Dear List
Here is the latest report in the campaign we are running using my campaign rules in an 18th Century Imag-Nation Campaign.
THE BATTLE OF FROGGIEBODDOM
By Otto Schmidt
This battle was the seventh table top action in our 18th Century Imagi-Nation Campaign, and saw the Army of Ikea and a brigade of Native Levies counter-attacking two brigades of The Neverneverlands after the latter had attacked Ikea at the battle of Inka-Dinka-Doo.
I must say that even though I designed the game I am always surprised at how it turns out, especially in the degree of sophistication and complexity arising in the campaign from extremely basic and simple elements. This battle is a case in point. In the event the battle itself was naught but a grim slog where one side was continually frustrated by terrain in its efforts to bring its much superior numbers to bear, and the other was holding on and desperately looking for a draw. Nevertheless the battle turned out to be quite interesting on its own, but it was in the simple give-and take of the "choices" made in the campaign that the really interesting part took place.
In this event Ian Richardson, a "remote" player, that is one who plays through e-mail and cannot be here for my table top battles, representing Ikea was attacking. His country, Ikea (a sort of Turkish Country noted for its, Divans, Ottomans, Wet Bars, and other bits of furniture that his country exports, had been on the bad end of a gang up by four gamers from other Countries, Mike Lorenzo, playing King Sangria IV of Spam, Sean Thorne, playing King Faustus the Grump of Bad Zu Wurst, and Norm Thyme, playing King Charles of the Neverneverlands. King Ruffino IV of Swinnland was a fourth member of the alliance in spirit but did not send forces to attack Ikea. After a series of battles and some moderate defeats, the Ikeans were brought pretty low, and Ian decided to use his "revived" army from the Bank along with one of his two remaining Brigades, his Native Levies Brigade to attack Norm of the Neverneverlands. All the rest of his strategic units were in the bank, except for the above two and the "Barbarian Allies" brigade which he sent on a special attack to plunder a province of Spam, and take away one of that countries Victory points, which he was successful in doing. Thus Ikea was down to it's last four strategic forces, the army and the native levies Brigade, and his fortress. He wanted to save his fortress for a last ditch hail-Mary-get-out of battle free card.
Thus the STRATEGIC choices for Ikea were rather limited. He really could counterattack only with those two remaining strategic units, the army and the Native Levies Brigade. This was the maximum of two STRATEGIC units you can have in a battle so not much more need be said there.
For Norm the situation was far more complex. His attack on Ikea in a previous battle had sent his Army and one Brigade to "The Bank" where they needed to be revived. Most players can revive only ONE unit in a campaign turn, so neither of these were ready for action. Therefore he would have to rely on his three remaining Brigades, OR he could use one of his two fortresses to blunt the attack- as said before, a "get out of battle free card. " which would then take itself and the attacking forces to "The Bank." Norm did not want to do that and instead used two of his remaining Brigades to meet the Ikean threat. In general terms an army has a "power" of 3, and a Brigade a "power" of 1, and thus the battle was going to be 4 to two in the Ikean favor. That was going to make a rather grim engagement, especially as Ikea was using a regular army and a Native Levies Brigade. The native Levies are a special brigade available only to the Ikeans and the advantage is that it gives its used 10 battlefield units of very poor quality which nevertheless can count far in excess of their statistics. Norm decided however to support his troops with his Privileged terrain Resource. In addition to things like Armies and Brigades, Special Attacks and Special Brigades, each country has a resource in it's Privileged terrain. This is a resource like any other, and if used, must go to the bank for renewal. The "Privileged terrain" is a chart of 12 by 12 terrain hexes that represent the possible average terrain in his homeland. From this the person, and only the defender can use this, chooses 54 contiguous hexes in a 6 by 9 configuration to make the terrain the battlefield will have. As "The Neverneverlands" is sort of an Imagi-nation idea of "The Netherlands" or "The Low countries:" the terrain is heavily cut up with unfordable rivers, blocked flooded areas, and two towns and a few hills. This was going to make it as difficult as possible for the Ikeans to employ their vast numbers.
That left the two brigades. Here the choices were important. A normal brigade (not a special brigade like the Ikean Native Levies) can be of any of seven or eight types of brigade you chose, infantry brigade, elite brigade, wagon brigade, cavalry, artillery, siege brigade and engineer brigade. Each has different bundles of battlefield table top units. All of them have generally four units of "type" as determined by the title, three officers, one light gun, a regiment of Dragoons, and a wagon. Norm chose the Engineering brigade which had only three units of engineers, one gun, one dragoons and FOUR wagons. The Wagons in the Engineering brigade can be "expended" ahead of time to make four redoubts. The Engineers then serve as normal line infantry. So Norm chose that option and for the second brigade an Elite Brigade, and chose two grenadier regiments and one light infantry regiment, in addition to the dragoons and the light gun. Thus Ikea, had four regiments of Heavy Cavalry, four regiments of Light Cavalry, four heavy guns, one light gun, three regiments of Janissaries (like Grenadiers) SIX regiments of Turkish Light Infantry, (explained in a moment) , five regiments of militia, two regiments of Light Horse Archers and six wagons. Norm was meeting them with a paltry three regiments of Grenadiers, two Light infantry, two light infantry, two light guns and two wagons, but he had the very difficult terrain AND four redoubts.
One again strategic choices intruded. The position Norm chose was craftily taken so that unfordable rivers and blocks covered his entire front. Only on the flanks at the two fords could the Ikeans get across and immediately in front of one of these was a village which Norm put a redout into. This in effect "fortifies the village and makes it almost like a permanent fortification. This has the effect of raising all values of the defenders to 5. He secured the other flank of the ford by putting one of the redoubts covering it. On the other side he put another redoubt into the other village, fortifying it, but this approach was weaker as the river looped away from the village and was much exposed so he put another redoubt guarding the ford. He then disposed his forces largely in these two positions. .
The Turkish Light Infantry (or in this case Ikean Light Infantry) This is a special troop which like any light infantry can break down into six stands of SCUM or skirmishers. However in all other cases this must be done BEFORE the battle and they cannot be recombined after. The
Turkish Light Infantry are however reminiscent of their Bashi-Bazooks and CAN be recombined into a full unit by bringing six scum stands together in which case they have great mobility and a powerful charge, but mediocre rally and stand abilities. However, in this situation they could be extremely valuable. As SCUM they have the ability to enter unaffordable river hexes and areas and even block areas, but they cannot reform in them, and obey the rules of scum in all cases, which means they have naught but an annoyance value. However, this did mean they could make the impregnable line rather permeable. Luckily for Norm, his opponent, Pete Frechtling did not realize this or choose to employ it.
The Decisions were not over. We now had to deploy the victory conditions. These were six small tokens which showed the "Strategic Locations" on the table top, three for each side, and the camp, line of retreat, and Headquarters for each side. Norm realized that if he put all six in one of the two fortified towns, then Pete would ignore the other, and to spread out the Ikean forces attacking at any one spot he put the three strategic point cards in the town on the right edge of the board and the camp, line of retreat, and headquarters in the town on the other edge. Pete, put them along his baseline, fairly confident they did not need protection as there was no off the board wide turning movements. Off the board movement WAS allowed, but only for shallow movements around the flank, but Pete decided the problems of using that would not be worth it and the Neverneverlandians were not likely to get that far.
The battle then began.
Very quickly it became a series of gory charges of the Ikeans on each flank, seeking to push through by sheer numbers the narrow ford on the one hand, and the defile on the other. On the right the Village of Froggiboddom which had been improved, was a killing field. Being like unto a permanent fortification it meant that all defending units had all their values (except range) raised to five. This meant that anything but a six was a hit or a pass, and as they attacking Ikeans could only get one or two units in, they were always at a disadvantage and were tossed back repeatedly, only to see the precious few combat results cards they managed to get onto the Neverneverlandian units slide off like eggs on Teflon. The weak point here however was in the redoubt which covered the rear flank of the ford. The redoubt was not so powerful and only provided the increased stats to the "To Stand" and "Rally" values of units within but not their melee and fire values. Pete kept up constant pressure here, hoping to break through. I used my dragoons to support and toss back various assaults, and aid the light infantry and single light gun in the redoubt. In between assaults the heavy guns pummeled the town . We held it most of the day– most of it.
On the other flank the one improved town on the base-line, the last ditch defense never came under attack, but the forward redoubt covering the ford, saw extremely hard and bitter assaults for the whole game. Here Pete was using his disposable light troops and militia in an attempt to soften up the ford, and in between, the heavy guns pummeled the positions. Finally he sent in the Janissaries and the real carnage began. Thus the battle went for about six turns. On turn six Petes efforts were rewarded with success. Two defending units on each flank, in one a gun and a grenadier regiment and in the other a Dragoon and a Light Infantry units succumbed to ELIMINATED, two Broken Cards, or multiple retreats. Pete was unfortunate in not getting any critical loss cards for these where I had gotten two from units that he had lost previously. Pete got one that turn from all my units eliminated. The next turn, turn 7 saw the end of it all.
As I have said before the event cards are 144 in number and range from minor annoyances to devastating ones. Pete now pulled the most devastating card of all, what is called the "McClellan at Antietam Card" which simply says, that for some reason you decide you have lost the battle. It doesn't matter the table top situation the game is over and the other side has won. This applied to me in this case and so that was it. NORMALLY in table top games I void this card and let the battle go on, but this was not a stand alone game, it WAS a campaign, and therefore it had to count. Hoisted on my own petard! Anyway, we all decided that it was not untoward given the massive loss of almost half of my units in one turn, and things were starting to fall apart. So we let it go. It was also getting late and the aroma of simmering pot roast and apple cake was wafting out of the kitchen/ So we called it.
But there is one other thing to tell. At the end of the game, The Neverneverlandians had had all of their strategic points, and their camp, headquarters, and line of retreats. They in addition had gotten TWO critical loss cards for destroying enemy units. That was a total of 8. Pete had all his strategic points and his camp, headquarters, and line of retreats. He had only ONE critical loss card for destroying one of my units for a total of 7. By the strict rules of the game, the lesser subtracts his victory points from the larger and the larger gets the balance in strategic Victory Points. Thus Norm got ONE Strategic Victory Point even though by the card he "lost the battle." However as Pete won the battle by the card he gets an automatic Strategic Victory point. Therefore in this battle, BOTH sides came away with something. I was glad of that. Pete fought hard and well. He deserved it… well Ian deserved it.
A few closing points.
Pete Frechtling is a master at the game and knows all the tricks. He has been playing it for almost 8 years. I was surprised he did not catch on to the special abilities of the Turkish Light Infantry in this situation. However I noticed that he seemed a bit flummoxxed by the vast number of table top units he had. He was bewildered by what to do with it all, and I suspect that this was a real impediment to him. He was not able to move and order his units with the grace he normally does, having in every sense an embarrassment of riches. He certainly could have made my day much harder had he started to tie me down along the "unaffordable" river and block hexes. The block hexes were supposed to be shallow ponds and small lakes. I also thought he could have pushed over the "unaffordable " river in the center in a series of just off the table top moves to increase my discomforture. But then that may have been more of my worry and fear than something that would have actually worked. I don't think Pete wanted to risk the time running out for this.
Pete and I were in fact the ONLY people at the game. All the others had succumbed to that besetting sin of all gamers, family, jobs, events, and responsibilities intruded and they could not make it. Nevertheless the game goes on and all are eager, and wish they could have come. Tat's very gratifying as usually these things are the first sign of the collapse of a campaign game. Not so in this one it seems.
The game seems to have a lot of things right.. Everyone likes that the way to winning the campaign is by table top battles. It seems the just way of doing it, and everyone likes being able to participate in different and creative ways.
The next battle will between Flounce, led by Billy Smith, and Sweeta, led by Dennis Largesse, fighting in Ikea.