Monday, June 10, 2019

Sharp Practice AAR Enfilade 2019

Well my two table Sharp Practice Scenario previously presented here, went well at the NHMGS ENFILADE Convention this past Memorial Day weekend. It achieved the result  of keeping everyone occupied and busy the whole game. Was a bit chaotic and I could have use some help running the game, but the played seemed to enjoy it.  The outcome was a bot mixed however and wargamers will always find a way to break any scenario.

The background to the Scenario is that the Rebels have made a raid into British territory and made off with a wagon load of arms and ammunition needed to arm the local Militia. They are being pursued by a force of British and must make it across a bridge to escape. Another Force of British is arriving in front of them to block their access to the Bridge. The British also need the arms to give to their  own loyalist Militias. A river runs between the two table and is impassable terrain, so the only way to escape is across the bridge.

Meanwhile on the other table(Table A) a Rebel force is arriving from the North to hold the Bridge open for the escaping Wagon. A British Force with Tory Provincials is arriving from the South to prevent this.

 Since the previous Scenario presentation, I resided things a slight bit. I added another unit of skirmishers to each side so the players on each side and on each table would each have two units to command. I moved the terrain around slightly to allow units to deploy into line on the road on Table B.



 I made Rosters for each force on each table with pictures of the Leaders matching the card decks. This way, players could find their leaders and units more easily than if they just had numbers. Even so, some players still got confused and mixed up leaders.


I also had cards for the  wagon Master Walter Sobchak, the two Reverends, one on each table on the Rebel side, (Rev. Hal E.Looya and Geven Brimstone) and the two Doctors on the British side,one on each table. This was to allow them easier activation in case the Force Commanders(Ldr 1) card didn't come up during play. I also use a Second Tiffin card to help keep things moving. If any Tiffin came up first, it would signal an End of Chapter per the Rules.  I've found the second Tiffin helps even things out a bit especially in Convention games.
 Finally, I added some rules to provide a chance of the wagon blowing up if hit by gunfire. They were as follows:

If Wagon is in line of fire or within 4" of a target receiving fire, then there is a chance the wagon will be hit. Count the wagon as another unit sharing dice and allocate hits against it. If any hits roll 1D6: 1 hits Driver, roll on Officer Hit table for effect; 2-3 hits a horse = minus 1 pip on movement dice for each hit; 4-5 hits wagon with No effect; 6 hits Gunpowder blowing up and affecting everything within 6" radius. Roll for each figure on Table 11 (Hit Effects) as if they were in the open and counting Any Shock as doubled.

I made sure both sides knew that preserving the weapons and ammunition on the wagon were a high priority for both sides.



I was pretty busy running the game so didn't take a lot of pictures. In the picture below the near side is Table B. The British Regulars are occupying the blocking position on the road. It was awhile before they had any help from their accompanying skirmisher unit that was supposed to arrive on the road in the foreground on Turn 2. The Rebels used their MDP to deploy their Frontiersmen Riflemen up by the white cabin and they began to pour effective fire into the British Regulars for most of the game..


For some reason the Rebels elected to use their Main Deployment Point to deploy the Wagon and the rest of their Forces. The close pursuing British Grenadiers managed to give them some fire into their rear causing double Shock, but with the help of the Reverend Hal E.Looya they Rebels were able to recover. Where the Wagon is shown is about as far as it got. The Wagon Master, Walter Shobchak shared the hits on the Militia ans was knocked out. He recovered on his next activation, but was hit again later and killed. Why the Rebels didn't deploy the wagon using the MDP is a mystery to me.


On table A the Provincial Regulars went up the right side of the table and ensconced themselves behind the log cabin where I guess they thought them selves safe there leaving their skirmishers to carry on the fight. They eventually came out from behind the house, but not before the Highlanders had pretty much carried the day on the left side of the field. They had become engaged in a firefight with the Continentals and a Fisticuffs which drove the Table A Rebel Force Morale to Zero.


Meanwhile on Table B, The Rebel Militia along with the Frontiersmen skirmishers had whittled the British Regulars at the Road Block down to three Soldiers plus Sgt. Mal Ingerer and Captain Warren Peace. The Rebel Continentals on this side had effectively held the Grenadiers off from capturing the wagon and British Force Morale was down to two.


So the wagon could have probably gotten across the Bridge if the Rebels could find a driver for it, but once there, it had no where to go since the British had driven off the Rebels who were supposed to hold the bridge open. Perhaps that is a scenario for another time where the Rebels try to force their way through the Highlanders and the reluctant Loyalist infantry on the other side of the table.

So ends my attempt to run two separate games at one. It certainly kept everyone busy, but it was very difficult to umpire. If some of the players were more familiar with the rules it would have been a lot easier. Overall I was satisfied with the result and the players seemed to enjoy the game.



Wednesday, June 05, 2019

Tactica 2 at ENFILADE 2019

 On Saturday May 25th, 2019, Memorial Day Weekend, I put on a Tactica II game at the NHMGS Enfilade Convention in Olympia, WA. The contenders were some Trajanic Romans vs a Barbarian Warband German Army. The Army Lists are shown below. I had to make some substitutions to flush out he armies, the Germans outnumbering the Romans by 354 points.

Having used all my Roman figures, I had no extras to even up the points with. So I added some allied Armenian Cataphracts and lower grade Auxilia armed as Legionnaires(using my Pontic imitation Legionnaire figures). The Germans outnumber the Romans slightly in Heavy Cavalry, but the Romans are better quality and they have some Light Infantry Auxilia to help out. The Germans have over one and a half times as much Heavy Infantry as the Romans, but again it will be a battle of quantity vs quality. Also the German warbands get Impetus, which can give them double dice in melee if they pass their Control tests.





 German players discussing strategy. Both sides made three rolls for terrain per the rules. Germans got a small rise(which they deployed in the middle), a flank piece of Rough ground which they discarded and a patch of Clear terrain. Romans rolled up two patches of Clear terrain and one Gentle Rise which they chose not to use. Rules say you only need to take one of the rolls.


 View from the opposite of the table. Germans out two HC and a LC on one side and 2LC and a HC on the other. Romans have a HC, a LC and a LI on each flank plus the Cataphracts on this near flank shown below. Romans are shown deployed in individual Cohorts. They elected to deploy them "reinforced" before the game started

Chris Leach att the far end graciously helping out with coaching the players. He played in a Greek vs Persian Tactica game the previous period. Roman Cohorts are shown "reinforced" in this photo. Neither side wanted to advance, electing to use their skirmishers to try and whittle down their opponents before committing their main force. The Germans eventually did advance with their cavalry wings, more so at the far end where they had an advantage.


This photo is almost two hours after the previous one. I was too busy running the game and forgot to take pictures. The game had been fairly even to just before this point. At the far end the German heavy cavalry are just about to rout the last Roman flank unit at that end. At this end, the opposite is true. There is one German Heavy Cavalry unit left being ganged up on by Roman HC and the Cataphracts.It held on surprisingly long. The big story is further down the line where there is a gap in the units. See next picture for explanation.


Here you can see a big gap in the German line. What happened is this. The German player attached his General to a unit to bolster his dice(you get two extra dice for an attached General, but there is a risk). His unit took three melee kills. When such an event happens you roll for the General and anything but a six and the General survives. He rolled a six! Then you roll a Control Test and he failed that leaving the Unit disordered. Being disordered you only roll half your dice and if out scored in any melee area you roll another Control test, a failure resulting n unit routing. Of course he failed forcing the adjacent units to test morale the one to the right of the gap failed.


Meanwhile on the Roman left flank we see the German Heavy Cav about to rout the remaining  Scythian Horse Archers. Onre of the Roman Cohorts has routed leaving a gap in the line, but the Cohort to its right has apparently failed its Panic Control Test and is Disordered. The Roman Auxilia Cohort is still alive at this point and you can see one of the German Warbands has been flanked by a Roman Cohort from the gap created by the demise of the German General's routing unit.



Looks bad for the nearest Roman Cohort being flanked by German Heavy Cavalry, but the cavakry unit ended uo 1/8" short of contacting. This was the last move of the game as the game ended after the melee phase.


This is a marked up photo to show the remaining units. Legion 1 has losy four Cohorts, Legion 2 has lost two. The Germans have lost three Warbands.




The shows the Roman right Flank. The German HC Unit is gone, its loss pushing the Germans over their BreakPoint the loss of their General also contributing 10 points toward breaking.


A clear Roman Victory, but it was closer than it appears. Many of the Cohorts were near breaking having survived some Warband attacks with Impetus. Lesson to be learned, don't attach you General early on in the battle. Save him for later on when he might make a critical difference.

If you think you would like to try Tactica II, the rules are available from On Military Matters
http://onmilitarymatters.com/pages/dfcatalog.php?period=0900
Item 1-16660 Conliffe, Arty