Veterans’ Day Game (Its Been Awhile)

Yes, it is has been awhile since I posted. I think life just got in the way. I have been playing some solo games, mostly American Revolution and American Civil War with both Piquet (the classic kind) and Johnny Reb 3. I did have the chance to play a Veterans’ Day game at Mr. Warflag’s house. He told me that he has run a Veterans’ Day game for the last 20 years. This time it was a fictional War of Spanish Succession game using Piquet: Field of Battle (2nd edition). We probably had too many units even with 10 players, but it was more of a social game and a good deal of fun. I don’t have the scenario notes, but here are some pictures taken by Ian (Mr. Warflag).

The Players:

The Game in Action:

All figures provided by Ian (Mr. Warflag). He also provided the place to play, the table, the terrain, and some of his beer from his micro-brewery.

 

 

Fritz & Ernst

In all of my American Revolution miniature wargames, I include Fritz and Ernst as part of the observers of the battle. It is a bit strange, but it is now part of my wargame rituals (like baseball players who always wear the same socks if they are “hot”). The figures were part of the Blue Moon 15mm French and Indian Wars civilians. The only person who ever noted their presence was  Ian of Warflag fame. Here are a few pictures of Fritz and Ernst I found in recent photos:

 

A game AAR from a couple of Piquet: Cartouche American Revolution games will follow soon!

 

American Revolution with Piquet Field of Battle

The local gamers are into Piquet Field of Battle so I ran another American Revolution game for them last month. We had a smaller turn out than my last Piquet: FOB American Revolution game, so we ended up with probably more units than we needed. The rules played OK, but I am not sold on them. We were not able to finish the game due to some of the players needing to leave due to work commitments. My camera battery died just before the game, so I only have a few photos.

Here are the Piquet Field of Battle tables we used: AWI FOB 2 Bn QRS 6.0

Here is the basic scenario: Piquet Relief Scenario

Here is the map (note that actual game table was only 8′ x 4′ so the map got compressed a bit in terms of length):

And here are a few photos from the game:

Franco-Prussian with Piquet Field of Battle

Today I went over to my friend Ian’s house for a game of Piquet Field of Battle. Ian is best know to wargamers as Mr. Warflag (http://www.warflag.com/). We played a fictional border battle with the French and Prussians and allies fighting over the strategically important town of Potzdorf. Potzdorf is the (fictional) greatest brewery in all of Europe and lies between between France and Prussia’s German allies. The goal for both sides was to gain control of the Potzdorf Brewery. In this fictional scenario, the Duchy (?) of Potzdorf was allied with the Prussians.

We used Piquet Field of Battle with the modification that units represented regiments or brigades of about 2000 infantry rather than battalions. Ian had made some modifications to the charts and weapons ranges to make it all work. And I thought those changes did work well. There were a few house rules used, but about 95% of the game was Piquet Field of Battle rules as written. In the game the French had a corps with 4 infantry divisions, an artillery division, a cavalry division and a guard brigade. I was on the French side so I’m not sure of what the Prussians and allies had, but it seemed like their force was roughly the same size as ours with a bit more cavalry. The Prussian side started with mostly minor German forces (Bavarian and Wurttemberg) plus a small Potzdorf division. There was a larger Prussian force on the way as reinforcements, but the battle ended before they reached the battlefield. Likewise, the French Guard Division was never engaged as it was posted to block the Prussian reinforcements.

I had not used the Piquet Field of Battle rules for some time as had two of the other players, only Ian had read the 2nd edition of the rules. Having said that, the game went pretty smoothly with only a few time outs to read the rules. The first turn was very long and bloody. The next two turns ended quickly with doubles being rolled on the initiative rolls. By the start of the fourth turn, both sides were out of Army Morale Points. Eventually, the Prussian and allied side had to make an Army Morale roll. Unfortunately for them, their commander was rated as a d8 and failed his Army Morale roll with a 1 (the opposed role was a 2!).

I didn’t keep a detailed log of the battle, but it was very bloody like a real Franco-Prussian War battle.

Here are some pictures from the game:

The overall game table (click to enlarge):

French Infantry:

French Cavalry:

The French Commander:

Prussian-German-Potzdorf Forces:

The Potzdorf Brewery:

A very cool windmill that I need to find out where I can get one:

Some action scenes:

Best of all was the lunch that Ian provided that included home made pork pies and beer from his actual brewery. I ate half of one of these and had enough “savory” to last me through next week, but it was exceptionally tasty.

So thanks to Ian for running this game.

December 2012 Game: Piquet Field of Battle Cowpens 1781

Last December Mark and I were able to get together to fight the battle of Cowpens (1781) from the American Revolution. We used Piquet: Field of Battle (first edition) with a few modifications. Given that we have an entire day to play, we were able to play the game twice. Sadly, both games did not turn out that well. Simply put, I found that the rules did not produce the game I was interested in playing. The twin horrors of triple moves (which I have come to hate) and the lack of sufficient Army Morale Points produced two games that left me feeling let down by the rules.

The biggest problem in both games was insufficient Army Morale Points, which determine when a side breaks and thus ends the game. We found that if either side took minor casualties and then pulled back or halted and reformed, they we reach their army break point very quickly. The problem is that the rules give you an average of 1 Army Morale Point per unit (which normally have 4 Unit Integrity Points). So if you took 25% casualties (Unit Integrity Points) and then stopped and reformed and recovered all lost UIs, your army would still have reached its breaking point, which is what happened in both games.  It seemed rather silly to see an entire intact army (all UI lost rallied) have to withdraw.

I compared Piquet Field of Battle with the original Piquet rules, which also used an Army Point System and found that the original rules had twice as many Army Points per unit. In the original Piquet rules, you could not recover lost stands, which meant when your army was liable to break, you had lost 25-35% of your stands. We never found battles ending with a force having all of its original stands on the table, but that wasn’t the case with Piquet: Field of Battle. This issue and the silly triple moves were a rule breaker for me. I have now decided to retire my Piquet: Field of Battle rules to the pile of rules I used to use.

Both games started with fairly aggressive British attacks which broke one or two of the American lines (there were three), but in each case, the British side quickly reached their Army Morale Point total and eventually had to retire (failed check on the Army Morale Card). In both cases, the British forces had very few casualties on the table as they had rallied most of their lost UIs, but as they reached their Army Morale total, they had to check Army Morale, which is not the easiest thing to pass.

Not great games, and we will be trying out the Battle of Cowpens with a different set of Rules (Die Kriegskunst modified for the American Revolution) in March. Hopefully those rules will produce a more historical and realistic result.

That said, here are some pictures from the two games. All figures are mine, the table and lunch were provided by Mark. Figures are all 15mm and included figures from Old Glory, Blue Moon, Minifigs, Polly Oliver and Frontier.

Initial Set Up:

The British Advance:

First Shots Fired:

American Militia (Old Glory 15mm):

British Legion Dragoons (Polly Oliver 15mm)

British Legion (Dragoons are Polly Oliver 15mm and the Legion Infantry, actually Queen’s Rangers stand-ins for the British Legion Infantry, are Frontier 15mm)

British 7th Regiment of Foot (Old Glory 15mm)

American Riflemen in action with retreating Militia (Riflemen are Blue Moon 15mm and the Militia are Minifigs 15mm)

The British Reach the Continental Lights (Maryland/Delaware Light Battalion)

British 71st Highlanders attacking American Riflemen (both Blue Moon 15mm)

Tarleton (Frei Korps 15mm) and the end of the 7th ROF (Old Glory 15mm)

Me pondering why Piquet: Field of Battle is turning out to be such a bust (for both games):