A good week

This has been a fine week on the gaming front.

First off, a Japanese game designer whose work I greatly admire got in touch and in passing invited me to attend a Kyoto playtest session of his newest design. Unfortunately, work commitments meant that I couldn't make it this time around, but he invited me to go along to another session next year. I'm quietly thrilled about this, to put it mildly.

Second, I managed to win a copy of Victory Games' 2nd Fleet in an auction the other night. I've played a few Vassal games of Sixth fleet with Brad from Hexsides and Handgrenades, so I was pretty pleased to be able to find another in the series at a reasonable price.

Thirdly, Ukraine '44 has been on the table this week and it's been most enjoyable moving pieces around and seeing how the game ticks. It's just the level I like to play - operational, lots of manoeuvre, both sides have different strengths and weaknesses, you can keep all the rules in your head, there's plenty to think about strategically, and yet it's over and done with fairly quickly.

Fourth, an old Commands and Colors: Ancients offsider dropped me a line about Ukraine '44 and we've decided to crank up the Vassal engine for a PBEM game.

Fifthly, after spending some time with Simon Miller's To the Strongest! rules, I'm inspired to sit down with my own grid/card ideas and try to pull them into better shape. It would be nice to put on another multiplayer game next year.

Good point the sixth, an associate (who shall remain nameless at this point) is sneaking a day off work on Monday to come down for some ancients gaming.  One (or perhaps more) of DBA 3.0, Sword and Spear, To the Strongest! or Dux Bellorum will get on the table, and we hope to finish things off with a debut game of the modern naval rules, Shipwreck.

All in all, things could be much worse!

Finally - and this is not game related - I've rediscovered an old batch of tapes filled with songs recorded on acoustic guitar and an old four track from around 2001-2003. After listening to a few bits and pieces, it may turn out that some of them will be worth revisiting. It's quite nice to find a snapshot of one's younger self and not be entirely embarrassed by it!

Ukraine '44, turns 1 and 2.

Details of my solo game of Ukraine '44.

Turn 1 - Soviets attack all along the line east to west, while driving north to south in an attempt to reach the Dnestr.

Turn 2 - Germans pull back and try to set up a defensive line to hold a line north to south and prevent a breakthrough to the Dnestr.

Soviets test for cracks in the line, besiege Ternapol in the north, and look to isolate the defending Germans south of the Dnestr.

Minor losses on both sides.

Turns three and four continue here.

Learning Rules

Well, given that I teach for a living, you might think that I would say that!

Nonetheless, I find that learning rules generally pretty much sucks. I have a four stage process that I seem to follow. It starts with irritation, proceeds quickly to outright disdain but will, if I play the game a few times, likely gradually turn into grudging admiration, and assuming I continue to  play, become a lapdoggish sycophancy which causes me to growl if anyone says a bad word against either the designer or the designed.

It therefore fills me with suspicion on those rare occasion when I do find a ruleset that I like from the outset. As you can perhaps guess, I encountered this rarety last night. The game is Ukraine '44, by Yasushi Nakaguro, published by MMP, and on the topic of the Kamenets-Podolsky, or Hube's, pocket.

Map is a screenshot taken from here.

The rules are short, very clean (ie, you don't need to download screes of errata), and they make excellent sense. It's true that they are very much standard hex and counter with few bells and whistles, but the little things that have been added really appeal.

For example, the game keeps unit strength hidden. Units are placed on map on their generic side which shows just nationality and unit type, and they are only turned over when a combat is declared. After the combat they are turned back to their generic side again.

Simple but effective.

As another example, unit stamina is variable and losses incremental. It's not your standard 'take one hit, flip counter; take a second, remove counter' system. If your unit has, say, 6 steps, you simply record losses by means of a marker hidden under the unit counter.

Again, simple and effective.

In bigger games this would seem like an invitation to counter clutter, but as in this game there is a stacking limit of only one unit per hex, it is not a problem here at all.

The third thing I like is the combat system. It looks like your usual CRT is in play (calculate odds, find column, roll die, apply results) but it's not.

It includes flanking - which gives a positive or negative die roll modifier - and lovely rules for when odds are lesser or greater than those on the CRT. In most games, odds over of the maximum on the CRT (in this case 4:1) would be wasted. Here, they are not; a 5-1 simply means that you add a 1 to your die roll. A 7-1 means that you add 3.

Once more, simple, effective, and this time intuitive to boot!

There's more to this CRT than meets the eye...

Anyway, having apparently skipped most of the rules learning process and jumped immediately to the lapdog sycophancy stage, I've set the map up, and I'm genuinely excited about giving it a whirl. The only problem I can see for a solo game is what to do about the hidden unit strengths.

Do I...

a) Play it as is, allowing both sides to check their counter strengths during their own moves, and then try to forget that information during the other side's turn.
b) Play it as is, but don't allow myself to check the counter strengths until combat is declared.
c) Play it with the counter strengths revealed throughout.

I'm leaning towards C, but I think I'll first have a browse on boardgamegeek and see if anyone else has tried to play solo and see what they did.

And the reason why I can actually play a game?  Because I spend the weekend putting in a new wall of shelves in the little closet room we have off the master bedroom, meaning that a lot of the junk that was cluttering up the hobby room floor space could be moved in there instead.

Happy days!

I put together a shelf, but do you think they call me the shelf maker? No...

Back in Japan!

It's nice to be back in Japan.

I've just returned from a month in New Zealand visiting my parents and attending my sister's wedding. It was not a planned visit, but the old man got some bad news about his health recently and my wife and I thought that it would be good if I went back to spend a bit of time with them and give a hand where I could.

Thankfully, the old man is doing much better than the initial prognosis suggested. They were told he had an inoperable brain tumour but when they sent him up to Wellington for a biopsy the doctor who was going to do it turned out to be a German chap who had only been in the country for three weeks; he took a look, said 'blow the biopsy, I'll take the whole thing out' and, bless him, he did. The old man's not quite in the clear yet - there's another one in his lung to take care of as well - but he's looking good and there's a lot more hope for him than there was five weeks ago.

While I was over there I helped the folks to 'rationalise' some of the items they had about the place or in storage. I did the same to my books and LPs, which gave me a good chance to look over what I have there. It would be nice to be able to put the books up on some shelves again and crank up the old record player! Still, one day...

In other good news, my wife and kids came over for the last ten days or so of my visit, and it was great for them to be able to experience a bit of the Kiwi lifestyle without being overly busy. They enjoyed it, and my parents loved having the chance to get to know their Japanese grandkids better.

To top it off, on returning here I found a couple of wargaming books from the Book Depository plus a box from a TMPer who was looking to get rid of some 15mm Byzantines had arrived. I now know why the shipping for the figures was reasonably hefty: it's a massive haul! There are Late Romans, Assyrians, and all kinds of bits and pieces in addition to said Byzantines. Here is a picture of them as I start to sort them out.

The box was chock-full of Tabletop Games, Minifigs, Asgard, Viking Forge, Essex and various others figures I'm not yet sure of the make of. Happy days!

Pompeians done.

Well, it can be done - even after all motivation seems to have been lost and all inspiration gone, something can for some mysterious reason click!  The quick pace was mainly due to the fact that all but 76 of these were already painted, and so most just needed touching up and bringing into line.

The basing is to allow 16 'average' units of 18 men for  Lost Battles. They will be matched for Civil War battles by Caesarians having 16 units of 'veteran' units of 12, with a few extras to top some up to 'average' size as needed for larger battles against a common foe.

Nice to have another army done.

The cavalry will be drawn from my Gauls, Republican Romans, Numidians and, once they are painted, my Greek/Eastern types.

I'm going to be away for a month after this and don't expect to be able to blog much in that time, so will probably see you all in November at some stage.

Until then, cheers, and many thanks for all the encouragement you chaps have provided as I try to get back into the swing of things again.

Outline of Bill Butler's Scutarii Rules

Scutarii 2nd Edition (2014) is a set of wargames rules for ancient battles written by William (Bill) Butler and published by Hoplite Research.

Disclaimer (or laying my cards on the table): I know Bill through the Lost Battles group, and when I heard that he had some rules coming out I offered to write up a battle report and post it here. Unfortunately, I have not yet had a chance to put on a battle, but I thought I would do a quick outline of the rules in the meantime. The copy of the rules I have is the final play-test version, so there may be some changes between this and the published version.

Scale

One turn is equivalent to about 15 minutes, and when using 40mm frontage bases one inch on the table equates to 50 paces. Each base usually represents around 500 men, though this may go as low as 300 or as high as 600.

The game can be played using all figure scales and caters for the standard basing systems.

Unit classifications

Units can be in open or close order, and are classified by movement type (mounted, foot, naval), defense factor (based on armour), melee factor (based on weapons), missile factor (bow, sling or artillery), training (drilled, undrilled, fanatic and so on, rendered as a morale factor) and morale grade (elite, average, poor, Roman trained, which modify the melee factor).

A unit of triari might, for example, be classed as follows:

Move: 300 paces
Attack: 4
Defence: 6
Morale Factor: 10
Notes: drilled, elite

This means that the unit will move 6 inches, roll 4 d10 on attack, require enemy units to roll higher than 6 to score a hit on it, when fresh will successfully pass morale tests on a d10 score of 10 or less, can make formation changes, and will get a +1 on attack dice rolls.

Turn order

The turn order is fairly standard, though melee is simultaneous and conducted up to twice per turn. Morale checks are taken before movement, so this becomes an important consideration in deciding who will move first.

• Initiative (decided by die roll or scenario rules). Winner decides whether to move first or second.

• Army moving first conducts morale checks as needed.
• Army moving first moves and conducts missile fire. Non-moving side conducts defensive fire.
• Both sides resolve melee combat for units in contact with the enemy.

• Army moving second conducts morale checks as needed.
• Army moving second moves and conducts missile fire. Non-moving side conducts defensive fire.
• Both sides resolve melee combat for units in contact.

• Repeat the cycle.

Combat

In combat, units roll a number of d10s equal to their attack factor. Results higher than the target's defense factor cause a hit. As you might expect, there are modifiers that may apply here, either by adding or subtracting attack dice or by modifying the defense factor. Missile combat follows the same process but is less effective against some types of troops than others. For example, open order troops get a saving throw when hit.

When engaging multiple enemy units attack dice are apportioned as evenly as possible between those units.

Depending on the depth of the formation adopted, friendly units may be able to share out hits amongst troops behind the front line.

Roman units have certain advantages. They get a pila bonus when fighting other infantry, they are able to conduct line relief, and they do not get overlap bonuses against them. On the minus side, they may not distribute hits to the units behind.

Aside from usual outflanking tactics, key in-game tactics seems to be to get overlaps (ie, side support) against enemy units thereby allowing more dice to be brought to bear, and by exploiting disorganised units, which melee with only half their usual attack dice and cannot share out hits amongst other friendly units.

In defense, depth and mutually supporting units are rewarded.*

* Without playing the game it is difficult for me to properly assess combat, so I will need to return with more comments at a later time.

Morale

As units take hits or are put into stressful situations they will at various times be obliged to take morale tests against their morale factor. If the d10 score is higher than the morale factor, the test is failed. The morale factor is modified by various considerations such as the number of hits that the unit has taken, proximity to routers or, more positively, to a friendly commander.

A failed morale test causes a unit to become shaken or to rout immediately. If it fails a test while already shaken, the unit will certainly rout. Units do not recover from their shaken or routed state unless rallied by a general within 100 paces (20cms), and units may not recover hits, so a unit which has taken more hits than it has morale factor is destroyed.

In an interesting twist, units which score very low on their morale test can become enthusiastic. enthusiastic units, as the appellation suggests, have their blood up and are eager to get to grips to the enemy. This has both positive and negative aspects to it!

Disorganisation and recovery

As mentioned, disorganised units are far less effective in combat than fresh units. Disorganisation occurs as a result of being on bad terrain, being shaken, evading, being contacted by terrifying enemy or not charging and not making contact.

Units recover from disorganisation by remaining stationary and 100 paces or more fromenemy units.

Victory

An army wins by driving the other from the field or, where the field is shared, by a points system.

Units and formations

Most units will be comprised of four bases in double rank* of one base, but options exist for using more bases in a unit. The game supports some formations, but in most cases these will be open order or closed order.

* Thanks to the rules author for pointing out my error.

Points and scenarios

The game includes a points system and a number of scenarios for a few well known battles such as Bibracte and Asculum. There are no army lists, but the author includes suggestions on how to convert army lists from other rules systems.

Conclusion

These rules are for people who already know a reasonable amount about ancient warfare and who want a toolkit for devising their own scenarios for casual or convention play. The rules give scenario designers flexibility, support multi-player games, and with experience are said to play to conclusion in around three hours.

The interactions seem to be in line with those of other rule sets, with victory going to the side that can best exploit its advantages to wear down the enemy and then induce a final, contagious rout. Reports on the yahoo group suggest that turn order can be crucial as the game enters its final stages, and being able to force the enemy to test morale before one's own tests are due can make a big difference to the outcome of closely-fought contests.

My impression is that the rules come from a do-it-yourself mentality; that players who share this mentality will enjoy the rules and be able to use them to suit their own style of game; that if you want competition games and cast-iron interpretations this will probably not be the ruleset for you.

Regarding rules completeness, the play-test copy implies rather than spells out a couple of key points, namely how a unit is destroyed (the answer is by taking more hits than its morale factor and thus being unable to rally) and whether the d10 is valued at 0-9 or 1-10 (the answer is 1-10).

Given this, it is possible that other rules questions will come up during play, but Bill responds quickly and supports the game as best he can through the yahoo group and by email, so I don't think that gaps in the rules or errata will be much of a problem.

Availability

The rules can be bought in hardcopy from Lulu for US$30. At this stage they are not available in an e-publishing format.

In the US you can also order Scutarii from On Military Matters.

Support can be found on the yahoo group Domus Scutarii, where Bill will happily answer any questions you might have.

Want-to-play factor

I am keen to give these a go. All that I require is space, gaming motivation, an opponent and a duty free weekend!

Pompeians continue apace.

Am now a quarter of the way through the Pompeians (or, as required, the blue army). Still need to be flocked, obviously.

This is what's left to complete the blues. I hope to take advantage of my recent good run and get through them before I take off for NZ next week, but that may be a little optimistic. We'll have to see how the stocks of gin and soda water hold out!

And the Caesarians (or, as the case may be, the Red army) still to do. Pshaw! Almost finished ;-)