I copied and pasted my H'con 2018 report from my AAR (a PDF) here. No photos, just the text about games I umpired and played in, observations, and other items of interest. The full PDF ran to 23 pages, so I split it up depending on the topic. This covers the Snappy Nappy 1809 Peninsula 'Campaign in a Day' game I helped umpire. --RL
Give the Historicon 2018 convention director and volunteers a round of applause for another great HMGS convention. I have no doubt some things went kablooey, but all I saw were gamers galore rolling dice through the four-day convention. I renewed acquaintances and met new gamers, bought a few things in the dealer area, bought a few things in the flea market, and had a great four days.
WEDNESDAY: Set Up
A couple of my AARs ago, I recapped the Snappy Nappy 'Campaign in a Day' 1809 Peninsula Napoleonic game hosted and GMed by Peter up in Manchester, CT at The Portal store and noted he was bringing the campaign to Historicon. It was in the PEL for Thursday morning from 10am to 5pm.
Wednesday night, Dan and I met up with Peter, James, and Tim (who came all the way from Scotland) and started setting up the 12-table campaign spectacular. Nine of the tables were 5 feet by 6 feet (30 square feet each), two were 2.5 feet by 6 feet (15 square feet each), and one was 10 feet by 6 feet (60 square feet). That's 360 square feet of terrain that Peter somehow packed and fit into his SUV.
Mind you, some of the terrain was pretty basic, enlivened by specialty buildings and other terrain pieces, but 360 sq ft is 360 sg ft! It took us five a few hours in the evening to outfit all 12 tables in the Distelfink. Dan and I had a late dinner (a tepid hamburger and cold fries for me) at about 9pm up in the bar with Pete and Tim. The food was a joke, but the comradery and wargaming conversation proved hilarious.
THURSDAY: Snappy Nappy 1809 Peninsula
Up at The Portal, where Peter runs the annual SnapCon, we've got a separate room. With Snappy Nappy in the Distelfink, the chaos factor was a tad higher. The noise level is higher, foot traffic and questions (always welcome) are higher, and umpiring all this across 12 tables is more challenging. With Peter as head umpire, Dan and I as assistant umpires, and James as an on-the-spot umpire while also being the King of Spain, we had most of it covered.
It took a little extra time to get all 15 or so players settled in with their commands and
rules briefing. I remember it being 11:30am when Peter led players to the tables to start pushing 25mm lead.
About Snappy Nappy
In Snappy Nappy, each two stands of infantry or cavalry is a brigade and each stand of artillery is about 24 guns, give or take. No OOB is exactly divisible, so give Peter credit for balancing the scenario. Each player commands roughly a corps of eight to 10 units.
Ground scale is 1 inch equals 150 yards, so infantry shoot an inch and 12 pounder artillery up to a foot. However, for the Campaign to work, you maneuver across a 'proportional' table where an inch is about a mile. Infantry move 6 inches in column (12 in a road column on a main road, 9 inches on a secondary road). My intent here was to make one 'proportional' turn equal to one day. Yes, it's a little (some say a lot) of representational fudging, but we'd need the entire convention space to do Spain at 1 inch equals 150 yards….
Firing is basic d10 roll to hit based on firer quality. The target unit rolls a Morale Check (saving roll) per hit, again based on unit quality. One key feature of Snappy Nappy is that units roll until they either pass a Morale Check or rout out of the game. It makes battles 'snappy,' and also teaches you to maintain reserves to plug a hole.
Melee is roll a d10 and apply modifiers, with high total winning and imposing hits and morale checks on the losing unit.
Sequence of Play Twist
For multi-table campaigns, we coordinate the sequence of play across all tables for the first two turns so people get an idea about movement and so on.
On the third turn, EACH table runs its own sequence of play. This specially means that if no enemy is on your table, you can zip across the table in a couple of minutes. It's not that your troops have warp drive, it's a representation of a strategic surprise. After a couple decades of campaign games, I've heard many players express words of shock -- 'humbugged me' would be a mild oath -- at seeing enemy turn up on the flank or behind. It also teaches you to start thinking about a bigger picture than just the tabletop in front of you.
For my own umpiring style, at the beginning I announce big assumption number one: that all players can read. I know, it IS a big assumption, but it gets players in the habit of using the quick reference sheet. Snappy Nappy is a relatively straightforward game and all charts are on one side of an 8.5x11-inch sheet of paper (although the printed rules do contain double sided QRS with bigger fonts for those who like larger fonts).
In the interest of full disclosure, I authored Snappy Nappy.
Just about all the players were brand new to Snappy Nappy. For the first half a dozen turns, or about an hour of gaming, I went from one table to another and answered rules questions, so I don't have a good sense of overall movements.
The Tabletop Campaign in a Day
On the Cuidad Rodrigo table, turn one, one French and one Spanish corps (with a second Spanish corps elsewhere on the table) were in immediate contact -- so much so that one Spanish corps retreated off the table at Zamora and come back on another road. That was smart -- one-on-one, Spanish are generally not a match for the French. At SnapCon V, this feeling was confirmed, so for Historicon, Peter made some quality improvements to the Spanish, but it's still an uphill battle for them.
The French, reinforced with another French corps, drove onward, engaging the Spanish on the table at the Battle of Trebanzos. The Spanish, reinforced by another Spanish corps, battled away as the French pressed the initial Spanish corps and passed through Trebanzos on the way to Braganca.
As the attack gained momentum, the Spanish retreated to the next town, where they set up a line and the Battle of Braganca occurred. Back and forth went the artillery firing and charges, the French quality gradually wearing down the Spanish as both sides experienced their moments of rolling well or poorly.
The other French corps engaged the other Spanish corps at the Battle of Fermoselle-Vilgudino. The Spanish gave as best they could, causing a bit of consternation to some French attacks. Note that both the Battle of Braganca and the Battle of Fermoselle-Vilgudino were simultaneous. Both were French victories, driving the Spanish away to fight again some other day.
Umpiring
One aspect we umpires probably should emphasize more is that starting on turn three, the turn sequence is by table, not for the game as a whole. So, when a player is on a table without enemy, the player can go through the sequence quickly and move quickly. See the Sequence of Play Twist above.
For example, in my walkabout rounds, I noticed several players on several tables were not moving troops because they were waiting for Turn 3 or waiting for Turn 4.
When I explained the Sequence of Play Twist, they didn't have to be told twice! Humbugged or not, they marched along and got into battles.
Players also learned that sending cavalry off to see what's on another table is a good thing. I recall the following conversation with a player.
Gamer: "How do I know what's on the other table?"
Me: "You don't, but how would you find out?"
Gamer: "Send someone to look?"
Me: "Yes, but who would you send?"
Gamer: "Cavalry."
Me: "Which one?"
Gamer, pointing: "That one."
Me, consulting map: "Right. Follow me to the next table."
Two years ago, James came up with an exceptionally clever mechanic called a deployment zone -- when you enter a table, you set up troops in this roughly six-inch wide zone. You can't shoot or melee, nor be shot or meleed, for one turn. Then, you have to make a decision: Stick (advance and bring the rest of your corps on) or kick (withdraw from the zone).
The idea here is that scouts would warn you of any enemy and it also avoids a gamey mechanic of ambushing oncoming troops with massed batteries and such. Of course, you can have massed batteries, but there's no free shot at the road column.
In another twist, Peter included French supply rules and Spanish guerrillas (under John). Every hour on the hour, Peter checked French supply lines back to Madrid. If the road was open, so was the supply line. If the Spanish took a town, the road was closed.
This forced the French to pay attention and leave garrisons behind, diminishing their strength as they moved deeper into Spain. Clever bit, that, if another point to umpire, but Peter rotated among the tables on that top of the hour to deliver some good or bad news.
If lines were cut, each unit had to make one 'attrition' Morale Check -- this was one die roll (NO rolling until pass or rout). In the vernacular of Snappy Nappy, that picked off one Morale Status Level from a few units. In addition, advancing was limited to six inches from the present position. The French could withdraw (er, towards Madrid) without a problem, but they could not advance (er, away from Madrid) more than 6 inches.
As for the tactical nature of the rules, by turn 5 or 6, all the players understood basic movement, firing, meleeing, morale checks, and so forth. For about the next three hours, I did little but confirm players' calculations, or remind them about a modifier or two. On occasion, I received a more technical question, but otherwise, the gamers gamed, thinking more about positions and movements instead of mechanics -- and that's just the way I like it.
By the way, communication was by written note given to umpire Peter, who time stamped each one -- his watch was the only time piece that counted in the campaign! Messages were delivered after a certain amount of time, depending on distance between sender and receiver.
Victor at Lisbon
Originally, Wellesley (the future Duke of Wellington) and the Brits, starting on the Lisbon table, headed north off table to Oporto to meet the French, but turned around and marched back to Lisbon as a Spanish corps entered the Oporto table to divert the French. Good thing, too, because Victor's French corps entered the table on the south side of the river and headed to Lisbon with good troops and a pontoon bridge in tow.
Alas for the French, the Brits reappeared and so began a French screening action along the river (all rivers were impassable except at bridges or via construction of pontoon bridge). A Portuguese corps suddenly appeared out of the south, somewhat of a surprise to Victor, but you could see him thinking about using interior lines to hold the Brits and whack the Portuguese -- especially when a French cavalry corps reinforced Victor.
And right at this time, Peter arrived and informed Victor his supply lines had been cut. Humbug indeed!
Wellesley's Highlanders charged across the one bridge over the river, shattering a French brigade, but shattered in turn by French reserves. The next British brigade completed the forced crossing, but by this time, Victor was withdrawing. The Portuguese pounced on some rearguard cavalry, but Victor escaped the three allied corps.
Battle of Torrijas and Siege of Talavera
A French corps (James) came on the Talavera table and immediately ran into part of Zayas' defending Spanish corps (Sam). The French decided to stick and commenced the Battle of Torrijas in the corner of the table. A sharp little action saw a bold Spanish attack in an effort to stem the advance, but the battle went to the French and the Spanish retreated towards a supporting corp. The French pushed on to Talavera in the center of the table, where they had a garrison under siege.
About this time, another French corps (Jamie) arrived at the other corner of the table and the French started to push towards the bridge across the river. A second Spanish corps, Cuesta, (Tim) formed a welcoming line at the river.
As the original French corps pressed towards Talavera, part of the original Spanish corps took up positions in the hills to equalize the odds while the rest pressed the Siege of Talavera.
As the second French corps (Jamie) moved forward, umpire Peter arrived and announced this second French corps was now out of supply (James' original French corps on the road to Madrid was in supply). Cursed guerrillas! This caused a withdrawal and Cuesta's second Spanish corps positioned only a small covering force at the bridge and moved to support the siege.
The Spanish bombarded the town with artillery and fired into the French troops, finally causing enough failed Morale Checks to toss the French out of the town and into the woods. The French arrived early enough to bash a Spanish infantry brigade, but when Talavera was lost, the French retreated in the face of determined and reinforced Spanish resistance.
The Spanish regrouped and then set off for Madrid.
Battle of Portolegre
When we last left Wellesley, the Brits, and the Portuguese, they were in hot pursuit of Victor's French force, which had retreated to the next table and set up a defensive line at Portolegre. Both sides took the time to issue Rally orders, collect stragglers, and bring their troops back into fighting trim.
Then the Allies advanced onto the new table and engaged the French.
Wellesley and the Brits stormed into the teeth of the French defensives, while the Portuguese maneuvered onto the end and two infantry brigades with one more brigade in support charged into a single French brigade.
Elite Highlanders or Seasoned Portuguese, it didn't matter. The French dealt out punishment along their entire line. The previously favorable Allied rolls turned unfavorable, and the entire Allied attack faltered and was thrown back. The British re-learned about French defensive strength and the Portuguese found out that stalwart French troops standing on the defense at Portolegre were not the easy targets of retreating French troops near Lisbon.
The Allies held the edge of the table, daring the French to attack. Outnumbered, the French held their defensive line in a stalemate.
Called at 4:15: Debrief
Peter ended the game at 4:15pm -- so call it 4.5 hours of intense action. Personally, I can't believe how time flew. I don't know how many turns were played on each table. I would guess the players initially did about three or four turns per hour at the outset, then increased to six to eight turns per hour by the end, based on my observation about movement distances and firing dice rolling.
My apologies for not mentioning other actions. Gradually, tables became vacant as the separated corps converged according to plan (or not) and larger multi-corp, multi-player battles occurred. We probably could have gone another hour for the larger battles, but some of the tables needed clearing for the next shift of games.
Of course, every Snappy Nappy campaign ends with a general debriefing where Peter lays out a large map (in CT, James brings a projector displaying the map on the wall) and players explain where they went and what they did, pushing scraps of paper representing corps across the map.
Alas, I stationed myself at the fringe and didn't catch everything, so my view here is, well, my partial view of an entire campaign. Peter will have a full report on his blog at some point in the future.
To me, Lisbon was safe for the Allies and Madrid safe for the French -- the two big-point victory spots -- so that was a wash, although I believe Allied forces were inching onto the Madrid table. Control of various provinces (uncontested tables for minor victory points) appeared slightly in the Allied favor. Losses seemed about even. I'm not sure of the French supply situation. Overall, I'd call it a minor Allied victory.
Incidentally, at SnapCon V, it was a major French victory with Lisbon captured and Wellesley never becoming Wellington.
Another Successful Campaign
Snappy Nappy can play one-on-one on a two-foot by two-foot table, but I really, really enjoy the big, multi-table games. Many of the players noted during and post-game that it was refreshing to do a wargame where you had wonderful fog of war and didn't know how the tables fit together and what forces were where.
I'm not sure Peter used official 'orders' in this campaign and I believe all players had the same 18-inch command range. It's just a little too confusing at a major convention instead of back room to use orders and different command radii. We use orders at SnapCons.
The scenario-specific supply rules seemed to work well -- just enough of a pain for the French (especially the limited advance when out of supply), but not too much. It represented the decision point about whether -- or how much -- to weaken your front line forces to garrison your line of supply versus keeping troops for offensive operations. The guerrillas had their work cut out for them!
More Info
Peter will post this AAR, others' AARs, and his own AAR on his blog: BlundersOnTheDanube -- Google it. It also contains all the SnapCon AARs, including maps, OOBs, and AARs.
I also urge you to join the Snappy Nappy Yahoo group run by Alan. It has lots of Snappy Nappy info, including downloadable Quick Reference Sheets, adaptations for alternative eras, and errata for the rule set.
Finally, pardon the pitch, but Snappy Nappy is available direct from On Military Matters and some local game shops here in the US and from Caliver Books in the UK.
Thank you to Peter for hosting, top umpiring, and bringing 25mm troops, terrain, and accoutrements, Greg for providing mountain terrain, James, Tim, and Dan for umpiring, terrain, and accoutrements, and Barry for set up and take down.
A big thank you to all the gamers who made the campaign game interesting and memorable. I hope you enjoyed gaming as much as I enjoyed umpiring.
