Slow Mo Piquet: turns 1 and 2

This is an attempt to write a very detailed "pip-by-pip" account of every phase and initiative, and every card used.

Turn 1, phase 1

1st initiative roll: 7:6 for the Empire, they can turn one card (Dress Lines). A dramatic start :)

2nd ini: 9:9, turn ends. Both armies seem to be less than half awake at the early hour. But now they get going:

Turn 2, phase 1

1st roll: 8:6 Empire, two Dress Lines

2nd roll: 11:2 Prussians, i.e. 6:3 pips

• Prussian Inf move (3 pips)
• 2 useless cards
• Turn over Cavalry move
• Empire Inf move (3 pips)

3rd roll: 12:5 Prussians, 5:2 pips

• Prussian cavalry moves (1 pip)
• Officer check (1 pip to turn, 1 turn to move the commander)
• Turn cavalry move card
• Empire turns Command Indecision, ending the initiative (this was just added as I realized I forgot that when creating the sequence decks)

4th roll: 11:8 Empire, so the remaining two pips in the phase go to the Empire

• Dress Lines
• Turn over Deployment (not needed yet as we are still marching into initial positions)

Turn 2, phase 2

1st roll: 20:15 Empire, i.e. 4:1 pips

• Empire turns over and performs cavalry move (2 pips)
• Turns over Dress Lines and Cav Melee
• Prussia moves Cavalry

2nd roll: 18:19 - 1 pip for Prussia, turns the third cav move in open

3rd roll: 14:5, 6 pips Empire, 3 for Prussia

• Empire turn Native Mobility (useless, could also be Dress Lines) and 2 Dress Lines (3 pips)
• Officer Check, Commander move (2 pips)
• Turn Infantry Move
• Prussians move cavalry
• Turn over Inf Move, move first line

4th roll 7:18, 5 pips for Prussia (rest is lost to phase end)

• Move 2nd line
• Brilliant Commander, used as Cav Move (as per house rules, could also be used as Deployment per standard rules) to deploy to line formation, putting pressure on the Reichsarmee to deploy to line far away from their objectives

Prussian cavalry screen covering the infantry deployment around the first village

• Turn Dress Lines, Melee Res., Musket reload (3 pips)

Turn 2, phase 3

1st roll 18:2 empire, 11:5 pips

• Empire moves infantry (2 pips)
• Dress Lines
• Command Indecision, losing 7 pips...
• Prussians Dress Lines, Musket Reload, dress Lines (3 pips)
• Turn Maneuver (1 pip, not needed)
• Turn Officer check

2nd roll 12:1 Empire, all remaining 4 pips go to the Empire

• Cav Melee, Dress Lines, Musket Reload (3 pips)
• Turn Cav Move

Turn 2, phase 4

1st roll 5:3, 2 pips Empire

• Cav Move
• Turn Musket Reload

2nd roll 20:7 Empire, 9:4 pips

• Empire turns and does Cav Move (2 pips) to get secured against a surprise cav attack against its deploying infantry lines
• Turns move in III/IV, DL, DL, move in III/IV (4 pips)
• Turns officer check and moves commander out of the way of deploying infantry lines (2 pips)
• Turns Maneuver
• Prussians move their commander forward
• Turn heroic moment and then Elite Reload for no effect and 2 pips
• Turn Dress Lines

3rd roll 14:5 Empire, the remaining 5 pips go to the Empire

• Maneuver to deploy Kurpfalz Guard to line
• Turn Elites Reload and Heroic Action as last card to exhaust their sequence deck and end turn 2

Situation after two turns, cavalry protecting their infantry during deployment into battle lines

Slow Mo Piquet: first errors and corrections

I have barely started, but browsing through the rules again already discovered many mistakes I made because I misremembered or forgot details.

At this early stage most errors can still be corrected without impact on the game, so I've fixed them and marked the corresponding changes in my earlier house rules and preparations posts.

1. I forgot to draw the minimum of three cards for the army characterisation, only drawing two each per the army size and card disor of the involved armies. Drawing and adding a third one was easy.
2. I started my unit stats calculations with a BDV of 8, but realized that this is the above average value for eager units, and so reworked the defaults to start with a BD of 6.
3. I added a house rule to reflect the small brigade sizes and scale down commander roles and impetus usage
4. I added a first idea how to mark out of command units to my game material notes on avoiding the need for unit state markers on the tabletop by using the base arrangements to show unit status: putting the flags into the second rank.
5. I mishandled the sequence deck adjustments for the abysmal Reichsarmee commander: I only added two Dress Lines cards, when I should have added "Command Indecision" cards and used the two "Dress Lines" to replace to randomly removed cards for each turn. As I haven't used many sequence cards yet, that can still be corrected by adding and removing cards from the remaining unused cards.

Not that the game is too complicated, but as always, many finer points only become clear once you've started using an initial, faulty understanding and doublechecking it against the rules again.

Slow Mo Piquet: Preparations for the first game

Note: corrections made after the real game start are marked by striking out the original entries.

Order of Battle

The Oob for the first game consists of the units from the 1759 Zinna combat that I have painted up so far:

Reichsarmee

• Kurmainz (4 bataillons)
• I/Hohenlohe (1 bat)
• II/Kurpfalz Garde zu Fuß (1 bat)
• Hohenzollern Cuirassiers

They will use three commands: first line (Kurpfalz and two bat. Kurmainz), second line (remaining inf.) and the Cuirassiers.

Prussians

• Willemey Grenadiere
• Burgsdorf Grenadiere
• I/Salmuth
• II/Hoffmann
• Malachovsky Hussars
• Plettenberg Dragoons

They will run the Grenadiers as one command, the Fusiliers as the second and the Cavalry as their third.

Game preparations

1. Army ratings

Instead of dicing up and tracking unit specific BDVs, I'm going to standardize as described in an earlier post. I will treat the Prussians by their unit defaults from the Cartouche army lists, and the Reichsarmee as normal regulars, with two exceptions to add a little spice: I will arbitrarily declare the Kurpfalz guards to be elite (or have a really good day), and my Franconian compatriots of the Hohenlohe bataillon trained militia.

The Reichsarmee commander (treated as a Command Group officer due to the small size of the engagement), with a -2 DRM, rolled a natural 1 and is abysmally bad, adding two "Dress Lines" cards to the Reichsarmee sequence deck. His Prussian counterpart (+2) turned out to be skilled and adds a Brilliant Commander card.

2. Army characteristics

The Reichsarmee draws two three cards (7 units, plus one elite, divided by 4) (the minimum amount): 7+6+6=13 19 morale chips (white) and 2 (red) opportunity chips.

The Prussians draw two three cards, as well (6 units, plus two elites, divided by 3): an 8, plus Combat artillery effect and Combat cavalry effect. They replace the former effect (useless because there's no artillery, anyway) to draw some morale counters and get another 8 (blue) chips for a total of 6, just making the minimum of one per unit. They retain the Combat effect that their two cavalry units melee UP 1, and get 4 red opportunity chips.

On the left: sequence deck and morale chips for the Reichsarmee, on the right for the Prussians.

3. Sequence decks

I will use simple, self printed paper slips sleeved with MtG cards for easier handling, as described in this post. 

Reichsarmee: Default deck, minus the artillery cards, +2 "Dress Lines" for commander quality

Prussians: Default deck, minus the artillery cards, +1 "Brilliant Commander" for commander quality

I still need to figure out whether the Native Mobility card has any purpose in this game...

Slow Mo Piquet: House Rules

I will try to dig into the Piquet rules by keeping tabs on my first game in "slow motion", i.e. noting down all preparations and game decisions.

Even before the game starts, here are a few house rules I'm going to start with (although I do think it makes sense to play by the rules as written when trying out new games...).

Note: corrections made after the real game start are marked by striking out the original entries.

1. Unit BDVs

One of the things I dislike most about some tabletop rules (Games Workshop, I'm looking at you ;) are army list construction rules that require a lot of game or unit specific preparation. I don't like doing a lot of preparation of unit statistics, and tracking the individual units' stats during a game, especially for one-off games and historical context where you need and want less unit individuality than, say, in army lists for tournament or campaign play, or in a fantasy universe where creating and evolving one's own army is part of the fun.

I much prefer games like Shako with a short list of unit types, or Demonworld with printed unit statistics cards you ust have to select. So I appreciate the "Quick BDV Charts" in the Cartouche rules and will combine these with simple defaults to come up with a Shako-like short list of unit types and statistics.

I will use the following logic:

• Start with BDV 8 (eager) 6 (average) for all (can be varied for campaigns or weather effects)
• sort regular / elite / trained militia by unit type
• Prussian Line Inf (incl. Fusileers) and Cav is reg, Grenadiers elite
• Reichsarmee is reg or trained militia (e.g. 1st bat is reg, or by unit)
• Austrians are regulars, some cav and grenadiers elite, Grenzers elite trained militia
• Then look up on page 68ff of Cartouche to find defaults like

Prussians

Grenadiers       12 - 8 - 8

Line                 10 - 8 - 6

Bad Freikorps  10 - 6 - 6

Cuirassiers        × - 10 - 6

Dragoons          ×  - 8 - 6

Hussars             ×  - 6 - 6

Artillery

Reichsarmee

1st rate Grenadiers    12 - 8 - 8

2nd rate Grenadiers   10 - 8 - 6

1st rate Line               10 - 8 - 6

2nd rate Line              10 - 6 - 6

Cuirassiers                  × - 10 - 6

Dragoons                    × - 8 - 6

Hussars                       × - 6 - 6

Austria

Grenadiers       10 - 8 - 8

1st rate Line    10 - 8 -  6

2nd rate Line   10 - 8 -  6

Grenzer            8 - 10 - 8

Cuirassiers        ×  - 10 - 6

Dragoons          ×  - 8 - 6

Hussars             ×  - 6 - 6

2. Initiative

At some point I'll have to try the original initiative rules, but most of the online content I find for Piquet has variations that try to avoid multiple inititive die roll wins for the same side. 

I will use the normal rules to identify the winner of the next initiative and the number of pips, but always allocate one third (rounded down) of these pips to the loser of the die roll unless the 20 pips that end the phase are reached.

3. Marching to the battle

One of the things I loved about the rules and the game experience of the Shako optional rules for the seven years war was the option to let both armies enter the battle field in columns of march, and allow one 90 degree turn as a free kind of march movement and a 90 degree front change once units have reached their jump off point in the battle order.

I will allow the same in Piquet, i.e. start marching armies on the table with the normal move... cards, allow one 90 degree turn as normal movement on any move card and one formation change from column of march to line with a 90 degree facing change as a single pip on any move or maneuver card.

4. Small Battle Commanders

For small engagement (up to, say, ten or twelve units) I do want to use brigades, but want to scale down the role and impetus expenditure of commanders. So I will put brigade commanders on the table, but not let them use pips to move and not gice them individual ratings. Instead, I will use just one army commander with characteristics determined as for a large battle sub-commander, and only let that one command stand use pips, bring units back into command etc.

5. Unit state markers

Units can have many different states, and some players use markers like casualty caps, pipecleaners in different colors, small dice, or bases with minis or stones as indicators for these. However, I don't like this approach - it clutters the table and means fiddling with lots of small items in many colors and remembering their meaning. On the other hand I'm too lazy to produce lots of markers with painted casualty minis.

I will try to continue what I started for Shako, i.e. using the arrangement of the bases in a unit to indicate status:

• fired (i.e. waiting for a reload card): cotton wool in front of, or (in melee) on top of units
• engaged (not sure I will really need this): cotton wool between two units in frontal contact
• square: six bases can be arranged into a neat square without gaps or weird corners
• skirmish: I think I will not allow units to switch between line and skirmish formation within a game, and base units starting as skirmishers with only 3 minis per base, maybe even 6 minis on square bases (then three per unit, not six)
• out of command: flags in the second rank, instead of the front rank (I'll just have to figure out what to do with units in firing mode where the flags go into the rear rank by default...)
• disordered / blown: all bases slightly unaligned with a few millimeters distance
• unformed: ranks in full contact but "columns" slightly separated
• casualties marked by removing stand (as I have six bases per infantry bataillon, there is always something left as long as the unit is half way usable, I just need to remember that the fourth stand lost means the unit is gone)
• routed: facing backwards, small distance between bases which are not nicely aligned
• unralliable (if losing a melee being tripled): remove the flag as one of the lost stands - this could even be interpreted to represent a captured flag. In all other cases, the stand(s) with the flag(s) should be the last stands remaining on the table. For units without standards, officers and musicians can be removed to show unralliable state.

Infantry Regiment Kurmainz

The biggest unit for my Zinna project is done, the four bataillon Kurmainz regiment.

It was a bit of a three dimensional jigsaw puzzle to arrange the minis on their bases so that the muskets of each rank don't push aside the rank in front, and to allow use of the same bases for normal tabletop gaming and for a three rank, large unit display setup.

Here is the four bataillon setup with six-base, 24-mini, one flag bataillons:

And this is the large unit setup:

The flags are taken from some tabletop web site and speculative. However, many aspects seem to have been standard practice in the various German units, e.g. the general pattern with colored stripes in the unit's or its home territor's colors; the use of the region's or owner's arms on the Imperial eagle, and the initials of the ruler, are normal practice, so this is a rather likely and credible version.

Workbench: Kurmainz and Plettenberg completed

Well, it's hardly taken me more than a year to complete the units shown in the last two workbench updates here and here.

Here are some snapshots of the units before they get their protective glossy varnish, and from assembling the units for display and the tabletop.

Freshly paintend minis before the varnish is applied

Speculative flags for the Kurmainz Infantry regiment

Test setup in the four 6-base, 24-mini bataillons for tabletop gaming

Test setup for the display as a large, 24-base, 96-man bataillon in three ranks

Flachfiguren auf dem Marsch

Das letzte Shakospiel ist auf halber Strecke hängengeblieben und wird jetzt abgeräumt, um einer ersten Runde Piquet Platz zu machen.

Ein paar hübsche Fotos gibts aber doch, die packe ich hier einfach mal rein.

Aufmarsch in Marschkolonne

Die Infantrie marschiert auf das Dorf zu, die Kavallerie (die preussischen Husaren wurden auf den linken Flügel teleportiert) setzen zu einem ersten Angriff bzw. einem weiten Umfassungsmanöver an

Die Hohenzollern-Kürassiere stecken eine verheerende Salve von den preussischen Füsilieren ein und müssen sich zurückziehen - gerade rechtzeitig um die Husaren an einem ungestörten Durchmarsch in den Rücken der Reichsarmee zu hindern

Infantrie beginnt den Aufmarsch auf das Dorf in der Mitte

Kavalleriegefecht auf der rechten Flanke der Kaiserlichen

Piquet Shopping List

Piquet doesn't only have unusual gaming mechanics, it also needs some special accessoires. Here are some notes how I intend to cover for these.

Dice: not being a paper-and-pen roleplayer, I do't have matching dice from D3#4 to D12 lying around. I'll probably use the D6 and D20 I have (and ignore higher rolls than allowed by the situation) until I come across a nice set by accident.

Counters:

• once per side: up to 30-50 or so for morale (maybe use two colors, one for 5s and one for 1s)
• once: 20 initiative pips
• once per side: 5-8 opportunity initiative pips (can be same color for each side)
• optional: counter for sequence deck cards to be discarded (e.g. routed units)

This could be done with 20 each of six colors of poker chips, this is the set I'll try to use. It is a very cheap set from some Amazon online shop.

Cards

• morale and stratagem cards: I will use the normal poker deck from the set of poker chips - from the pinted cards that come with the rules it is obvious that the rules originally used such a deck, too, so why not?
• for the custom, army specific sequence decks that make Piquet so special, allow customizing armies to reflect national characteristics and specific battle events: I have printed my own on small slips of paper, and inserted these on top of old Magic-Cards into the simple, transparent penny sleeves. Pictures are partly photos of my minis as shown on this blog, partly from the Internet (so I cannot shere these - Copyright forbid...)

Sample cards from my sequence deck for the Imperial army (left) and the Prussians (right)