A Quiet Day in England

After the trauma of re-basing, the battle. At least I can confess one of the problems of being a solo wargamer, that is, in order to start a wargame, you have to ‘do’ both sides. This is as true of painting, of course, as it is of basing and, indeed, re-basing. I wrote last time (if you lasted that long) that I have re-based my Early Imperial Romans, and also my Celts, who can masquerade as either Gaul or Ancient Britons.

I also put a teaser picture of the start of a battle in the last post. It was, perhaps a bit of a confused description of who was there and what was going on. I shall try to explain, because it pertains to what I think my next campaign might be about, although the wargame pictured was a bit of a try-out.

The history and archaeology of the Roman invasion of Britain is confused and confusing. Not that it should stop the wargamer, of course. Where historians throw their hands up in despair, and archaeologists start talking about snapshots, the wargamer should sense some sort of opportunity. After all, there is not much at stake in a wargame campaign, as opposed to academic reputations and so on (mostly concerned with money, of course).

Still, there are debates as to where and why the Romans actually landed. The smart money used to be on Richborough in Kent, but recently Fishbourne in Sussex has been put forward as a serious contender. Both are very early sites. The confusing thing is that Fishbourne seems to be a Roman site which predates the invasion. So, there were Roman soldiers on English soil before the Romans invaded.

There are other issues, of course. The initial military operations seem to have been a Roman intervention in a civil war among Britons. This is something that should make the wargamer’s ears prick up a bit. No longer are we considering men in shiny suits against the brave, noble, but doomed Celts, but rather a complicated situation where both sides in a civil war (a succession dispute) try to use the Romans to their own ends. In other words, there were Celts on both sides, and the Romans were really ancillary forces.

So, what else? The size of the invading force is another matter of uncertainty. It is usually put at 4 legions, an equal number of auxilia, and a few other units. This is based on what was in the country around 20 years after the invasion. More recent thinking suggests an initial force of 2 – 5000 men. That seems to me to be highly manageable to a wargamer, even a solo one, and probably more commensurate with the expected opponents, that is, half or so of a British tribal alliance.

It is certain that Claudius followed up the invasion with reinforcements and took the allegiance of a number of native kings, as well as Colchester. It is usually assumed that he landed at Richborough and marched to Colchester. On the other hand, he did not stay in the country long, and it makes more sense for him to have sailed directly to Colchester and parked himself there for the duration. Aside from an elephant and some camels, and some siege equipment, we really do not know what else he brought with him, except the usual hangers-on, flunkies, and guards.

So, my first go at this was to cut to the case and get some soldiers on the table. Four armies, in this case, three British and one Roman. The initial deployment is in the previous post, so I’ll start after the action commended.

The initial action was on the near side of the table, where two Celtic armies faced off. In the centre, the Roman allies have seen off the skirmishers in the marsh. This gave a boost to their efforts, as we’ll see as the game develops. On the far side, I have moved the Romans back a bit, out of charge range of the tribal foot on the hill.

Having the Romans hang around at the rear while everyone else did the fighting seemed to be a bit un-Roman-like. So I soon moved the legionaries and auxilia up again. They were charged downhill by the tribal foot and did not even last a round of combat. On their left, however, the Roman cavalry has seen off the Celtic light horse and is causing all sorts of damage to the chariots. If the infantry could have held out for a move or two, all would have been well, but the losses caused the Roman army to flee, their their foes were forced to fall back.

On the nearside, the Roman allies are crossing the stream, while their light troops and chariots mix it with the enemy. This went quite well for them, as the skirmishers in the marsh were able to shoot down (javelin down, I suppose) the enemy general. Having inflicted a few other casualties on them, the non-Roman allies were forced to withdraw. Anyway, without a general, I could not see their fortunes improving much.

As I mentioned, this was in the way of a test game. I think the idea of the campaign, with various tribes and sub-tribes competing for the favour of the Romans, is probably a good one, although the Roman foot has proved to be rather brittle in all my games. The cavalry, however, is a real asset against the Celts, who do not really have anything mounted which can compete. On the other hand, the British Celts are reasonably handy armies, it seems, and quite flexible in what they can field. Previous experience suggests that light horse, skirmishers, chariots and tribal foot can all contribute.

So, all I need is a map of some sort and a more detailed rationale of who is involved and why. I suppose the goal for the Romans is to have defeated everyone except their own allies, so Claudius can be invited over to take the allegiance of the already allied British rulers. The aim of the British factions would be to come out on top, even if allegiance has to be offered. It could be reasonably intriguing.

In Memoriam…

It has been a sad week or two chez Polemarch. We have had to say goodbye to an old friend, who has featured a couple of times on this blog.

The above is a picture taken when she was in her prime as a lady feline, although it has to be said, Piper never lost her basic suspicion of the human race. Anyway, we noticed that she was rapidly losing weight a couple of weeks ago, and a visit to the vet did not resolve anything very much, except to confirm there was nothing wrong with her mouth. Nevertheless, more of the food ended up on the floor than being swallowed, and she was very hungry and alarmingly thirsty.

The vet suggested that we try some food for convalescing animals, and she did eat it, but that did not stop her from losing weight and energy. She stopped sleeping in her favourite places, and neither of us heard her purr any more. So, we had to make a very difficult decision, and it was made. On July 23^rd, Piper took her last journey to the vet.

We had her, it seems, for nearly 18 years. She came as a rescue, aged 1 year (but no one who saw her then thought she was anything more than 6 months old) from our local RSPCA centre, and, after she settled in and decided that these humans were not so bad, she was one of those animals that was just always about. As a very timid little cat, she was rarely out during the day and liked nothing more than to sleep under my legs when we were watching TV. In a sense, she was more like a little dog than a cat. Her humans seemed to assume the role of protectors for her, especially as she was small and found it hard to fight her corner against the local moggies.

In a way, we are still reeling from losing her; she was simply part of our life here. As I tried to explain to someone, ‘We’re not missing having a cat. We’re missing having that cat’. But, as someone else said to me, it was the last act of love we could do for her as she failed, and how we feel about it afterwards is the cost of that love. But we still miss her and look for her in all her familiar sleeping places.

Rest in peace, Piper.

Instead of moping, the Estimable Mrs P and I have been getting on with some of our various projects. The Estimable Mrs P’s are all nicely erudite – learning Latin, translating texts from the late classical world, and so on, while I have been sent off to ‘do some soldiers’. In this case, the ‘doing of soldiers’ has consisted of further adventures in reducing the footprint of my collection. The aim has been to halve the number of infantry bases for my armies, without reducing the number of models.

In short, I have been de-basing my early Imperial Romans, the auxilia, legionaries, archers and skirmishers, and rebasing them in two ranks, or, at least, with double the number of figures per base for the skirmishers. The cavalry has been left alone, because I cannot jemmy any more than 6 figures onto a 40 by 20 base, and the light horse at 4 per base looks OK, I think. Or at least, I’m used to it.

The same has been done for my Celts. The foot and skirmishers now have double the figures on them, and I have managed to preserve the wavy line effect of the tribal foot, which I found rather pleasing and a good counterpoint to the serried ranks of Romans. The reduction in footprint is not so dramatic as the Romans, however, as the Ancient Britons and Gauls have different mounted components. Mind you, I do seem to have far more cavalry than I really ‘need’. Maybe doubling the figures on the light cavalry bases should be an option.

Anyway, having gone to the trouble of all the rebasing and repainting (the cavalry bases were repainted for a more uniform look), I decided to indulge in a wargame. I discovered a few things. Firstly, it must be a while since I did anything ancients. I had forgotten the rules and also forgotten that I have no quick reference sheet for them, which has been a boon for the early moderns. I was also casting around for a scenario, not having done the work for a campaign yet. After a bit of base counting and consulting the DBA and DBM army lists, I came up with a four army action – three ancient Britons and one Roman. It was sort of based on the battle of Medway, if indeed such a battle took place, where the recent money is that the outflanking force, usually ascribed to Batavian auxiliaries, could well have been Celts.

The terrain rolling was interesting. I came up with a load of streams, a central hill and some woods. There is always a bit of juggling to be done to make a practical table out of a terrain roll-up, and this one included getting rid of one arm of the streams. As it turned out, that went in the Romans’ favour. Or maybe not, as the ensuing wargame told.

The above shows four armies deployed, ready for battle. On the right are two armies of Ancient Britons. On the far side, the tribal foot block is on a hill in the centre. To the left, the Romans are deployed on the far side, infantry in column opposite the hill, with the cavalry to their left. On the near side are the final, Roman-allied Ancient Britons. Actually, we should probably call the Romans the allies of the Ancient Britons. It goes to show how easy it is to slip into a sort of colonial language, because the written sources are all Roman.

Be that as it may, I treated this as a test action to see both how the rebased armies look on the table (not bad, even given my painting) and also to try to relearn my own rules. Let’s see what happens next….

WSuS in Retrospect

You have probably noticed that the War of Stuart Succession has occupied quite a bit of my recent wargaming time, and that, of course, was by design, rather than accident, although I admit that I was rather pleased with the campaign as a whole. I mentioned a while ago a problem with wargame campaigns, in that it can seem that a campaign is settled in a wargame or two, rendering the time taken to set it up and draw the maps (etc.) feeling like it was wasted. I suspect that that is one of the reasons wargame campaigns are not, it appears, that popular.

Still, this one, as with the Very Mogul Civil War, worked rather nicely. The diplomatic table certainly helps to deliver some awkward decisions for the ‘players’, in this case Arbella Stuart’s unshakable alliance with Isabella of Austria. It was not, incidentally, planned that way. The diplomacy dice just refused to adjust the score downward. This meant that once Isabella was in London, there was not much for Arbella to do except wander around the Home Counties waiting for something to turn up. That something was Edward Seymour, who caused her army to mutiny.

A new feature of this campaign compared with the Mogul campaign was the GOOS score, which, I am sure you will recall, stands for ‘God On Our Side’. This was a feature of the campaign which also worked nicely. Such were the religious sensibilities of the time that a victor in battle could claim the approbation of God, while the loser’s cause became more suspect. As the victor gained 5% GOSS while the loser lost 10% it could have given some cause for aggressive actors to consider their moves carefully. As it happens, it did not.

You can see in the photograph above the diplomatic table, with the GOOS score in the rightmost column. The first entry is James’ final score, of 05%. The highest GOOS score is Isabella’s, of 55%, while Arbella’s had been that high, but the mutiny put paid to it. It was a nice and simple way of keeping track of each participant’s popularity, and I shall probably use something similar again.

The aim of a wargame campaign is, of course, to produce wargames. This one did so very nicely, thirteen in all. A further function of the GOOS score was to determine whether the trained bands turned out against a ‘foreign’ (i.e., non-county) force. Usually they did, and, on the whole, gave a good account of themselves. After all, the trained bands defeated three Scottish and one French invasions during the campaign, and only lost (in the long run, anyway) to the Low Countries Spanish and Arbella.

I did consider permitting the trained bands to garrison towns and stand sieges rather than face invaders on the open field. I think I did right in not permitting it, for a number of reasons. Firstly, I would have got fewer wargames. Secondly, I would have had to introduce artillery and siege trains into the campaign. This is highly doable, with ‘train’ additional armies, but would have made things a bit more complex to administer, I think. Thirdly, the campaign might have bogged down in a series of sieges (which is what usually happened in the period, historically), and it might have become boring.

I think it is worth mentioning the tactical rules I use, which are my own ‘Wars of the Counter Reformation’. They are almost certainly not to everyone’s taste, and I would not expect anyone else to use them, but they do give a nice game which can be quite quick. I think the record was about half an hour, although most games are an hour or two, if I take things slowly. I suspect that another bugbear of the wargame campaign is longer table-top actions, which bog the campaign down in detail and do not necessarily aid the ‘flow’ of the action. It can be done, of course, although the popularity of the ‘Dominion of….’ rules and their ability to enable campaigns to be played quickly does seem to imply that I might have a point.

I suppose a few other comments are worthwhile. Once again, the campaign emphasised the importance of naval activity, even though only one wargame was at sea. Aside from that, the Spanish and English navies were active in transporting armies around the place once Spanish naval superiority in the Channel was obtained. This probably needs some more pondering, but I am not sure where to take that thought. It also indicated that I needed some decent naval rules, so I concocted my own. Other naval rules I have encountered tend to be of the complicated, record-keeping, and geometry sort. There must be simpler and accurate ways of taking to the seas.

Still, overall, in the game, the unluckiest player was Edward Seymour, with two fumbles and two mutinies to his credit. As one of them was on the first turn, his campaign for the throne never got going. He had a chance when he joined forces with Arbella, but fumbled again and ruined both of their chances. The luckiest was Isabella, of course. There were a number of critical points where her campaign could have disintegrated, most obviously when the Dutch invaded the Spanish Netherlands, but she managed to keep it all together.

James VI of Scotland was pretty unfortunate as well, so much so that I captured one of his dice rolls for posterity. On the other hand, I suspect that the campaign might have been weighted against him, as it is quite a long way from Midlothian to Middlesex, and he had no navy. On the other hand, he was the player with the highest initiative. He ended up wounded and captured. Interestingly, the highest initiative player in the VMCW was Mir Jumla, who ended up captured and executed. Having the highest initiative is not an unmitigated good, it seems.

So, there we are. An engrossing and entertaining campaign which, at times, really made me think about the player’s options. And I got a load of wargames out of it. The only problem is that I now have to think of what to do next. After a load of early modern campaigns, I feel something more ancient coming on.

The Cumberland Sausage

In the same week that James VI’s Scots were defeated in County Durham, as recounted last week, the Scottish army on the western route invading England crossed the border. Their aim, naturally enough, was London, or at least supporting their King in his quest to become King of England as well. They do not, however, know of James’ defeat and his uncertain whereabouts. Still, the Scottish GOOS score was pretty low by this time (25%), and so it was hardly a surprise that the trained bands decided to resist the invaders.

For the Scots, of course, this was a chance for some sort of redemption, at least of their military reputation, which is a little tattered. However, as at other points in the campaign, the dice were not particularly kind to them. I rolled up a fairly open terrain for the encounter, at least, considering that it is in Cumberland, with a number of streams flowing to and from a marshy area, as well as some hills and enclosures. The direction dice roll (that is, which edge are the Scots coming from?) was really unkind, allocating the English the streams and one of the hills. Already I could feel Scottish morale sinking.

In the picture, the Scots are to the left. The English foot are lining one of the streams, with reserves on the slopes of the hill, on the crest of which was an area of enclosures. The English plan was to fight a fully defensive battle from behind the streams, and make the Scots come to them.

The Scottish plan was to force the stream with a plethora of pike, supported by some shot. Meanwhile, the demi-lancers (nearest the camera) were to cross the streams and attempt to outflank the English position, while some more shot, on the far side (Scottish left), were to advance and at least entertain the rest of the English foot, while probing for a way to cross the stream safely.

The above shows the plans in action. The light horse are skirmishing across the marsh, while the Scottish demi-lancers have forded the first stream and rallied from that. To the Scots’ disappointment, their left flank shot have not got moving yet (a lack of tempo points) but the central pike and their supports, along with the general, are about to tackle the central English position. The English have summoned the foot from along the stream to reinforce the point the Scots are aiming for.

The attempt to storm the stream did not go particularly well. As in the last game, the Scots rolled badly at the critical point, and were repulsed, shaken from the stream, as seen above. The English managed to add another pike base and the general to the Scottish target, and also closed up some more shot, which led to the Scots pike being outshot and repulsed. The general, more happily, survived.

The Scots attempted to rally, but this was disrupted by the English musketeers. Meanwhile, the Scottish demi-lancers crossed the second stream, and one base was immediately routed by the English, commanded by their general, who had just dashed across the hilltop to take command. The other base, in desperation, charged the English pike who had turned to face them, uphill and disorganised. They did surprisingly well, all things considered, but were pushed back down the hill by the pointy sticks.

The end came with more of a whimper than a bang. The English pike and demi-lancers trapped the remaining Scottish demi-lancers and routed them, while the English light horse managed to disrupt both Scottish light bases. In the centre, an assault across the stream by the marsh by some Scots musketeers ended in disaster, but did permit the pike sufficient respite for them to rally. The other central Scottish musketeers also attempted to cross the stream, for the same purpose, and are in serious disarray, having been repulsed. On a more positive note, the Scottish left wing has arrived at the stream and is poised to cross.

The losses for the Scots were mounting, however, and the morale throw indicated a withdraw. As I could not really see how further success could be achieved without Scottish pressure on both English flanks as well as the centre, I decided that the Scots would withdraw, honour intact, if not victorious.

I really do not know if the Scots could have won this one. They were committed to attack a very strong defensive position. As I said, the terrain dice had not been kind to them. They had a chance with the first assault across the stream, but good English shooting, decent generalship, and reasonable dice rolling meant that the chance for a breakthrough never came.

There was some further unfinished business, of course. The dice were rolled for the whereabouts and health of King James after the Durham debacle. Initially, for his failed combat risk roll, he was wounded. The second roll, after the rout of the army, was captured. So, there we have it: James VI is both wounded and in the hands of the English, or, rather, Isabella.

This marks, I think, the end of the campaign, after 13 wargames. All of the rivals for the throne are in the hands of Isabella of Austria, which seems to indicate that she will be the next Queen of England. Quite how happy the English might be with this outcome remains to be seen, of course. I suspect, given that historically she was never much interested in England, she might actually make Arbella, who was her firm ally throughout the campaign, her regent, married to a nice, safe, Spanish nobleman.

The fate of Edward Seymour is more dubious, as he is actively hostile to the Spanish and Isabella. It may well be that he gets a one-way trip to Tower Hill, another martyr to the Protestant cause. In the campaign, he was really unlucky, with two fumbles on his initiative dice, and his attempt to take the throne never got going. He also managed to disrupt Arbella’s attempt, although once Isabella took London she did not really have an aim in mind as she would not attack her ally.

As for James, well, Scotland is in a difficult position now, with the Spanish established in the south and her King in their hands. Anne of Denmark will probably take over as regent, and possibly Prince Henry might come to the fore as a great Scottish patriot. On the other hand, a recovered James could make a bid to undermine the Presbyterians in his own land with a bit of help from the new Catholic regime.

The campaign itself worked smoothly and simply enough for me to pack quite a few wargames into the duration. Plus, it was a lot of fun. As I noted along the way, sometimes the dice were just not kind to any of the sides, except, perhaps, Isabella. The French and the Dutch were knocked out early as viable players, but the situation in England got complex.

What happens next? I am not sure, but I am busily rebasing Romans at the moment, so anything is possible. But, maybe, a bit more reflection on the events of the 1603 campaign might be in order.