1600 Something – The Raiders

Something that I think is quite useful in a solo wargame campaign is random events. This is probably not news to anyone. After all, in a multi-player campaign, they can prove to be annoyances, distractions, and general amusement. In a solo game, they can equally stir things up and, on occasion, bring forward wargame match-ups that you might not otherwise have considered.

The latest 1600 wargame is a case in point. I got around to rolling the random event (which should have been done at the start of the Spring 1602 move, but on a continent as big as Europe, it probably does not matter much). I rolled an event, and the card draw gave ‘raids’. Now, when I drew up the rules and tables, I had in mind a number of things, particularly trying to avoid the ‘flank power’ effect, where two of the states have unassailable areas, while the rest do not. In most games set in and around Europe, the flank powers are, as they were historically, Russia and England (or Britain).

To avoid this, the raid random event could strike at any of the peripheral provinces. The raiders could be Taureg, Barbary Corsairs, Bedouin, Persians, Tartars, or Siberian tribesmen. As it happens, I rolled up the Siberian tribes, and they were to raid Novgorod. This is all controlled by dice rolls.

All well and good. My trusty old DBR army list was consulted, and it would seem that the westernmost Siberian tribe was the Komi, although the notes say that they were mostly subdued by 1600. The tribe, according to the lists, was mostly bows and war bands, which translates into my rules system as tribal foot.

Now, there is a slight problem here, and the wargame purist might like to look away (or skip to the next post, which is about a nice, safe topic, rebasing). This is because I do not have any figures for Siberian tribesmen, let alone Komi specifically. As far as I know (which is not very far, admittedly) there are no manufacturers of such figures in existence. I will, probably, sit corrected (and am very happy to do so on this) but they certainly do not exist in 1:300th scale.

It is a bit of a shame, I think, that there is such a dearth of figures for the Cossack campaigns which fanned out across Siberia in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, especially with the preponderance of skirmish-level wargames these days. Small parties of cossacks taking on the locals should give a good game, I would think.

Still, I have a local Muscovite army of seven cavalry bases, three light horse cossacks, a base of skirmishers, and one of streltsi. The Komi had six bases of bows and six of tribal foot. Given that both parties are what are described in the rules as ‘local’ forces, they were determined by a card draw.

For the figures I have, of course, my Muscovites, who have been out in this campaign before. For the Komi, however, you might think I have a problem, which I do, but I had already decided on my plan: Aztecs. As you might recall, the Aztecs have already been rebased and, as they do not get onto the table very much, they were agreeable to becoming Western Eurasians for an afternoon or so.

I rolled up quite a dense terrain for this encounter. The Komi are to the left, in possession of the village. The main body of tribal foot is deployed in and around it, with archers on the hills, and also deployed in the woods on the far side. The Muscovites, being mostly cavalry, deployed that on their right, planning to cross the stream and outflank the Komi, while the foot deployed in the fields.

As the action developed, the cossacks crossed the stream and took on the Komi archers in the wood. They did not do too well. The Komi archers on the hills advanced to take on the outnumbered Muscovite foot. You can see the skirmishers fleeing by the wood to the right, but one archer base has been lost, and the rest of the Komi foot has been dislocated. Meanwhile, the Muscovite cavalry is across the stream and reorganising.

Examining the situation, the Muscovite general decided that a wider encircling movement was necessary, and sent it off, led by some Cossack. The Komi, too, were reorganising, pulling back their archers and moving tribal foot across onto the hills to meet what looked like an attack in the rear, which was going to develop. The Muscovites could not take route one, between the village and the trees, for fear of either being charged from the village or getting shot up from the woods.

Advances and reorganisations continued. The streltsi attempted to advance from the fields and were driven back by the Komi archers on the hill, while their supporting cavalry failed to charge. On the off chance, the Muscovites were starting to deploy their main body of cavalry, as the Komi would certainly need to weaken their flank to defend the hills.

The crunch came sooner than I was expecting. The Muscovite flank or rear advance is only about halfway to its destination, but the main body of Muscovite cavalry has charged some Komi uphill. This really should not have worked, but it did on the first really good Muscovite combat roll of the game. The tribal foot was charged, crumbled, and fled easily. The centre of the Komi position was blown wide open.

Komi morale did not survive the impact of the Muscovite charge. Morale slumped to 1, and they withdrew. I do not, I’m afraid, give much for their chances of getting away. There are a lot of Muscovite cavalry wandering around already.

As I said earlier, that was interesting, a historical match-up (sort of). Tactically, it put an almost entirely cavalry army against a bow-armed foot one. I thought it was going to be a long, attritional slog, but a bit of chance-grabbing by the Muscovites handed them victory.

The game really has little bearing on the campaign, as local forces were engaged, and so no adjustments to the GOOS score or anything else are necessary. As a wargam,e it was an interesting match-up. And how do you think the Aztecs did as Siberian tribesmen?