I'm Surrounded By Idiots

Dammit! I told him to hold!

This is a wargaming idea I've been musing on for a couple of years that crystallized in my head during a shower today.  It would likely work for a variety of scales and periods but my intention is for horse and musket games in Ruritania-style imagi-nations where the characters of the generals, colonels, and units are considered important for flavor reasons. The goal is to simulate the vagaries of command and control situations in countries where generalship is based on hereditary position. It draws from the game fantasy warriors and is hopefully a sort of spiritual cousin to Fleet Captain.

Units in the game are grouped under brigadiers and those units may only perform moves and actions based on their brigadier's current orders. There are three potential orders:

1. Assault - units must make moves that move them closer to an enemy, fire upon that enemy (in close range if possible), and charge that enemy. If the enemy appears as though it is not likely to stand, a charge is always required.
2. Oppose - units may make moves that take them closer to an enemy and fire upon that enemy, but may not move within close range and must fall back if the enemy comes within close range.
3. Hold - units may not take any move but may fire at enemies that come within range. Units will only move if forced to retreat.

Brigadiers have a rating between 1 and 5, 5 being the best. They also have one of the characteristics described below:

• Brash - wants to Assault.
• Unsure - wants to Oppose.
• Cautious - wants to Hold.
• Cowardly - wants to retreat a full move and Hold; however, may instead desire to save his reputation and Assault.

In the course of a battle, the CinC (which stands in for the player and has neither a rating nor a characteristic) will want to issue new orders to brigadiers in accordance with the shape of the battle. If the CinC does not have troops they command directly, they may move into base to base contact with a brigadier and change their orders. No roll is required if orders are changed in this way as the presence of the CinC makes sure these orders are carried out.

If the CinC cannot make base to base contact, or if they have personal troops who they cannot leave, they must send a runner who arrives at the brigadier in the same number of turns it would've taken the CinC to reach base to base contact in the turn they were sent out.  A CinC may send out any number of runners but only one runner may be sent per brigadier.

When a runner arrives with new orders, a die is rolled. If the result is less than the brigadier's rating, the brigadier adopts the new orders and acts accordingly. If the result is greater than the brigadier's rating, the brigadier is willful and adopts new orders in accordance with his characteristic.  If the scenario should impose modifiers to this roll, a 1 is always a success and a 6 is always a failure. A cowardly commander may never have a rating above 4 and a will always Assault on a result of 6.

If this is the first scenario using a brigadier in question, they must be named and their character and rating established. To determine their rating, roll a die.  A result of 1 OR 6 means the brigadier's rating is 1, with all other results being equal to the brigadier's rating. A separate die is then rolled for character, with the result determined per the table below.

1. Cowardly
2. Cautious
3. Cautious
4. Unsure
5. Unsure
6. Brash

If the brigadier has appeared in a scenario before, or it is part of a longer campaign, the character and rating from that scenario are generally kept.  However, if at the end of a scenario the brigadier has disobeyed orders AND his units were routed, a die is rolled.  If the die is equal to or less than his rating, the general's rating improves by one (never higher than 5). As an optional rule, if a Brash brigadier disobeyed orders and routed the units of the enemy, a roll may be made as above.  If the roll is GREATER THAN his rating, his rating decreases by 1.

Another optional rule is for elite units which are determined to have ratings greater than their commanders, such as grenadiers or horse guards. These are given a rating by the scenario (usually a 3,4, or 5) and if the brigadier disobeys orders then a separate roll is made for the unit.  If the die is less than or equal to the unit's rating, they perform the intended order of the CinC and not the brigadier.

Thoughts on D&D and Wargaming

When I was in high school, I was in a club called the Military History Society, which was really a euphemism for a wargaming club.  We met in the library about once a month to fight battles from various conflicts - though the only scenario I can remember that didn't involve American soldiers was set during Operation Barbarosa - using the teacher/organizer's miniatures.  Most of these were, due to the nature of his collection, horse and musket era affairs and I usually try to convince everyone to let me be a cavalry commander.  I only succeeded in doing this one time, and then only because there were so few participants that even the teacher had to double as referee and general.  In my crowning moment of glory, I ordered a charge into a number of disorganized blue-belly reinforcements that had just gotten off of a train, pinned them against it, and destroyed them.  It was a good day.

But I didn't decide to write this post in order to wax nostalgic about playing wargames.*  What I remember about those games is that the organizer almost always brought a photocopied set of rules with a number of marginal notes and house rules that anyone used to the tournament environments of post-Games Workshop wargames would balk at.  It occurred to me several months ago, during one of the infamous Hill Cantons after-session-bull-sessions, that these documents must have been very much like the wargaming climate that created OD&D.  The rules were more of a set of suggestions for the individual clubs, like primitive roleplaying groups, used to create their own scenarios.

Recently I've been reading a number of "old school" wargaming books - Charge! Or How to Play Wargames by Peter Young, The War Game Rules and The Wolfenbuttel War by Charles S Grant, and Napoleonic Wargaming by the original Charles Grant - as part of my ongoing imagi-nations project. One thing I have observed in them is the fact that they fully expect the rules to be modified and often say so, much like one sees in the text of OD&D.  Napoleonic Wargaming is almost a set of guidelines for making a wargame than a complete game, though a "summary of the rules" section does present something that is somewhat coherent as a game.

Another thing that I noticed was the similarities between these various rules, but also their tiny differences.  It is not unlike, at least to my mind, the differences between Holmes, Moldvay/Cook, and Mentzer, even if those products came at a time when D&D was designed to be much more uniform from table to table.

I say all this because I believe that if the OSR has really "won," a phrase I have seen in a strangely high number of places, it is because so many groups have returned to this model of gaming.  One only has to look at the blog list over to your right to see several examples of this sort of thing in action - DMs and their groups customizing a very similar set of rules to achieve different experiences.

*Actually, I totally did, but I have another point too.

Everybody's Gotta Start Somewhere

Inspired by blogs such as the Grand Duchy of Stollen and the Kingdom of Wittenberg, as well as a number of others, I decided around the end of last year to engage in an "imagi-nation" wargaming project.  I originally considered chronicling the fictitious struggles between the Republic of West Florida and Fredonia, but found that War of 1812-style miniatures were rather rare in the 1/72 scale plastics I wanted to use.  

After doing a bit more research on rules, the availability of miniatures, and the history of wargaming I settled on a project: the early nineteenth century wars between the Grand Duchy of Rotland and the Kingdom (formerly Electorate) of Blauland.  The names of the countries - Redland and Blueland - are taken from the opposing sides in the original Prussian wargames, and I plan on having a number of German color pun related countries orbiting the two main players.

Kristina Grand Duchess of Rotland in her typically outdated fashions

Johann I King of Blauland, a well meaning crazy person

The two states are pitifully small and are often forgotten by even the most minor powers of the Napoleonic wars.  They have, however, taken the opportunity presented by the current hostilities in Europe to settle old scores.  Neither the Grand Duchess nor the King are really sure who this Boney guy is, but surely their rival must be in league with him and stricken with this "French madness."

The armies of Rotland have begun marshaling an invasion force which they hope will cross the Grosseblau in mid September, a mere six months after the declaration of war.  Below you can see the first company of the First Fusilier Regiment of Rotland drilling before the upcoming invasion.

I am unreasonably proud of those little guys, which I just completed last night.  I've written a scenario, which I will put in a little sidebar, that I'm using to dictate what troops I'll need before I get a game going.

I thought about starting a blog solely to chronicle my wargaming experiences, but figured there was probably enough overlap that I could put my stuff up here.