up the neatness of the Eumenid line, but they got stuck in anyway.

Graham S turned up, and his first action was to roll three sixes which caused my Companions to break and flee. BI has a form of catastrophe mechanism which, on reflection, turns the game into a bit of a crap shoot.

The Silver Shields are starting to have an effect. That should be a two unit deep block on their left, and they've driven the whole lot back, including their neighbours, killing a unit in the process.

Elsewhere in the middle another elephant unit comes unstuck...

... as does one on the left flank.

Over on the right I'm doing my best to compensate for the shock loss of my Companions by covering my cavalry's flank with a elephant, to scare off those pesky light horse.

The left has turned into a maelstrom of whirling cavalry actions.

The elephants are a busted flush, but the veterans in Eumenes line are performing as expected.

The left wing is opening up, but some outrageous dice rolling is throwing up some odd outcomes and what our DBA friends might call "quick kills".

On the other flank a dual attack on a cavalry unit with elephants and flanking cavalry fails to break them. Repeatedly. What is going on here?? (Phil was kind enough to say that my decision here may have cost us the battle.)

Look. They still won't die, and that light horse is coming round our rear.

The Antigonids have finally unlocked their right flank, and are bursting out to attack our infatry.

This sort of thing never bodes well.

And then the left wing fell away.

The Antigonids posted a win but the Silver Shields/Hypaspists survived to fight another day.

I'm aiming for a proper write up for Slingshot, with full army lists, rule amendments and critique. In summary we had a good game but whether it was Successor Warfare or not is a moot point. That may not matter to many (after all I've just downloaded Pike & Shotte for free from Warlord games and reading through confirms what I thought, - that's got nothing to do with renaissance warfare, but people love them any way), but I think it means that this experiment has now been closed down as far as the Monday Night Group is concerned.

Partizan - May 2018

Barely a week after we packed up a Milton Keynes we were unpacking again this time at Newark, for the first Partizan on the year.

We were positioned in the "History Zone". I'm not a fan of this idea as it puts all the similar organisations in a ghetto together. It is better for us to be amongst the traders/participation games as we offer all of that as well as the historical stuff. Plus the area was blighted by a no-show from the Pike & Shot Society. You can see the big empty table on the right of the picture.

Here's Phil putting out his flats which again attracted a lot of interest.

The Waterloo Uncovered project was just round the corner from us. They are promoting the Waterloo Replayed event which is happening in Glasgow next June. It is aiming to put on the biggest 28mm figure game. They are using "Black Powder". It's not the way I would have done it, but best of luck to them. The chap in the cap is Prof Tony Pollard, who was one of the Two Men in a Trench.

There was a good range of participation/demonstration games. Well, there were a lot of games amongst which there were some that looked a bit different.

There is a tendency for people putting on big scenery games, like the above.

This lot were putting on two linked games, I think, but I didn't have time to follow up with questions.

This was an ostrich hunting game using Playmobil figures. Well, it's different and eye catching.

Simon Miller was there with his ECW modification of his square based "To The Strongest" system.

This has a lot of things going on in it that appeal to me. Squares & playing cards being two of them. I picked up the rule book but couldn't get the sense of them from a quick flick through. They suffer like most modern rules from the matey style of writing that needs you to commit to reading the whole lot to get an idea of what is happening. At £20 they're in the normal price range, so I might be tempted in the future. Be nice to have a game first.

I liked the look of the SCUD hunting game.....

.... and kudos to anyone who puts a glider on the table too.

The Peterborough boys who do the Dambusters Game were there with Mimi and Toutou. On another very long table.

Interesting subject and another long table with lots of stuff and some bi-planes.

Finally two shots of the game from my old friend's Hoop's Great Yarmouth group. More big terrain, but an interesting Victorian Gothic twist.

Here some top pointing draws my attention to detail that is significant if you're from Great Yarmouth.

We had a decent day, and chatted to a good few people. I got in a few purchases and even picked up a bargain from Dave Ryan (yes, I know, not very likely but true).

Brent Nosworthy's book is a bit of the Holy Grail for WSS wargamers. Alas it is usually only available from the USA and the postage pushes the sale price up to £50-£60.

Dave had one at £30 and seems to have not picked up the on-line price has to have postage added. Anyway it was soon in my swag bag, along with some other odds and ends.