"Sacking the baggage train/supply camp" Topic

As I'm working on my FoG TYW Swedish army supply camp at the moment, this topic occurred to me.

In the rules (& AFAIK in many rule sets), an undefended camp is more or less automatically sacked with a losss of Victory Points by its owner.

In historical reality, capturing the baggage train/sacking the Supply Camp wasn't necessarily a good thing.
These examples ended with bad consequences for the perpetrators.

In 1415 at the battle of Agincourt Isambard d' Agincourt and Robert de Bournonville along with a few hundred men attacked the English baggage train which was in the rear of the English lines. According to the Gesta Henrici Quinti written by King Henry V's Chaplain, who was with the baggage train, this occurred at the beginning of the battle. This probably influenced Henry's decision to break the conventions of medieval warfare and have thousands of French prisoners slaughtered. Not a good outcome for the French.

At the battle of Naseby in 1645 Prince Rupert smashed his way through Ireton's cavalry but gave away his advantage by proceeding to attack the Parliamentarian baggage train outside Naseby village. How much this episode contributed to the defeat of the Royalists is unknowable but as Naseby is generally viewed as the turning point of the civil war it appears to have been a contributory factor.

I'm wondering on having some sort of rule tweak that might end in the sacking force getting bitten. Perhaps a loss of cohesion for the looters?

Your opinion?

I think this is a good idea. You could require some sort of test when baggage enters LOS for troops known to be impetuous. It could be adjusted by modifiers for circumstances that might prevent / encourage it.
Pete

1. They stay and are too busy pillaging to go back.

2. They roll morale to come back with a hefty penalty to represent the temptation of continued looting.

The action at Naseby is interesting … some authorities dispute whether it happened at all – and certainly the story only involves firing at a man in a red hat (no evidence that it was Rupert): and it was the guarded artillery train, not the army's baggage, of course.

Nevertheless I am sure something happened behind Parliament's left flank involving troops whose imperative, otherwise, would have been to turn in on the enemy's rear.

So it justifies having some rear asset component on table (or thereabouts) as as much a vulnerability as a distraction.

The artillery train at Naseby was pretty well defended so probably should count as fortified (so taking it is not a forgone conclusion: it was not 'taken' on the day, of course)

Should it bite back? Well the main disadvantage at the moment is the way it soaks a battlegroup away from other duties (and, actually, in my experience, you seldom get to take them before the game finishes) .. And in FoG, once the camp is sacked, you need to pass a CMT to get back control of your battlegroup.

Any tougher and I suspect players will just ignore the supply camp entirely (mostly players do, now, anyway) …

That said, in DBx, camps fight and attackers rolling really bad dice can suffer embarrassment (been there, done that)

Phil

In DBMM, baggage causes nearby enemy to become impetuous, which in theory could cause disorder, but the radius of effect is so small that it in practice only happens when you're trying to attack the baggage, in which case it's more of a help than anything else. A bit of a missed opportunity to my mind.

Unit that sacks the baggage is removed from play.

Unit that sacks the baggage does not count as a unit lost when calculating victory points.

Or is that too simple?

Well in the rules a unit that is sacking the camp must pass a test in order to move again. So that is in itself a penalty. I've had games where I would like that unit to get off the base line and hit the remaining enemy in the rear, but couldn't get them back in the game in time. Also, sitting against the back camp like that makes them a sitting duck for any opponent looking to drive them off the table.

The best generals have tended to guard their camps. It follows pretty clearly that losing your baggage is a bad thing and should count in victory or defeat calculations. The danger is the same as being tied up in combat anywhere: you can't be in two places at once, and while you're looting, you can't be turning the enemy rear.
Just make sure that plundering baggage takes a bit of time, and more if it's protected.

Two more examples of sacking the enemy's camp as a bad idea are, Worringen (1288) and Verneuil (1424)….

In Byzantium: Beyond the Golden Gate (supplement for WAB) units in charge range from the baggage must pass a test or will be forced to charge the baggage defenders. Moreover, the loot can be retaken from the defenders. Can simulate the many times when an encircling force preferred sacking instead of fighting (like Venetian turcopoles at Fornovo)

An extreme example of loss of camp & baggage being crucial is Gabiene, 316BC, Wars of the Diadochi; Eumenes had come off pretty well on top in the battle, but had lost his camp etc… To get their stuff back his own troops handed him over to Antigonus and subsequent execution…
It shouldn't be too hard to formulate special rules for such a situation…