How Soon is Too Soon?

Normally, this blog is written a bit in advance, maybe a week or six. But not at the moment. I have been busy, as I said before, and wargaming has, while not taken a back seat, has certainly had to be fitted in around other things. Thus, this week, I had no particular ideas except the half-formed Hamptonshire campaign. Fortunately, as supper one night, the Estimable Mrs P. asked a question which saved the day, as it were:

‘How soon is too soon to wargame something?’

I asked for some clarification, and it turned out she was wondering whether anyone was wargaming Ukraine or Gaza. Well, I have not seen any such game, at least so far, except in professional gaming circles, but that is, after all, their job. But I dare say someone is at least considering Ukraine even if it is not being actively wargamed yet.

It put me in mind of some of the posts from the early days of the blog when I was wondering what the ethical implications of wargaming were. As far as I recall, there are none, in particular, but there are plenty of matters of taste. At least, there are ethical matters about behaviour, such as whether to cheat or not, but not about the choice of wargame subject, which is a matter of taste. The difference is, I suppose, that taste varies while ethical considerations at least make a claim to be objective. Whether or not they are is a matter of opinion, of course, but that seems to be the difference.

So, to return to the question, how soon is too soon to wargame something as a hobby game? I tried to avoid the question, of course and observed that I do not play anything post about 1745, but that was not permitted as an answer. I hazarded ‘about the last 100 years’, so included nothing which is in people’s living memory, more or less. That actually puts World War One in the frame, and I am unsure if I would really want to wargame that. I have seen, of course, very good and interesting WW1 games, but it just is not to my wargaming taste, I suppose.

However, I have dabbled in World War Two wargaming, such as the Siege of Malta game which is in that book (for the record, the Allies lost Malta and, presumably, the Suez Canal was cut). That was a more pen-and-paper game than one which included getting models out, however, and I still harbour suspicions that, except at a skirmish level, WW2 is best played in that way. I know that there are some operational and strategic level games out there which use models, and I think that is a good thing, but they are heading more to the pencil-and-paper resource management level of the game anyway.

So, having brought the wrath of all right-thinking WW2 wargamers down upon my head, what about more recent warfare. Korea is certainly done, of course, and can be regarded, I suppose, as an off-shoot of WW2 – the equipment, except jet fighters, was more or less the same. Vietnam is a bit more tricky, of course, with lots of airmobile units, helicopter gunships, and mass bombings, aside from charming ideas such as Agent Orange. Again, it is a matter of taste, but for me, wargaming counter-insurgency operations is heading into the tasteless, because civilians are heavily involved.

So too are more recent conflicts, many of which are Co-In in nature. For example, recent activities in Iraq and Afghanistan were certainly counter-insurgent operations, and while I have seen them wargamed, do not really seem to have caught on. Perhaps it is because the home countries of many wargamers lost, or perhaps because insurgents and terrorism make somewhat less than good wargames. I am not sure, and time will tell.

Arrival at some conflicts possibly gives us some pause. The Falkland Islands I have seen wargamed, but not all that much. Perhaps it became too politicised too quickly for many wargamer’s tastes. The assorted post-colonial wars are occasionally done, but most people, understandably, prefer some sort of imaginary game rather than the brutal reality of, say, Biafra or the death squads in Central and South America. For example, I did rather enjoy the board game Junta, where the rules stated ‘the coup starts with the traditional naval bombardment of the Presidential Palace’. But it was set in an imaginary banana republic.

There might be a geographical element to this. Playing a wargame of, say, the siege of Londonderry might be straightforward in Germany, perhaps less so in Ireland, or at least, it might raise some uncomfortable present or recent realities and interpretations. History is often the political present, after all. It is here that transfers of historical events to other canvasses, locations and time periods can, I suppose help, but that raises questions, I suppose, as to whether our historical wargaming is historical, or whether we are simply feeling pressured by current political and cultural trends into avoid uncomfortable historical truths.

Many years ago Paddy Griffiths published some articles on uncomfortable wargames, raising the question of whether we dare wargame something, or whether we did not because they simply made bad games. His main example was the WW1 Western Front, which, he felt, made a bad game. Of course, since he wrote (in the 1980s I think) wargame design has moved on and the games, as games, can be good ones. But as WW1 slips from memory into history it is probably worth asking again does it make us uncomfortable? Do we try to take on more recent historiography of the war and the front and suggest that perhaps the interpretations available 40-odd years ago have changed, and that ‘lions led by donkeys’ as a judgment is a bit harsh on the high command.

Fortunately, I do not have a sufficient grasp of World War One to say, so I am only posing a question. But I think it is worth posing: how soon is too soon to have a comfortable wargame?

What do you think?

Wagon Train

‘You gave him the money?’

‘We … negotiated.’

‘What did you get out of it? He’s got all the money.’

‘Well, I didn’t have to die a glorious but pointless death.’

‘So now you want the money back?’

‘Well, not really. But if the Germans make it to the Empire with it, they’ll buy themselves a patch of land next door to us, and that might be a bad thing for both of us. So if we get the money back, we can keep them from settling on our borders.’

‘Very well, my friend, we shall plan to do just that. But the Romans are usually not happy when people attempt to keep money from them.’

*

So, here is the setup for the next battle in the Sarmatian Nation campaign. Actually, it is based on a venerable wagon train scenario, from George Gush’s Airfix Guide to the English Civil War. I’m probably showing my age now. Indeed, the scenario was to be run with my ECW troops, but I decided to switch things around and use the ancients, in, for me, copious quantities. In the original scenario, the Parliamentarians were required to escort some wagons from Little Pottering to Puddleby, while a Royalist raiding force tried to stop them. In my reworking, the Germans are attempting to take their booty from Temeshvekovar to the Roman Empire to buy some land. The Dacians and Sarmatians are trying to stop them.

The above picture shows the starting positions, roughly. The Germans, at the far end, got a few moves to get started. The wagons (or, actually, pack animals – Dacia is hilly) are divided into three. Two on the left-hand road, three on the middle, and one on the right as we look at it. Figulus Modicum is in the distance, while Conlectus is nearest the camera, with the Roman infantry gathering. Rubigo Praetorium is in the middle distance, with a small Roman outpost. The Dacians arrive at the far end, on a cumulative tempo roll of 18, while the Sarmatians arrive on the right with a cumulative roll of 19.

A few moves later, things are starting to happen. The Dacians have arrived at the far end, moving along the roads in an effort to catch the pack horses. In the distance on the right, the German sub-general has moved his charges and tribal foot into Collis Agri and is preparing to defy all comers. This is because the Sarmatians have just arrived on the right of the picture and split into three forces: one to face the Romans, one to attack towards the middle road, and the other to intercept the left road.

It got quite complicated quite quickly. I managed to sort out who won the tempo and keep track of that, and the above picture shows the opening clashes in the centre of the battlefield. The first wave of Sarmatians charged and caught the German train guards before they deployed properly. They are now fleeing (yellow markers) while the Sarmatians follow up. In the right foreground, the German tribal foot are cowering in the field, while the Romans face more Sarmatians.

It went downhill from there for the Germans and Romans. Towards the river, the Romans started to cross the river, but they were a bit stymied by the Sarmatians under Vodkaschnapps himself. While the Sarmatians declined to charge the deploying Roman infantry, they did charge the deployed auxiliary cavalry and routed them in one go, on a fluky dice roll. This caused the Romans to fall back across the river, as they had, in addition, lost the Romans based at Rubigo Praetorium had also mostly been lost to Sarmatian charges.

At this point, the Romans and Germans conceded the game. The Romans were knocked out and the Germans had lost three of the loads of money, another would have to surrender as soon as Dubloswhiskos brought up some more troops. The other two loads, on the left-hand road, might make it to Roman territory but also might be overtaken either by the Dacians pursuing them or by Sarmatians spared from the centre.

That was a complicated but fun action. In this campaign the Sarmatians have really been devastating, I do not think Vodkaschnapps lost a battle, or, indeed, I suspect, and bases along the way. Neither the Romans, Germans nor the Dacians turned out to have anything much to oppose a full-blooded Sarmatian cataphract charge. The Roman cavalry, it is true, were unfortunate to get caught with their backs to a river and on the receiving end of the 6-1 roll, and in the centre Vodkaschnapps had to be careful, as the cataphracts are a definite one-shot weapon, although a rallying base of Sarmatians did manage to best some German cavalry at the end.

I am not sure if there are many more wargames left in this campaign. The Sarmatians can more or less do what they want, the Romans will remain behind their border fortification. Dubloswhiskos can live in peace with his Dacian tribe (which is all he ever wanted to do), while the Germans might be able to acquire a little land from the Romans and Dacians to scratch a living from. The campaign has resulted in 10 wargames since February 2020, it seems. Not bad for a campaign with no maps, I think, but Dubloswhiskos and Vodkaschnapps deserve a happy retirement, I think.

*

‘We did it, my friend.’

‘We? You did most of it. Those cavalry of yours are terrifying.’

‘They do the job. But now the boys would like to go home.’

‘Home. I thought you were trying to make this your home.’

‘Ah, well. They prefer the life of the steppe, rather than this so-called civilised activity, like planting and harvesting.’

‘More like paying taxes and having people marching through your land, you mean.’

‘Yes, there has been a bit of that, I grant. But it was all for a good cause.’

‘You mean taking three loads of Roman money back to the steppe with you?’

‘It will, of course, help. And, when the boys get bored again, or their wives start nagging, we might start on building my khanate.’

‘Farewell, Vodkaschnapps. Don’t be a stranger, but don’t bring an army next time you visit.’

‘Farewell, my friend. Keep the Romans at bay and enjoy your fields.’

To ECW or not to ECW?

For some reason, while I have a number of campaigns chuntering along, the English Civil War (Wars of the Three Kingdoms) do not seem to be one of them. This is a bit peculiar, as the ECW / WotTK is my oldest ‘serious’ wargame era. Many, many years ago I had quite sizeable (for a teenager) Peter Laing 15 mm ECW troops. They are still with me, remarkably, sitting quietly in a box in the cupboard.

All that time ago I had an ongoing ECW campaign, based in the Peterborough area. At the time I did not have extensive knowledge of the local ECW scene there, I just happened to have an OS map of the area and got on with it. As I recall, memory clouded by time and of course the rose-tinted spectacles of a more worldly and cynical older person, it was a lot of fun. Each side even put out a newspaper (on one side of an A5 sheet) which denounced the victories of the other, minimised their own losses, and even got into an argument as to whether weather forecasting was witchcraft or not. I do not recall why, but I do recall it happened. It cheered up my teenage years, anyway.

But more recently I have struggled a bit to get the ECW meaningfully onto the table. I have, as the blog will show, done a few bits. I tried out re-fighting the whole ECW in an afternoon, and that worked, although the points system for victory could have been done better. I also painted a large number of English, Irish and Scottish foot, and Irish and Scottish cavalry, along with some cuirassiers, and have used them for various small projects, most noticeably Benburb, which worked quite nicely. But not major to speak of.

A fair time ago I did run an ECW campaign in a county. The template was Hampshire (renamed Hamptonshire) and it worked quite nicely. Readers of the book will note some influence of this on one of the campaign suggestions for adding random elements. I also ran a campaign using the Speed map of Hampshire, which also worked quite nicely. I recall Royalist cavalry galloping around the High Street in Andover while the Parliamentary foot, hidden in the buildings, took potshots at them. Rather amusing and good fun all round. Not long ago, of course, the Jersey Boys campaign happened, which just about falls into the ECW remit, and was an amphibious operation to boot.

But more recently I have struggled to put something meaningful on the map or on the wargame table. I do, as it happens, have an idea which has been partially worked out, again using the Hamptonshire template, for one side or the other gunrunning, or at least delivering gunpowder to their forces, either in the county or beyond. I think it has legs, but I have not really got it off the ground yet.

Maybe the problem is my variety of troops. The ECW can feel a little staid, sometimes. The variety of troops is not great unless you introduce exotic ones such as highlanders (a bit difficult to do in southern England) and the more you read about the war, the more you realise that, firstly, it was quite local and secondly, it was mostly to do with sieges. Although I like skirmishes, there is a limit to how many I really want to run. And sieges, although perfectly possible to play, are a little bit of a pain and, again, are not something I particularly want to do often.

There is always the question in the back of my mind anyway, as to whether the royalists could really have won. As the blog reveals, I am not averse to a little alternative history, but with the ECW it is hard to find a convincing alternative which could produce a royalist victory, or at least give Parliament a longer run for its money. Strategically the latter had most of the cards – London, the south east and East Anglia, along with the navy. I suspect that the naval aspects of the ECW are underrepresented and little known, but it was important, both for importing (and exporting goods and hence yielding customs dues) gunpowder and for strategic flexibility, such as relieving Hull and Lyme.

Part of the problem, I think, is the decision to either go big, and look at the whole strategic situation, where the royalists are likely to lose, or to go local, where things can be a bit more balanced, but the sweep is lost. The thing is I would like both, and I have not found the correct level to design something at yet.

The upshot of this is that, lately, I have more or less avoided the ECW in my games and particularly campaigns. I have done the Italian Wars twice, of late, and even had a bit of a rampage in Asia with a few elephants, alongside the Japanese invasion of Korea, the British in Tangiers (which at least had ECW models on the table) and so on. Perhaps a slightly jaded wargamer is simply in pursuit of the exotic.

And yet I keep returning to the ECW as my sort of wargaming ground state. This is where I started, so there must be something in it, I feel. Of course, the only resort in these cases is often to stop overthinking the project, get some toys out, and play a game, I have done that, but still, there is something missing.

Perhaps, as I continue to read about the period, I simply know too much. Often, here, I bemoan the lack of information about a period and wonder how we can wargame it when we need much more knowledge. Here, perhaps, the opposite is the case. There is a lot of detail around on the ECW; is it possible to have so much that no simulation will match up to even the limited information we have about the reality? Am I really on a hiding to nothing?

The Third Battle of Temeshvekovar

‘But I cannot just give you the money.’

‘Why not, my friend, you don’t need it. All you are doing is stockpiling it.’

‘I know. We don’t live in a cash economy. But that is not the point.’

‘What is the point, then, my friend?’

‘The point is that the Romans want it, and I’ve got it, and that upsets them.’

‘But now, my friend, I want it, and I’m not a Roman.’

‘No, but you are someone who wants to give it to the Romans.’

‘Just so I can get somewhere to live, my friend. You can loan it to me as a mortgage. Money is supposed to do something, you know, not just sit there and be admired.’

‘No, really. I can’t just give it to you, nor do the other thing, whatever that is. Are you trying to make me a subscriber to the Tempus Oeconomicum?’

‘Well, if you won’t give it to me, I shall have to take it.’

*

Well, this time the Germans, who drew with the Romans in the last battle, you recall, are attempting to take the money from the Dacian stronghold of Temeshvekovar, to give to the Romans to buy some land so they can settle within the Empire. Even though the Dacians do not use money per se, they are not too keen on this idea, so will resist. As their tactics against the Romans in the previous two actions have proved successful, I shall try again.

The table is, as near as I could get it, as before. The river is fordable. Temeshvekovar is in the far right corner, and the playing cards show the likely locations of the Dacian forces. These were revealed either on German troops coming within 4 base widths of the feature, or getting line of sight behind a hill or wood. The Dacian commander could also choose to reveal his troops, on payment of a 1 tempo point penalty.

The action proceeded smoothly, with the first reveal of the Dacians in the enclosures, nearest the camera. There were no forces there, so the German cavalry pressed on to reveal behind the first hill. This is where the Romans tended to get ambushed and defeated, so I approached with caution.

As it turned out, there were only two Dacian light horse and a tribal foot base there. Clearly, the Dacians had decided to hold only lightly their positions on the far side of the river. The Germans deployed their skirmishers and then six bases of tribal foot against the threat, as well as the cavalry. The Dacian light horse made a mess of the German skirmishers but were no match for the combined foot and horse counter-attack. As they tried to cover the retreat to the river they were charged by the German cavalry and put to flight, as was the foot base.

The Germans pushed on, pausing on their left to reorganise after the fighting. The main German foot block crossed the river at the ford and deployed to threaten the Dacian foot on the hill across the river, led by Dubolwhiskos, the Dacian general (the sub-general had been lost with the light horse).

The Dacians deployed their archers and skirmishers to threaten the newly arrived Germans, while Dubolwhiskos summoned the remaining troops from their positions in Temeshvekovar and behind the woods as reinforcements. A lot now depended on the timing.

It all went a bit pear-shaped for the Dacians after this. More German tribal foot arrived and started to surround the hill, while a cautious advance (and some lucky tempo rolling) meant that some other German foot advanced into the skirmisher and archer bases, routing both of them. Humbug, as the Romanians might say if they spoke colloquial English.

This caused the Dacian army to waver, which meant that the columns advancing from the far end of the table stopped their advance temporarily. This allowed a number of things to happen. Firstly, the German cavalry, regaining the road, zipped through the lines and started to threaten the Dacian marching column flanks. Secondly, Dublowhiskos was rather stuck on his hill, as he dared not charge the victorious German foot, although he could catch them in flank, without exposing his own flank to the rest of the German foot.

The upshot of all this was that Dublowhiskos was more or less surrounded on his hill, as well as being heavily outnumbered, while his own reinforcements were stymied some distance away. This caused the generals some thinking. The Germans were not really interested in defeating the Dacians totally, and nor was Dubloswhikos particularly interested in a glorious death defending money he had no use for.

The picture shows the final positions. Temeshvekovar is just out of shot to the right, while Dubloswhiskos is on the hill in the centre left. It would be almost certain that the Germans would get him before his relieving columns arrived. The most advanced will almost certainly be attacked by the cavalry, while the other column although it is on the road, is a bit further back and the Germans would have even more foot, who have just forded the river, to face those. Dubloswhiskos therefore offered terms.

That was fun, and a different battle from the previous Temeshvekovars. The ambushers were deployed further back. Perhaps if I had launched the rearmost columns forward sooner things might have been different. On the other hand the Germans got across the river in force, and that was always going to be a bit of a handful. I thought the Dacians could hang on to the hill just across the ford, but that was probably a mistake. If Dubloswhiskos had retreated he might have had a better chance, but I thought he was pretty impregnable on the hill and dangerous if he charged off it. But the Germans worked around his flank and left him exposed.

*

‘Here you are. Three chests of Rome’s finest coins. I hope they bring you much pleasure.’

‘Thank you, my friend. I knew you would see sense. As your new neighbour I offer you the hand of eternal friendship, of course.’

‘Hm. Let us see. The Romans could order you to attack me. They are like that.’

‘What makes you think I would obey their orders?’

‘Living in the Empire. You would not have much choice, after all. Anyway, now you have to transport these crates to the Romans without losing it. I wish you well.’

The Hammer of Thor

‘You cannot order me about.’

‘Why not? I am the Roman governor and you are an invading tribe. I order you, in the name of the Emperor, to leave Roman territory or face the consequences.’

‘And I’m the Emperor of Of Nowhereland and I order myself to settle my homeless people in this place, before our children starve and our womenfolk start telling us off.’

‘It would seem that we are in a bit of a difficult place here, diplomatically.’

‘The Emperor of Rome is a long way away. We wouldn’t need to tell him, and by the time he found out I’m sure we’d all be good Roman citizens.’

‘I cannot allow that. You must return whence you came.’

‘Nah. I’d have to fight my way past the Dacians again and that’d be boring.’

‘Then I have no choice by to expel you by force.’

‘You have no choice but to face the full wrath of the Hammer of Thor, then.’

*

As the above might suggest, there has been an outbreak of wargaming hereabouts. I am due to be at the Battleground show in Middlesbrough at the end of next month, and the Estimable Mrs P. told me ‘I can’t let you go if you’re not a practicing wargamer.’ So I thought I’d better get some toys out and put them on the table.

The only two outstanding questions were ‘what’ and ‘how’. I’d quite enjoyed the Sarmatians against Sarmatians clash, the latest episode in the Sarmation Nation campaign, so I felt that something in the same storyline, but different, might be called for. The previous battle had seen a German tribe break through the Dacians to enter the Roman Empire, so it was fairly obvious that a Germans vs Romans clash should be next.

The 'how' was not that difficult, really. I had two armies, after all, and I rolled up the terrain in my usual manner, discarding an unfordable river diagonally bisecting the battlefield, which I felt would have somewhat cramped operations. Wishing to avoid a simple line them up and have at them, however tempting it may be with a tribal army, I decided to roll for the deployments as described by Featherstone in Solo Wargaming, based on the formations Jomini he had derived from Eighteenth and Nineteenth Century battles. If you are interested you can find Jomini’s book on Project Gutenburg, together with a discussion of the limitations. Anyway, some simple dice rolls established that the Romans would deploy linearly, while the Germans had a reinforced right.

I had a bit of a hiccough after deployment, when I noticed that the Romans had 25 bases on the table, against the Germans 20. This was easily rectified by the addition of three bases of German foot and two of horse. I suppose I could have removed the extra five legionary bases, but decided to go with it. These sorts of things happen – my eye had drifted to the late Republic Roman army list, which has 12 legionary bases (for a 20 base army) as opposed to the Early Imperial Romans which have 7.

The initial dispositions are in the picture, Germans to the left. The hammer bit is the two base widths of four deep tribal foot nearest the camera. The handle, as it were, of the hammer is simply to face off the Roman legions and auxilia while he head strikes home. We hope. The Romans intended to turn both flanks of the German line. On the near side, the light cavalry and the archers were to harass the hammerhead. In previous actions a weak point of the Roman army has been these archers – they seem quite hard to use effectively, and I was determined to try again and get it right. On the far side the Roman advantage in cavalry was hoped to tell against the Germans, even though the latter are backed up by skirmishers (in the wood on the very distant left of the photo).

The plans worked out quite nicely, really. The German hammer closed in, although the extreme right of the hammerhead was very disrupted by the Roman archers and light horse, so much so that one base of tribal foot was detached to see them off I had, unwisely, forgotten to move them back out of charge range). The archers also inflicted damage, and so the hammer was not quite as forceful as it could have been when it struck.

On the other flank, the German cavalry got the drop on the Romans and charged home. This was less successful than could have been hoped, really. The Germans managed two wins and two losses from the combats, although they did kill the Roman sub-general. This hampered future Roman cavalry operations, which possibly saved the German bacon.

The game saw the debut of some new markers that I made after the last wargame. I got fed up trying to recall who had charged and who was routing. So I created some other colours apart from green and brown. The shot of the cavalry combat above shows them in action – brick red for chargers, yellow ochre for routers. I need the markers to be distinctive but not to stand out too much and spoil the overall ambience of the game. I think they, at least, worked quite nicely.

The crunch came when the German hammer hit home. Essentially, those Germans who did charge managed a fluky dice roll and routed four legionary bases straight off. The rest refused to engage, which I suppose was the original idea.

The picture shows the carnage on the Roman left centre.

What it does not show is that the German and Roman cavalry on the Roman right have both rallied and are threatening both each other and the foot. You can also see the thinner lines of German foot masking the legionaries – the line extends to mask the auxilia as well.

At this point both sides had some thinking to do. The Romans had far higher casualties (seven bases and a sub-general against two) but were in a better position on the right. The Germans had the advantage on the Roman left but needed to rally the hammerhead before proceeding, which was taking some time. After some pondering, a draw was offered and accepted – the Romans were slightly on the losing side but had not lost.

*

‘So, now, will you let us settle here?’

‘Well, you will have to buy your land.’

‘Buy?’

‘Yes, with money. Do you know what that is?’

‘I’ve heard of it, but we are proud, free, tribes. We do not do this slavery to cash.’

‘Well, you need to find some to become Romans.’

‘Where can we do that? Will you give us some?’

‘No. That would be silly. But I can tell you where you can find some…...’