Square Bashing in 1914

We played another Square Bashing game, but this time in 15mm with early great war armies. Somewhere in southern Belgium the BEF try to stop von Kluck's 1st army as they march to France.  The game was using the quick format, 450 points of 1914 BEF vs 620 points of 1914 Germans.  The BEF abandoned the dead wood in row 5 but garrisoned the other objectives and the villages.

The Germans attacked the Grand Manor objective in force from the flank with support from the front but a mad minute later and they were thrown back in disarray with brutal casualties.

Meanwhile on the other flank the British were pushed back from the crossroads and the village, with their artillery overrun.  Things were looking desperate.

The BEF abandoned their position on the right and regrouped for a last stand behind the village.

Back on the left the German morale has collapsed and their attack disintegrated into ineffective distance shooting.

On the right the Germans surged forward from the crossroads and village to crush the regrouping BEF but the Tommies stood firm and sent them packing.

The British then pressed their advantage and counterattacked, retaking the village and threatening the crossroads.

Outgunned and lacking the numbers to take the Grand Manor the Germans on the left fell back out of range.

Beaten back but not routed, the Germans on the right held the crossroads and retook the village. With dusk falling and ammunition low the battle came to end.

After counting points, the Germans had been held decisively.  Von Kluck had suffered a bloody nose and the Old Contemptibles live to fight another day.

Square Bashing the RCW

For our latest Back of Beyond game we tried the Square Bashing rules from Peter Pig using our Russian Civil War armies.  

This is after the initial set up phase with movement beginning on the right as the Red Sailors advance. There is a quite involved set up where the type of battle is determined, the terrain and objectives are placed, and units can start off table.   Also see Storm of Steel's review and game reports for more on how they work.

The Reds quickly crossed the open steppe into the woods around the villages seizing several objectives.

The Grand Manor was undefended but a White Officer battalion held the village beyond with Cossacks in support.

 

 

The Red sailors rushed forward bravely but came face to face with a British supplied tank! 

The AFSR heavy guns proved much more effective than the Reds,  The Red cavalry, caught in the open, suffered particularly badly.

With reinforcements arriving from the rear the Whites quickly organised a counter attack and re-captured the crossroads and surrounding village.

Bruised, but not yet broken, the Red sailors regrouped for another charge with their own armour in support.

On the left the Red Guards took the grassy knoll and then successfully defended it against an assault by Drozdovsky officers, with Cossacks and an AC in support. Their heroic stand was a pivotal moment of the battle.

Meanwhile, in the centre, the rest of the Bolshevik infantry had held out under intense artillery fire for several turns.  Throwing back a desperate attack by the massed White infantry to secure the woodlands.

The Kronstadt boys’ second assault pushed the White tank out of the village and damaged it. This left them tantalizingly short of the Crossroads they had briefly held but netted them a useful 5 victory points at the end of the game.  

Finally, on the right flank, the remnants of the  Proletarian horse, with supporting field guns firing over open sights, managed to stand against a last ditch white cavalry charge.

After the tally it was a minor victory for the Bolsheviks and the Volunteer army fell back to lick their wounds.

The Ottomans finally make it onto the table!

After many years and many false starts my 15mm Ottomans have finally got into action! The dastardly French infidels had invaded Egypt and need seeing off. 

The Ottomans were mine and the lovely French provided by my club mate Tony. We used Sam Mustafa's Blucher rules for the game.  These are grand tactical level, with units representing something from a battalion to a brigade.   This was just a pick up learning game, so the scenario was very basic.

There was some glory for both sides. The Sipahis caught a French unit moving in the open and damaged but didn't break it. So they fell back and the following Janissaries closed in on what was left.

The Janissaries broke the Frenchmen and pursued them impetuously.

A French counterattack then threw back half their number, while the supporting Arnauts skirmished with some French light infantry over the village.

On the other flank Ottoman and French cavalry clashed with mixed honours. First more regular imperial Sipahis sent the French dragoons reeling back.

But French counter attacks sent half of them back alongside their armoured supports.  Reserves seem to be very important in this game.

So far we have enjoyed the rules but will now be re-reading to find what we played wrong.

More Simbas

I've finally got around to completing some more Simbas for my 1960s Congo armies.  These are mostly from Eureka's African wars range with a couple of RPG Gunners from TAG.

These figures are to represent the more directly Chinese or Soviet backed elements of the various MNC or PSA factions.  They were sculpted for the Rhodesian war by the talented Kosta Herko of the Flying Gorilla blog but will serve me well enough. 

These teams carry Chinese Type 56 grenade launchers, a copy of the Soviet RPG-2 for heavy support.

Last is an officer and RPG gunner to provide my other Simbas with some more leadership and anti-vehicle capability.

There are more of these figures available from Eureka with more modern AK variants and RPGs.  I might add at them some point later as the green clad units Mad Mike Hoare describes in Congo Mercenary.  I need to find a figure for the mysterious hooded leader too.

Another vein in the mythical underworld

Here's another rich seam of OSR material my mining of the old school blogs has turned up.  I suppose I should sort all of these links and ideas into a structured and coherent guide at some point.

Hack & Slash goes into the Quantum Ogre and why Illusionism is bad. The Alexandrian explains what Abused Gamer Syndrome is and how to fix it. 

The Blorb principles @idiomdottning.org are for prepping old school adventures.  

Then @SpiderQueenGaming, Ed, has some OSR wisdom here:

The assumption of time richness in old school games

Lore vs actionable information

Gygax and the pursuit of reality 

The importance of the tentpole dungeon 

Authenticity in play

War stories

The risks of plot hooks

And some more practical advice here:

Pacing tips and tricks part one and part two 

The dice that will kill you 

Finishing off with 8 Lessons from running a successful sandbox.

This is an interesting addition that came up on Reddit.  A list of geographic features used in the lord of the rings and their meanings.  Very handy for sandbox place naming.  The OP says they are doing one for man made features as well.

I also found this interesting blog.  This very detailed and analytical review of the The Black Wyrm of Brandonsford adventure is helpful for when designing your own adventures, or just improving published ones. 

Depthcrawls

This is an interesting idea.  A procedural generation process for making an RPG adventure.   You roll dice for cues and it gets stranger and more dangerous the deeper you get.

Random dungeon generation isn't really new but this version ups the game a bit and originates from Emmy 'Cavegirl' Allen's Gardens of Ynn,  Justin Alexander does a good job explaining the concepts here and here.

Justin also reviews Gardens of Ynn, and Cavegirl's other module, the Stygian library, here.

Here are some other similar projects:

The Vast in the dark - the original version is here and the expanded version here and here.

Downcrawl - is available here with more information here and news of a 2E version here.

A Rasp of Sand - an interesting take where multi-generational groups try to return a crown to vengeful sea-god, see here with a QuestingBeast review here.

More Dungeon stuff

Here are some more Sandbox-Dungeon-Wilderness links I have found on my travels in the dark and inimical places of the OSR web.

Advanced Darkness @ Knight at the Opera - nice thoughts on making light important

The Overloaded Encounter Die @ Necropraxis - a classic solution to Dungeon logistics

The Hazard System - an update

There is no light @ Illusory Sensorium - tracking torches is a false idol 

The Doom Clock

Movement and action economy @ Traverse Fantasy - why you need a torchbearer

Megadungeon Monday series @ The Angry GM - how to build a megadungeon in many steps

Why I run my dungeons as pointcrawls @ The Pastel Dungeon

The Forest Deep Part 1 - creepy forests that are out to get you

The Forest Deep Part 2

The Forest Deep Part 3

Choices Information and Meaning - choices should be real, meaningful and informed

Hexcrawls are megadungeons - and pointcrawls too

Make your hexcrawls smaller - and more dense

The classic dungeon crawl theory @ All Dead Generations - a great series on dungeon crawls

More OSR Links @ The Links to Wisdom OSR Wiki

Pointcrawls - The path is more important than the ‘direction’ @ vdonnutvalley

Pointcrawls Applied: The Escalating Encounter Die @ the adventuring day

Some more adventure reviews @ Axian Spice - scroll down for the OSR ones.  

Axian's Falkrest Abbey is a nice little introductory adventure with great organisation.

Also these two pages, here and here, on using Tomb of the Serpent Kings with OSE

Last, some discussion on Lairs & Dungeons using the OSE SRD

 

Some good advice from Reddit on running old school adventures.

 

And an old thread from enworld identifying a key difference between old and new school D&D.  Namely, do you want combat as sport or combat as war.

 

Monster tactics @ The monsters know what they're doing

Path-crawl and point-crawl @ daimon-games

 

Corelands, Borderlands and the Weird @ Hill Cantons

The Howling Emptiness of the World of Greyhawk

Mythical Wilderness 

Wilderness dungeons @ signs in the wilderness

Terrain types

 

Adventure reviews and more @  tenfootpole.org

Byrce's review standards

More on writing style

 

Bryce Lynch's adventure design tips @ Into the dark's summary of the tenfootpole approach