The Three Table Battle - not! (Part I).

This post discusses putting on a corps level action, fought over three different tables …. or rather the same table three times!

Backdrop - this is a meeting engagement during the 1809 campaign between two corps sized formations. In the first instance, it is an attempt at doing hypothetical throw down games in a structured fashion, but with the scenario generator mixing things up a bit. In time it will be applied to a couple of favourite corps actions, the idea being to simply make them do-able at home.

Battle Structure - each corps has three divisions. In our meeting engagement, these divisions are already allocated to battle, one to each table. Our battlefield can be imagined as being three tables wide, defined as a centre table and two flank tables. Each corps has one of its three divisions on each of the three tables.

Above - shows each table, relative to the other. There is potential from the Random Event table for some communication between tables during the first game.

Populating each table with a division - Each player rolls 1 D6 for each table. The die score determines the construction of their division at that location from the following list. Every Division automatically gets a Divisional Commander. There are basically 5 types of division.

D6 ‘1’ - 3 infantry brigades and 1 artillery battery

D6 ‘2’ - 2 infantry brigades, 1 artillery battery and 1 cavalry brigade

D6 ‘3’ - 2 infantry brigades, an artillery battery and 1 conscript infantry brigade

D6 ‘4’ - 2 infantry brigades, an artillery battery and 1 elite brigade

D6 ‘5’ - 1 infantry brigades, 1 foot artillery, 1 horse artillery, 1 cavalry brigade

D6 ‘6’ - re-roll the die, but add 1 battalion of light infantry to the selection (once only).

All infantry brigades have 3 units.

All cavalry brigades have 2 units.

If a cavalry brigade is selected, roll again, there is a 50 / 50 chance it is either light or heavy cavalry.

Select the Divisional Commanders attributes with a D6 for each commander.

D6 ‘1’ the commander in aggressive / decisive

D6 ‘2’ to ‘5’ the commander is average

D6 ‘6’ the commander is lethargic / indecisive

MODIFIERS to the above roll;

-1 if the division has cavalry or elite units (only one counts for a max -1 DRM)

+1 if the division has conscripts

Select the Corps Commander (you!) - Use the same selection process as for divisional commander, but die modifiers are not used.

Dress the battlefields - all three tables are dressed with terrain when first creating the scenario. Each table is divided into 6 imaginary equal areas and 3 of those areas will get a piece of terrain. Roll  3D6 to identify which 3 zones will get terrain, re-roll any replica die rolls, we want three separate zones identified, then for each of the three zones, roll 1D6 and check the result against the below list of terrain types.

D6 ‘1’ place a woods it is 50 / 50 whether the woods are heavy or light

D6 ‘2’ place a small village of 2 - 3 buildings, this counts as a single built up area

D6 ‘3’ place a medium sized hill that is gentle, blocks line of sight and only gives a small observational advantage (allows artillery to fire over friendly troops).

D6 ‘4’ place a large hill, counts as difficult terrain when moving uphill.

D6 ‘5’ place a grouping of walled fields, with ploughed land or low crops. The walls are difficult terrain and provide cover

D6 ‘6’ gives a waterway with a bridge in this location. Roll a second dice to see where the waterway runs to. Place the waterway so that it runs from board edge to board edge from the first location to the board edge of the second. There can only be one waterway per table, so just re-roll for different terrain if you already have a waterway. Do a 50 / 50 die roll to see whether the waterway is fordable (stream) along its entire length or not (river). If fordable it counts as difficult and disordering terrain - except at the bridge.

For each table, decide which player should actually lay the terrain. Both sides roll a D6, if a side has cavalry on that table, add +1. The winner places the terrain. Re-roll a drawn die roll.

Victory Objectives - Roll a dice for each terrain item just placed, for a waterway, this means the bridge. On a score of 4+ that terrain item becomes a victory point objective. A small village is ALWAYS automatically a victory point objective.

Playing the three games.

The first battle will always be the centre table.

At the start of a battle, both players roll to see who will be player 1. If a side has cavalry, add +1 to that die roll. Re-roll a draw.

A battle lasts for 9 turns. At the end of turn 9, roll 2D6, if the combined die roll is higher than the total number of units lost (both sides) so far in this battle, then a 10th turn is played. Otherwise check for victory.

The Corps Commander - starts the game on the centre table. He notionally represents a focus on where the important part of the battle is at any one time.  At the start of every turn, the corps commander is placed next to the divisional commander as a reminder that ONCE during the current turn,  the Corps Commander can cause the friendly side to re-roll their dice (for any reason). This is a one off ability each turn in which the new roll replaces the original roll. After taking a re-roll, remove the corps commander as a reminder that this function has been used this turn, he will be re-allocated back to the divisional commander at the start of the next turn.

Additionally;

When a Decisive Corp Commander is present at the battle - One friendly unit per turn has its initial movement allowance, (including when charging) doubled. The unit does not have to be identified until that actual moment of movement is reached.

When a Lethargic Corps Commander is present at the battle - at the start of the friendly part of the turn, randomly select ONE friendly INFANTRY unit on the battlefield. It cannot voluntarily move or support a charge in that turn.

Victory conditions - in a battle, victory points are earned by destroying enemy units and holding objective terrain at the end of the game. For each objective held, score 2 victory points. For each enemy unit removed from play, score 1 victory point. A draw in an individual battle is possible.

At the end of the first battle, use a dice to determine which flank battle will be fought next. 

The above rules apply to the flank battles. Once all three battles have been fought determine an overall winner. The side that has won the most battles wins the encounter, but since an individual battle might end in a draw, there may not be an outright winner.

Special Rule for the Centre battle (ONLY).

At the very start of game turn 4, EACH player rolls a D6, referring to the following Random Event Table and applying the result immediately.

D6 ‘1’ The Corps Commander moves now to a flanking table. Randomly determine which one. When that flank battle is played, the Corps Commander will arrive there on Turn 4.

D6 ‘2’ The corps Commander orders 1 brigade (you choose which one) from a flank table (randomly select which flank) to march to the assistance of the centre. The brigade will enter from the appropriate flank at the mid point along that table edge in that players friendly movement phase of this turn (4). Remove that brigade from the flank’s order of battle.

D6 ‘3’ The Corps Commander orders the artillery in the centre to limber up and move to a flank table (randomly determine which flank). Simply remove the gun battery models. When the flank game is played, the artillery will arrive limbered, on the appropriate table edge at the start of turn 4.

D6 ‘4’ If the division has a cavalry brigade, it is commanded by a hot headed young ‘Ney type’ of character.  All of the friendly  cavalry units must immediately start moving their maximum movement allowance toward their respective nearest legitimate enemy, relevant to their own positions, with the intention of charging as soon as possible in the game. They will persist at best speed until they make charge contact, even if this takes more than 1 turn and even if the move is not advisable. If you do not have cavalry in the centre, then re-roll on this table now.

D6 ‘5’ The Corps Commander has released a battery of foot artillery from the artillery reserve, randomly select which table it arrives at. If it is a flank table, it will arrive on turn 4 from the baseline when that battle is fought - add it to the order of battle. If it is to arrive in the centre, deploy it now, either limbered up or deployed within 8” of the friendly baseline.

D6 ‘6’ The Corps Commander seizes the initiative. Select one friendly brigade and allow them a bonus round of fire or movement right now, including a charge if wished. Each unit in that brigade can do something different, move, fire or charge. This is a bonus pre-turn activity and does not count towards anything that the brigade could normal be expected to do during the coming turn. Use the normal rules of play, such as pre-charge tests and return fire etc. A Lethargic Commander ignores this roll and instead treats the roll as if a ‘1’ had been rolled.

And that’s it!

This is part one of a two part post. The next post will give an overview of the three battles that fall from this process, the nature of the battlefields and the nature of the forces involved. It will be an overview of process and battle rather than a detailed AAR (phew you say!) :-)

A taster for part II;

This is the table created for the French left flank. The forces are generally similar, with the Austrian division including a light cavalry brigade and a Jaëger battalion, while the French division includes an elite infantry brigade.

The French are advantaged by having two Victory point objectives on their side of the table. Another thing that might matter is that the Austrian Corps Commander is Lethargic, so here, the Austrian Divisional commander is hoping that he won’t show up on turn 4!

I have another bit of web space (COMMANDERS) that is a bit more magaziney than here and updated more often. Link if interested.

 https://commanders.simdif.com/dear_diary.html

Revenue, Spend and Changes

For the UK, 6th April is the beginning of the tax year. Starting last year, Inland Revenue allowed people to continue selling on platforms like E-Bay and Etsy freely, but anything that accrued sales over £1000 would be subject to tax and the seller would be sent self assessment forms from the tax people.

The various platforms are now obliged to submit client sales figures to the Inland Revenue and that of course that will include PayPal receipts. I can’t actually work out how much of selling your old things like clothes or say a loft clearance can avoid the tax, however someone like me, who only sells wargame related things can easily look like a trader and my understanding is that the ceiling will kick in straight away.

 

The past few weeks have been a bit costly with various pre-orders and purchases, so it is nice to have reached a new tax year, with my allowance zeroed and seeing something going out of the collection to bring some funds in (above parcel).

The collection is a bit of a living thing with regular tweaks and nudges to keep it current with whatever fad I am going through, but playability, streamlining and an eye to storage are generally constant themes and now, increasingly, persistent back and leg pain problems are also taking their part in tailoring what sits on the shelves.

Two mapper type board games become an easy target, as not only do they generally require a lot of bending and stretching across, but by their nature (bigger), they take longer to play, adding to the amount of time spent bending and stretching etc.

I generally sit at the dining table to play 1 mapper and smaller boardgames, while figures and larger boardgames are take to a higher table that is 40” off the floor, at which I stand and it is the prolonged standing that exacerbates my back and leg pain. So bringing more games back to the dining table makes sense and the games at the other table need to be shorter games for less standing.

I was recently having correspondence with another gamer regarding this sort of thing (Hi S) and he felt that the smaller affairs such as Neil Thomas sized games are looking increasingly attractive compared to trying to re-create full battle games. I entirely concur. I have plenty of boardgames that can cover the ‘big battle’ and so I am happy for my figures to be doing something different and I seem to favour the divisional sized game and lower for them.

Why mention this? Well for a while, I have been dithering about getting a smaller scale army for smaller games to take to the dining table (for a 4’ x 2’ mat). I like the idea of the Epic figures, where you get lots of ‘heads’ in the unit, but I don’t like their formulaic method of ranking up in shoulder to shoulder strips, where it looks like each figure is welded to their neighbour …. So I have ordered some Pendraken 10mm, just enough to do an infantry unit, a cavalry unit and a gun battery, so that I can look at the practicality and result of basing the figures up tight, but lose that ‘welded’ look.

I want to get off the treadmill of painting, so buying into yet another project has me wary, but I plan to base them, then spray black primer, a quick light dry brush around the outer facings and exposed areas, then just dabbing on colours where the brush can quickly reach, which will mostly be on the front of the unit and rear of the unit, everything else stays black.

It will be a bit rough and ready and I know, initially at least, I will not be happy with that, but it might be time to get over it and it is radical enough (for me) to make a break on how I do stuff. The figures have been dispatched, but already, as I paint a nice group of 28mm Austrian Jägers, I am cooling on the idea - we shall see. Also I really don’t want to get the smaller lads and end up with project creep with more units and bigger games, that would totally defeat the purpose.

As for the boardgames, I thought that I had pretty much nailed that, but they too have an appointment with Mr. Change!

Anyway the point is that my collection is frequently in a state of flux and that as things leave the collection, posts here will reflect that. My other site (Commanders) regularly gets a little weeding, that totally strips out the stuff that has gone, so that the content stays relevant to what is actually going on and so keeps me true. 

The size of both figure and boardgame collections are kept quite tight and concise, so things generally have to earn their place to stay and by that I mean have a reasonable prospect of getting to the table. A few things might get kept just for the pleasure of owning them, but with storage at a premium, not many things will find ‘favours’ granted to them :-)

Anyway, a word to the wise, if you are planning to clear out the collection, in the UK, it might be better to space this over a couple of years rather than doing it in one go, if the tax implication bothers you.

  

Playing an AI game (Napoleonic)

A couple of posts ago, I described an AI attempt at creating a Napoleonic wargame scenario (link at foot of this post)

Today I put it on the table to see whether it had been able to pull together enough to give a good scenario that showed at least some sense of balance.

Now before we start, I shall say that I had my doubts - so let’s see how it holds up!

The instruction to the AI was to create a Napoleonic French attack against an Austrian held farmhouse. It called the generated scenario ‘The Kaiser’s Kitchen Garden - 1809. It game me general instructions, an order of battle and what it called a map, but which looked like a photo reconstruction of a gaming table.

Briefly, this is what I was given;

The above is a map, it is very pretty, though has some problems like two edges being described as North!

It describes the terrain as Stream (difficult), farmhouse (Heavy Cover) and orchard (light cover).

It set objectives as being for the French to clear out the farmhouse and for the Austrians to hold on to it. The game would last for 10 turns. On turn 6, the Austrians would receive a reinforcement.

Orders-of-Battle

French - 2 x reliable line infantry, 1 x Voltigeur Company, a 6 pdr artillery section and a squadron of Hussars.

Austrian - 1 x Average German fusilier battalion (in the farmhouse) 1 x Elite Grenzer company with the trait of good shot (in the farmhouse), 1 x low quality Landwehr battalion arriving on Turn 6 from the east as a reinforcement.

To make this work with my own rules, I split the farmhouse into two Built Up Areas. The courtyard occupied by the fusiliers is one BUA and the buildings, occupied by Grenzer riflemen, being the other.

Special Rules;

Whenever artillery fire rolls a ‘6’, it creates a breach in the walls of the farmhouse.

Stubborn Austrians - once per game, an Austrian unit in the farmhouse can re-take a failed morale test.

I am using 28mm figures on a 4’ x 3½’ table with my Eagles at Quatre Bras rules. I do not have painted Grenzer skirmishers or Voltigeurs, so a few unpainted models grace the table …. I won’t tell if you don’t! 

Anyway off we go (this will be brief).

Turn 1 - The French line battalions enter the table in front of the farmhouse, but stay out of musket / rifle range. The Voltigeurs make a dash for the cover of the orchard. On the right, the artillery battery arrives with a Hussar escort.

The Grenzers fire at the Voltigeurs from the farmhouse windows and inflict the first casualties of the game.

Turn 2 - The French artillery deploys, facing the side of the farmhouse. The Voltigeurs (now in the orchard) and Grenzers plug away at each other.

Turns 3 - 5, nothing significant enough to comment on ….. other than the French battery commander is not having a good day!

Turn 6 - being halfway through the scenario, the French guns have not done anything of note and the French now feel compelled to get the infantry assault underway. They advance in line towards the farm.

The Austrian Landwehr arrives and reaches the bridge over the stream.

Turn 7 - The French guns switch target and direct their fire at the Landwehr, they must have suddenly woken up! because their fire is deadly, inflicting 3 hits (and rolling two sixes, which would have breached the farmhouse walls if that had been the target!). The Landwehr fall back and the French Hussars move up to discourage them further.

The right hand side French battalion, still disordered (maroon marker below) from moving through the hedge, goes into assault column, while the other, still in line, puts down fire.

Turn 8 - A random Event allows the French to inflict ‘confused orders’ on the Landwehr and they are moved back onto the bridge.

The French guns re-direct their fire back towards the farmhouse, hoping to breach the walls.

The French assault column attacks the farmhouse, but they fail their attack test, so they still attack, but it is classed as a ‘half hearted’ attack (lose 3 dice). Even so, they do enough to push the line infantry out, but the Austrians implement the AI special rule that gives the occupiers of the farmhouse a bonus morale check, they take it and pass …. So they stay!

Turn 9 - The French column halts to catch its breathe (in my rules nothing can charge on consecutive turns - things with lungs need a rest!). The Grenzers, still firing from windows, inflict another hit on the Voltiguers, forcing them to retire out of the orchard ….. there is not enough time left for them to return and make any difference.

Turn 10 - French artillery and a line infantry unit both fire into the farmhouse. The Austrian infantry battalion now has 5 hits and they fail their morale test and run out through the rear of the farmhouse. With the main resistance gone, the French column assaults the farmhouse and in the last attack of the game, they inflict 3 hits on the Grenzers, which is enough to see them waver and abandon the complex ………. The last die roll (once again!) has given us a result - it is a French win.

At the start of this post, I said that I didn’t have much hope for this being a good scenario ….. turns out it was very good and very entertaining and I was never quite sure which side would win, suggesting good game balance.

However, once you start rolling dice in a wargame, it becomes dynamic and can go off in all sorts of directions - what if the French artillery had managed to breach the walls, particularly much earlier on in the game. That would have almost certainly brought an earlier French assault and once taken, I imagine the farmhouse would be quite difficult to re-take with the forces that the Austrians have to hand, though the effort to do so might make for good play and narrative. 

So just because this game was tight all the way through and it went down to the wire, doesn’t mean it will do that every time, but doesn’t that apply to everything we play?

Of course above anything else, it reminds us, if a reminder was ever needed, that small games with just a few units can be very entertaining.

The AI gave some helpful rules that made a difference, such as the one off bonus morale test that the Austrians in the farmhouse were able to take, plus a couple of bits that we didn’t get into the game, one being artillery breaching the walls and the other being a possible interaction between the hussars and the landwehr.

I enjoyed this enough to run it again with another set of rules, perhaps a set a bit more geared towards the low unit count.

 

Resources

The blog that examined where AI is up to today in the wargame world - LINK

https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com/2026/03/thinking-aloud-ai.html

I have a separate bit of webspace (COMMANDERS) that is more snippet based than here. LINK

https://battlefieldswarriors.blogspot.com

The AI software that I used was Google’s Gemini - I just asked for a scenario for Napoleonic French attacking a Farmhouse occupied by Austrians.