Samstag, 31. Dezember 2016

SoM NNL Replay: HIL@KC game 3 - Satchel takes another loss


In a duel of third place teams, the third game of the series sees Satchel Paige try to win his first game as his Monarchs want to stay close to the NNL division lead, while the Hilldales want to win their first series and avoid falling even further behind in the ECL.

As in the season opener, Satchel shows some weakness to start the game. He walks Torriente to begin the scond inning, and allows him to score on a Taylor single. After that, Page starts to get in the groove and striking out opponents as is his habit.

In the bottom of the fourth, the Monarchs tie the game on a picture perfect bunt single from Oms with runners on 1st and 3rd and no outs, but Slim Jones can get out of the inning without further damage on a flyout and a double play grounder from Cannady.

In the eighth, Satchel gives up another single and a walk, allowing Pennington to score on  sac fly to left from leadoff Willie Wells.

Both starters are lifted for pinch hitters, and the relievers prevent any further damage despite Currie giving up a leadoff single in the bottom of the last.

Another unfortunate loss for Satchel and thr Monarchs who fall back to 2-4 despite a solid performance (with another CS for catcher Santop). The Daisies are happy, and a bit lucky, to win the series in Kansas City to get to 2-4.

Team
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
R
H
E
Hilldale Daisies
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
1
0
2
4
1
Kansas City Monarchs
0
0
0
1
0
0
0
0
0
1
4
0

W:S Jones
L:S Paige
SV:R Currie
Hilldale Daisies
HittersABRHRBIBBSO
W Wells 301101
C Blackwell 400000
P Hill 401002
C Torriente 310011
B Mackey 300001
C Taylor 301100
S Pennington 311000
B DeMoss 200010
S Jones 200002
J Gardner 100000
Totals2824227

E- W Wells (1)
Sac- W Wells (1), B Mackey (1)
CS - P Hill (1)


PitchersIPHRERBBSOHR
S Jones 7.0311150
R Currie 2.0100010

Kansas City Monarchs
HittersABRHRBIBBSO
J Wilson 310011
J Benjamin 401001
A Oms 401101
O Johnson 400000
R Cannady 401000
L Santop 301000
D Malarcher 300002
D Lundy 300000
S Paige 200000
D Moore 100001
Totals3114116

SB- J Wilson (1)

PitchersIPHRERBBSOHR
S Paige 8.0422250
H Salmon 1.0000020

Mittwoch, 28. Dezember 2016

Encounter 2: Protecting the retreat



This is the Shako battle report for game two of the mini campaign for my first flats units (game 1 here and here). The Reichsarmee rearguard occupies a village and tries to block the Prussians from advancing up the valley. Once the Prussians have deployed into line, the Reichsarmee can dice for reinforcements from the first Kurmainz bataillons I'm currently painting up.

Unfortunately the pictures seem to be broken so I'll hide them until I find a way to recover them.

One of the things I like about this Shako SYW approach where armies march onto the table in columns and deploy into lines from the march is that you experience the difficulty of organizing everything correctly. In the picture above you can see that the Grenadiers which were meant to support the main push to the right of the village deployed to the left by mistake, so their role will be limited to keeping the Kurpfalz unit pinned in the village on the Reichsarmee's right flank.

Once I noticed that mistake I got even more confused and turned the left column into the first line of battle when they should have been the supporting second line.... as a result the key attack had to be executed by the lowly Fusiliers (with good success, though, as you will see below), with the Grenadiers from the right approach column only providing rear support.
In turn 12, firing and Franconian losses continue. The 2nd bataillon Kurmainz has taken up a protective position in the woods on the left and can just pose a realistic threat of counter charging any attacks on the Franconian left. Despite heavy losses, the Reichsarmee rearguard once more bought time for their main army to continue the retreat in order.

In this game I didn't push the quality differences between the armies as hard as I could have. The maneuvering turned out very straight forward with little move / countermove action, but plenty of the nuts-and-bolts difficulties to align and arrange all units correctly to have free range to fire and charge in constricted space.

I love how the rule mechanics ancourage this very historic feel without any artificial "dressing the lines" events or overly complicated movement rules, just by setting very simple geometric restrictions to unit movements and volley fire from formed units. I don't think I'll go for an animated version of this encounter, though - all the maneuvering difficulties would only show up in slight variations of marching speeds in the approach march, and then it's mostly firing from static lines.

I'm really itching to replay the first two scenarios with my newly acquired Piquet 2nd ed. Cartouche rules. However, the experience from this game encourages me to keep unit quality differentiations at a minimum (even in this game of Shako I kept forgetting about all the ideas I had had to dice for unit quality at first use etc.). I do wonder whether the impulse system will introduce similar timing and coordination issues as I saw them in this game - here, plenty of delays and complications came just from deploying and maneuvering units from a realistic approach march in only two columns and working with constricted space, so maybe Piquet impulses will even unbalance things too much.

I will definitively take over the approach to have armies deploy from approach marching columns. I'm not sure yet whether I should do simple Igo-Hugo moves until battle lines are formed, or already go for the full impulse and card deck mechanic to have some uncertainty about deployment and force commanders to decide between risky and conservative deployment distances and sequences...

Montag, 7. November 2016

Flats workbench: Reichsarmee units


Here are a few snapshots of half complete units for my flats project to paint all units involved in the 1758 encounter at Zinna.

The biggest unit will be the four batallion regiment of Kurmainz. I want to base this unit so I can use it as the usual six base, 24 man batallions for wargaming, but I also want to have the option to combine them into one three rank display unit of nearly 100 minis. It's not easy to find an arrangement of the minis that works for both purposes, especially as the three ranks have to be shifted to the left resp. right enough so the minis all have space to overlap the rank in front of them.

First test arrangement of the minis

the first two batallions, set up as a combined unit in three ranks
The same minis set up as two 6-base batallions for gaming.
Finally, I have finished the first half of the Plettenberg dragoons.


Mittwoch, 5. Oktober 2016

Encounter 2: protect the retreat


I want to try and string together a few test games with the first units of my SYW 30mm flats project. The idea is to create mini scenarios that happen in the aftermath of a battle (or maybe just a series of marching and countermarching moves) which forces the Imperial army to retreat away from the Prussians.

The first encounter (report here, animated video here) was a surprisingly successful attempt by a few random Imperial forces in the rear guard role to gain time and repulse the vanguard of the pursuing Prussians.

In the next game I plan to play a slightly larger encounter of the units from the first skirmish, reinforced with some infantry on the Imperial side and by some cavalry for the Prussians (ideally including all the additions from my current painting schedule).

I want to use the forces from the first encounter with some impact of the results, e.g. by allocating some casualties / hit points to the units right from the start or even merging some batallions into one unit if they were badly mauled in the earlier encounter. I wil use the second playthrough of that encounter as baseline, as it was even more dramatic (although historically I only know examples where grenadiers from more than the standard two source units were combined into grenadier batallions, I'm not sure whether the remnants of different regular line units were combined into mixed batallions. But for gaming purposes it seems better to do it like that than to start two batallions with two or three hit points each).

Here's who fought in the first encounter and what kind of losses they took although I'm not sure anymore which grenadier batallion was on which wing):

Prussians

I. Bat. Salmuth Fusiliers: routed towards the end of the battle after taking some very effective volleys from the Franconians
II. Bat. Hoffmann Fusiliers: ridden down and dispersed by the Hohenzollern Cuirassiers
Converged Grenadier bat. Burgsdorff: lost the firefight and ensuing melee on the hill (but barely and very late, so could probably retreat and rally in acceptable order after the encounter)
Converged Grenadier bat. Willemey: held (barely) the left wing

Allies

I. Bat. Hohenlohe: won the battle in the center against the Hoffman fusiliers
I. Bat. Kurpfalz Foot Guards (should be the II. Bat., but I couldn't resist painting the more fun combination of life and company flags): beat the Prussian grenadiers on the hill,
Hohenzollern Cuirassiers: rode down the fusiliers, and then got stuck in melee with the grenadiers.

The resulting OoB for the second fight could be:

Prussians

converged fusilier bataillon with remainders of I. Bat. Salmuth Fusiliers and II. Bat. Hoffmann Fusiliers
Grenadier bat. Burgsdorff: starts with one casualty (i.e. only five bases)
Grenadier bat. Willemey: starts normally
Malachovsky Hussars: fresh unit, start normally
Dragoons (to be painted): fresh unit, start normally
All of these enter the table from the Prussian side of the table.

Allies

I. Bat. Hohenlohe: start at full strength, rating 3 or 4 to be diced for during the game when first needed
I. Bat. Kurpfalz Foot Guards: start at full strength and rating 4
Hohenzollern Cuirassiers: start with one casualty (3 bases) and rating 5.
These three units start in a tolerably good defensive position in the middle of the table.
Kurmainz infantry regiment: enter the table as reinforcement in turn 2 or 3 (based on 50/50 die roll), start at full strength, rating 3 or 4 to be diced for per batallion when first needed

The goal for the Allies is to decisively repulse the Prussians so they have to gather larger forces for their next attack; the goal for the Prussians is to quickly break through the Prussian line and allow at least the cavalry to push through and keep pressuring the retreating Allies.


Sonntag, 11. September 2016

Workbench: Kurmainz Infantry


Currently on the workbench: four 24 man bataillons of Kurmainz infantry.

Attractive (and fast to paint) with their Austrian style uniform with an unusual facing color, challenging because of limited uniform information, especially regarding the flags, and interesting because the four bataillons present at Zinna (the battle whose OOB I'm aiming to create) add up to nearly a hundred figures so I hope I'll also be able to use them for a larger display some time. That's also why I went for a firing unit, this gives me three different soldier poses to work with.

At least I will try to base them such that I can use them in six base, 24 model units for tabletop gaming, and arrange them into one large, 24 base / 100 model three rank unit, as well.

Top to bottom: white basecoat, painting in progress, bottom two rows waiting for the protective clear hardcoat varnish

Wargaming with flats: OOB recap and expansion plans


To plan out my next painting bouts and purchases from Grünewald, I decided to do a quick roll call on what I have available so far and make sure I often hit points where I can use all available minis for test games with somewhat balanced forces.

1. Current status (May 2016)

I have available painted and ready to rumble the forces that met in the first encounter and its replay:

Prussia: 2 Grenadier battalions, 2 Fusilier battalions
Allies: 2 Infantry battalions, 1 Cuirassier regiment

At face value that adds up to (inf+cav) 2+1 Allied units vs 4+0 Prussian, or 5+5+4+4 = 18 morale points for Prussia and 4+4+5 = 13 for the Allies, but the cavalry gives the Allies more flexibility so with some luck they can hold the Prussians back as they did in the first attempts.

2. Next round of additions

Since the last games, I have added one Hussar regiment for the Prussians. Next I will paint the first two of four Kurmainz batallions, to get to 4+1 units for each side. 

In terms of morale, this will make it 4+4+5+5+4 = 22 for the Prussians, and 4x4+5 = 21 for the Allies if the Allied troups are all rated as per default rules. This should allow for a pretty balanced game, though I suspect the main point will be whether initial positions end up having the cavalry units facing each other or not.

3. Further purchases

The next purchase will add another two Kurmainz battalions. After that I will have 6+1 vs 4+1 units, and can use that to try out an Allied army with lower ratings for the regular infantry, e.g. 3 for all of them except maybe the Kurpfalz guards, that would make it 5x3+4+4 =23 (downgrading the Cuirassiers to 4, too) against the same 22 for Prussia as above. I could also experiment with rolling for each Allied unit's morale (3 or 4) on first use.

After that, the Prussians will get another cavalry unit so I can try 6+1 vs 4+2 units. Morale would then be 28 Allies vs 26 Prussians at default values, or something like 24 vs 26 if the Allies are randomly downgraded one step. I guess both variants are worth a try, and it will be interesting to see which is more balanced.

Decision Games "Border War": first tryout


On vacation in Italy, I spent some time browsing through the central Florence game store Stratagemma. This is a very nice, classical game store with a broad range of board gaming, role playing and also a remarkable selection of Consims on stock.

They even had a big box of boardgaming magazines, magazine games and mini games to go through, and a mini game called "Border War" from Decision Games' Commando Series about border intrusions by the South Africans into Angola around 1980 caught my eye - mostly because of the subject, which is totally unknown to me as I'm generally not well read about post-WW2 military history in general, and Africa in particular. But it also looked eminently playable, being a small format mini game designed for Solitaire play.

So here are a few notes from a first playthrough based only on a single read through of the notes (I later found that there is a small thread about the game on Consimworld, too, but with very little volume). I really liked the story that came from the game and will try to summarize a few rules and tactics points to keep in mind in case I get around to trying the campaign, too.

I played Operation Reindeer, the smallest of the four scenarios in terms of time (game turns, called "Operations"), forces involved and victory conditions. Here is the starting setup with my forces before the game, after an initial recce die roll performed at the home base of Ongandjera had revealed the mission target at Chetequera to be only a mine field:


As one of the two objectives close to the border turned out to be a real one, I limited myself to a very local operation, ignoring the targets much further East. This meant I would mostly lean on my main force starting out in Ongandjera, and was unlikely to need the para reserve ready to be airlifted in via helicopter from Grootfontein.

It turned out that the game went very quickly - recce found that Chetequera was not a real target, so I went straight to Ngiva which did turn out to be a target despite a failed recce attempt.

The mission was a clear success. At least, that's how the South Africans will sell it: the commandos went in, defeated the opposing forces, occupied the target, had the target material flown out via helicopter and returned home in less than half of the available game turns.

Internally, though, there will have to be a severe counter-intelligence investigation of the departments involved in planning and preparing the mission, and I do expect that some heads will roll (figuratively or even literally, no sure how the SADF would have handled such an event).

Just take a look at the events as they happened in sequence:


As you can see, the operation must have been leaked to the enemy, and the international community at large, well in advance. The commandos had just crossed the border and had not even engaged with the enemy yet, when the international press already reported it and forced the issue onto the agenda of a UN emergency session which had been scheduled for some other crisis elsewhere on the planet. 

Now, the UN attention was not a reason for the mission to be cancelled or considered a failure (in game terms, it only reshuffles the event card pile for no immediate effect). More damaging was the fact that the commandos were welcomed in force by a full contingent of all the six OPFOR units available in this scenario (local forces only, no Cubans or Warsaw Pact advisors).

Here's how I lined up the involved forces:


The exact arrangement who fights whom seems to be one of the murky areas of the rules, the brief Consimworld thread revolves mostly around that detail.

I handled it like this: each side uses its units from left to right as arranged. Friendly units get to choose their target freely, OPFOR units always target the leftmost friendly unit which is still active (i.e. not panicked or eliminated). I.e. I did not have each OPFOR unit shoot at the unit arranged directly on top of it in the battle setup (although I originally read rules in this sense). 

If this is correct, it means that friendly units always die from left to right, so the most expendable units should be placed first (for example, for more long range forays I will probably often place the slower units first so the force can move faster once these are gone), and very important units should be placed to the right (as I did in the example with my tank bataillon). On the other hand, placing low firepower units earlier increases the number of OPFOR units that will be able to fight, which is why I put the infantry last.

The other major rules uncertainty was how to handle the end of the operation, and whether all friendly units must have returned to a friendly home base within the allocated Ops limit to consider the operation a success. 

My first test game happened very close to home, so this was not a concern, but for future games I decided that I will keep playing even if I fulfill the victory conditions with Operations to spare, and will try to return as many friendly units home as possible (which implies the risk that the game can go from a win to a loss if I lose too many friendly KIAs on the retreat). 

On the other hand I don't see anything in the rules that punishes the player for running out of Operations with friendly units still in enemy territory, so I will consider a game with victory conditions met, but some units still at large in Angola at game end, a minor victory, as well.

Montag, 5. September 2016

Westweg Etappe 6: Harkhof-Hausach

Und schon ging unser zweiter Abschnitt Westweg wieder zuende, auch diesmal mit einem langen Abstieg ins Tal. Allerdings immer noch auf eine Entfernung, auf die wir dank der kurzen letzten Etappe gut noch abends mit der Bahn nach Hause fahren konnten. Und das, obwohl wir noch den optionalen Abstecher zum Brandenkopf mitgenommen haben (und im dortigen Ausflugslokal über die lokalen Wandergrößen staunen konnten, die unter ihren Porträts stolz die jeweils vielen hundert "Besteigungen" des Brandenkopfes stehen hatten, die sie im Laufe eines langen Schwarzwaldlebens zusammengebracht haben).
Blick in ein Seitental vor dem Abstieg ins Kinzigtal

Westweg Etappe 5: Zuflucht - Harkhof


Weiter ging's entlang der alten badisch-württembergischen Grenze nach Süden. Diese Etappe war eine der "zivilisationsfernsten", also ohne an irgendwelchen bewirteten Hütten, Gasthäusern etc. vorbeizukommen. Umso schöner dafür immer wieder die Blicke ins Rheintal oder weiter in den Schwarzwald hinein.

Auch das Etappenziel, der Harkhof, liegt in Bilderbuch-idyllischer Lage ganz einsam an einem steilen Hang mit wunderbarem Blick.
Mitbewohner des Harkhofs
... und wieder ein Screenshot vom Runkeeper-Überblick des Tages.

Sonntag, 4. September 2016

Westweg Etappe 4: Hochkopf / Bühl - Zuflucht


Da die Etappe 4 nach Buch enorm lang und auch deutlich länger als die folgende Etappe ist, haben wir uns entschlossen, schon etwas früher im Hotel Zuflucht Station zu machen (und dabei gar nicht gemerkt, dass das Hotel am eigentlichen Etappenende, der Alexanderschanze, schon längere Zeit nicht mehr in Betrieb ist :)

Mit der Hornisgrinde war der erste Gipfel der kargen, heideähnlichen Grindenlandschaft auf dem Weg.

Grindenlandschaft - immer wieder weite Passagen fast baumlos mit weitem Blick.
Ausblicke in die Seitentäler und auf weitere Karseen

Strecke nach Runkeeper

Westweg Etappe 3: Forbach - Hochkopf

In den Sommerferien 2016 ergaben sich vier Tage, in denen alle Kinder auf Zeltlager bzw. Schülerfreizeit waren, da sind wir ein Stück Westweg weitergewandert. Los gings in Forbach, aber im Gegensatz zum ersten Teilstück des Westwegs ab Pforzheim dauert es ab Forbach nur wenige Minuten, bis man ganz alleine draußen unterwegs ist.

Einfach nur Wald, Weg und Ruhe. Es waren überraschend wenige andere Wanderer unterwegs, wir konnten die Einsamkeit wirklich genießen.

Der (Wieder-)Aufstieg von Forbach war längst nicht so mühsam wie der Abstieg dorthin, und es gab gleich die ersten Naturerlebnisse - mit dem Herrenwieser See als erstem Karsee, davon sollten ja noch weitere folgen.

Herrenwieser See - der erste Karsee von mehreren auf der Strecke von Forbach nach Hausach.
Strecke nach Runkeeper, einschl. optionalem Abstecher zum Mehliskopf.


Sonntag, 10. Juli 2016

Grünewald: Prussian Hussars

The first Prussian cavalry is here, the Malachowski Hussar regiment.

The nice thing about this unit is that they get to carry standards - by default the Prussian Hussars didn't carry their standards in the SYW, but the Malachowski Hussars and one other unit were allowed to take some captured French standards with them into the field.



2nd Volterrania: Commander and Sharpshooters

The last few infantry soldiers for my WH40K / Tallarn / Desert Rats project are here: Sharpshooters and a general.
Il Commandante - the general for my small recce troup
Il Commandante with a few of his men
Halfling sharpshooters for the HQ troup and as infantry support

Command vehicle (one of the wheeled desert Chimeras) with the general and a small HQ squad

Dienstag, 19. April 2016

SoM NNL Replay - standings after five days

I can't resist summing up near-daily standings, so here are the results after five games.
Let's see when the next update will make sense, I guess after a calendar week or so - after these first five game days, the season schedule starts to insert the occasional travel or rest day to avoid too frantic a pace and give starters a change to rest a little despite the weekly double headers.

National Negro League

Pos.TeamRecordWin %GB
1Chicago American Giants
3-2
.600
-
2St. Louis Stars
3-2
.600
-
3Kansas City Monarchs
2-3
.400
1

Eastern Colored League

Pos.TeamRecordWin %GB
1New York Lincoln Giants
4-1
.800
-
2Homestead Grays
2-3
.400
2
3Hilldale Daisies
1-4
.200
3

SoM NNL Replay: HIL@KC game 2 - a pitchers' duel

Note to the reader: I am pleasantly surprized to see rather many accesses to these Stratomatic replays, more than I usually get on these pages. I do hope you are enjoying the replay, and encourage you to leave a quick comment to say hallo. 

Having finished the first five game days, this replay might go on a kind of hiatus for some time as I switch my attention to some other gaming pursuits, but I'm sure I'll pick it up again some time later this year and will continue to post game reports here. 

So here's the game report for another 4th of July game, game two of a three game series in Kansas City.
To begin the festivities, neither team can grab a decisive advantage as teams trade some isolated runs and errors. 
With two outs in the bottom of the fifth, Wilson hits a liner into the gap between center and right. Pete Hill throws a one hopper to Mackey, just in time, but Mackey misses with the tag on Oms who is trying to score from first and he slides in safely to take a 2-1 lead for the Monarchs.
In the sixth, the Monarchs tack on another run on a sac fly from Malarcher to score Torriente. 
The Daisies try to start a two out mini rally in the seventh, with Blackwell reaching on a single. But Powell with a quick pitch and Santop with a perfect throw to Moore catch Blackwell stealing to end the inning.
Both pitchers start giving up some walks around the fourth inning, but otherwise deliver very respectable outings for this duel of the number five startes of both franchises. In fact, in the season so far there have been very few low scoring games that did not involve one or both of these two teams, 
Powell takes the win, allowing just one run on five hits, striking out 3 and walking four. Streeter takes the loss despite delivering a very solid eight innings, allowing three runs (two earned) on seven hits with three strikeouts and a single walk (so much for the value of the pitcher win-loss stats... but that's not really new news, I guess).


Team123456789RHE
W:W Powell
L:S Streeter

Hilldale Daisies001000000152
Kansas City Monarchs10001100x371

Hilldale Daisies
HittersABRHRBIBBSO
C Blackwell 301010
P Hill 401100
C Torriente 301010
W Wells 401001
B Mackey 300011
S Pennington 400000
C Taylor 300010
B DeMoss 410000
S Streeter 301001
J Gardner 100000
Totals3215143

E- C Taylor (1), B DeMoss (1)
2B- C Torriente (1)

CS- C Blackwell (1)

PitchersIPHRERBBSOHR
S Streeter 8.0732130

Kansas City Monarchs
HittersABRHRBIBBSO
J Benjamin 410001
A Oms 310011
J Wilson 402100
O Johnson 402100
R Cannady 412000
L Santop 400000
D Moore 401000
D Malarcher 200101
W Powell 200000
Totals3137313

E- D Moore (1)
2B- J Wilson (1), O Johnson (1)
Sac- D Malarcher (1), W Powell (1)


PitchersIPHRERBBSOHR
W Powell 9.0510430