I Ain't Been Shot, Mum!

Yesterday I picked up (PDF) copies of "I Ain't Been Shot, Mum!" and its "Gottterdammerung" supplement. IABSM is a set of rules for playing WWII company level wargames. The rules are the brainchild of Too Fat Lardies, "a vibrant wargames development partnership that produces an ever growing range of rule sets for what we think are discerning wargamers".

I think I first heard of IABSM sometime in 2004 from fellow gamer Dennis Cunningham. After reading a lot of positive reviews and after action reports I was intrigued enough to give them a try. A quick read through revealed several nice features. These include variable length turns, "blinds" and dummy units, deemphasis on charts and modifiers and potential for creative umpiring. As our players have always liked creative umpiring the last feature is particularly appealing.

Ravi and I are planning to do some "detailed reading" followed by play testing sometime this weekend. We plan to play one of the easier scenarios from the TFL scenario archive.

Battle of Longewala, 5 Dec 1971 (Played at the Historicon, 27th July 2007)

I played on the Indian side at Game Master Dan McDonagh's table, where we re-created the Battle of Longewala, which saw the clash between the Indian and Pakistani forces at the border post of Longewala in Rajasthan, India. The formidable Pakistani force comprised of 65 tanks (T-59s and Shermans), Field guns and mounted Infantry against entrenched Indians who had nothing but mortars and recoiless rifles. Later in the game, the heavily out-numbered Indians also received support from their centurion tanks and mech infantry.
The major difference between the real battle and this game was the Pakistani Airforce. In the real battle the Pakistani tanks were laid to waste by the Indian Airforce. In our game both sides had air support. There were plenty of dog fights and loss of aircrafts. I wasn't too lucky with my fighters which required a roll of 1 using a D10 to score a hit.
"Ground War" is a simple rule set (I believe it was designed by Dan himself), easy to understand and with very few complications. What I did not particularly like was the treatment of ambushes - they were all put on the table right from the beginning and hence the enemy clearly knew which route to avoid. The justification for this treatment was the presence of surveillance aircrafts which could give advance warning to the attackers- I somehow couldn't accept that. Hence, with the enemy clearly avoiding the ambushes and tank traps right from the offset, the Indians were forced to fall back and fight for their lives till their centurion tanks and armoured carriers arrived.
The battle ended in a draw with both sides failing to accomplish their objectives in the given time. The Pakistanis failed to cut a wide (2 ft on the table) secure path through the Indian side and the Indians failed to drive the Pakistanis back.All said and done, it gives me goose bumps to think of the Indian Soldiers who fought that decisive battle. Heavily out-numbered and without enough resources to thwart a tank attack of such proportions, they managed to hold on till the fighters arrived at dawn. The result which in my opinion may have had a lot to do with Pakistani stupidity and incompetence, takes nothing away from those jawans who stood their ground. Hats off to Major Chandpuri !!
On a lighter note, I should have prepared for the battle by watching J.P. Dutta's film - Border. It may have given me a lot of ideas like engaging my enemy commander in a verbal duel before the battle or asking my soldiers to walk towards the Pakistani tanks with anti-tank mines in their hands and thereby forcing them to retreat. Bollywood ! S I G H !!!

- Sarath

Trench War !

On saturday the 28th of July 2007, I led a WWI German unit towards well fortified Allied positions under heavy fire :-) . The rule set we used was Trench Wars and the Game master was Steve Robinson.There is no major strategy that you can follow while attacking such a well entrenched enemy as shown above - just get your men across the killing field as soon as possible and use your tanks well. Tanks have to pass a "break down test" every round which requires a roll of 5 or higher using a D20. My tank made no more than 3 moves and before it could recover, it was destroyed by artillery fire. A similar game was played the day before and the Germans were completely wiped out before a single soul could reach the trenches. Our fate wasn't that bad. We took around 80 % casualties getting to the trenches ( A blood bath was predicted by Steve, given the fact that the attackers had no air support or cover. ) A great amount of luck is involved when you rush towards the enemy under relentless machine gun fire and artillery bombardment. There were 10 German units in all and only two tanks found their burial ground across the trenches, the remaining 8 were busted well before they could reach anywhere close. With the tanks destroyed, the attackers had to rush towards the enemy to avoid being sitting ducks. Artillery fire aimed at the defenders needed to land inside the trench to kill the enemy (Dice are rolled to check for Scatter and hitting soldiers inside the trench wasn't as easy as killing them in the open.)

I did the best I could - Kept my troops dispersed while advancing, moved my tank as fast as possible with my Infantry under its cover (but there was no escape from the enemy artillery), with the tank gone I moved my men to the trenches as fast as possible (Retreat was not an option) . I could get my flame throwers up to the trenches, but were destroyed before they could use their weapon. Braving the enemy barrage, a couple of my soldiers entered the trenches only to die at the hands of the enemy trench fighters.

How would I play it next time?? ... Hmmmm.....Not sure how I can do it without air support. But if air support were available, I would try softening the enemy with aerial bombardment while my troops dash across the killing field.

- Sarath

"MSM" discovers the India Wargamers

Today's edition of' The Economic Times contains an article about India Wargamers, which, among other things, describes us as "battling all odds" :) :) Three of our players, Ravi Mohan, Mridul Jain and yours truly have been (mis)quoted in the article. Fame, here we come!!!

Volley Fire in Piquet/Band of Brothers II

I have been going through BoBII rules in detail as part of the "specialization" program. According to BoBII some bow armed units may opt to fire overhead. This is called 'Volley Fire' and can be undertaken by any unit designated with 'VF' capability in the army listing. Volley fire dramatically increases the long range band from 6-12" to 6-24" but reduces the fire modifiers.

I was not sure if a unit could switch between volley fire and "normal" direct fire during the course of a game. For instance, consider this example:

An unit of English Retinue Longbowmen (Hundred Years' War) in Chevron formation declare and conduct VF at (extended) long range when a missile reload card appears. The unit then reloads using this card. When the next card appears in the same turn, they opt to conduct direct fire instead.

Is this scenario valid under the rules?

Here is Peter's answer:

Certainly. The operative term is "may", not "must". Volley fire is high angle fire used to increase the range of he archery at the cost of a decrease in penetrating power.

Online Army Generator for Piquet/Band of Brothers II Edition

Peter 'Gonsalvo' Anderson's Piquet/Band Of Brothers II Edition rules are noteworthy for several reasons. Besides significantly revising and refining the original rules for Renaissance warfare, BoBII also offers 'Beat the Drum', an easy-to-use mechanism to generate armies.

BTD addresses one of the rather tedious aspects of Piquet - namely, its army selection mechanism. BTD offers a variety of different ways to select your forces for a given battle. BTD makes uses of the greatly expanded army listings included in BoBII under fourteen different "Campaign Musters." Using BTD, you can select an army in about 30 minutes, as compared to a couple of hours or so before.

We really liked BoBII and BTD. So much so, that we decided to make it a little more easier by automating the army selection procedure and making it available as an online application. You can read more about the application and Beat the Drum here.

Playing Ottoman Turks

Ottoman Turks (Manu) vs Venetian Republic (Manoj)

Manoj played the Venetians vs Manu's Ottoman Turks.

The Turkish Janissaries can be really effective if given proper protection and support. In my first game I made the mistake of keeping them on my flank where there was not much space to manoeuvre. When I tried manoeuvre one of my units to close the gap I effectively opened the unit's flank to enemy fire. Fortunately one of my other Janissary units in the middle had done enough damage to keep the enemy busy. Being a "cavalry man" myself I was using these elite infantry troops as cavalry.

In the revenge match I had my objectives clear. I decided to not wait for the enemy to move. To attack whenever I had the initiative. It had to be a full frontal attack by the Janissaries supported by cavalry. Throw in some cavalry units in the left to hold off any flank attack. It worked.

From my experience playing Ottoman Turks, the main battle line should be made up of Janissaries covered by skirmishers. Attach a General if one can be spared. Protect the flanks using heavy and medium cavalry. Aim to concentrate on a single point. I would also recommend to keep a swirling mass of light cavalry ready to disorient the enemy line. It is futile to wait for the opponent's move. Attack the enemy on the designated point as soon as possible. The Janissaries are most effective in attacking and in Piquet you do not know how long you will have the initiative.