Generic random events for tabletop games

I had a (not very original) idea when reading a random (but really nice) battle report on another gamer blog. In that report, the attacking forces didn't enter the table exactly where they should have, which gave a lot of realism and dynamic to the evolving battle.

That got me thinking about adding similar random tweaks to my solitaire games in the form of random events.

How to trigger

It would be particularly easy to trigger these in Piquet: simply add one "random event" card to each sequence deck - maybe only every second turn, maybe use it as a balancing device for the side that is behind...

How to find the event

Then roll a simple die to find the event. To make it balanced, I guess all events should be beneficial to the side that triggers them - either by directly helping that side or by messing things up for the other side.

Simplest idea would be to roll on a table. Odd results could be favorable to the own side, even results could be bad for the opponent.

The events

1: unexpected reinforcement: one light unit enters the table behind the extreme right or left wing of your line.

2: unexpected withdrawal: bring a dispatch rider / AdC on the enemy side of the table and let it ride to the army HQ (or, if a cavalry unit is trailing or in reserve, directly to that unit) and command the cavalry unit farthest in the enemy's rear to leave the battlefield immediately towards its own table edge. Maybe allow the opponent to ignore these withdraw order at some VP cost (e.g. as though the unit was destroyed), but keep it in action.

3: heroic action: ... depends on rules, in Piquet it could double as another "Heroic Action" card per the rules

4: hesitation: the next unit to move will stay put for the turn (e.g. in Piquet, skip the next "move" card for one unit or formation as if it were a "Dress Lines").

5: Outflanking move: one unit on your extreme left or right flank may take a double move on the next opportunity

6: Ammo shortage: one artillery unit (when in doubt, choose the one that has seen most action) must skip its next opportunity to fire

Etc. Further ideas could be extra orders / order changes, quality upgrades or downgrades of units, marching units losing their way, routing units rallying out of turn...

Comments

Unit: to limit the swinginess of the effects, a "unit" should be a unit one size smaller than the units on the game OOB. E.g. if the game is between a few brigades per side, a unit should be a batallion; if it is a large battle with multiple army corps per side, it should be a division etc.

6mm Minis Roll Call

Nach langer Pause hab ich mal wieder Kontakt mit den Kurpfalz Feldherren aufgenommen. Ich durfte sogar bei einem Ganztagesspiel mit riesigen, fantastisch bemalten 28mm Minis bei einer Partie napoleonische Franzosen (plus Weichsellegion plus Wetfalen und Rheinbund) gegen Russen aus einer Dresden 1813 Kampagne teilnehmen und eine französische Brigade spielen.

Zwei der Feldherren planen gerade ein Projekt mit 6mm Figuren, ich glaube 1815, mit den Polemos Napoleonisch Regeln von Bacchus.

Dafür würde ich gerne meine vor Jahren bemalten, für Shako gebasten Württemberger und Russen reaktivieren (auch wenn die von Heroics & Ros sind, die haben mir mit ihren etwas weniger unrealistischen Proportionen immer schon besser gefallen als Bacchus).

Als ersten Schritt dazu hab ich mal kurz durchgezählt und folgendes gefunden, was "nur" auf die passenden 60x30 Bases üübertragen werden muss:

Württemberg

Elite (1 Bat., 3 Bases a 12 Minis)

Leibbataillon

Linieninfantrie (je 2 Bat. mit 3 Bases a 12 Minis)

1. bis 9. Infantrieregiment

Landwehr

12 Bases a 12 Minis

Leichte Infantrie

1x Jäger

Kavallerie (je 2 Bases a 9-10 Minis)

1. Chevauxlegers

2. (Leib-)Chevauxlegers

3. Jäger zu Pferd

Artillerie

2x leicht/Medium

2x beritten

Stab

1x CinC

3x Divisionsstab

2 Adjutanten

Russland

Grenadiere (je 2 Bat. mit 3 Bases a 12 Minis)

Sibirien

Malorossii

Linieninfantrie (je 2 Bat.)

Bielosersk

Krim

Vilna

Yaroslavl

Odessa

Simbirsk

Leichte Infantrie (je 2 Bat.)

8. Jäger

39. Jäger

Husaren (je 2 Bases a 10 Minis) 

Achtirsk

Mariupol

Dragoner (je 2 Bases a 9 Minis)

Smolensk

Bielosersk

Kosaken

6 Bases a 9-10 Minis

Artillerie

1x schwer

1x leicht

1x beritten 

Stab

1 CinC

4 Divisonsstab

3 Adjutanten

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.

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

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...

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.

The flats are marching in stop-motion

I did a replay of the scenario shown in this blog post, but this time tried to create a stop motion animation instead of just one single photo per turn. Here's the result:

The order of battle is the same as in the first playthrough of this scenario. The first and second line of the Prussians have been improved to a 3 bataillon first line with the grenadiers on the flanks, and a single Fusilier bataillon as second line.

The (non-written) orders were the same as in the first playthrough, so the general sequence of events was similar, too.

I did re-use most of the die roll results from the first game, in particular the devastating first volleys fired by the imperial infantry, to get a similar overall result as in the first battle. This was also helpful for the stop motion filming (see below).

So it is no surprise that you will recognize some main points from the first battle, like the wide sweeping flank movement of the Imperial cavalry, the defensive line on the hill, the devastatingly effective volley fire of the imperial infantry etc.

You will also notice some changes, e.g. the Prussion infantry wheeling to form line of battle even earlier, more frequent use of square formations to defend against the cavalry threat, and the Cuirassiers actually charging home, first riding down one square and then being shot to pieces by another one.

Note that I did indicate some musket fire from the squares by some cotton wool - although the game rules don't allocate a separate die roll to defensive fire from squares, they do implicitly include it in the melee results of cavalry against squares as you can see in the second attack of the Cuirassiers.

Regarding the stop motion technique, I really like the outcome.

I took 12 photos per Shako turn (i.e. 1.5 inch per step for cavalry, .5 inches for infantry in line). Even at low frame rates of 5 pictures per second, the motion is fluid enough to feel like a movie rather than a slide show. This works out to a bit more than two seconds per Shako game turn, which makes the minis move fast but not dash across the table too blindingly fast.

It is much better to play a scenario through without stop motion filming first, take photos after each turn and then more or less reproduce the battle in a second playthrough, using the first play through as story book. In the stop motion, you want all units to move simultaneously although the game has Igo-Hugo mechanics, and you want to fluidly include volley fire and melee results in the same X photos per turn that would be taken up by just plain movement in less eventful turns. You also want to complete formation changes before the end of the turn in some cases (even if they take up the whole turn as per the rules), i.e. before a unit that just formed square is hit by an attacker. In fact, I noticed that it is hard to spread out formation changes like left turns or forming square over 12 individual motions.

I still have to work on

• picture quality (better camera)
• less shakiness (keep the camera in place without interruptions, get a remote trigger to actually close the shutter to take photos without camera vibrations)
• right balance of
1. frames per second (I think the fluidity of motion at low frame rates of 5-6 pictures per second is better than I expected) and
2. the effective movement speed in inches per second of video (no matter how smoothly the minis move over the table due to the length of each individual step, if they zoom around too fast it's hard for the eye to follow the movements and catch all of the events on the table).
• better approach to zooming in on the action, and changing perspective. In general, I like the fly in effect created by moving he camera tripod a couple inches after every shot, but again it makes the picture very shaky. Maybe it's actually better to keep the camera perspective fixed completely, or to make hard cuts with a bigger repositioning of the camera at key junctures where some text might be introduced into the movie anyway to separate scenes.
• the smoke effect to indicate units firing - in principle, it works much better than I anticipated and is more necessary to show what's going on than I thought. I also like the animated effect of the smoke drifting away and eventually vanishing from the table. I just need to make the smoke move less - the current movie looks like it's taking place in weather conditions of extreme autumn storms...
• smooth movement (no stop-and-go, no erratic changes of facing and speed, no riding backwards) for the brigade commanders.

The flats are marching - encounter 1: delaying action

(Zusammenfassung auf Deutsch: erster Ausmarsch der Grünewald-Figuren, die ich bisher angemalt habe: die Reichsarmee versucht, den Vormarsch eines kleinen preussischen Korps zu verzögern. Regeln: Shako, Figuren: Grünewald, ich hoffe, die Bilder sprechen für sich selbst. Ein Klick auf die Bilder bringt eine größere Version auf den Bildschirm).

I don't really have enough minis ready for a proper game, but couldn't resist giving them a chance to take a first walk on the tabletop after finishing the seventh unit.

I used the Shako ruleset (not Shako II), but without written orders and with flexible interpretation of the division and army morale rules (considering there was a total of seven units on the table...). I did use the special SYW rules for deployment of the battle lines from the march in columns, though, because this kind of maneuvering is part of the visual and tactical appeal of 18th century battles for me.


The idea is to string a few practice games into a loosely connected series of games with a simple narrative. Maybe something like a fictional intrusion of a regular Prussian force into Franken (similar to the real 1759 campaign in Franken by the Wunsch Freikorps). This initial engagement will be a simple delaying action where the Imperials try to gain time to organize their forces.

The order of battle is the small fraction that I have already painted of the OB present in the 1759 combat of Zinna, the theme of my first historical flats project in a long time.

Prussians (on the right side of the photos)

• I. Bat. Salmuth Fusiliers
• II. Bat. Hoffmann Fusiliers
• Converged Grenadier bat. Burgsdorff
• Converged Grenadier bat. Willemey

Allies (coming from the left)

• I. Bat. Hohenlohe 
• 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)
• Hohenzollern Cuirassiers

I took a photo after most turns, here we go (as always, click on the photos to see enlarged versions):

After turn 2: columns marching onto the table, Prussians start deploying into line of battle first to avoid being caught unprepared by the opposing cavalry

Turn 3: the Prussians are deploying into two lines, the Imperial troops are taking the high ground on the hill.

Turn 4: both sides have deployed, the grenadiers on the Prussian left form a square to fend off the Imperial cavalry (there are no hasty squares allowed in the SYW version of Shako, so you better get prepared in time...)

Turn 5: the initial infantry deployment is done, the Hohenzollern Cuirassiers on the Imperial right are starting to bypass the Grenadier square on the Prussian left in a wide, sweeping flank movement.

Turn 6 (viewed from behind the Prussian lines): the Cuirassiers continue their movement around the left flank into the Prussian rear, the Prussian second line is turning around to face this threat. Meanwhile, on the hill the infantry lines are closing in - the Imperials retreating slightly after reaching their hold position on the hill to give their cavalry more time for the flanking movement.

Turn 7: on the hill, the first volleys are being fired. To the surprise of everyone, the Imperial foot severely hurt the Prussian grenadiers on the hill, swinging the momentum in their favor. (In rules terms, the Kurpfalz foot guards, usually considered second rate at this stage of the war, stagger and cause a kill on the grenadiers in their very first volley, taking no damage in return).

Turn 8: the surprises continue - the Kurpfalz infantry charge the staggered Grenadiers on the hill, cause another two kills in the approaching fire (I do assume that chargers get to fire before engaging, although it isn't 100% clear to me from the rules), enter melee unfazed by the return fire from the Prussians and break the Grenadiers in the ensuing melee. At the same time, the infantry at the foot of the hill exchange a first volley, this time with the more expectable results in favor of the Prussians. The Cuirassiers have nearly finished their ride around the battlefield, distracting half of the Prussian force without engaging them or giving them a chance to fire a volley.

Turn 9: The Prussian fusiliers at the foot of the hill break the Franconian infantry in their front. Happy with a successful delaying action and the surprising performance of the Kurpfalz foot guards, the Imperial troups retire from the field to preserve their troops to fight another day.

Overall a fun game. I'm very positively surprised in many ways: 

• the flats move well on the tabletop - if you handle the stands carefully, with stable plastic bases they feel like they can take being moved around on the tabletop, although I will look into magnetic regimental bases going forward to avoid too many direct touches of the minis themselves.
• the flats look great, as well - in linear battles most units tend to face the same direction, and as long as they do I like the photos that come out. In many ways I think the neat rank and file presented by flats with more realistic body proportions is more visually pleasing and easier to "read" than a similar number of the usual full-bodied 3d tabletop gaming minis with many different poses and oversized hands and faces - these tend to look fantastic in skirmishing games but dissolve into an indistinguishable mass of colors and movement in larger numbers.
• the Shako rules are easy to use. Although this was my first Shako game in many years, I had to reference the rulebook very infrequently, and find that many aspects are not only simple enough to fit on the two page Quick Reference Data Sheet but could also be memorized nicely over time.
• once the battle starts, SYW battles are much more restricted than Napoleonic battles fought with Shako (as they should be). But this is not only historical, it is also counterbalanced by the really challenging task to deploy your army from the initial march columns entering the field. I really look forward to trying this again with more units. The only challenge will be to find a large enough battlefield when the number of units involved grows. Maybe I'll have to use the "Marching to Glory" supplement as a partial replacement to a full on-board deployment.
• With six bases per infantry unit, I like to visualize the unit state via the arrangement of the bases - cleanly aligned for good order, slightly out of order for staggered, facing backward for "fall back" etc. I just need a good idea how to distinguish blown from staggered cavalry. I'm even thinking of removing bases to reflect kills, that might look more appealing than counting kills with dice or other tokens palced next to the units.

Coming up next: a rearguard action where the units that took losses in this ancounter will start with a a kill or two each to introduce some continuity.