Historicon preparations

Is it July already? So it would seem, and that means Historicon is just around the corner. I'll be running two games this year, both 20mm Bronze Age using N.U.R.D. I had a couple of items on my to-do list before the convention, and I've managed to accomplish... most of them.

First of all, I have been meaning to repaint the slightly undersized Bronze Age fortress that I bought at last year's Historicon. I'm not sure that I ever took a picture of it in the condition in which I bought it, though the gatehouse piece has probably shown up in the background of some of my HotT battle report pictures. Anyway, it had been a sort of medium brown (mud?) color, and now it is a much lighter plaster/adobe color:

With some 20mm figures for size

Second, I had a couple of half-units of archers that I had been grouping together for conveniences' sake; I've now painted both other halves. 

Both of them will be seeing their first action at this convention, along with Dad's new pair of Egyptian chariots.

These guys started out as Airfix Robin Hood figures.

These ones are Caesar Hebrews.

Finally, Saturday morning was spent at the Kinko's down in town, putting together nice laminated unit cards for the various players. I'm hoping that the ring clips will be a convenient way of keeping the cards together and cutting down on table cruft.

It's still a couple of weeks to go before the convention, but they'll be busy ones for me, so I'm just as glad to have this all taken care of now.

Breakout!

That was the name of the game this Saturday, as a Northern Alliance force returning from a raid found itself entirely surrounded by units of the Pragmatic Coalition. Would the commanders of North Polenburg and Stansbach-Anwatsch realize their plight and withdraw in time, or would they be completely cut off by the disparate Coalition forces converging on them from every direction?

The answer, it turns out, was no--though North Polenburg's Queen Jennifer Regiment managed to retreat in good order as did a good part of the heavy cavalry, the Hawks Regiment was badly damaged and the Stansbach-Anwatsch 2nd Regiment was sacrificed wiped out in a gallant rearguard action against Pragmatic troops pouring across the river.

The Northern command, not apprised of the approach of other Coalition detachments, had originally planned to make a stand against the main pursuing body at a point where the river was only guarded by a single, easily defensible bridge. Imagine their surprise, then, when the first enemy soldiers to appear were the Wachovian Hussars, on what had been their left flank, where the light cavalry immediately rode down a gun that had been left out beyond its infantry support.

Initial dispositions of the Northern Alliance

Wachovian hussars capture a gun

The offending hussars were quickly engaged and destroyed by the Stansbach-Anwatsch dragoons, as the Northern left flank redeployed to face a possible new threat from this direction. But the next Pragmatic force to arrive was the main body on the other side of the river--led by mixed heavy cavalry and with two regiments of infantry following behind.

The main Coalition force enters

Cavalry melee on the Northern left

Meanwhile, on the right flank, the Northern commander began to extend his lines to fire at the Pragmatic troops across the river only to find that more Coalition forces were approaching from that direction as well--more Wachovians, this time infantry, who fixed bayonets and charged into the unsuspecting North Polenburgers. Two squadrons of heavy cavalry rode to the rescue, but met fierce resistance and were ultimately driven back by the thin orange line. In attempting to retreat, the North Polenburg cavalry was scythed down by Pragmatic guns across the river.

North Polenburg's 33rd Dragoons charge the Wachovian line

A mixed force of light cavalry was sent to block the Wachovian's advance, but before they could get there they were surprised by a Coalition attack from the rear--a force of cavalry coming up the road directly behind the Northern Alliance's main position. In several turns of fierce fighting, the Onkel-Heinrich Lancers and the newly formed 25th "Tannenbaum" Hussars were nearly destroyed, and only saved by the return of the Stansbach-Anwatsch dragoons, who fell upon the victorious Pragmatics as the latter were rallying.

Hussars vs. hussars, and dragoons vs. lancers

Action continues on the right

At this point, the Northern Alliance had realized their predicament, and began to pull back rather than be flanked on both sides--a new force of Schoeffen-Buschhagen infantry had appeared to their left. This sight encouraged the main Pragmatic army, which up to this point had been bottled up by the bridge. The Coalition pressed forward, first with cavalry and then with infantry, besting the retreating Stansbach-Anwatsch 2nd Infantry in a series of melees. As the remnants of the North Polenburg regiments retreated, the Stansbach-Anwatschers were caught and destroyed, leading the battle to be declared a victory for the Pragmatic Coalition.

First push across the river

"The enemy is behind us!" "No, the enemy is behind us!"

Pragmatic forces continue to cross the river

More Pragmatic troops can be seen in the distance.

Remnants of the Northern Alliance army

All in all, it was an interesting scenario. As one of the Pragmatic players, I think the Alliance had it tougher, not knowing the situation or the troops strengths. On the other hand, most of our detachments were fairly small, and the staggered manner in which they arrived meant that it was definitely possible to defeat them in detail--and indeed, the two cavalry forces, though they did a good deal of damage, were destroyed in the process. Then again, we had no issue with taking whatever losses were necessary, whereas the Alliance was told that they had to salvage at least 60% of their troops in order to win. Unfortunately, given the importance of the surprise factor, it would be difficult to run it again... at least with the same players.

Two years on the Junkyard Planet!

I know I haven't been posting much lately, but I figured I ought to take a moment to mark a couple of milestones: first of all, today is the second anniversary of this blog. Second, Junkyard Planet recently received its 20,000th view. So that's pretty neat.

A few fun statistics:

• The most-viewed post of all time remains Maps, part III
• The current least-viewed post is An Introduction to N.U.R.D.
• The most common search term which brings people to this site (not counting "junkyardplanet.blogspot.com" is "piktowie." Google Translate tells me this is the Polish word for "Picts." So far, up until this point I have written nothing about Picts, so I am slightly puzzled.

And here's some pictures of some games I've played in the last few months which I never got around to blogging anything about. All of these are the usual 20mm Hordes of the Things:

Anyway, thank you all for visiting (even those of you who may be Russian spambots) and hopefully I'll have more interesting stuff to post soon. I still owe everyone the second half of my "Hypothetical Hordes: A Song of Ice And Fire," we've got an NQSYW game coming up, and I hope to get at least a little painting done before Historicon next month...

Hypothetical Hordes: A Song of Ice and Fire Part 1--Westeros

April has been a bit of a slack month as far as wargaming goes, so to pass away the time here's another look at how the armies of a fantasy setting might be translated into Hordes of the Things. This time I'll be examining "A Song of Ice and Fire;" George R. R. Martin's well-known fantasy series and the basis for the TV show Game of Thrones. (As someone who started reading the books in high school, it occasionally boggles my mind that they've become so popular, and even more so that there's a successful TV version...)

Anyway, ASoIaF differs from the settings I've previously examined in a couple of key ways--firstly, it would not actually be impossible to build these armies, particularly if you're willing to do a bit of conversion work. The continents of Westeros and Essos contain a vast range of cultures, but they're (almost) all ordinary humans with standard medieval weaponry--no six-legged flying buffalo here. Secondly, the number of plausible armies is in fact so large that I will split this into two posts, one on the armies of present-day Westeros, the second on the armies of the eastern continent of Essos as well as some notable armies from the setting's history.

A word of warning here: while these army lists are not going to reveal any of the big plot twists, minor spoilers are definitely possible, particularly for those who are not up to date with the show. And now, without further ado, some armies:

THE SEVEN KINGDOMS

Given that the seven kingdoms cover most of a continent, it may seem a bit brusque to lump them all together. Still, with a few exceptions which I will examine separately, the Great Houses of Westeros all seem to share a common military tradition that mostly mirrors that of medieval Europe with armored knights supported by a variety of foot troops. Thus, any Stark, Lannister, Tully, Arryn, Baratheon, or Tyrell army will probably contain some proportion of:

• Knights (mounted men in full armor, plate or chain, with shield and lance)
• Riders (lighter-armored mounted troops with melee weapons)
• Spears (Or pikes, but Hordes of the Things makes no distinction)
• Shooters (Armed with either bows or crossbows)

Richer houses like the Lannisters or Tyrells can probably field a higher proportion of Knights, but cavalry should probably never exceed more than about half the army. One of the Knights should be the General in most cases, though in some cases a Hero might be around to pull rank. Now, let's look at a few specialist units that might be used to add a little variety:

• Heroes--certain figures like Jaime Lannister, Robb Stark, Gregor Clegane, or Loras Tyrell demonstrate enough martial prowess to be classed as Heroes. (Behavior-wise... well, there won't be many Paladins in Westeros.)
• Blades--some dismounted knights could conceivably be deployed as Blades.
• Lurkers--ambush parties
• Warband--Tyrion's mountain clansmen could be added to a Lannister army
• Hordes--conscripted peasants, or city guards like the Gold Cloaks of King's Landing.
• Sneaker--one of Melisandre's shadow children for Stannis' army.

Stronghold: Castles of every shape and size. Or a regular medieval camp would work too.

DORNE
The southeastern-most of the Seven Kingdoms, Dorne is hotter and more arid than most of the rest of the realm, and might be more analogous to historical Arabs, Berbers, or the medieval Spanish than the kingdoms to the north. A Dornish army should probably feature lighter-armed Riders in place of Knights, and possibly Warbands in place of Spears or Blades. The Red Viper might be deployed as a Hero.

Stronghold: Spanish or Saracen castle

THE IRON ISLANDS

A small archipelago off the western coast, these guys are basically Vikings. Unlike mainland Westerosi armies, the Ironborn don't really do the whole mounted combat thing. Their army should be made up of some proportion of Blades and Warband. A stand or two of Shooters might be added as well. There are a couple of potential Heroes--Euron Greyjoy, maybe.

Stronghold: a couple of beached longships, or a castle.

THE NIGHT'S WATCH
Sort of like a cross between the Foreign Legion and the Teutonic Knights, they protect Westeros from threats to the north--the barbarian Wildings and the supernatural Others. Most of their strength is spent manning the Wall, a colossal fort of ice and stone that stretches across the continent, but they do send scouting parties north of the Wall at times. The Watch generally remains neutral in the affairs of the Seven Kingdoms, so their main opponents will be the Wildings and the Others. The Night's Watch should probably be a mix of infantry--Blades, Spears, and Shooters, with perhaps a stand or two of mounted rangers. All should be dressed in black. (Makes for easy painting...) For a little variety, the Watch could include a Hero, (Jon Snow or Lord Commander Mormont) a Horde or two (stewards or builders pressed into service to defend the wall) and possibly a Sneaker (a scouting party.)

Stronghold: It would be really neat to lay out a section of the Wall along an entire board edge with one of the castles serving as the stronghold proper. A less ambitious stronghold could take the form of a temporary camp.

THE WILDLINGS
A broad term for "everyone living north of the Wall," the Wildlings of Mance Rayder's army are drawn from a host of disparate peoples, united by a desire to live somewhere warmer with less of an undead problem. Some possible elements are as follows:

• Warbands--warriors from various tribes, these should make up the core of the army. Not much armor; variety of hand weapons. Garb ranges from Inuit-like for northern tribes to standard fantasy barbarian furs and leather to ordinary medieval winter clothes.
• Shooters--as above, but armed with longbows.
• Knights--Frozen Shore warriors in walrus-bone chariots drawn by dogs
• Behemoths--giants riding mammoths. Giants in ASoIaF are only about twice as tall as humans, robust and hairy.
• Riders--Wildings on shaggy horses.
• Hero General--Mance Rayder, the King Beyond The Wall
• Beasts--a skinchanger with the animals he controls
• Sneakers--a Wall-climbing party
• Hordes--a less charitable take on the average Wildling warrior.

Stronghold: A vast collection of ragged tents, yurts, igloos, etc. or possibly a grove of weirwood trees.

THE OTHERS

Sometimes also known as the White Walkers, the Others are a mysterious supernatural race with a long-standing animosity towards humans. Most of their armies will consist of undead wights--reanimated human corpses with icy blue eyes. These would probably be best represented as Hordes. The Others themselves, including the general, would probably be best as Blades, armed with strange crystalline swords that can cut through steel. Others mounted on undead horses as Knights would also be a possibility. One story about the Other describes them as hunting with "packs of pale spiders as big as dogs" which could make for an interesting stand or two of beasts.

Stronghold: There really isn't enough information yet to know what the abode of the Others might be. A glacier might do, or some sort of otherworldly crystal castle.

These should cover main combatants in any Westerosi campaign, though I have left out some minor factions like the Brotherhood Without Banners, the mountain clansmen, and the crannogmen (twenty Lurkers and a Shooter general?) A future post (hopefully not too far in the future) will take a look at the armies of Essos--the Dothraki, Astapor, and more.

HAWKs paint & play day

For the past couple of years, our miniatures club, the HAWKs, has been putting on kids' games at Historicon, with a giveaway of complete "game sets"--figures, terrain, rules--to the players afterwards. The figures are mostly donations, and the club paints them up before handing them out. Today we held a joint painting session/gaming day up at Chris Palmer's house, with the game being an NQSYW scenario, as a couple of people had added new units since the last game back in November. We painted all morning, took a short break for lunch, then set up the game.

Here's a few shots of the painting work in progress:

The NQSYW scenario involved a larger Northern Alliance force trying to seize a defended ridgeline before Pragmatic Coalition reinforcements arrived from off-table. It was a tight game, but in the end, the Northern Alliance was unable to establish clear control of the ridge.

The Northern Alliance deployment--Stanzbach-Anwatsch cavalry on the right flank, S-A infantry in the center, and the North Polenburgers with their light troops on the left.

The Wachovian infantry and Schoeffen-Buschhagen grenadiers along the ridge, with a couple of cavalry squadrons in reserve.

The game nearly ended within the first couple of turns, as I allowed the Stanzbach-Anwatsch cavalry to get around my left flank even as some solid shooting from the Northern artillery caused some damage to the center of our line. Fortunately, the first of our reinforcements were prompt in arriving, as a squadron of Schoeffen-Buschhagen dragoons appeared on the table just in time to intercept the brand-new S-A lancers. Down on the other side of the board, the S-B grenadiers struck fear into the hearts of the North Polenburg regiment (or perhaps the N-P's notoriously low-grade powder was to blame for the quality of their shooting) while both sides' skirmishers squared off.

The cavalry in the foreground were the reinforcements mentioned.

Stanzbach-Anwatsch infantry advance.

The next turn or so saw a number of additional reinforcements arrive as melees developed all along the line. A fresh regiment of S-B infantry was sent in to support the grenadiers, while some newly arrived S-B hussars managed to catch the S-A lancers as they were rallying. The Wachovian infantry on the hill, surrounded on three sides, nonetheless managed to put up a stiff resistance against the waves of S-A dragoons before being overwhelmed. Unfortunately, a careless mistake on my part allowed a North Polenburg cavalry squadron to break through and overrun our artillery battery, which I had situated in the center of our line. Further to the right, my cuirassiers (under the leadership of my co-commander) saw their first action against the veteran Stanzbach-Anwatsch infantry.

More of our reinforcements.

Naturally, my cuirassiers (in white coats with red facings) ended up fighting the S-A infantry (in white coats with red facings.)

Hoping to catch the cavalry who had overrun the guns, I sent my hussars up the hill--but found instead the gray-coated Stanzbach-Anwatsch dragoons. Trusting in Wachovian steel and our superior numbers to carry the day against our heavier opponents, I hurled my hussars into their flank, beginning a swirling cavalry melee that would last several turns and leave that fatal ridge strewn with the bodies of men and horses.

The Wachovians spur forward, guidon waving and moustaches bristling.

A closer view of the combat.

The results of the first round--seven to two in favor of the hussars.

No sooner had the gray-coated horsemen been sent fleeing in disarray then the sound of bugles was once again heard above the din of battle--the veteran 32nd North Polenburg Dragoon Guard was being sent against us, along with more S-A dragoons, their sabers still red with the blood of the Wachovian infantry. With no time to rally or catch a breath, the Wachovian hussars once again spurred into action, this time doubly disadvantaged against heavier opponents on fresher horses. Meanwhile, the S-B cavalry took advantage of the chance to attack still another squadron of the S-A regiment. In two turns of melee, the hussars managed to achieve a draw, while the combined weight of casualties from both combats finally drove the Stanzbach cavalry from the field.

Wachovian hussars face their North Polenburg foes as Schoeffen-Buschhagen cavalry crests the hill.

The Wachovian melee continues in the background as the S-Bs charge the S-As.

The final results of the cavalry melee.

Meanwhile, further down the line, the lead S-A infantry regiment had fallen behind to rally after their melee with the cavalry, and the North Polenburg infantry had broken after coming up against the S-B von Nordhafen regiment. This left the veteran von Nordhafens facing the second regiment of S-A infantry--untested troops.

Black-coated S-A infantry move forward.

The North Polenburgers have fled the field.

The new Stanzbach-Anwatsch infantry made a good showing, as they and the von Nordhafens annihilated each other. Meanwhile, the last of our reinforcements--a new pair of guns--had finally arrived, and with effective Northern forces reduced to a trio of guns and an infantry regiment halfway to breaking, it was decided that the Northern alliance would not be able to hold the ridge even if they had driven us from it. So ended another NQSYW battle, with a costly victory for the Pragmatic Coalition, and first-battle honors for several new units.

Take me out to the ball game...

Well, with warmer weather coming on, it's finally time for me to set aside the Byzantines and indulge one of my other interests--baseball! I was very excited when Caesar issued their set of baseball players (Sportsmen Set III) last year, but I somehow forgot to pick up some the other week at Cold Wars. Fortunately, in this era of online commerce, this is not a major obstacle, and when I got home from work today, I found a package waiting for me with a couple of boxes of the long-awaited figures.

Obviously the first team will be painted up in my own Baltimore Orioles colors (Go O's!) but I haven't decided yet who their opponents should be...

(It's a pity Caesar hasn't seen fit to release a similar set of football players--Ravens vs. Steelers would be the obvious choice there...)

Anyway, hopefully I will have the first few of these painted and ready to show off by the end of the week!

APRIL FOOLS!

An Introduction to N.U.R.D.

I promised in my Cold Wars report that I would discuss my rules system at a later date, and it seemed best to me that I should give that discussion sometime before I completely forgot about the updates I intended to make.

First of all, let me direct you to the previous version of the rules, which may be found here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1uaZiOYUHXxKZWPc4UBbnQNQq38NDxosCrVLMNYZZuqU/edit

The basic idea behind Norman's Universal Rules Design (henceforth N.U.R.D. or NURD) is that each unit has a single fund of "hit points" (which I refer to the rules as the "action reserve") which also encompasses morale, cohesion, ammunition status, enthusiasm, and all-around general fighting capability. Every sort of action which the unit can perform is listed on the unit's card, and each of them costs some number of action points. Damage inflicted on enemies is also counted in action points, and rallying restores action point--up to a certain level. If a unit drops to half strength or below, one of its stands is removed and cannot be regained unless a leader is present.

Some of this may make more sense with a couple of sample unit cards:

The rows of boxes on the right-hand side are the unit's action reserve, with the dashed line marking half-strength. The costs of the various actions are marked with green and yellow circles; the damage done by their different attacks are marked with red boxes. Some of the actions have accompanying text--there are a number of restrictions on the rally action, and the archers' ranged attack notes that it cannot be combined with a move. This brings up another point, in that certain action combinations are allowed--at the cost of double the combined cost of both actions. Thus, for the Subject Infantry to make a 6" move and use their primary attack would cost (0+1) x2 = 2 points, but for them to make a 10" move and perform their stronger attack in the same turn would cost (2+3) x2 = 10 points... a quarter of their starting action reserve. Terrain effects are hinted at by the existence of the "difficult" move, which also covers other hard-to-perform maneuvers.

Now, as for the changes that will probably result from the Cold Wars game:

1. Under 3.0: "A unit may not end its move in contact with the flank or rear of an enemy unit unless it started the turn entirely to that side of the enemy."

2. Under 3.0: "A unit may not move through a gap narrower than the width of a single stand."

3. Under 3.1: "Any move which begins with the unit in contact with the enemy requires the use of a difficult move."

These first three changes are intended to address one issue I noted, which was that battle lines seemed a little too fluid, with units ducking in and out of combat a little too readily. This should hopefully add a basic "zones of control" functionality without getting too clunky.

4. Under 5.0: Add the word melee before "combat" to the line "Units with an attached leader may roll an additional die in combat at no additional cost, regardless of what attack they are using."

As it turned out, having leaders boost the effect of ranged attacks ended up giving some units a bit too much firepower, particularly the chariots--and it makes sense to me that the increase in ability brought on by a leader's intervention should be more noticeable at close combat.

5. Under 5.0: The last two lines will be amended to the following: "If a unit with an attached leader is destroyed, the leader is destroyed along with the unit."

Units in N.U.R.D. actually proved to be relatively durable, and leaders are allowed a free move at the beginning of each turn anyway, so the previous rule was not as important as I though it might be--the only leader who was killed in the Cold Wars game was the Egyptian general, whose command died to the last man. Having leaders destroyed along with units should hopefully provide some tension between the desire to keep them alive and the desire to use their improved rallying abilities on vulnerable units.

Other tweaks will come to the units rather than the rules themselves: chariot units will probably have their action reserves reduced somewhat, and rally actions will be retemplated to have a cost of at least one, making the move/rally combo less universally appealing.

If anyone should desire to play around with these rules, feel free to give them a try--while I used them for a Bronze Age game, there's no reason that unit cards could not be made up for troops of pretty much any period. (The colors and shapes on the card are entirely optional--leave them out, or change them to suit your taste if so desired.) And if anyone does give them a try, let me now--I'd be interested in hearing about the results!