SYW with a difference

[Leman]

Was going to post this as my latest rules played, but thought it might generate a few comments and halt the flow of that thread. Anyway my mate Mike has come up with a way of randomly generating wargame maps on his computer (he was a professional programmer before retirement). His current system is geared to the Tin Soldiers in Action rules, ie a 6x4 table of 96 squares. On his computer he brings up a menu, which includes things like dense woodland, open arable etc. Click on your choice and a random map appears.

He then developed a small scenario for the SYW of a Prussian army, led by a Prince Ruprecht, attacking an Austrian force, led by Marshal Daun as it advanced into Saxony. There were 8 moves and two objectives: the town and the hill. To enable us to get moving quickly on this game, he emailed me a copy of the map, which I then set up the evening before, but brought along his paper top down Junior General Armies, which he had based on MDF bases. The whole thing worked rather well, a little like a 3D boardgame:









As you can see each unit is clearly labelled and he also created some 20mmx20mm battalion gun counters to be placed on the relevant units. Should a unit break and flee these guns are lost. Their advantage is that in TSiA muskets in this period can only fire into the next square, but the battalion gun enables a single D6 shot out to three squares. At one point I did actually take down a couple of Prussian casualties with my battalion guns, but also lost three of them owing to routs.

We played the game twice yesterday afternoon. I lost one and drew the second, when I changed sides and became the Prussians.Lessons learned:
1. In these rules you really must soften up the opposition with musketry and artillery before launching an attack.
2. Light infantry can be worrisome but very fragile. It has to be used carefully as there are no evade moves.
3. Don't be afraid to attack with heavy cavalry in this earlier period (pre-Napoleonic) - superior heavy cavalry attacking at full strength get 24 dice in melee - infantry only get 12. Beware of supporting units for the defender though, as they can add their firepower to the defence before the attack goes in thus reducing its effectiveness.
4. Some of the wording in these German rules has been poorly translated, but at last I have worked out what it is getting at. Each unit has up to two actions, which can be taken in any order. However, once a charge action is declared that unit can perform no further actions other than melee, thus it is best for an infantry unit, if close enough, to fire with its first action then declare a charge with its second. This is because all melees take place after all units on the phasing side have performed all their actions, and after all tenacity tests from shooting have been taken (as these can cause disorder or further losses if already disordered). We have found that it is most helpful, once a charge has been declared, to place a small charge arrow on the table to remind us to go back to the melee after all tenacity tests have been taken.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Gotta love Junior general. Great ideas.

[SV52]

A novel idea.

[paulr]

We've used  a similar approach for our various test games, based on thick card rather than MDF. A good way to get a couple of armies together to test a period/set of rules