1600 – Something: Burma

The next wargame in Spring 1605 is still in the east, being the Laotian invasion of Burma. Those of you with long memories, or not much else to do, will recall that the Laotians invaded Luang Prabang. In part, this was because the Laotians only have one province, and now have two armies, a garrison and an army in Laos proper. Thus, expansion was important. An extra province would provide the income to support the armies. The same, in fact, is true of the Swedes in the west. See how the logic of imperialism works!

The Laotians failed their GOOS roll and thus had to fight their way in. They had a general on an elephant, a base of cavalry, eight bases of tribal foot infantry, and two bases of bows. The Burmese did not draw an elephant card for their army, but had one cavalry base, nine tribal foot bases and two bows. The terrain rolling favoured the defending Burmese, with a large central hill.

The Laotians are to the left in the above picture, with the Burmese defenders mostly on the central hill. Given the strategic situation outlined above, the Laotians really needed to go for a win. This led to some initial jockeying for position. Originally, the Burmese had deployed their foot in two blocks of four, one on the hill and one behind it. The Laotians had also deployed four deep, looking for a mass charge up the hill in overwhelming depth. The Burmese took advantage of their ability to redeploy one troop block and closed up on the hill. The Laotians then split their tribal foot, as seen above.

The Laotian plan was to assault the hill frontally with the archers and demonstrate with the nearest block of tribal foot, until such time as the rest, led by the general, were in position to flank the troops on the hill. I knew the timing would be tricky, but previous experience suggests that a position on a hill is strong, and the Laotians, as I said, really needed a win.

The game opened predictably enough, with the Laotian archers advancing, and the flanking tribal foot led by the general heading into the valley between the hills (there is another hill on the far side of the table, by the way). The Laotian archers also got going, while the central tribal foot and the cavalry have hung back. I am afraid you will have to put up with the slightly iffy quality of the picture (even by my standards), however, and the camera battery decided to go on strike at this point.

Still, the absence of the camera did not mean that the reader is going to miss much of the action, as the Estimable Mrs P. returned at this point, and the action had to be resumed the next day. I was concerned for the Laotians, as their plan depended on the timing of the frontal and flank attacks. It turned out I was right to be worried.

It turned out badly for the Laotians. In my anxiety, I moved the Laotian foot facing the hill towards their enemy on the hill. I was hoping to win the next tempo round, and so I could bring, at least, the general on his elephant crashing into the wing of the pinned Burmese infantry. Alas, the best laid plans of mice and men….

The Laotians lost the next tempo round, and their infantry got charged by the Burmese downhill, as you can see above. The tribal foot on the far side has been routed; those on the near side have been badly shaken. The chargers have swept past the Laotian general who was carefully lining himself up for a flank attack, and are now (or will be after following up) out of range.

Incidentally, in the foreground, you can see the Laotian cavalry advancing. They were hoping to get to the Burmese baggage and cause some disruption and despair. You can also see the Burmese cavalry countering them. On the top of the hill, you can see the Laotian bowmen have successfully routed their opponents, somewhat against the odds.

It was nearly, but not quite, all over for the Laotians. The remaining infantry facing the hill were duly routed, while the general tried to turn his forces back to face the rest of the Burmese foot on the hill. In the centre, the Laotian bowmen fought off a rear attack on them by some Burmese archers. It just goes to show that not all the Laotian dice rolling was bad. In the foreground, the Burmese cavalry has charged and routed their Laotian equivalents. Getting caught downhill and in flank was never going to be viable.

With that, the Laotian losses got to 5 bases, and a so-so morale roll indicated that it was time to withdraw. I suppose they were lucky not to do worse. The spare Burmese tribal foot base on the hill had refused to charge (albeit uphill) the hitherto victorious Laotian bowmen. If they had, and the other Burmese bowmen had hit them in the rear, then, most likely, the Laotians would have routed.

This was another interesting wargame, wherein the elephants did not make much impact. I think it has been remarked on before that tribal foot-based armies either win big or go home in a hurry, and the Burmese certainly did the winning big thing. The game also threw up some other points, such as the difficulty of assaulting hills which are held in strength, and the need to get the timing right, which the Laotians failed in.

The other real lesson is not to use isolated bases to try to get to the enemy’s baggage. The Muscovite cossacks failed a few games ago, and the Laotian cavalry did here. I suppose with a 12- or 18-base army, using one base to go after a speculative win is probably a waste of resources. I must school myself not to do it again, especially as the Muscovites and Swedes are next up.

1600 – Something: The Errors of the East

As mentioned last time, I had overlooked the Vietnamese move, which was deferred from the Winter turn to Spring 1605. So, to recompense, I turned my attention to what the Vietnamese were up to. It turned out that they had invaded Southern China, possibly detecting a slight weakness in the Ming regime, and an opportunity to remove the suzerainty of the overlord state. Well, maybe, or, given that China thought it had an ally in Vietnam, while the Vietnamese were hostile to China, perhaps it was a local general taking advantage. We will see.

Anyway, a Vietnamese army of 2 bases of elephants (including the general), 2 cavalry, 3 bows, 2 skirmishers and 3 assorted pole-arm bases were to take on a Chinese local force. This turned out to be 3 bows, 6 blades, 2 cavalry and a shot base. I admit to having a bitof a problem in putting these forces together, especially as the same day I had just undercoated a bunch of Chinese figures. But if I had delayed until I finished them, the whole campaign would stall, probably for weeks. So I pressed on.

The Vietnamese army is to the left in the above picture. The elephants and cavalry, including the general, are to the left centre, with the skirmishers up front on the right, nearest the camera. On the right of the shot, the Chinese have deployed archers on a hill, backed up by the shot and some blades (actually, spearmen, but the effect in the game is of blades). On their right, they have more blades, cavalry and a base of archers waiting, rather hopefully, to fill the elephants full of arrows.

I confess, I was not confident for either side. The Chinese position on the hill was fairly strong, but the other flank looked rather weak, especially against elephants. On the other hand, for the Vietnamese, the elephant/cavalry combination could be potent, but take a lot of coordination. While an assault up the hill was rather uninviting, albeit practical.

In an attempt to wrong-foot the Chinese, the Vietnamese decided to divert their blades and bows to the attack on the hill. The skirmishers, however, were getting a bit of a pasting from the firepower on the hill. Perhaps I should have smelt the coffee there and then, but the Vietnamese pressed on. The Chinese, recognising the threat, have started to move some more blades towards the hill as well.

The fight for the hill started to suck in more resources from both sides. The Vietnamese managed to get the skirmishers out of the way before they were destroyed by Chinese firepower. They have also, remarkably managed to rally them, and one base is being sent back into the marsh to have another go. The Vietnamese bows, nearest the camera, and the blades, next along, are about to make their assault. The blades, however, have had to drop a base due to the constraints of the terrain. The Chinese have moved up their blades from their right to by the wood, and the general has arrived to take control. The blades from the back of the hill are also advancing into line on the hill top. The Vietnamese general has also arrived; a general on an elephant is always a bit of a threat. On the far side, the remaining Vietnamese elephant and the cavalry have been ordered to advance.

It went a bit pear-shaped for the Vietnamese. The attack of the blades was, at best, a partial success, driving back one Chinese base but losing the other to a freak rout result. The attack up the hill was an equal failure, the Chinese blades driving back to bows and routing one base, while the Chinese bows held, or better, their Vietnamese opposites. A poor morale roll for the Vietnamese army meant that they went into ‘fall back’ mode, which is why no one has any move order markers anymore.

It was not the end for the Vietnamese, however. They regained their tempo point mojo, which had deserted them, and attempted to press on.

It was not to be, however, before the general could strike home on his elephant, another base of bows routed, and that was followed by the one you can see in the foreground, just about clinging on to existence. At this point, the Vietnamese conceded the game, being 4 bases down and with few resources to stop the inevitable advance of the Chinese infantry.

The Chinese, in fact, were happy to see them go, as their foot around the hill would take some reorganising to get back into a fighting force again. The game, therefore, counts as a defeat for the Vietnamese, but not as bad a loss as it could have been.

Well, it was nice, after a bit of a hiatus, to get the elephants out again, even if they had minimal impact on this game. The threat of elephants is enough to tie up some units, I find. In this case, two elephants and two cavalry started by holding 7 Chinese bases in front of them. But, as the Chinese realised that the main effort was to be an assault on the hill, they managed to move some resources around.

Could I have done more with the Vietnamese? Possibly the elephants could have been used more usefully against the hill, but I do have memories of a Mogul elephant assault on a hill that ended badly. The nature of the terrain was really against the offensive, I think, and they were channelled into one side or the other of the central wood. But deploying the elephants on the hill side of the wood would have signalled the assault even more, and made it more cramped. I could probably have used the skirmishers better in the terrain, rather than waltzing up to the enemy firepower, hopefully, and nearly getting blown away.

I suppose the last comment is that the Vietnamese tempo deserted them in the middle of the game, which did not help in coordinating the attack. Still, I think I could have done better, and I am considering increasing the foot skirmisher’s offensive capacity. Maybe another time I’ll actually get the elephants into combat. And so to Burma and Laos….

1600 – Something: Stirring in the East

After the excitement of Spring and Summer 1604, Autumn was rather quiet. Bavaria managed to fumble its initiative roll and suffered a diplomatic embarrassment, while the Poles raised another army. The French indulged in a little diplomacy, while the Muscovites were having a few problems. Their defeated army from the previous move had been forced back into Latvia, which is not Muscovite territory, and they did not have the finances to replace the lost bases, so it was an army that was at half strength anyway. Fortunately, before this got even more complicated, they got a move card and decided to merge the defeated army from Estonia into the one that was the support army for the original fight. So the Latvian force moved to Novgorod and became a train unit.

Winter 1604 saw the massive expansion of the map, as seen above. Europe is the left-hand side, above, with all the pins stuck in it. Eurasia east of the Urals is to the right, with few pins, at least until we get to south-east Asia, which is a bit of an armed camp. Persia, India, and China are quite demilitarised at this point. We will see how long that lasts.

Still, the changes to the campaign rules were minimal, largely consisting of lists of countries and their provinces, their strategic aims, and the initial locations of military forces. The East has, of course, its own diplomatic table, and the scruffy bit of paper pinned in the middle of the board is the overlap table, consisting of the Persians and Ottomans (who happen to be at war). The rules do incorporate possible raids by early colonial forces – Portuguese, Dutch, and possibly English, but I have not quite worked out how to incorporate these fully. Hopefully, I will have an idea soon.

There are rules for various raiders and unruliness in some parts of the continent. The Circassians, Tartars, Cossacks, Mongols, Tibetans, and Jurchen are all capable of having civil wars or invading somewhere contiguous if they have a mind. They are not ‘active powers’, but I am hoping they will have a disruptive effect. Mongols are also available for hire by China and the Moguls.

Still, with now 22 active powers, the rolling and card turning took a little longer. The Spanish raised a garrison in the Netherlands, while the Cambodians raised a second army. Laos raised a garrison, and Korea raised an army. The Vietnamese got a move card, which was deferred to spring. In random events, the Ottoman Emperor died, while Farsistan was hit by plague. The unruliness roll revealed that there was some disturbance among the Mongols in the summer of 1605.

Moving on to Spring 1605, a lot of diplomacy erupted. Poland, Persia, and Siam all raised extra armies. The Muscovites moved back into Estonia while the Laotians invaded Luang Prabang. They failed their GOOS score and so have to face a scratch local force. There was no random event in the West, but in the East the Jurchen invaded. This was resolved as the Jiang invading Haixi. Three wargames, therefore, and I had managed to forget the Vietnamese.

Both Jurchen armies (I decided to start at the east end and work my way west) were card drawn. The Jiang got 5 cavalry and 7 light horse, while the Haixi got 4 cavalry and 8 light horse. The table was very simple, the steppe only broken by a road and a hill.

I confess that this wargame stretched my resources of Mongols. The Jiang are to the right, drawn from my Mongol hordes, while the Haixi have had to accumulate a scratch light cavalry force from various sources – Cossacks, Tartars, and even a few Serbo-Croat hussars (I suppose I could have used Ottomans instead). The Haixi cavalry formation nearest the camera is on top of the hill.

The Haixi had the better of the opening skirmishes. As you can see above, the light horse have inflicted some damage on their opposite numbers, so much so that the Jiang heavy cavalry has had to move forward to provide a shield for the shaken lights.

Unfortunately for the Haixi, their tempo dice deserted them, leaving the general unable to control the light cavalry anymore. The first problem is shown above; the central Haixi lights simply did not move out of the way of the Jiang heavies and were ridden down. You can see the remnants fleeing past the Haixi heavy cavalry to the left.

Things did not get much better for the Haixi. The command disruption from a poor morale roll meant that their left flank light cavalry were the next caught by Jiang cavalry, and you can see their destruction starting on the far side, although one base has fought off the Jiang. In the centre, the Jiang heavy cavalry has withdrawn slightly to get out of the Haixi horse-shoe death trap of light cavalry.

The Jiang managed to get much of their light cavalry into action again, while their right wing saw off the Haixi left. In the centre, an exasperated Haixi general has brought up the heavy cavalry, but the losses have, again, caused command disruption and everything is starting to look a little parlous.

Again, the dice gods were not kind to the Haixi. The Jiang light cavalry saw off another Haixi light base (fleeing left front), while the Jiang cavalry got the drop on the Haixi and have started to demolish the centre. At this point, perhaps mercifully, the morale roll gave the Haixi a rout result.

That was very interesting. I am really not used to these all-cavalry armies, and to have two, not quite mirror images, was fascinating. In the end, it all came down to the Haixi not managing to get enough tempo to continue the light cavalry battle. One thing I have discovered is that you need quite a lot of tempo to keep the light cavalry going, pulling shaken bases out of line, re-ordering recoiled bases, and so on. On the other hand, I have also discovered that getting the general involved in the skirmish is risky, and neither general did that this action.

I am not sure what the result of this battle will be. The Jiang have now conquered another province, but they are not quite players yet. I will bear it in mind, and of course, Nurhaci lives to fight another day.

1600 – Something: Estonia

Next up in the 1600 – Something battles is a game which is a little different, in that it does not include the Ottomans. Believably, it is the Swedes against the Muscovites. Those of you who have kept up with the narrative so far will know that the Danes, Poles, Swedes, and Muscovites have been, so to speak, winding each other up all campaign so far. Northern Europe has the highest density of armed forces on the map. The Danes, as has been recounted, have invaded Poland, and now the Swedes have attacked Muscovite forces in Estonia.

The Swedes have support from their own fleet, while the Muscovites have back-up from their second army. The forces are therefore both of 18 bases. Examination of the ‘Early Vasa’ DBR army list suggested that, basically, the forces were all either shot or cavalry. A basic force would have 6 cuirassiers and 6 shot, so the augmented force has 9 bases of each. The Muscovites have a more mixed force, of cavalry, Cossacks, two varieties of shot (streltsi and Cossack), and some Cossack spearmen. I suspect that the term ‘Cossack’ for all but the light horse is a bit of a misnomer, as these were urban forces, rather than the free-ranging runaways of the south.

The terrain rolling was interesting a productive. I got quite a lot of terrain for Eastern Europe, but no hills. Plenty of rough going, marshes, and a stream. In fact, I rolled a river and two streams, but had to rationalise. The Muscovite position, in particular, was a bit cramped, and that did cause problems.

The battlefield is shown above. The Swedes are to the left, infantry to the front and centre, cavalry on the wings, and in reserve. The Swedish plan was to attack with the shot, while the cavalry held the wings and deterred the Cossacks. To the right, the Muscovites deployed their infantry in the centre, with much of the cavalry on their right, the only means by which I could see to get them into reasonably open terrain. The Cossack horse are to the left, right, and centre, aiming to evade the Swedes and get to their baggage. This was probably a mistake on my part, but I could not see much future for them harassing the shot. They would (and, in part, did) just get blown away.

I made a few errors in the game setup, which affected both sides equally. I did not put enough baggage out for 1.5 armies on either side, and both sides should have had a least a sub-general, if not an extra d3 tempo roll. But neither side got these, although their camps grew magically after a couple of moves. The only effect was to slow the start of the game, really, as both sides struggled for tempo and were slow to get going.

After a few moves, the Swedish foot has got going. The Cossacks covering the Muscovite foot have been shaken and recoiled, while the Swedish shot is opening up on the Muscovites. In the left foreground, the Cossack left has crossed the stream but is being blocked by some cuirassiers.

There really is not a lot you can do with an attack by musketeers except get going and keep going, and that is exactly what the Swedes did, perhaps half a century before Ga-Pa tactics were invented. All the general can do is concentrate the firepower as much as possible and keep going, hoping for a lucky break.

The Swedes did get at least a partial lucky break. The streltsi by the rough going in the centre were put to flight by the firepower of a couple of Swedish bases. The Muscovites got an influx of tempo, and have started to move their cavalry around on the far side, and have also sent forward some more shot to patch up the centre. The general has also moved from the head of the reserve to the front line, opposing the Swedish general.

The infantry battle was pretty desperate, I have to admit. Above, the Muscovites have broken into different sections, and the Swedes, too, are getting a bit scattered. The Cossack spearmen are holding out easily against the Swedes, but the general and his base are driving them back. On the other hand, more Swedish foot are arriving. On the Swedish left, a base of cuirassiers has taken the opportunity to charge some Muscovite cavalry. This should have been easy, but in fact, despite the damage they inflicted, they landed up bounced. But the Muscovites could not exploit this, for reasons which will become apparent in the next picture.

Above, you can see some more Muscovite foot fleeing in various directions. There is also a Swedish base routing top left. This was the base being driven back in the last photograph, but the Swedish general survived the rout. He was parked with the next Swedish foot and drove back into the fray, this time routing the forward Muscovite foot and attached general. The Muscovite general did not survive, and their morale went to ‘fall back’, which they have just done.

Flushed with success, the Swedes followed up, although without much initial success except for further firefights. On their left flank, the cavalry charged again against the shaken Muscovite horse. They were bounced again. However, their colleagues then charged through the shaken base and routed their counterparts, who swept away a stray base that was too close. This was too much for the Muscovites, whose morale hit withdraw.

Well, that was a bit different, cavalry-heavy armies relying on their infantry for success. Swedish firepower did make the difference in this terrain, but I would not be so sure if the field was a bit more open and the cavalry could get in. The essential separator between the sides, however, was that the Swedish general survived, but the Muscovite one did not. The difference between rolling a 3 and a 6 on a die. The contingencies of history….

1600 – Something: The Empire Strikes Back

As my loyal reader may recall, a while ago in the campaign, the Persians invaded Mesopotamia and won an action against the local Ottoman forces. The Poles invaded Crimea and, again, beat off the Ottomans. As we have seen, in Spring 1604 the Ottoman counterattacked in both Crimea and were differently successful. So the next wargame was in Mesopotamia, where an Ottoman field army faced a Persian one.

The Ottomans, as I have noted, face a bit of a problem with the Persians. Firstly, with 5 cavalry, 3 light horse, 2 shot and 2 militia against 6 cavalry, 2 light horse, 3 shot and 1 militia, they are a bit outnumbered in all departments, especially where it counts in heavier cavalry and shot. Secondly, the terrain tends to favour cavalry armies, which they are, but not quite so much as the Persians and frankly, it feels like the militia are just to make up the numbers.

For the terrain, I rolled up two woods, a marsh, a stream and a hill. The hill is in the bottom left of the above picture, with the Ottoman camp on the top, and the infantry on its lower slopes. The sudden appearance of the camps (the Persians have one, too, lower right) suggests that phase two of the rebasing project, in this case, the reboxing part, has started. Rather than be buried under loads of terrain-filled box files, the camps and wagons and similar stuff are now in a slimline plastic box just underneath the generals. Out of sight is no longer out of mind, and I have thought for ages that I should require a camp for each army in these games. So here they are. I have some plans for developing this further, so stay tuned.

The major tactical problem for both sides was the stream. As the Ottomans were on the strategic offensive, it was really up to them to cross it, but the Persians needed to be able to stretch their cavalry’s hooves as well. The Ottomans decided to cross the water in two places, the infantry on the near side and the light cavalry and three bases of cavalry on the far side. The Persians aimed to deny the crossing to the Ottomans with their light cavalry on the far side, and the heavier cavalry massed on the near side, ready to charge anyone who foolishly crossed.

The opening exchanges were fairly neutral. The Ottomans have had a light horse bounced on the far side, and the initial attempt by the janissaries to cross the stream has retreated after the Persian general brought his cavalry into charge range. The Ottomans just about had the tempo to enforce the general rule that discretion is the better part of valour, but the janissaries were disordered by the effort.

A few moves later, and the Ottomans and Persians are both attempting to ford the stream. On the Ottoman left, the light horse (or most of them) has forced the Persian lights back and created the space for the spahi, under the eye of the general, to cross. The spahi are reorganising while the lights keep the enemy occupied. In the centre, the Persians spotted a gap between the two Ottoman wings and have moved to exploit it. The Ottoman reserves, more spahi, are arriving, hoping to manage to seal the opening, while the light horse who were removed from the skirmish have been ordered to assist. One of the Persian bases has failed the crossing, but the others are rallying.

A few moves later, and the Persian position is deteriorating. In the centre, the Ottoman reserve spahi have attempted a charge. One base succeeded (the Persians were still disordered, so not a group, and so could not be charged by a group). One base has been destroyed, while the other Ottoman base refused to go in. The Ottoman light horse is keeping the remaining Persians entertained, however. Meanwhile, the Ottoman spahi on the left have reorganised, while their light horse is being a nuisance on the Persian right and centre. Anticipating further trouble, the Persian general has moved the left wing across towards the centre, in the hope of getting to the Ottomans before they are properly organised.

It got a wee bit complicated. In the centre, the second Ottoman base charged, with support from the militia taking the remaining Persian spahi in flank. Despite the numbers, the Ottomans were bounced. On the Ottoman left, however, the remaining Persian spahi attacked and was more or less surrounded and finished off, while the rest of the wing disposed of one of the Persian light horse and forced the other one back. The movement of the Persian left to the centre meant that the Ottoman infantry could now cross the stream safely, which they have just done. Persian morale sank rather at this point, and everyone fell back.

With a bit of a juggle and a goodly number of tempo points, the Ottomans managed to gang up on the leftmost base of the remaining Persian cavalry, and eliminated it by a combination of a frontal charge, the general, and a disorganised flank attack across the stream. Persian morale actually improved at this, however, and I wondered if, now the Ottoman cavalry was even more disorganised, victory, or at least a draw, could still be snatched.

It was not to be, however. The Ottoman general and his cavalry continued their charge across the field, and were about to take the disrodered and shaken Persian spahi base in flank, when the Ottoman light cavalry shot at it again and routed it. At this, the Persian general, after some thought, decided that the day was lost and started to withdraw. The morale dice at the end of the turn were not at all kind, however, and his army dissolved into a rout.

This was a tough action for both sides. Someone had to risk crossing the stream and exposing themselves to a charge while disordered. The Ottomans managed it in the confined space between the wood and the stream, where the Persian cavalry could not really get at them. The Persian lights never got the tempo they needed to really cause trouble on the disordered troops as they crossed. In the centre, the Persians got across, but were then rocked back by the Ottoman cavalry reserve, light horse and militia. It all went downhill from there, rather.

Strategically, the Ottomans finally have a win, and the threat to the eastern edge of the empire is blunted, at least for now. This might leave them free to counter the Poles in Crimea and the Austrians invading Hungary. I suspect my Ottoman troops might be demanding overtime soon!

The End of the Year Show

Well, the end of the year has crept up on me, all unexpected. Actually, it has been rather hidden by the madness that we call ‘Christmas’ here at chez Polemarch. Not just the usual pagan ‘eat and drink and be merry’ stuff that the rest of the world indulges in, for the Estimable Mrs P. gets an awful lot of work to do in what used to be called ‘Advent’ but is now, apparently, Christmas.

Anyway, grumbling and humbuggery aside, it is probably time to review the year’s wargaming, of which I am pleased to say, there has been a reasonable amount. I can report the encouraging total of 38 wargames played. Two of these were ancients, and the rest were across a number of campaigns: Toungoo, A Very Mogul Civil war, the War of Stuart Succession and, latterly, 1600 – Something.

There were only a couple of games in Burma, as that campaign was winding up at the end of last year. The Very Mogul Civil War yielded eight games and finished with a round of murder and possible assassination rather than a decisive field action. The introduction of subversion rules made diplomatic activities a lot more, um, interesting.

The War of Stuart Succession was a very interesting and rather amusing campaign, set in a fictional world with several possible claimants to Elizabeth Tudor’s crown. In the end, a rather unexpected winner emerged, which seems to have vindicated, at least in my mind, the way the campaign rules worked. The innovation here was the God On Our Side (GOOS) roll, which players made when entering new areas to see if they were welcomed as conquering heroes or had the local armed forces called out against them. The Scots were a bit unlucky in this; Arbella Stuart was rather lucky. Still, despite grabbing control of the Channel early in the campaign, I doubt many people foresaw Isabella of Austria being the ultimate winner. Twelve wargames resulted from this campaign, a rather pleasing number. It also included a naval encounter, as mentioned, which required some rules to be created, fast.

The next campaign was one I had had in mind for ages. As I remarked at the outset, nearly 30 years ago, I ran a play-by-email game called 1618 – Something, which covered the whole of the Eurasian landmass. This ground to a halt in complexity and a lack of orders from some players, but I had spent quite a lot of time amassing the toys for various armies from across that part of the globe. So I created the map (in a different style, this time) of Europe west of the Urals (or thereabouts), and set off, using the WSuS campaign rules, slightly modified to accommodate some budgeting. Not that most early modern rulers knew, or particularly cared, what their budget was, but it does add some restrictions as to what they can do.

To date, the campaign, which started in Spring 1600, has reached 1604. There have been 13 games in the sequence so far, with another one in the pending file, which, doubtless, will happen fairly soon. The campaign so far has proved to be fascinating, with a good number of twists and turns and, most importantly for me as a solo wargamer, lots of decision points. The variety of armies is also a bonus, from Tartars and Persians to full-blown pike and shot armies. There is a lot going on.

As I have hinted, there is also an expansion planned for this campaign, spreading east to India, China and Japan, with, hopefully, a side issue of Indonesia. I have yet to work out the full details, or, indeed, finish the map. I have discovered that the European map needs a bit of adjustment, and my knowledge of the political geography of Mongolia in the early Seventeenth Century is woefully lacking. The Estimable Mrs P is concerned that it might bog down, but I am hopeful that the current system can handle it, even if I might have to abandon scrawled bits of paper for a spreadsheet for some of the administration.

In other developments, the ancients collection has all gone to its new homes. I say ‘all’, but that is not quite true. I have discovered a number of civilians in my ‘camps’ box, which I will have to consider the future of. After all, I cannot really have my ECW camps full of Greek generals in bronze armour, can I? I’ll have to sort them out. Similarly, the 15 mm Peter Laing collection has found its way (eventually) to Australia, where I hope they are settling in.

The rebasing project has, remarkably, been completed. This has led to a modest order to Irregular (in their new guide as 2 and 6 mm) to use up some of the odd bases, and round out one or two of the armies whose infantry quotas were a bit low. They will have to be painted, and their compatriots will have to be repainted, I guess, but it is really a fairly modest total, about 30 strips in all. I can only apologise to the manufacturer for buying one strip of this and one of that….

The project has now moved into phase two, which is reducing the footprint of the current collection. The Aztecs have a new home in a 2-tier box, while some of the others are now in much flatter containers. The taller plastic boxes are the destination of the terrain collection, but I’ve still not worked out what to do with the 20 mm scale buildings.

In other news, I did a podcast, which was about my book. The podcast is still available here. It is about an hour long, and various friends and acquaintances have listened to it, some while decorating. One or two expressed a desire to print out some WW2 ship counters from the internet and give wargaming a try. I’m not sure they ever did.

I started the year resolved to try to have more wargames, and I think I succeeded in that. Not only that, but all but two were campaign games, which seems to suggest that these held (and continue to hold) my interest. I managed 38 games in 2025, as opposed to 24 in 2024. The trend is in the right direction, and, a relatively small quantity of painting aside, hopefully I can get even more boots on the ground (or bases on the felt) in 2026.

1600 – Something: Crimea Again

 After the excitement of the Summer 1603 turn, it was perhaps inevitable that things would quieten down a bit. In the Autumn, the Spanish tried to raise resistance in France and failed, while Bavaria tried to reconcile with its own internal problems and also failed. The Muscovites, nervously eyeing the Swedish advance around the Baltic, raised a second army, based in Novgorod, while the Ottomans managed to raise two, one in Anatolia and one in Bulgaria. The French, still smarting from their frontier defeats, added an artillery train to the army in Burgundy, while the Danes moved theirs to Pomerelia, to support the weakened army there, which also gained reinforcements. Poland engaged in a round of diplomacy, while also suffering a corruption scandal which robbed the treasury of 2 d.

The Winter brought more rounds of diplomacy, and some deferred moves (if a move card is drawn in winter, the move is deferred to Spring). In England, another army was raised, although to what purpose is unclear. The random event was a mutiny. A bit of dice rolling established that the Spanish army in Savoy was the culprit, and the army dispersed. This left the Spanish position on the eastern borders of France severely weakened.

The advantage the Spanish have, of course, is vast quantities of money. They therefore fired 12 d into northern Italy and raised a new army. In Spring 1604, they also drew a move card and managed to rush the newly raised force into Savoy. There, they made a critical roll on the GOOS dice and were welcomed with open arms. Savoy has now applied to join the Spanish family of nations. The French reverted to attempting to subvert Spain’s internal stability, with some success. Further east, the Austrians, noting Ottoman weakness, moved an army into Ottoman Hungary, while the Muscovites, using their winter move as well as spring, moved into Estonia. The Danes attempted, without success, to subvert Poland internally, while the Poles raised an artillery train for their army in Little Poland and moved both to Greater Poland.

Meanwhile, the Ottomans were also using their two moves. The first saw them return to the Crimea, to challenge the now unsupported Polish army there, while the other advanced into Mesopotamia, to sort out the Persian invaders. So, two battles were on the books. The Estimable Mrs P. inquired whether I was going to run them simultaneously (I do have two tables, after all), but I do not have sufficient Ottomans for the task.

The first action to be resolved was the Ottoman counter-attack into the Crimea. This was a straightforward encounter between two field armies. The Ottomans have 5 spahi, 3 light horse, 2 janissary shot and 2 militia, while the Poles muster 3 winged hussars, 3 pancerni, 3 light horse, and 3 shot. I did not roll a great deal of terrain for this one: a road, which everyone ignored, a river, which was in a corner of the table, and a couple of pieces of marsh and rough going.

The picture above shows the setup. The Ottomans are to the left, the Poles to the right. The Polish plan was to use their cavalry advantage to attempt to outflank the Ottoman infantry, and, if possible, one or both of their cavalry wings. The Ottomans were to try to get their infantry into the Polish foot, where their extra numbers might give them an advantage. They have kept a spahi base back, hoping to provoke the Poles into a charge and then pick off some of the charging bases with the reserve.

The light cavalry clashed quite early on, with the Poles gaining an advantage. The Ottoman foot has started to advance, while so have the pancerni on the right front of the picture. Both the Polish cavalry wings have moved out from their initial positions in the hope of getting a flank attack in.

A sudden dearth of Polish tempo points left the pancerni advancing in charge range of the Ottoman right, so charge they did. One Ottoman base has routed, while the other will shortly follow. However, the Ottoman general has brought up the reserves to save the day. In the centre, the Polish light cavalry has defeated the Ottomans, while the Ottoman infantry continues its advance.

It was here that things went a little pear-shaped for the Ottomans. The reserves, even under the direct orders of the general and on the flank of the victorious pancerni, refused to charge. Nice idea, shame about the execution. On the other hand, Ottoman dice rolling in these last combats was poor.

Still, the Ottoman right was now routed, and the Poles were even starting to rally their charging pancerni. The Ottomans had started to waver somewhat, which added to their difficulties, while the Poles were starting to anticipate victory. Even the winged hussars were thinking of advancing, rather than just hanging around on the right and looking menacing.

The Ottoman general got his flank charge in, eventually, sweeping away the isolated pancerni on the Polish left, as seen in the left foreground above. The Polish foot and light horse, however, were starting to close in on the Ottoman infantry, which was starting to look a little isolated. Action was required.

Both sides had a sudden burst of tempo. The Ottomans galvanised their light horse to go to the rescue of the foot, while their left flank cavalry advanced to protect the infantry from the winged hussars. The general even managed to rally his cavalry from the charge, as you can see in the foreground. The Poles, however, kept the upper hand. One of the rallied left wing pancerni faced off the general and his cavalry, while the other rode down some light horse (from behind). In the centre, the firefight started, while the Polish light horse got the best of their foes. Finally, the other element of Polish cossacks kept the general and his cavalry under attack, preventing them from rallying.

The loss of the light horse base and a bad morale throw meant it was too much for the Ottomans, and they decided to withdraw. They had, I feel, been rather unlucky. The Polish plan was not for the pancerni to make an all-out charge on their left, and they could have lost most of it to the Ottoman general if the latter had not refused the charge. That would have at least evened things up.

Strategically, the Ottomans have been repelled from the Crimea again, which will look bad internationally. On the other hand, the European army is still intact and may soon have its hands full dealing with the Austrian encroachment. Meanwhile, in Mesopotamia…..