"Firing into the Brown" #92 - bot madness relief, the Immortal Memory and stuff

"So Carnehan weeds out the pick of his men, and sets the two of the Army to show them drill and at the end of two weeks the men can manoeuvre about as well as Volunteers. So he marches with the Chief to a great big plain on the top of a mountain, and the Chiefs men rushes into a village and takes it; we three Martinis firing into the brown of the enemy".

Kipling "The Man Who Would Be King"

Time for another update..  just a short one this week...  busy elsewhere...

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The Bots have buggered off and my page view counts are back to normal - how will I survive the lack of attention? 😏

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Portrait of Nelson by L. F. Abbott (1799)

To the immortal memory.. 🍻

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 ...and while we're on the subject of anniversaries...  it was the anniversary of the Battle of Edgehill this week as well (Thursday), and we all know where that ended up [clicky]

..those little men are long over due a re-visit to the table top!

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Laters, as the young people are want to say...

"One Hour Wargames" - Scenario 28 - "Botched Relief" - Game

Time for another update.. and time for the little metal men to march again...  

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So as per the last update a Confederate force of four units is attacking a Union held town. 

The Union force comprises six units, but they are commanded by a bit of a McLellan who is loath to commit his entire force, so only three of them are ever active at one time, two of them are positioned close to, or in, the town which is the objective for the game. 

The other active Union unit, and the rest of the inactive Union force are positioned on a hill to the south west of the town - the kicker being that, only one Union unit from the group on the hill can be active at any time - the moment the active unit is removed from play for any reason, only then can the next one can come in to action..

This gives a surprising number of tactical conundrums for both sides - I will be using my variant of the One Hour Wargame rules (but in which the key elements of the books rules are still present) - 

• Interestingly this is the first period where Thomas doesn't allow Hand to Hand combat. His view - probably rightly - was that it was so rare as to not need representing, since in most cases the two lines of infantry just closed to musket range and blasted away at each other until the other side ran away. I modified this in my rules to allow it (how can we not have the "Rebel Yell"?? 😁), but only when one side has a significant advantage over the other.
• Thomas also penalises units shooting at units in a town - half casualties. I adopted this as well - but for a scenario where the objective is to capture the town, you know the attackers are going to have a hard time!

So here we are - start of game... as Union player I chose to put my two strongest (in terms of firepower) units in the town - the Zouaves and the artillery. The other active Union unit is the one to the fore on the hill top left..

The Confederates started with their artillery deployed, but other than a decision whether to put their zouaves centre or right flank, the only other decision was to leave one of the two 'bread and butter' infantry units to cover the left flank and that damned hill.

...and so we start with the two artillery pieces exchanging counter battery fire - but with the Confederate artillery doing considerably less damage because of the cover. The Confederate infantry advances on the town with the left flank regiment (the 33rd Virginian) moving to cover the advancing Union infantry (14th Indiana) from the hill.

The 33rd continues to pour fire in on the 14th Indiana, but clearly with three more units ready to take their place there is a sense that these are just pinpricks - and, regrettably, they are blocking line of sight for their own artillery.

As the Confederate infantry nears the town, the Union artillery switches targets to the now much closer Louisiana Tigers - the Confederate artillery continues to fire, but is doing little damage because of the cover bonuses. They are within musket range and the two sides start to exchange fire..

On the flank the 'Mexican stand off' continues..

In the town the artillery is loading grape and tearing great swathes out of the Tigers - they're almost done - high water mark of the Confederacy? Worse still, in order to close the gap, they have now blocked line of sight for their artillery who now have no targets..

With the Union infantry and artillery in the town continuing to tear chunks out of the Confederate attackers, and a battle of attrition on the left flank they couldn't hope to win, the Confederate commanders orders the withdrawal..

End of game.. Union victory

Post match analysis:

• First the butchers bill...
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ...clearly a bloodbath for the Confederates though the 33rd were holding their end - well until the next regiment turned up!


• Well - not sure what else I could have done differently to be honest - you can manoeuvre so as to attack a different edge of the town - or even split your forces so as to attack two sides and split the Union, but they'll still be effectively dealing double casualties and units in towns have a 360' arc of fire anyway - there are no flanks


• In the Thomas rules, you either move or fire, so to advance on the town requires you to give up the right to fire in order to advance - an additional penalty when one side already holds the objective of the game


• I am not sure that the artillery should have been allowed in the town but I played it that it could - specifically the rules say that in this period only infantry and skirmishers can end their turn in a town - but the scenario states that units can set up anywhere within 12" of the baseline so the artillery actually start the game there - they never moved...

Bottom line - this is a very difficult scenario for the attacker to win given their paucity of numbers, even with McLellan in charge of the defenders!

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 Laters, as the young people are want to say...

"Firing into the Brown" #91 - bot madness, dust, "Botched Relief" and stuff

"So Carnehan weeds out the pick of his men, and sets the two of the Army to show them drill and at the end of two weeks the men can manoeuvre about as well as Volunteers. So he marches with the Chief to a great big plain on the top of a mountain, and the Chiefs men rushes into a village and takes it; we three Martinis firing into the brown of the enemy".

Kipling "The Man Who Would Be King"

Time for another update..

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It's no secret that the bloggerati are seeing some wondrous traffic patterns across their blogs - so I thought I'd have a look at what's going on here, in my little sunny corner of the web...

...the first three of my 'top 5 posts' in 14 years of blogging were all written in the last month..  amaze-balls.. 😏

..thought this one was interesting - these are page/post views over the entire life of the blog.. 

..so those bots, in one single month, have accounted for almost 7% of all the views in 14 years of blogging...  what utter nonsense...😁

..."top of the world, ma"

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Oh yes...👏

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Time for another game - and I thought it would be nice to the get the American Civil War guys out. It was either them or the English Civil War guys, but they haven't marched in an age, so Gerard's will have to wait a while - next time, I promise... 😀

The next in my oh so enjoyable ramble through Neil Thomas's "One-Hour Wargames" is #28, "Botched Relief", an interesting sounding scenario if ever there was one.

In summary - a Blue force (got to be the Confederate) of four units is attacking a Union held town. The Union force comprises six units but they are commanded by a bit of a McLellan who is loath to commit his entire force, so only two of them garrison the town and the other forces are positioned some way away and only released piecemeal.

I'm giving both sides one Zouave regiment and one artillery piece, the rest will be standard strength infantry regiments..

So - orders of battle will be:

Table as follows:

Two Union units occupy the town, four units occupy the hill/ridge (one of which is noted in advance as "first responder"), the Rebel force attacks along the road from the bottom of the picture..

Just need some time now to fight it!

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Laters, as the young people are want to say...

"Pancho sees stars"... setup and game

Time for another update..  and a game this time...

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Whilst continuing my efforts to declutter the loft the other day (basically by lifting and shifting it to eBay/World of Books/ We Buy Books 😏) , I also happened to be watching "The Tall Men" which was on afternoon TV (an absolute classic western, by the way, with Clark Gable, Robert Ryan and the utterly glorious, Jane Russell). I was struck by how one of the scenes would make a cracking little "Ruthless" scenario.. and so a game was dreamt up.. 

In summary, in the film Gable is hired by Ryan to help him drive his cattle from Montana to Texas, and along the way they fall in with a wagon train (that among other people contains Russell) and there then ensues the usual Hollywood ménage a trois (which we can ignore), because one of the scenes concerns what happens when the herd arrives at the state line, and is met by a bunch of  'concerned local citizens' stroke vigilantes, demanding a 'duty' paid per head to carry on, pure extortion.... cue gun battle - and scenario...

Going to use the 15's for this game as it means I can utilise the cattle from the Marlburian project as long horns.. 😊

Scenario/specific rules:

• a herd of cattle heading for the stock pens at the nearest rail head have encountered a block to their progress in the form of a 'gang' aiming to make a profit from their passage in the form of a per head "passage fee"

• 
  there are seven in the gang, and the herd is being driven by a smaller number of cowboys (just four). Clearly an unequal tussle, but to even up the sides the cowboys will be significantly tougher than the members of the gang (who are in any case actually just a few bad guys leavened with a whole number of bar flies and town 'low life's' looking to make a quick buck)

• the cows 
• block line of sight and provide cover, and always move last in every turn. 
• by their nature they will stick together - they need one of the cowboys, either in the wagon or not, within 6" of them to maintain their direction and progress (which is up to 8" per move); when there isn't anyone within 6" throw a D10 (and repeat every turn this is the case)
• 1 - 3 : move half a D6 (rounded down) in inches in the direction indicated on a direction dice
• 4 - 9 : they will just stop in their tracks wherever they are and not move
• 10 : they stampede D10 inches in the direction indicated on a direction dice

• the chuck wagon 
• blocks line of sight and provides soft cover for anyone behind it, or in it,
• moves up to 8" per turn
• is steered/controlled by (a minimum of) one of the cowboys (decision to be made at game start)
• whoever is the designated driver (so Guinness Zero rather than rotgut whiskey!😏) pulls their own card, and this decides when the wagon moves in the turn
• stops in it's tracks whenever at least one of the cowboys on board is not conscious/present

• the cowboys win if they manage to drive their herd off the opposite side of the board, the gang win if they stop them

Dramatis personae:

The Cowboys:

Pancho, Abe, Donnie and Cal - left to right

The Gang:

The Gang - Jedd through Pat - left to right

Move 1: 

Zack gets the draw and moves first - twice - into the rough ground - if the herd comes north of the central rocks then he has a good covering position. Across the way, Cal on board the chuck wagon with  (as the designated driver), takes a shot with his Winchester at Zack [long range, hard cover - throws a 10, -2 for hard cover, scores a hit!], but only grazes Zack who ducks down out of sight [failed his toughness/morale test and went what Ruthless calls 'lily livered', or 'Shaken' in other rules😁]

In the center, Donnie runs across and takes cover in the patch of rough ground and rocks rocks, that Blake has also just occupied - going to be "busy" in there! Pancho meanwhile runs to the edge of the same cover and snaps off a shot at Zack, missing by miles..

The rest of the bad guys also run for cover looking to cover the ranchers - but reacting last, Abe moves, shoots and hits Billy in the leg [who then passes his toughness test]

The herd moves forward, south of the central rocks, chaperoned by the chuck wagon and accompanied by the curses of Zack and Jedd who picked the wrong side of the pass.. 😏

Move 2:

Start of Move 2 - with initiative cards - red dice are markers for ranchers, blue for the bad guys - the number corresponds to the names below - that central rough ground is a cowboy magnet!

Pausing only to take stock and make sure there isn't a better target, Abe shoots at Billy again hitting him in the leg again [and Billy passes his toughness test again - tough hombre!]. Donnie meanwhile is so close to Abe that rather than shoot he takes the hand to hand option and launches himself at him but is battered in return and retires hurt [an arm wound, but he passes toughness test]

Over in the rocks - Jedd  snaps off a couple of shots at Pancho hitting him in the arm [Pancho passes his toughness test] but Pancho in turn fires at his closes target, which is Pat in the rocks to his front - hitting him twice in the leg and arm, despite the hard cover  - Pat immediately dives for cover [failed his toughness test and becomes "lily livered"/shaken]!

In the wagon Cal shoots twice at Billy - hitting him twice (in the chest both times) and killing him outright - before urging the wagon team forward. First blood to the cowboys

In the rocks Pat is still cowering [he fails the test to recover from being lilly livered/shaken] but leans out and takes a couple of return shots at Pancho - one of which is severe and knocks him unconscious! [I gave Pancho a bonus for being in cover, and Pat was penalised for being lily livered, but fair do's he hit, and then scored 10 on a D10 to knock him out with the severe wound!]

Blake runs into the rocks and throws himself at Donnie who's only just recovering from the last battering, but Donnie clearly recovered enough to give him a battering this time [each character draws three cards and the character with the highest wins - Donnie drew three Aces!! 😲]

In the rocks Fred snaps off two shots at Cal in the wagon but misses, Jim also snaps off a couple of shots at him with a similar lack of success.. 

Zack meanwhile leaves his cover and runs over to Pancho's prone figure [uh oh!]

At the end of the turn, each side tests on a D10 to see if they "skeddadle" - they have to score equal to or higher than the number of characters who are dead or "lily livered" - the bad guys pass the test, the cowboys don't test, as only one of them is down..

Move 3:

Start of Move 3 - yellow pins designate characters currently lily livered - red pin for unconscious

Pancho recovers from unconsciousness, pulling himself groggily to his feet.. [I allow unconscious players to swap cards with anyone else on their side, Donnie had the 'magic card' - a two - so he swapped with Pancho]

Jim moves round the rock and takes a shot at the now partially revealed Donnie, but misses, but in doing so presents a prime target to Cal (in the wagon) who takes two quick shots at him, hitting him twice - Jim scuttles back into cover [wounded and also failed his "lily livered"/morale test]

Over in the rocks, Jedd doesn't have a clean shot, as his compadres are partially blocking his view of both Pancho and Donnie, but takes a chance and sends off a couple of shots at Donnie who is clearest.. he misses with both, he's almost out of ammo - just one bullet left..

Zack is next to Pancho, recovers his nerve, and attempts to grapple him but Pancho gets the draw on him and shoots [interesting passage of play..  Pancho hadn't yet activated this turn so had the option to fire what Ruthless call a "Snap Shot", but a WW2 player would probably call "overwatch" 😁 - given his recovery from unconsciousness I only allowed him one shot), hits him, but with little effect - Zack gets angry and grapples Pancho again, but this time Pancho wins the tussle, wounding Zack in the arm and pushing him back - Zack is shaken and heads for Jedd's cover, helped along by a couple of shots from Abe who hits him twice more [not Zack's finest hour.. but he survives it..😁]

In the rocks Donnie has been scanning for other threats, but finally shoots at Pat - hitting him twice and killing him outright [two chest shots will do that - even in Hollywood..]

With two of their men down, and three cowering cover, it's no surprise that the bad guys decide enough is enough and scoot [failed their 'skedaddle test' this time], leaving Pancho and the boys breathing heavy, and surprised at their escape - it was a bit close at at times!

Post match analysis:

• First the butchers bill - the cowboys got off remarkably lightly all things considered

• I need to revisit the "fisticuffs"/hand to hand rule - I play solo so the implicit mechanism in Ruthless of playing cards from your deck is not an option. The other mechanisms I have workable alternatives for, but for hand to hand in this game I was allowing each character to pull three cards and whoever got the highest won. It's always seemed a little off kilter that in 'Ruthless' the toughness value is really only used for morale checks so I'm thinking I may move to an opposed dice roll where the difference in toughness values is added to whoever is the "toughest's" roll, so for example when Zack (toughness 7) attacked Pancho (toughness 3), Pancho would get a +4..

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 Laters, as the young people are want to say...

"Firing into the Brown" #90 - large projectiles, dames and stuff

"So Carnehan weeds out the pick of his men, and sets the two of the Army to show them drill and at the end of two weeks the men can manoeuvre about as well as Volunteers. So he marches with the Chief to a great big plain on the top of a mountain, and the Chiefs men rushes into a village and takes it; we three Martinis firing into the brown of the enemy".

Kipling "The Man Who Would Be King"

Time for another update..   somewhat unbelievably this is my 1,110th post, but is a bit of a mish-mash (in fact, a true 'Firing into the Brown' article😏) as I have been mostly busy elsewhere ..

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Blimey!

Charge and projectiles for a 18 inch heavy artillery gun - AP shell on the left, HE shell middle, propellant/charge on the right.. piccie taken sometime between 1920-1924 and courtesy of the Imperial War Museum

...as to what fired it, well there was a Royal Navy gun of that calibre, but it was largely done and dusted with by the time this picture was taken, so I'm going to assume they may have been from the Royal Artillery's 18" Railway Howitzer [clicky]

...either way - your day ain't going to get any better if either one of those shells lands on you... 😏

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..another one to add to the fort-speak dictionary...

...that (the pointy hatted stack, centre) my friends, is called a "Dame" - it's purpose is defensive, specifically, obstructive. In this example it's is on the roof of the caponier (see previous dictionary entry 😏) to stop anyone attacking along the roof, but they could reasonably be on the top of any wall or covered way that you want to obstruct access along.....  possibly apocryphal story for the source of the name is that they are named for a large lady you can't get your arms around.... 😁

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It's been noted among the Bloggeratti that something funny is going on - lots are reporting excessive page views in the last month or two, but this is even funnier than most of what's been reported.. when I looked a few hours ago, that one (which was the post before this), was less than 14K.. so it's increased by 400 odd views in just a couple of hours!  

Now bear in mind my usual page view is 2 to 300, you can understand I'm fascinated to see how high it's going to go... 😂

Utterly meaningless of course - it's just some AI/ChatGPT/data mining bot, working overtime in a dark computer hall somewhere....

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Laters, as the young people are want to say... crossed fingers for a more informative post next time... 😁