Rules on the Fly – WsuS At Sea

Over the decades I have been running campaigns, I have noticed a few things. One of these is the need to be fairly comprehensively prepared for any combination of troops, activities and actions that might arise. Campaigns can be rather surprising in this respect. In the VMCW, for example, I spent quite a lot of time on non-Mogul wargaming, which was not what I expected. On the other hand, in the Machiavelli campaign, I expected some naval action but got none. It keeps me on my toes, I suppose.

Now, the next move in the War of Stuart Succession threw up three wargames. James VI against the Northumberland trained bands, Arbella Stuart against the Leicestershire trained bands, and, most surprisingly, the Spanish attacking the Dutch in Dover (the sea area, not the port). Um. OK, that will need some thinking about. Actually, there are two Spanish fleets and one Dutch fleet in the area, which means, using my usual rule of thumb, one and a half fleets against one, or 18 ships against 12. I have been at sea before (although I am a landlubber, and perfectly happy as such, thank you), and I do have some rules for naval combat. Somewhere.

A frantic search of my rules file and some whinging to the Estimable Mrs P. yielded a single page of Renaissance Naval Wargame Rules. Somewhere to start, agreed, but I was sure I had a slightly more detailed set. A search of my laptop yielded a more sophisticated rule set, but I still wanted to add a bit more flavour. So I set about adding fleet organisations, fireships and a minimal order rule. This pushed the rule set to four pages of A4. A good place to start, I thought.

Naval battles are, of course, notorious for lacking much terrain. I rolled a pair of D6 and got a double six, so I decided that there would be a shoal in the middle of the table. Further dice rolls established that the Dutch would be coming from one side, while the Spanish were arriving from two different directions. The organisation was that the fleets were in squadrons of 6 or so ships, and the only orders were to ‘support the flagship’, so each squadron had a designated flagship, the biggest and meanest available in my Armada fleets.

The initial dispositions are above. The Dutch are in the near left-hand corner, while the Spanish squadrons are to the right and on the far side. Assorted unrated vessels are around as well, providing communication, scouting, and generally getting in the way. The game started at 6 AM (2 bells of the morning watch, I believe). The wind is northerly, blowing from left to right of the picture, force 5, so a moderate breeze (sailors are given to understatement on such things, I think), and the weather was light rain. The wind direction and strength did not change during the game. The weather improved after 8 AM, however, to fair.

Land battles can be complex affairs. Sea battles are the same, only more so, I suspect. The Dutch clearly have a tactical problem with foes to bow and quarter. However, in the latter case, they have the advantage of the weather gauge. So I had to make a decision as to what to do with the fleet. If I took on the weaker Spanish to the front, I was open to the flank, but if I turned the whole fleet to run down on the stronger Spanish, I risked some potentially battered ships having to face the second Spanish squadron without the wind. So splitting the Dutch seemed like a logical thing to do.

The picture shows the Dutch fleet splitting into two. The aim is to batter the three ships of the westward Spanish column to the right with the five ships of the Dutch squadron. Meanwhile, the other Dutch squadron will batter the northward column of weaker Spanish, avoiding the heavier ships in the other column. Seems like a plan…

Obviously, I omitted to plan for the Spanish responding to the Dutch moves, however hampered they were by the wind. The target column of Spanish has turned to engage the approaching Dutch, while, as advertised, the unrated ships are getting in the way as targets and attempting to engage each other. As we shall see, the unrated ships ended up having a separate battle among themselves, and the ships of the line (insofar as there were any in 1603) engaged each other.

There was actually quite a lot of frantic rule rewriting and inventing going on. My neatly printed out four pages of rules were getting scribbles and scrawls all over. I invented the smoke rule, which means dicing for each smoke bank from a broadside to see if it dissipates. I changed the combat rules to make them simpler. I added firing factors. I shamelessly stole bits from Paul Hague’s book to keep things moving. And so on…

It is probably a bit simple to show some shots of the action rather than try to describe what happened. There was a lot going on, and I had to steal/write rules for breaking a line, minimum moves, ships fouling each other and so on.

In this sequence, you can see the middle and nearest Spanish columns manoeuvring to intercept the Dutch and, in the final shot, smashing through the line. Poor dice rolling meant that not much damage was inflicted, but the tactical situation does not favour the Dutch. In the bottom left corner, the unrated ships are having a running fight. In the top right, the cannon duel is hotting up, and visibility is rapidly dropping.

Surprisingly, the above shows more or less the end of the action. In the bottom left corner, the fight between the unrated ships has finished with the Dutch cromster damaged and down to half speed. It will be forced to strike. In the top left, the Dutch squadron has sailed between the two Spanish ones and is paying the price. While the flagship is unscathed, the others are suffering. The next two ships are damaged, and the one after that has been boarded from the galleas and surrendered. One of the others will also be forced to strike as well. On the right of the shot, a running fight has developed between the Spanish first column and the front of the Dutch. The participants are disappearing in the smoke clouds. Behind them, however, the rearmost Dutch ship as been boarded and struck. The next in line has been broadsided again by the Spanish flagship and sheared off. Unfortunately, it has run foul of the next ship along and caused that vessel considerable damage. This has been compounded by the next Spanish vessel, which turned north before the Dutch line and broadsided it, inflicting more damage. The Dutch 5^th rate is crippled and sinking. The ship that ran it foul has not struck but is stuck, so it will not have a lot of choice, unless it decides to get pounded to bits by the Spanish 5^th rates.

That was a lot of fun as a game, and also has given me some head scratching to do in the campaign. The Dutch must retreat, so they will have to go into Thames, I think, but that is where the English fleet is, which is without orders. On the other hand, with the level of damage, they might disperse and make port as best they can.

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A Day at the Beach - WSuS

Those of you who have read the blog attentively will possibly be aware that I like the odd landing in force sort of scenario. So I was pleasantly surprised when the War of Stuart Succession campaign threw one up early on. The situation is that the French, transported on Spanish ships, are attempting to land in Hampshire, where they are opposed by the local trained bands.

This might sound, to you, unlikely, and I would agree. But the diplomacy which brought this to light was controlled by the dice, and that is what happened. I suppose that we can rationalise it by arguing that Henry IV is probably as interested as the English in who controls the other shore of the Channel, and has no objection to the idea that it should be him. As the French do not have a fleet to speak of (it was mainly concentrated in the Mediterranean and consisted of galleys and, anyway, had been starved of funds since the 1540s) getting an army to England was, of course, a bit of a problem. So the Spanish Armada of Flanders was roped in, using the newly fund friendship between Henri and Isabella.

Almost inevitably, however, the French failed their GOOS roll and the trained bands were called up against them. A few dice rolls determined that the English would oppose a landing on the beaches, rather than defend a port. Given my lack of modelling capacity for siege/landing scenarios, this was probably just as well.

The picture shows the situation just after the start. The Hampshire trained bands are on the left, with their demi-lancers at the front and the infantry poised between the woods. I confess I was in two minds about the English defence, whether to ‘fight them on the beaches’ to coin a phrase, or to hold back and hope to defeat them in the defensive positions.

The French are, of course, at sea. The order of arrival was determined by dice roll, and they were to arrive in two waves. The boats will have to return to their baseline, take on more troops, and return to the beach in order for the full French force to arrive.

The picture above shows, as it were, crunch time. The first wave have hit the beach and are mostly landed. From the right, we have some Swiss pikes with the general, two bases of musketeers, a base of dismounted Millers and some enfants perdu skirmishers. You may have also noted that my hesitations about the best form of English defence have been resolved. The demi-lancers, under the general, are moving up, as are the first-line infantry.

It has to be admitted that the dice rolling on both sides was poor, but it was worse for the French than the English. While the geography of the table and English deployment meant that the French troops on the beach had just about rallied by the time the English arrived, that is about as far as their luck went. The English, too, were a bit slow to get moving, their reserve regiment only starting out halfway through the French assault.

This picture shows the English counter-attack developing. The demi-lancers trotted into the French. This was because, as the English general, I did not want to lose control of them because I thought they would be useful later. You can see that their attack has been wildly successful (did I mention the poor French dice rolling). The Arquebusiers second in from the right have vaporised. The Swiss pike on the extreme right are doubly shaken, and the French general has taken a swim. The only bright spot for the French is that their skirmishers have disrupted the incoming English foot on the left of the shot. You can also see that only half of the French boats have put off to collect the next wave.

The demi-lancers rallied back, and the English foot have moved into the fray. In the centre the dismounted Millers have made short work of a base of English shot, but the pressure on the French is only likely to grow as more foot move up and the demi-lancers are poised for another go. Without a general the French on the beach just cannot get themselves organised on mutually supporting units, not to mention that a third of the initial landing force has vanished.

It did not get much better for the French. One of the demi-lancer bases charged some shot on the beach, and the latter simply fled. To add insult to injury the dismounted Millers, supported by Swiss pike, have just attacked the English trained band pike in flank in the centre. The English have just shrugged this off (a 6-1 dice roll to the English. Did I mention the French dice rolling?). As it happened, this was the last action to take place. The loss of the shot base caused the French morale to go to ‘withdraw’, so they did.

Well, the French invasion has been thoroughly thwarted, and Henri IV’s GOOS score will have dropped rather. Not that he was really envisaged as a major player in the campaign, I admit, and his invasion attempt was a bit of a surprise. Partly, with it, I had hoped to finally get my French Wars of Religion Millers into action. Well, some of them sort of did, but they could have done to have been mounted to get the full effect. The army list, incidentally, calls them ‘cuirassiers’ but I know what I mean. Perhaps that is a hint that the French Wars should be next up.

Still, the campaign continues. James IV is poised in Berwick to march to London, and the complicated naval situation in the Channel has not been resolved by this action. The French army is back in France and the next bit of foreign intervention, should there be any, seems to be up to the Spanish.

Opposed landings can be very interesting wargames, I have found. My track record is rather spotty, though. The Samurai succeeded a couple of times against the Koreans, and the Spanish landed successfully in North Yorkshire in the Armada Abbeys campaign. The Commonwealth failed once and succeeded once landing on Jersey, while Caesar managed it against the British. So it comes out as a fairly balanced sort of game. If the defenders can handle the landing forces piecemeal they have a chance. If not then the organising attackers seem to gain the upper hand. Mind you, they could just have tried to find a quiet beach somewhere to land.

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The War of Stuart Succession

On 24^th March 1603 Queen Elizabeth of England died. In real history, of course, she was succeeded fairly seamlessly by James VI of Scotland, and propaganda would have us believe that it was seamless and James was simply acclaimed King. It was not that straightforward, of course. There were at least three other claimants to the throne, including Isabella of Austria, the Hapsburg governor of the Low Countries, Arbella Stuart, whose claim to the throne was more or less as strong as James’, and Edward Seymour, who sprang from the Grey branch of the English royal family and whose aunt was Lady Jane Grey.

Other interested parties were also around, of course, including the Spanish, French and Dutch, all of whom had ideas about who should succeed. Nevertheless, in real life no-one did. Isabella was not interested, and no other claimant even tried. It was reported that the claims of others aside from James were raised at the Privy Council meeting held on the morning of the Queen’s death. It was also reported that the Earl of Northumberland had 50 armed men nearby to ensure the succession of James.

With that background, I started a ‘what if….’ What if the Privy Council had come to no conclusion and each of the claimants had decided to press, or try to, their rights. With that in mind I tried to find a map of the Atlantic Islands suitable to my purposes. I failed, so I had to draw my own (which took a while), which those of you who follow me in another place will already have seen. I cobbled together some campaign rules, including the intriguingly named GOOS score (God On Our Side) which controls the momentum of each campaign to be ruler.

The situation in April 1603 is above. James VI has moved into Northumberland with an army. He failed his GOOS roll and is therefore opposed by the trained bands. In the Channel a complicated sequence of moves and diplomacy have landed up with a French army, transported in Spanish ships, attempting a landing in Hampshire, also opposed by the trained bands (another failed GOOS roll). In other news, Arballa has raised an army in Derbyshire, while Seymour fumbled his initiative roll and hit a military disaster. As he did not have any military force at the time, I ruled that the Wiltshire trained bands failed to support him and he took a GOOS hit. He has just failed to raise the trained bands of Berkshire.

Still, the point of the campaign is to have wargames and the first one in Northumberland. I rolled up the terrain using my normal rules – it was understandably hilly, and the ground was split up a bit by streams. James had 4 pike and 4 shot, 2 light horse, and 2 demi-lancer bases. The Northumberland trained bands had 5 shot, 5 pike, and 2 light horse.

James deployed his demi-lancers across the stream with orders to outflank the English and cross the stream. Otherwise, the infantry were to press forward, covered by the light horse, and crush the English foot in detail, as they looked a little spread out.

The battle started slowly, as tempo was in short supply, but the Scots eventually got moving. The opening exchanges between the light horse took a while, but the Scots gained the upper hand, while their left-wing musketeers eventually routed a base of English light horse.

Above you can also see that the English have turned a block of foot to prevent the Scots cavalry from crossing the stream, while they have advanced some foot on their left. As the action developed, James forgot to withdraw his light horse now they had seen off the opposition, with the result that they suffered a bit from English musketry. On the other hand, his right-wing infantry were bearing down on an outnumbered English regiment, and the English have had to turn their stream covering infantry back towards the centre as the Scottish foot’s advance develops, while one of the reserve regiments has taken their place further to the rear.

The Scottish attacks went in with mixed results. The Scot’s musketry has clearly deteriorated since the Armada campaign and they struggled to make an impact. On the other hand, two deep pike blocks against single depth should have been a walk-over. But it was not. The English defended themselves manfully, in fact, counter-attacking with some effect.

In the foreground you can see that the nearest regiment of Scots has been suffering quite badly at the hands of the English. While they have routed one base of English pike (fleeing on the far right of the picture) they have lost a base of musketeers (fleeing far left) and the pike and shot remaining are shaken. On the Scot’s right, their musketeers are making little headway against the English, while the King is locked in combat next to them with his pikes being held by the English including the general. On the far side, the Scottish cavalry has crossed the stream, charged home and, while they have driven the English back, have not exactly blown them away.

The English luck could not hold. Eventually, the odds got the better of them. On the far side, the Scottish cavalry are starting to prevail – the musketeers have fled, and the pike are shaken. In the centre, while the musketeers are still held up by their foes, James and his pikemen have prevailed against the English general, although the central English regiment is advancing against the Scottish light horse. On the near flank, the shaken base of Scottish musketeers has now routed and the English pikemen are locked in combat with the shaken Scots. Both sides had to throw for morale, as James had lost another musketeer base and the English their general and a pike base.

James got a ‘withdraw’ result, but the English got a ‘rout’. So James had won. Just about. His dice rolling had not been great throughout. The outflanking manoeuvrer, while it had worked, had not been as decisive as he hoped, and it turned out that two deep pike are not automatic winners against one deep. Still, he won and his GOOS score will be adjusted accordingly. The march south continues.

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Now, just for fun, a close-up of the latest action from the next campaign - more details on Saturday. Any guesses as to what is going on?

VMCW – With a Whimper, not a Bang

The result of the last action was, of course, the rout of the Maratha army, and that was removed from play. It has to be noted that the Marathas proved to be a potent force in the Deccan for a campaign concept which was of a disruptor. They plundered a significant number of cities before the army of Bijapur got them.

That action was in April 1660, turn 24 of the campaign. The next move the Bijapurians decided to plunder the nearest city. I guess that the troops requested some pay. No-one else moved at that point, however. In June Aurungazeb moved north finally, as did the Bijapurians. I am not sure quite what the latter were trying to achieve by doing so, except that in the next move, September, they resorted to plundering again. In October, Aurungazeb attempted to subvert the Bijapurian army, and failed, while Jia Singh attempted subversion on Shah Suja (who had been immobile since fleeing without an army). This was successful and resulted in the murder of the prince.

Aurungazeb was now the last prince standing, and he moved north again to Ajmer in Rajasthan. Both Bijapur and Jia Singh attempted to achieve some subversion against him but failed. In December 1660, turn 29, Aurungazeb and Bijapur both attempted some diplomacy (without much result, it has to be said) while Jia Singh fumbled his initiative roll. A die roll concluded that he had been murdered. Historians will, no doubt argue as to whether it was supporters of Shah Suja or on Aurungazeb’s order that this happened. It was highly convenient for Aurungazeb, however, as it removed the last opposition in the north-east.

In January 1661 Aurungaeb plundered Ajmer, while Bijapur fumbled their initiative roll. The dice again came up with murder, and the last potential opposition to Aurungazeb was removed. I had envisaged the game lasting 30 turns, and, right at the last, Aurungazeb was the last prince standing, within striking distance of the Emperor in Agra, and the only army remaining on the map.

As with the historical civil war, Aurungazeb was the victor, and could now crown himself Emperor. The campaign was really rather enjoyable, with 8 wargames and a great deal of skulduggery going on. You might wonder how, as a solo player, I managed to create skulduggery, but it was mainly through the diplomatic table (see that book) with a few additions of a card draw for each active player, which could be move, engage in diplomacy, subvert or plunder. The short green pins in the map show the plundered cities, incidentally.

I did miss a few tricks. I decided not to fill in the diagonals of the diplomatic table but should have as the opportunities arose to subvert armies from their leaders. I occasionally lost track of whether the row or the column represented someone’s view of someone else, but usually managed to sort that out. I also had to quickly invent rules for rocket fire and for camel guns in action, as they appeared in the army lists but not in my rules as such. The camel guns were not particularly useful (and only appeared in the Maratha army anyway) while the rockets could give an account of themselves, particularly in firing at already shaken troops preventing them from reforming.

One thing that the campaign has shown me is that complexity can be created and handled fairly simply. There were eight sides in the game initially – four princes, the Rajputs, Bijapur, Golconda, and the Marathas. I was a little apprehensive that it might get confusing, but it turned out to be quite straightforward, although my diplomatic table is so scribbled upon as to be heading into illegibility.

Was I biased in favour of Aurungazeb? After he was captured by Mir Jumla I thought he was finished, but Mir Jumla decided to try to use him as a figurehead. However, a few initiative rolls and two subversion cards flipped that on its head and it was Mir Jumla who fled, to be mopped up by Bijapur. So I think that Aurungazeb was lucky there. On the other hand, true to historical form, he had Murad murdered.

So, that was a lot of fun. The campaign is summarised from the page link on the right, which gives you links to all the wargames and gives a narrative. Some time I will write the campaign and its rules up, possibly for publication in Lone Warrior (if they’ll have it). I think the basic system could be used to cover other warfare, civil or not.

Which brings me to my next problem of course. The Very Mogul Civil War has taken up most of my wargaming time for the past couple of months. Towards the end I started to wonder what I was going to do next, and now the problem faces me in spade-loads. I think that I have, for the moment, had a sufficient number of elephants on the table, so something different calls. But what, I ponder.

A few options present themselves. Something ancient possibly, after all those early-modern campaigns and games. The system (both this one and the Aztec one modified for Burma) would work for ancient Greeks, I think, without much modification. Another possibility that occurs is something like the Roman invasion of Britain in the First Century AD, with various tribes declaring their allegiance or not. On the other hand, I do have a slight hankering for war wagons, so Hussites or Poles might be part of the next activity.

It might come down to maps. The map of India was scanned in from a book, and then the main roads were added from another one, by hand. The result was then ‘hexed’ and printed out. The process was not quite as straightforward as it sounds, but the result worked. On the other hand, a pure narrative campaign like the Armada Abbeys also works. So many choices, so little time.

Any suggestions?