1600 – Something: The Unlucky Lucky Muscovites

As my loyal reader will know, I am currently wargaming my way through the Autumn 1605 move of the\ campaign. This has now rolled around (moving east to west) to the Muscovites defending Courland against a Danish Expeditionary Force. As you might recall, if you were really concentrating, there is a bit of history here, the Muscovites having routed a previous Danish force supporting the Courlanders.

The Danes have control of the Baltic, and so, with a move card, it was a simple matter for the army from Jutland to be switched to Courland, and a few dice rolls indicated that the landing was unopposed, but the Courlanders did not rally to the cause of the Danes. Presumably, they wanted to wait and see what happened next. After all, the Danish force sent to support them did not cover itself in glory.

The Muscovites may well have been happier with the terrain rolled for this encounter. Above, they are to the left, Cossacks and cavalry to the fore. The remaining foot is on the lower slopes of a hill in front of the camp, with a reserve of streltsi in the rear. The Danes had some more head scratching to do. While the ford would minimise disruption crossing the stream, doing so in the face of the Muscovite cavalry would be difficult.

A few moves in, and the Danes are crossing the stream in numbers. The infantry on the road is across, and getting organised and deployed. On the far side, the cavalry is mostly across and rallying. The only fly in the ointment so far is that the second regiment of foot has been mostly delayed at the stream. On the other hand, the Muscovites are too far away to really bother about at present.

A few moves later, and things are heating up. On the near side, the Danish second infantry regiment is reluctantly crossing the stream, while the first is deployed. The cavalry which crossed the ford is now aiming for the Danish right wing, and has become a significant cavalry combat. The two bases of Danish cavalry which had crossed the stream (the third is still rallying), decided to charge, rather than be charged, even though they were outnumbered. Initially, they had great success, pushing back and shaking the Muscovites, but, just as I thought that the Muscovite baggage was in peril, both bases were bounced. Hence, the disorganisation of both sides.

As you can also see, I had decided that the Muscovite foot on the hill would be more useful on their right, and they were moving towards it. In retrospect, this was probably a mistake on my part, as staying put on the hill might have been a better bet. The other thing to note is a misfortune for the Muscovites after their fluky combat dice rolls. I had to make a general’s risk roll, as the general’s base had been recoiled and shaken. He needed 1-4 on a d6 to survive. Of course, I rolled a 5. Oops.

Surprisingly, the Muscovites did not fall apart. On their right, nearest the camera, the cavalry charged. While one base was halted on the road by musket fire, the other base of muskets was destroyed, and the pike sent reeling back. On the far side, the Danish general is attempting to take some advantage from the cavalry melee, but the Muscovites have started to rally as well, so he might be a little late.

It got a bit complicated, and I think I missed a photograph. As you can see above, things have changed quite a bit. The third Muscovite cavalry base on their left charged the Danish cavalry by the stream and routed them, only to fall victim to the Danish general and his base who were relishing having just routed another of the Muscovite bases, seen fleeing top left. On the right, the hitherto successful Muscovite cavalry fighting the Danish pike has been routed by a flank charge by Danish cavalry sent from the other flank, who are pursuing at the bottom of the picture. Meanwhile, the Muscovite foot have deployed, just at the foot of the hill.

Both sides had to make morale rolls at this point. The Danes were three bases down and were deemed to be at the ‘waver’ level. The Muscovites, two bases and a general down, rolled a fallback result, which is why there is a big gap between them and the Danes. Another charge disposed of another Muscovite cavalry base, if you look closely, the Muscovite camp is now under threat from marauding Danish cavalry. Muscovite morale went to withdraw, and discretion was the better part of valour.

Strategically, the Muscovites will have to withdraw from Courland, and I suspect that the losses will cause the state to plunge even deeper into debt. The Danes, with the customs revenue from the Sound, are better off financially. And so will probably hold Courland, along with their enclave on the Baltic coast of Poland.

In the game, I think the Muscovites were both lucky and unlucky (hence the title). They were unlucky to lose the general (again) but fortunate to beat off the Danish cavalry. I really was having visions of the Danes looting the camp before the game was half-finished. The Muscovites continued to roll well, in fact, nearly overwhelming a base of pike with a frontal attack, which is no mean feat. In fact, they would have succeeded had the Danish cavalry not intervened.

For the Danes, the stream was a problem, obviously, but the ford certainly helped them get across with minimal disruption. The second line cavalry and infantry, crossing directly, did not fare as well. Perhaps I should simply have fed more troops, particularly the second infantry regiment, across the ford.

Still, while this goes down as another Muscovite defeat, it was a close-run thing. Mind you, the Muscovites are now looking for net another general. What do you think of the job advert: ‘Wanted, a general. Short-term contract’?

The Score

I have been reading, very slowly (due to other commitments), The Score, by C Thi Nguyen. It is certainly worthy of attention as a wargamer, let alone as a citizen of the 21st-century world. If you would like a bit of an introduction, Nguyen was on BBC Radio 4’s Start the Week program a bit ago, and you can still listen to it here.

Wargaming is not Nguyen’s main point in writing the book, of course. The main aim is how our lives are taken over and, ultimately, controlled by numbers, usually imposed upon us by parties beyond our control. Our values, he maintains, are captured by these. For example, Facebook is dominated by how many ‘likes’ you get, and how many ‘followers’ you can claim. Instead of using it as a medium for communicating with other people, you slowly become captured by the numbers, and start writing posts which will maximise your number of likes, keep and grow your camp of followers, and so on.

This value capture works more seriously (perhaps) in other areas of life. For example, the assessment of schools is (still) given by a single word or phrase in England, despite its devastating potential. As Nyugren observes, this sort of thing makes, in principle, it easy to compare schools. Thus, as a parent, you choose the school for your child that comes with the highest rank. The rank, of course, abstracts from all the context of a particular school. It might, for example, be a wonderful school for a certain sort of urban child who, simply, would not fit into a normal academic environment. But that context is ignored.

Nguyen uses a lot of examples from games. He observes that games hold a sort of middle ground in our lives. They have rules, scores, and assessments, but they also allow us to be creative. A simple example is of soccer. The rule is (among others, of course) that you cannot touch the ball. This forces you to do other things, to get creative with feet and head. The rules force creativity.

Nguyen does not specifically address wargaming, but he does say some things about role-playing games. He observes, for example, that actually, role-playing games, or rather the players, need rules of some description. Apparently, if the players are left rule-less, the stories become staid and repetitive. It is the dice rolling, the attempt to make a score, which leads to the storytelling. The failure to achieve something forces us into creativity, by making account for the unexpected.

I do not think it is too much of a stretch to apply this to historical wargaming. We can, if we so desire, re-fight Waterloo every week, but probably, most of us would eventually find that a bit boring. That might be so even if the results, as a consequence of dice rolling, would be different each time, at least slightly. But we can start imagining the what-ifs. ‘What if Ney had not gone so far?’ ‘What if Hougomont had held out less long?’ ‘What if the Prussians were delayed?’ Some of these things might give us greater insight into the outcome, but would we still be re-fighting Waterloo?

By giving us different outcomes within an overall envelope of possibility, our imagination and creativity are put to the test. Perhaps it is this that we risk outsourcing to artificial intelligence if we start using it to create our scenarios and campaigns. Nguyen observes, as do other commentators, that we are heading in a direction that leads to us outsourcing almost all our decision-making. This is done by reducing our choices, essentially, to numbers, even if they are probabilities in a large language model, and relying on the computer to decide for us.

Of course, this is what we do when we write rules. In my case, I can ponder how many points in combat a charging cavalry unit should get compared to, for example, a base of dispersed skirmishers. We abstract away the details of all the encounters we are aware of between such troops and come up with an answer. Then, through various factors,, such as terrain, training, and morale, we add context back in. That is pretty much how the wargaming world works, I think, whatever rules and mechanisms we might use.

The scoring system in a game is, however, important. Nguyen observes that a lot of game designers start with the scoring system. This conditions the players, and what they can and choose to do in order to win, whatever winning might mean (he has some interesting examples). I have encountered this in the difference between one-off and campaign games. In the latter, keeping your force in being might be more important, a bigger win, than dying gloriously but vainly on the battlefield. Sometimes, in my campaign games, it is simply better to march away. What it means to ‘win’ has changed.

Incidentally, on that matter, I have just been reading an interesting article in History Today on the run-up to the disaster (for the Crusaders) of the Horns of Hattin. A few years earlier, they had gathered a large force and seen Saladin off without a battle. But this was regarded as cowardice. So in a similar situation, an advance to battle was ordered. We know how well that worked, but the point here is that in real life, the goal was altered, and not being thought a coward was placed above winning.

The above might be a little less than coherent as an argument. My excuse is that it is a very rich book and I am only halfway through it. But it has made me think about what sort of goals we set in wargames, and how these affect the ways that we might play the game. Indeed, the nations in 1600-Something do have strategic aims which, on occasion, do suggest courses of action. So the French, for example, want to break the Spanish Road, and are piling up forces on the frontier to that end. But each individual battle is directed to attempting to obtain that strategic outcome, rather than just destroying the enemy.

A fair bit to ponder then, even leaving aside the complaints about how big businesses and government go about evaluating everything and controlling outcomes. I shall, quite probably, return to the subject.

1600 – Something: Mongol Swings and Roundabouts

The second wargame of the Autumn 1605 move was between Mongol tribes. The dice rolling indicated that the Mongol activity reported here continued. The White and Black Sheep tribes amalgamated, and the White Sheep commander, having won the card game, entered the fray as White Sheep. Their opponents were another tribe of Mongols, known, for reasons of convenience, as the Green Sheep. I am not aware that there is a type of sheep which is green, but the name followed from the dice colours.

The setup is above, with the defenders, the Green Sheep, to the left. It is harder to see, but the centre(ish) of the field consists of a line of hills. The Green Sheep militia is on the near side, the Green Sheep heavy cavalry and skirmishers are on the hill in the middle, with their light cavalry in front of them, while the rest of the heavy cavalry hold the hill on the far side.

From this, you can deduce that in their card draw for forces, the Green Sheep drew three Kings, two of which were militia, and the third a base of skirmishers. This gave me some head scratching, as you can imagine. After all, this was supposed to be a cavalry battle. A bit like armies in the Western Desert in the 1940s, once the tanks were gone, the infantry had to surrender. With this lot, I suspect it is much the same with the cavalry. And, having fewer bases makes the lack of cavalry more likely.

The White Sheep commander was almost equally unhappy. He found himself facing enemies on all three hills, and while he did have an encouraging numerical advantage in both light and heavy cavalry, assaulting uphill is, well, uphill work. The plan was to mask the centre of the Green Sheep position with the light cavalry, and hopefully overwhelm their lights, while taking the hills on the flanks with the cavalry. The then triumphant heavies could turn in and crush the centre. The general would command the left wing to make sure things got moving in the right direction.

The plans slowly lumbered into life, both sides affected by a tempo point famine. In the centre, the light cavalry are clashing, ineffectively so far. On the Green Sheep left, far side, the White Sheep heavies are looming, while on the near side, the White Sheep cavalry are ascending the hill. At this point, the Green Sheep commander realised that his militia would need a bit of help, and he is heading there himself with reinforcements.

The whole battlefield suddenly got busy. In the centre, the light cavalry exchanged shots, to the advantage, as you can see, of the Green Sheep. On the far side, however, the White Sheep cavalry, although hampered by the hill, has routed their opponents, and the Green Sheep left is now wide open. On the right, however, a bit of manoeuvring has led to the militia falling back off the hill, while the Green Sheep general and his cavalry have charged into the Whites and are causing damage.

Some fluky combat dice rolling later, and the Green Sheep cavalry have been repelled, falling into confusion as thwarted chargers do. The White Sheep cavalry, however, is in no position to take advantage, being shaken themselves. In the centre, the outnumbered Green Sheep light cavalry are continuing to chip away at their counterparts.

Both sides needed to reorganise. The Green Sheep pulled back the militia into the fields in the foreground, and the disorganised cavalry back to regroup. The White Sheep cavalry recovered from their shaken status remarkably quickly and crossed the hill, charging their counterparts down I, as seen above. This activity starved the right wing of tempo, however, and the exploitation of the victory there has barely started. In the centre, however, the Green Sheep light cavalry has scored a second success, routing another White Sheep base.

There were more highly unusual combat rolls. Firstly, the Green Sheep general, in spite of the status of his base, managed to recoil his opponents, although the other base was lost, as seen. Secondly, a base of Green Sheep light cavalry from the hill moved down it and took the third White Sheep cavalry base in flank. This base was, at the time, supporting the general’s one in close combat and could not recoil, so it was lost when the light cavalry made a good roll. Nevertheless, the overall situation for the Green Sheep was poor.

They were saved, remarkably, by one of the militia units. These jumped the wall of the enclosure and attacked the disordered White Sheep cavalry in flank, while the general’s base supported them as best they could from the front. The militia is, in fact, also doubly terrain shaken from crossing the linear obstacle, but still rolled sufficiently well to recoil the White Sheep cavalry, which, with a base to their front, meant they were removed.

At this point, the White Sheep had lost 4 bases, with the general about to leave the table in pursuit of the routed enemy, while the Green Sheep had lost 3. Both sides were, in fact, at ‘fall back’ morale status, so I decided to call it a draw.

That was an interesting wargame. Like the last time Mongols clashed, there was no clear winner; in fact, the result was even less clear-cut this time. I kind of expect cavalry actions to be fast and furious, quick games and fairly decisive. These cavalry versus cavalry contests have been anything but, both fairly sedate, positional and close. Mind you, in this wargame, some of the combat rolls where shaken bases go on to bounce their charging opponents have been unusual, but it happened to both sides, so I cannot claim any bias.

On the other hand, I still have not painted any further Mongols. By the time I get to them, Mongolistan will probably be quiet for many campaign turns. But the next action up is the Danes against the Muscovites. It will be nice to see a few pikes again.

1600 – Something: Khmer Bashing

The Autumn 1605 move in the campaign yielded four wargames. In the West, the French invaded Luxembourg. No one seemed particularly minded to aid the Luxembourgers, but the French failed their GOOS roll and so would have to fight their way in. Further east, the situation in Courland got ever more perilous. The Danes, to avenge the loss of their force supporting the Courlanders in the last action there, landed a full-scale army. They then failed their GOOS roll, and so will face the wrath of the Muscovite army already there.

In the east, the Moguls made a critical initiative roll, which indicated that an advantageous dynastic marriage had taken place. In the north, the White Sheep Mongols carried on their campaign, and so another wargame is to happen there. In South-East Asia, the Siamese are not taking being invaded by the Khmer lying down and have counter-invaded. The nature of the geography (or, in the case of my map, I suppose, geometry) means that the two forces are of equal, 12-base, armies. The Siamese cannot support the invasion, but made their GOOS roll, so the remaining Khmer army is resisting without any local help.

There were, of course, the usual rounds of diplomacy, which did not really achieve much. The Chinese managed to persuade the Japanese to disband their fleet, which the Koreans had chased off in the last move. However, the Japanese drew a 'raise military force' card and promptly gathered another. As in real life, sometimes things move slowly, even in a crisis.

Still, moving as ever from east to west in the wargames, the first action is the Siamese invasion of Cambodia. Both armies consist of 12 bases: 8 of tribal foot, a general on an elephant, a cavalry base, and two archer bases. I do not, of course, have sufficient tribal foot for both sides to have their full complement of appropriate figures. The appropriate figures are, in fact, in the house, but rather far back in the painting queue. As the Estimable Mrs P. will not permit unpainted figures to be used, and I do not want to lose the momentum of the campaign, I have raided the Chinese box for their blade-armed figures and shall use those. Incidentally, the same will be true, I should think, of the Mongols, in that I have a second Mongol horse, but they are not painted and are unlikely to be in time.

I rolled up really quite a dense terrain for this wargame, as seen above. The Siamese are to the right, and behind their right is, in fact, a hill. The plan is to use the bulk of the tribal foot, in the centre, to assault the Khmer-held hill in the centre (where the Khmer elephant general is), while the archers (in the field on their right) and the rest of the tribal foot secure that flank, and the cavalry and general secure the left. Well, that was the plan.

The Khmer plan was, essentially, to stay on the defensive, enticing the Siamese into range and then charging downhill at them, with the advantage, of course, of the slope. The nearest tribal foot and the Khmer archers on the far side are on hills, and the rest of the Khmer tribal foot that is not with the general are in valleys, securing the flanks of the central hill.

This was one of those wargames that was a bit slow to start, due to a lack of available tempo points. However, eventually the Siamese go moving, as seen. On the near side, the cavalry is facing the right flank Khmer tribal foot (who are still, just about, on their hill). The rest of the Khmer tribal foot, which is not actually on the central hill, is heading in that direction, while the archers are causing disruption to the advancing Siamese on the left.

The Khmer cavalry launched a charge, downhill, at the leftmost Siamese tribal foot in the centre. Initially successful, they were eventually routed (by some lucky dice rolls, it has to be admitted), and the Siamese line held. In fact, the Siamese pulled back a bit, not wishing to be charged downhill by the assembling Khmer foot.

The Khmer cavalry can be seen above, exiting stage left. On the Khmer left, the Siamese tribal foot are still suffering from archery fire and subsequent disruption, while on the right, nearest the camera, the Siamese cavalry and some Khmer foot are engaged in a stand off where neither managed a charge.

At this point, the battle could have rather petered out in a draw, but the Siamese tempo rolling improved a bit, and they got their right flank advancing up the hill. While the Khmer bowmen resisted manfully, one base was routed, while the other managed to stave off its opponents. On the other wing, the Khmer foot managed to get a charge in against the Siamese cavalry and pushed them back in disorder, but the Siamese general with some tribal foot is rushing to the rescue.

The end came when the Siamese general charged his attached tribal foot into the flank of the hitherto winning Khmer foot on the Siamese left. This was more than the troops could put up with and was a straight rout. The Khmer morale roll indicated a ‘withdraw’ result, which, at 4 bases down, was probably reasonable. The Khmer did have the option to try re-rolling to stabilise the lines, but with one flank gone, the other nearly gone, and only a slight advantage in the centre, they decided that prudence was the better part, particularly as they had the only Khmer army in the country, and really withdrew.

That was a surprisingly slow wargame, as it happened. Neither side threw particularly well for tempo, and the Siamese were very wary of getting too close to the central hill, especially when the Khmer had concentrated their foot there. The Siamese were left trying to nibble away at the flanks, eventually emerging victorious, but without the decisive defeat of the Khmer, which they were seeking.

And so, on to Mongols!

1600 – Something: Battered Bavarians

The final action of the Summer 1605 move is, as you might recall (if anyone has been paying attention) in the west, where the Bavarians, subverted diplomatically by the French, have invaded Austria. Unfortunately for the boys in blue, two Austrian armies are waiting for them. In my head, the French have agreed to pay for the Bavarian action, while the Bavarians rather expected the Austrians to have moved at least one army to support their incursion into Ottoman territory further south. The Austrians (I mean the Austrian Habsburg or Holy Roman Emperor) have just found that indolence, or a lack of move cards, sometimes helps.

Anyway, I am now left with another lop-sided battle, a single Bavarian force against one and a half Austrian armies. The Bavarians muster 5 bases of cavalry, 2 pikes, 4 musketeers, and a light horse. The Austrians deploy 4 bases of cavalry, 2 light horse, 4 pike bases and 8 musketeer bases. It has to be admitted that the terrain gods were not kind to the Bavarians. Whereas the terrain for the Muscovites in the last battle enabled them to defeat the foe in detail, the terrain here was broken up and left little scope for manoeuvre.

The Bavarians are to the left, with a rather thin-looking line. Beyond their left-hand regiment of infantry, by the way, is a ridge, which is steep in places and hence impassable. I pondered the Austrian deployment at some length. Initially, I thought of deploying them forward of the village and wood, the idea being to launch an all-out attack and attempt to rout the Bavarians once and for all (as the loyal reader of the blog will possibly recall, the Bavarians and Austrians have some history, here). Common sense prevailed, as the gap through which reinforcements would be fed is rather thin and, after all, the Austrians were on the defensive.

The Bavarian plan was to mask the foe with their right flank while attacking with infantry and cavalry on the left. I thought it looked reasonable on paper, as the Austrian left would not really be in a position to interfere. Well, maybe.

A few moves in, and you can see the progress of the Bavarian left. Fronted by the blue-coast under command of the general, they are making good progress, having seen off one base of Austrian light horse (fleeing just behind the redcoats), although their foot has suffered a bit of disruption, and a lack of tempo means that the cavalry supporting them is a bit close behind. The Austrians have moved the sub-general from their quiet left, and he is bringing a second foot regiment up to support the right. From the Bavarian point of view, that was not in the plan.

Crunches came in various shapes and sizes. The Bavarians got their right moving towards the gap between the village and the wood, hoping that the now denuded Austrian centre might be vulnerable. In the right-hand foreground, you can see the unengaged Austrian left on their hill. On the far side, the Bavarians are now starting to struggle, having lost a musketeer base to the Austrian foot, and also the general. Ouch.

Things did not improve much for the Bavarians, now unable to control their left. The infantry stumbled on, the remaining musketeers to be routed by the Austrian sub-general’s redcoats, while the remaining pike, now unsupported, attempted to contact the Austrian cavalry and was repulsed. The losses led to a morale check, and the Bavarians were wavering, which meant that the attempted assault on the gap between the village and wood faltered (or, in fact, stopped).

The end was not far away, of course. Under the command of the Austrian sub-general, the redcoats have now driven into the Bavarian cavalry on their left. Actually, the musketeers managed to rout one of the cavalry bases through sheer firepower, which is unusual. It has to be said that the Austrians got two lucky combat rolls to achieve it, and the Bavarians had no tempo to try to intervene. The remaining Bavarian pike on that flank has also routed. They were too far away from any support and, while bravely having a go, were not going to make much progress.

In the foreground, you can see the rest of the Bavarian army stuck in front of the gap between the village and the wood. The Austrians have sealed the gap with infantry anyway, but at this point, Bavarian morale collapsed, and the army was routed.

This was always going to be a tough battle for the Bavarians, attacking while outnumbered. There was little option for defeating the Austrians in detail, at least once I had decided that deploying in front of the wood was a bad idea.

The Bavarians had a bad day, dice-wise. The terrain was against them, and some of their tempo and combat rolls were awful. They were actually defeated by 10 bases of Austrians, and a third of the Austrian army never moved throughout the entire game. Yet the Bavarians had to attack, as the Swedes did at Nordlingen. And the outcome is possibly as bad.

Strategically, the Bavarians had better hope that the French step up to the mark with money for a new army, if nothing else. Bavaria is open to Austrian invasion. The line of Spanish armies on the western border of France would preclude any direct intervention by them in Germany. On the other hand, this is the second time in five years that the Bavarians have upset the Austrians. It did not go well for them the first time; it could go a lot worse this time.

And so, finally, we reach the end of the Summer 1605 move. As you would expect, little was really resolved internationally, as the invasions were mostly defeated, apart from the Koreans in Japan. I am being forced to consider moving my diplomatic tables onto my laptop, as with 22 nations, it is a bit tricky keeping all the numbers legible, and I would like the option of adding a few more nations as well, in South India, and possibly some emerging Jurchen tribes.

We shall see, or maybe it is just that my megalomania is still not satiated….

1600 – Something: The Non-General’s Battle

As my loyal reader might recall, the Muscovites have been trying, without result, to expand a bit. They have, to that end, lost two battles against the Swedes, both as a result, essentially, of losing a general. Losing a general, under the rules, means that you lose half your tempo points in a bid, and, of course, the general’s bonus tempo point and any bonus he might give to a base to which he is attached. In short, losing a general is painful.

The situation on the southern Baltic coast is complicated. The Muscovites attempted again to invade Estonia in Spring 1605 and failed. They got another move card in the summer but cannot try to cross the same boundary again, so, somewhat denuded by the Swedes, elected to invade Courland. They failed, almost inevitably, their GOOS roll, and so a German Minor States army attempted to block them.

The Courlanders drew 4 cavalry, 1 mounted arquebusier, 3 pike, and 4 shot bases (as they are not a standing army, they drew a random list). The Muscovites, as we know, consist of 6 cavalry, 2 Cossack light horse, 1 pike, and 3 shot. I did wonder whether the Danes (who control the Baltic Sea) or the Swedes would support the plucky Courlanders. Careful examination of the map revealed that the Swedes were too far away, but a dice roll showed that the Danes landed a force to assist. This comprised 3 cavalry, 2 shot, and 1 pike bases.

The picture shows the deployment. The Danes are to the left foreground, the Courlanders on the far side of the stream. Under the rules, they are not allowed to deploy interspersed, and, as allies, roll separate tempo dice and cannot exchange tempo. As an allied contingent, the Danes roll 1d3 for their tempo.

The campaign has thrown up an interesting tactical scenario, of course. The Muscovites are inferior in numbers, but are attacking. After some consideration, I decided, as Muscovite commander, to go after the Danes, knock them out, and then turn the flank of the Courlanders. The plan was to use 4 bases of cavalry and the cossacks to defeat the Danish horse, while masking their foot with my own and holding the stream bank with that foot and the reserve horse.

Above, you can see the plans developing, or rather, in the case of the Courlanders, not. The tempo dice ensured that most of their army remained in place; only the plucky general leading the blue-coats forward was doing anything. The Danes advanced, but ran into problems with the Cossack screen, which you can see in the foreground.

There was a bit of jiggery pokery with the Danish cavalry, the cossacks and the Muscovite cavalry supporting them. The Danes could not charge the cavalry because they were not allowed to charge troops that were screened. But they did not wish to charge the cossacks, because then they would be toast if counter-charged by the Muscovite cavalry. The solution was to advance into the cossacks and try to force themback, which was only slightly successful. The Danes then pulled their cavalry back to avoid being charged. The Muscovite cavalry, of course, could charge the Danes through the Cossack screen, as they are on the same side.

Eventually, the Muscovite charge went home, with mixed results. One base has swept away some Danish musketeers, while another Danish cavalry, in the foreground, has been severely shaken and will shortly rout. However, the two central Danish cavalry bases have stood firm. On the other hand, the sharp-eyed among you will have noted the absence of the Danish general, who was shot down by the cossacks before the charge went in. The Muscovite general survived being recoiled and shaken, by the way. You can also see that the Courlanders have woken up a bit and sent their reserve cavalry to assist the Danes.

Both sides had a bit of a breather to regroup, the Muscovites pulling their cavalry, which was not pursuing Danish bases back and reconstituting the Cossack screen. The Courlanders managed to start their army towards the stream, but were hampered by another unfortunate result. The strelsti base on the extreme right of the picture shot down their general.

As more Courlanders crossed the stream, the Muscovite cavalry charged again, this time managing, eventually, to rout the rest of the Danish horse. This led to the collapse of Danish morale and the rout of the rest of the army (not that there was much left). However, the Muscovite cavalry ran out of control, one base rallying at the table edge and the general’s base not doing so until two moves off the table. So now the Muscovites were leaderless as well. You can also see in the picture that the Courland mounted arquebusiers are keeping a strelsti base shaken.

Both sides were suffering from a tempo point drought, of course. As the Courlanders attempted to rally on the Muscovite side of the stream, they were met with a hail of fire from the cossacks. On the far right of the picture, the blue-coated foot have crossed the stream, routed the streltsi base there, and got charged by the Muscovite reserve cavalry. The musketeers have fled, while the pike miraculously survived. This result caused a fall in Muscovite morale, which is why the Cossacks are not engaged at the moment.

The end of the game was not far off. The Muscovites were far too scattered to achieve anything until the general returned, and the Courlanders were struggling to do much after crossing the stream. Their mounted arquebusiers did, eventually, advance and rout the streltsi opposite them. The blue-coated pike and their opponents are both trying to rally, but otherwise, there was not much else to do.

At this point, I decided that it was nightfall. The Courlanders would withdraw across the stream and regroup, the Muscovites would recover their general in 3 turns, and have to do something similar. The battle was declared a draw.

As a wargame, it was interesting. The tactical puzzle the campaign threw up was a smaller force attacking a larger one. The Muscovites made a good call, I think, in targeting the Danes, much as the Poles had targeted the Tartars in a previous game. However, the defeat of the Danish contingent left the Muscovites scattered and vulnerable; if the Courlanders had still had a general extant, they would probably have paid for that, as the Courland cavalry could have certainly mopped up a few Muscovite bases.

Strategically, aside from the Danes having to pay for a new expeditionary force and the Muscovites still not having found a way to expand, not much has changed. At least the Muscovites did not lose again.

On the other hand, the next action is a Bavarian army against a supported Austrian one, a similar situation, but the Austrians are a coherent force.

The Military Collapse of the Ming

 Fear not, gentle reader, or at least those who are thinking ‘Not another 1600 – Something post’. No, indeed, I have been reading, albeit slowly, a book which has been on my road map for a while, but which I have only just finished.

The said tome is The Military Collapse of China’s Ming Dynasty, 1618-1644, by Kenneth M. Swope (Routledge, 2014). Swope is, of course, the author of another book reviewed here, about the Japanese invasion of Korea in the 1590s, and, to some extent, this is a follow-up to that book. Swope asks the question of how, in the first half of the next century, the Chinese military machine could have collapsed so far. After all, in the 1590s, it was capable of defeating the Japanese military, rated by many people as being particularly good. But by the 1640s, it went down to a bunch of peasant rebels and barbarians from beyond the Great Wall.

The normal account of the collapse of the Ming empire is of increasing corruption and lethargy. The old empire, it says, lost the Mandate of Heaven, its officials were either incompetent or corrupt, and, in many cases, treasonous. Its leadership had drifted so far from the people that they did not know how to handle rebellion, and it only needed a shove from outside to implode. All very reasonable.

Swope, of course, has a slightly different account. His book starts with the failed Liadong campaign of 1619, where the Ming did not manage to bring the Jin to heel. This was for a variety of reasons, including incompetent military leadership, logistic difficulties and the possession, by the Jin, of internal lines of communication which allowed them to defeat the columns in detail. Closer inspection of the circumstances yields a picture of overlapping lines of command, conflicts between civil and military officers, and a near-fatal lack of decision-making at the centre.

The result was a fascinating, albeit gory, slide into the destruction of the Ming Empire, although, as Swope observes in the conclusion, the Little Ice Age certainly did not help. After all, many other polities suffered from starvation and rebellion in the middle of the Seventeenth Century – most of Europe and Britain were engulfed in warfare, for example, and the Eastern Europeans did not fare much better.

For the wargamer, there are a few set pieces to consider. The Liaodong campaign of 1619 is detailed, and there is a final section on the Battle of Shanhaiguan, 1644, which led to the overthrow of the newly declared Shun dynasty and the advent of the Manchu Qing. I believe that the latter battle is occasionally referred to as the Chinese Hastings, although the forces engaged in Hastings were paltry compared to Shanhaiguan. The final Manchu cavalry attack was carried out by 20000 men.

That fact underpins a lot of the problems and wargame opportunities with Early Modern China. China is big, very big. The mere fact that the Ming lasted so long is testimony to the fact that, firstly, the Ming were not widely regarded as incompetent or having lost the Mandate of Heaven at least until 1644, and were reasonably popular, as far as it went in a very large country indeed.

It is a shame that the activities in Asia are not more widely known and wargamed. There is a bit of a dearth of information (Swope’s book is academic, and its cost was commensurate with that), and even this book, combined with the available Ospreys, gives only a flavour of the forces. Still, there are some interesting snippets to take away and ponder.

Firstly, artillery was important. The Chinese made their own and also imported foreign cannon, some with Portuguese gunsmiths and crew. Until the Manchu got their artillery act together, they did not make all that much progress against Chinese fortresses. Once they did, the Chinese had to withdraw their artillery into the fortresses themselves. Yes, you read that right, in the early days, the Chinese artillery was deployed outside the walls. It seems to me that the idea was that a few salvoes from the guns and the barbarians would run away. This was probably true until the more disciplined Manchu arrived.

The other thing to garner from the book is the peasant rebellions and the Ming attempts to contain them and put them down. Again, the numbers are huge, and the operations are on a vast scale. In fact, that was part of the problem. The Ming had real logistical problems in supplying their forces, and frequently, the peasants feared the arrival of government forces more than they did rebels. Again, as the rebels advanced, they gained numbers, arms and equipment, including gunpowder weapons, and confidence.

The book details a couple of sieges. One a fairly local affair where a country town held out against rebel forces. With the cooperation of officials, local gentry and the townspeople, the town survived. Swope observes that the Ming polity was not doomed from the outset, but let down by infighting between officials, attempts to gain office and take down one’s rivals, and a fatal lack of understanding between civilian and military commanders, exacerbated by the Emperor’s habit of sending eunuchs from court to take control. When officials objected, he pointed out that he could not trust anyone else to carry out his orders!

There are some maps, mostly useful, in the book as well. One of the key areas was the Bohai Gulf in the north-east, where China, Korea and Manchuria meet. There was quite a lot of naval activity in the Gulf, which was a bit of a surprise to me, as I thought the Chinese had abandoned naval action. In the Korean war, there was a lot of transport, but they did not really, so far as I can recall, get involved in the naval action. I will have to recheck that.

Still, a fascinating book on an under-appreciated part of wargaming, I think. In 1600 – Something, the Chinese are currently rich and fairly inactive. I suspect that might change.