The Siege - Two

At the February NWS Games Day Simon assembled his fortress and prepared to stand siege.

My post on our previous game using this fabulous terrain can be seen here: https://onesidedminiaturewargamingdiscourse.blogspot.com/2019/04/the-siege.html

It's hard work, but someone has to do it.

The siege!

The terminology

View from the besiegers

View from the besieged

Inside the fortress

Engineer supervises the building of the saps.

The fortress front line defenders

The saps wriggle forward

Parallels and additional batteries are constructed

Getting close

The besiegers have plenty of ammunition and their guns are well crewed

The fortress has been trying to conserve its ammunition

Small arms fire now supplements the siege artillery

An assault is imminent,

but sadly we were out of time

The game was playing well, but a few modifications would help:

1. Units eliminated should be classed a Combat Ineffective (CI)

2. Risk of loss should always be on high rolls: 456 for gun crew, 6 for engineers, master gunners etc 

3. Delineate two/three areas for each side for placement of CI units, units removed during the turn and for returning units (i.e. those that were removed last turn).

4. Marking troops under fire.  Troops fired on during a turn are marked with a "smokey" this stays for the next turn to indicate they had been fired on.  Consider simplifying so if a unit is fired on at any time in a turn it gets marked.  All marks come off at the end of the turn.

5. Just role for initiative once per turn, not per fire segment.  So gaining initiative helps to immediately place enemy units under fire if that is what the phasing player wants to do.  

The Siege

On Saturday at the Club's games day I was fortunate enough to take command of the besieged fortress.  I had control of some ten battalions and five big guns, but not much ammo.  I had to hold out for twelve weeks as winter was coming which would put an end to the besiegers' activities.

Fort and entrenchments plus defenders are from Simon who developed the rules and umpired.  The besiegers, Martin and Steven, supplied their own troops.  I provided the explosion markers.

The rules were based on the SPI boardgame about the siege of Lille.

The following photos were taken with my phone which I am slowly getting the hang of.

  The Allies in position to start encroaching on the fortress.

 The brave defenders.

 End of the first week.

I managed to delay the work on one sap, 

but must start rationing my ammunition.

 End of week two - the saps are getting bigger.

 Week three and the parallels commence.

 One of the fortress' bastions and the ravelin have taken a bit of damage.

 End of week four and the besiegers are now in a position to bring some of their guns forward.

 My infantry safe behind the fortress walls.

 Week five and things are looking serious.

 We are now within mortar range, not that there is much ammo.

As it was it was silenced on its debut 

(which explains why it is facing the wrong way)

 Week six - we can't quite see the whites of their eyes yet...

 The enemy mortar.

Neither mortar seemed much good at getting hits.

In fact much of my defensive strategy relied on the enemy missing.

 Week seven.

 Week eight.

 The attackers manning the entrenchments.

 The defenders behind the walls.

 Week nine.

 Week ten.

It is now or never.  

We mass our fire against the enemy building their forward saps.

 This one is blown away.

 And the other one as well.

I am down to seven rounds of ammo for my siege guns and three rounds for my mortar.

 Week eleven and all my troops are to the forward defences.

An attack is imminent.

 But it never came...

My guns were down to their last round, but the enemy's artillery was exhausted.

 This is as close as they got.

The fortress survives.

My First Black Powder Game

Thanks to Simon C I had my first game of Black Powder last night.  Not only that, I got to play with his amazing Seven Years War army, which if I understood correctly came from the paintbrush of Phil Olley (some of them, not all of them).  Simon had changed some of the ranges to better fit the table space we had and the more plodding nature of the troops.  I was in command of four French brigades and faced an equivalent number of troops from the German states commanded by Mark B and Stephen N.

I'd left my camera at home and was reduced to using my phone, so there are not that many photos (from me - others were taking shots so there might be more eye candy in the future).

A beautifully turned out French unit.

The mythical Battenbergs.

The forces arrayed against me.  There are cavalry also, but sadly out of picture.

The enemy advanced on their right and we met them on the hill and after a prolonged fight we were victorious.

The way the fighting would go, they would score almost no hits, but when they did score one I couldn't save.  I was able to inflict lots of hits, only to have them nearly all saved.

I liked the command system, but not that they could move and fire before I could fire (except when they had closed to combat).  The dice rolling for fire and close combat is also a mechanic I find a bit tedious.

Would I consider using the rules for my favourite black powder periods?  No, Napoleon's Battles and Fire and Fury for me!

Would I play these rules again?  Of course!