Chancellorsville with Dominion of Blue and Grey

 As I seem to be on a bit of an ACW kick at the moment I thought I'd have a look at Dominion of the Blue and Grey. I've got a ton of Dominion sets of rules which I haven't even looked at yet, but you have to start somewhere. Having read through the rules I picked the Chancellorsville scenario as it didn't have any cavalry (to keep things simple) and we'd played it fairly recently with Neil Thomas ACW.  

Battlefield from the north. This scenario focusses on Lees attack in the north rather than including Fredericksberg too. So we have the Rapahannoc on the left (east), Chancellorsville itself nearest the camera (north) and around it The Wilderness.

Hookers Union army is nearest the camera and defending. They have three infantry units in the front line, the two on the left are 'elite' which gives a combat bonus, presumably to reflect their vastly superior numbers and the one on the right is a normal one. There are two more in reserve. I added a skirmisher base to the Elite units to remind me. irl Hooker outnumbered Lee about 2:1 so I should probably have put more bases out for the Union units. In later games I put the CSA on a shorter frontage instead.

Lee's army has two ordinary infantry units, then Stonewall Jacksons flanking force which is both Elite and Disciplined (Jacksons outflanking manouvre caught Hooker off guard). I added both a skirmisher base and a leader figure to remind me. In reserve are another infantry unit and some artillery. Guns are treated very differently in this set to the others and I'll cover that later.

Both armies also have a pair of leaders - in this set each side can have a General intervene twice during the game to modify a a dice roll by plus or minus one. I'll use the leader figures to remind me and take them off when they are used up. They also have a pair of wagons as each side can attempt to rally two units during the game. Unlike the other sets, rally succeeds on a 4+ but any special attributes are removed. You can only attempt to rally a unit once and units which failed their reliability roll cant be rallied. I rather like that, and I'll use to wagons to keep track of rally attempts and which units have been rallied.

Finally, unlike the other sets, armies are defeated if they only have TWO units remaining and the enemy has more, so they will break faster. Steven argues that in the ACW armies seemed very willing to break off the action to reorganise and fight again another day, possibly due to the space involved. 

There is no preliminary bombardment in these rules, and it uses a dice driven sector activation like the  Blitzkrieg set. 1-3 is left, centre, right and 4+ is attacker choose. The restriction here is that you cant choose a sector in which a battle has already been fought (to represent some of the C2 difficulties in the conflict). Lee rolls a 4 and chooses Jackson to attack as it is the only sector with a CSA advantage.

Like many of the other sets, units fight in sequence, artillery, the infantry etc. Infantry hit on 5+ but Jackson gets +1 for being elite and the Union are on -1 for Jackson being disciplined. So a 3:1 advantage to Jackson. Jackson duly routs the Union right, and unit moves up from reserve immediately. This happens at once before any rally attempts.

The Union also get to choose a sector to fight and pick the centre, they also use of their Generals to take -1 off the the CSA dice. This then becomes a very one sided fight.

The CSA centre is routed and their guns move up from reserve. Artillery are most effective if deployed from reserve with another infantry unit in reserve (support), which they are in this case. Steven argues that they were far more effective defensively than offensively. You can deploy artillery in the front line if you wish, but they are less effective, and unsupported artillery can be overrun very easily by infantry or cavalry. It is these nuances which add flavour to each set but equally mean you need to read them very carefully when switching rules. 

Lee attacks on the right again. They have the biggest advantage here and just to make sure they send one of the Generals to help out.

And routs another Union infantry unit. Unless Hooker does something clever, the Union have lost at this point.

Hooker rallies one of his routed units (shown by the wagon) which moves up into the gap. Now I've just realised I should have done this at the end of the turn prior to victory determination. Oh well, put it down to learning the rules.

The dice decree another combat on the right (rolled a 3) and naturally Jackson is routed! irl he was killed in battle.

That isn't so great for Lee. He has to pull out his last reserve, which of course leaves the guns in the centre unsupported.

The Union also roll a 3 for activation so fighting continues on the right. but neither side gets a hit. They are both saving their Generals for last ditch rally attempts.

At the end of the turn, Lee tries to rebuild his infantry reserve by rallying both routed units. Both attempts fail, despite Lee's personal intervention (he rolled a 1!). These units are now permanently lost and no more rallies can be attempted.

On the next round the dice decree combat in the centre. This has the potential for catastrophe. The artillery needs a 5+ to hit and fires first, but if it misses, the Union infantry will destroy it on anything but a 1 (normally a 3+ but they were elite troops) as it is unsupported. If the guns were still supported they would need a 5 (plus 1) to destroy them. 

Fortunate smiles upon the Confederacy and cannister from the Napoleons sends the Union into confusion  and routs them. Is it game over?

No! Hooker manages to rally his other routed unit and it fills the gap in the centre. It must be those superior Union numbers. That is the last Union leader and wagon used up though.

The Union are forced to fight on the left, despite them having the advantage (being Elite troops), both sides miss.

Straight onto the next turn as there are no more rallies left. The CSA fight in the centre and both sides miss.

The Union roll a 2 and the fighting in the centre continues. This time the Confederate guns hit home and the Union infantry are routed. With no more reserves, Hooker packs up and heads for home. A very, very hard fought Confederate win and surprisingly close to real life.

That was a bit slow as I was getting used to it and I made one obvious mistake, but once again it is quite a different feel to the other period games. Having set it up I ran it for a few more iterations to get the hang of it more. It is difficult choosing when to commit your Generals, it adds a whole extra layer of decision making.

This run was a complete Confederate wipeout! Hooker has all his units left, although one did rally during the battle. Once again Lee failed to rally a single unit.

This one was more of a scrap. Jackson routed in the first exchange of fire and very rapidly the CSA were down to a single line with the Union completely unscathed.

Lee did actually manage to rally one of his units, which was able to support the guns on the right.

But it didn't last and the Confederate left collapsed.

And as the reserves moved up to plug the gap, the unsupported guns were overrun by the Union right. Another Union win.

This run was very bloody from the outset with the Confederate right and Union centre both being routed. Once again the CSA gunners ended up in the front line.

Lee managed to successfully use both rallies which kept the fight going, whereas the Union only managed one and soon the Union were outnumbered.

And finally the Union line collapsed.

In all I ran it half a dozen times with two Confederate and four Union wins, so pretty balanced, and I felt much more on top of it by the end. Like all these period specific sets, there are some very specific aspects to the unit characteristics and turn sequence which you need to get your head around, even if the basic mechanisms are similar. I found this one easier to get to grips with then the Blitzkrieg set, although I deliberately avoided cavalry as they have their own special rules depending on whether they are operating mounted or not. Helpfully the play example in the rules is Gettysburg, which uses both artillery and cavalry units, so gives an indication of how they are supposed to work.

That was good fun and I'm looking forward to fighting some more of these.

Austerlitz - The Matrix Game

 Tim put on a game covering Napoleon's Austerlitz campaign using a very old matrix game design originally penned by Chris Engle, the king of matrix games. A certain amount of updating of the mechanisms was used for this one based on our many years of playing these sorts of things as some of the original argument mechanisms were cumbersome in the extreme.

In brief, each turn each player declares an ACTION, a RESULT and up to three reasons why this is going to happen. The umpire assesses the probability of it working, throws some dice and we get some outcomes. We have considerably streamlined how this all works and have added an option for players to simply support another player or pass and gain an advantage in the turn sequence next move.

The outline of the situation. Orders of battle on the left (the 'military units' are Corps), area movement map on the right and a table of victory points for holding certain areas. I'm fairly sure Archduke Charles didn't look at this table for the entire game.

Essentially it is September 1805 and we have six months (turns) to see if Napoleon can defeat Russia and Austria, although naturally it is a bit more complicated than that. Overall campaign victory is supposedly determined by the points above, but I suspect we'll end up winging it, at usual.

Tim created this fine representation of the map. The leaders are 54mm personality figures while the units are 15mm figures from various manufacturers. Unfortunately his tablet kept going out of focus during the game but we all had a pretty good idea where stuff was.

This is the starting setup, Massenas Army of Italy (me) is in the western end of the Po Valley, Napoleon (John B), Murat (Micheal)  and Ney (Ian) are with the Grande Armee in France. Archduke Charles (John B) has a large army in the eastern Po valley, while Mack (Russell) has a Corps in the Tyrol and the rest of the Austrian army in Vienna. Kutuzovs Russians (Pete) are up in Russia.

We also had Tom in attendance as 'the world press'.

I was Marshal Massena. Great hat. We all had individual objectives as well as the national one. I must say 'capturing Italy' is going to require a bit of fancy footwork given I'm outnumbered 3:1 by the Austrians.

I've already run through the dramatis personae, but it was an excuse to wear some particularly stupid hats.

September passed with a massive sweeping move by Napoleon which ended up in Bavaria. Both Mack and Charles were so slow they hadn't even started moving! That was good for me as it gave time to fortify the western Po valley. Napoleon very kindly left Soults Corps in France as a reinforcement, but I had to get it there first.

In October things hotted up, Charles attacked Massena and drove us back but we inflicted heavy losses on them. Napoleon marched in to Vienna and fought Mack, driving him back and capturing Vienna. Mack retreated to Moravia. Meanwhile news arrived of the British naval victory at Trafalgar.

In November Kutusov finally stirred and Napoleon, Mack and Kutuzov fought a huge battle on Moravia. Although it was a French victory, it wasn't decisive.

Down in Italy Charles attacked westwards but Massena stole a march on him and marched north into Helvetia (Switzerland) where he was joined by Soult. I had a cunning plan! cleared by Napoleon himself.

There was a local ceasefire in Austria in December, but clearly Charles hadn't got the message and continued to attack west, Austrian hussars even crossing the alps into France. Massena force marched through Wurttemburg and into Bavaria. My plan was to descend into eastern Italy via the Tyrol with Charles distracted in the west, Wurttemburg and Bavaria were also worth 15 VP between them for anyone who'd bothered to read the VP table...

We broke for the night at that point to see what 1806 would bring.

In Bohemia/Moravia fighting broke out again between the French, Russians and Austrians. Kutuzov marched to link up with Mack, but Murat held the Russians off at the second Battle of Austerlitz while Napoleon enveloped Mack at Linz. Mack surrendered and Napoleon marched back into Vienna in triumph.

And what of Italy? Well Archduke Charles continued his rather ill advised invasion of France labouring under the misapprehension that France was devoid of troops. In reality only half the French Army marched into Germany, Napoleon left 200,000 troops to defend France although 40,000 of those were coast defence troops. The main Austrian Army struggled to cross the Alps in winter and by February 1806 it was still mainly light cavalry and Jaeger detachments rampaging around south eastern France.

After the march through Switzerland in December, Massena spent January resupplying and preparing a surprise operation in Bavaria and was relieved when Charles didn't march back into Italy. In February, Massena conducted 'The descent on Italy' is it would become known in future and crossed the Tyrol via Innsbruck and then attacked the defenceless plains east of the Quadrilateral fortresses at Peschiera etc. The attack was successful and Venice and Trieste fell to the rampaging French. 

With Vienna and half of Italy in French hands, the Austrians sued for peace and the Treaty of Pressburg was signed.

Totting up the victory points it was a crushing overall French victory (31 VP vs 10 for the Allies), and in terms of the individual objectives, Charles came last, Massena, Napoleon and Kutusov all tied in second place and the joint winners were Mack and Murat. Mack in particular had pulled a blinder with his appalling Austrian accent throughout the game and overall tactical ineptitude.

That was really good fun, and it was nice to dig out one of the older matrix game scenarios. We had a brief discussion around why pure military campaigns had gone out of fashion in favour of polmil or pure political games  but didn't really come to any conclusions. There seemed to be a certain enthusiasm to repeat the experience so I expect we will do another one at some point.

Perhaps I should resurrect my old WW1 Mesopotamian Campaign game and the never played 'Battle for Berlin' I wrote decades ago.

Back to the Balkans

 After playing some of the larger and more complex Unconditional Surrender scenarios, I wanted to re-visit some of the earlier ones, in particular the invasion of the Balkans. It is such a short scenario that the outcome is very heavily dependant on the weather, and when I originally played it the German had good weather on both turns. In fact the probabilities are 33% good weather in April and 66% good weather in May, so there is only a 22% chance both turns will be good weather and 22% they will both be bad. Instead I just played this with bad weather in April and good weather in May, as that is the more average outcome.

The effects of poor weather are quite simple, armour and air support only give +1 to combats instead of +2, it costs an extra movement point to attack and there is an additional -1 on combat attacking a hex in poor weather. Although these sound marginal, the net effect is to seriously degrade the inherent combat superiority of German units (normally +2) as well as halve the effect of their normal air and armour superiority in 1941. Perhaps most important, units are restricted to a single 'assault' attack per turn in poor weather, rather than multiple mobile attacks in good weather, restricted only by available movement points. 

The game setup. I really like this map and there is an interesting mix of counters. The terrain is absolutely horrible on a lot of the map, partly why we never used to invade Greece when playing Third Reich.

Game control stuff. Only Yugoslavia and Greece have National Will (six and four respectively) and Production (four and two respectively). Taking three Yugoslav cities or one city and Belgrade will force a Yugoslav surrender. The only way to get Greece to surrender is to take Athens (4 will) , as there is only Salonika (2 will) otherwise.

Compared to other games this one is pretty light on special events. Both the Axis and Allies have a pair of 'ground support' event chits which give a small combat bonus, the Germans also have a paradrop.

The weather chart is on the top right, I just allocated poor weather to April and good weather to May.

The general military situation. Greece is defended by a pair of Greek armies and one British army (the "BEF"). There are a pair of Italian armies in Albania and one up in Trieste. Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria are all allied to the Axis but only Hungary and Bulgaria have committed any forces, one army each. 

The Yugoslav Army is quite large with six units, but as they are completely surrounded, they are deployed in a perimeter defence. Sadly Zagreb and Belgrade are hard on the border so vulnerable to attack.

The Germans have two infantry armies and two panzer armies plus a single air fleet. Two of the German units are down in Bulgaria on the Greek border, the rest are in the north.

A closer look at Yugoslavia. The Italians in Trieste are a weak (single step) Army, as are the Hungarians in the centre. The German air fleet is based just behind them. Belgrade and Zagreb are garrisoned by 1 step armies while the better 2 step Field Armies are along the Drava and the coast. The Yugoslavs are also defending Nis and the northern Albanian border. Nis is very important as it sits on the only transport route through the middle of the mountains. I drove that way to Greece many decades ago, the main road was still the concrete one the Germans built after conquering Yugoslavia.

The German panzer army is on the Rumanian border northeast of Belgrade. The German infantry army  is just north of Zagreb. We cycled that way a few years ago, starting in the Julian Alps and ended up on the coast of Slovenia.

Down in Greece the Italians have two field armies facing off a Greek reserve (1 step) army in Albania. The terrain here is awful, rough ground and mountains, an immediate -2 to the attacker, with an additional -1 in bad weather.

There is a Greek field army in Salonika/Thessaloniki faced off with a German infantry army and panzer army in Bulgaria and contingent of Bulgarians across the border from Nis in Yugoslavia. If the Germans don't take Salonika at once, there is nothing to stop the Allies sea transporting the Greek unit to Athens....

Finally we have the British/Commonwealth (the counter is marked BEF) sitting in the pass at Thermopylae on the route to Athens in rough ground with their left flank protected by a mountain range. The Germans don't currently have any air down here and would need to get a lot closer to Athens to consider a paradrop into the city (needs an air unit within three hexes for Axis paradrops).

So, the priorities for the Germans in April 1941 are to defeat Yugoslavia so they can stage resources down to Greece (particularly air), and ideally take Salonika too to isolate the large Greek army there. I don't see any way on earth they can try and take Athens in April too.

Up north the German infantry assault Zagreb, supported by the Italians from Trieste. At least in an assault combat you get a +1 for every extra supporting unit. The Luftwaffe put in an a sortie of ground support. Despite all the extra support, the terrain and weather disadvantages give the Germans are mere +1 on their combat dice. The Yugoslavs however are isolated as the city is surrounded (-2) and are already at reduced strength (also -2), so their net is -4, although their combat dice can never be reduced to less than 1.

The Germans just scrape a 'defender retreat' result, which as the Yugoslavs are surrounded and unable to retreat, becomes a 1 step loss. Zagreb falls, 4 National Will remaining. 

The action then switches to Belgrade, this is rather more critical than Zagreb as if this attack fails then Yugoslavia will not fall this turn. I had a cunning backup plan to attack Nis, but on its own that would not be enough National Will lost.

The Germans commit their panzer army with Luftwaffe support. The Hungarians join in, but due to the surrounding ZOC, it isn't possible to isolate the city so the Axis end up making a frontal assault across the river and into the city.

The pink track is used to record the attacker and defenders positive or negative dice modifiers (what a clever idea and very useful for those of us with limited short term memory). Despite the extra +1 for the panzers, it is more than made up for by the defenders not being isolated. We end up with +2 for the Axis and -2 for the Yugoslavs.

The Germans roll big and inflict a step loss, so Belgrade falls, although a retreat result would have done. There was a significant chance that attack would fail, maybe 25%, but it wasn't possible to make it any stronger apart from putting in a paradrop too (the Luftwaffe are just in range).

Losing Belgrade takes the Yugoslav National Will to zero, so all their armies are removed. The unoccupied cities are all marked as Allied controlled though and will remain so until the Axis moves into them (which costs an extra movement point as they are unfriendly). So, Sarajevo, Nis, Split. Nis is the critical one as it sits across the transport route through the mountains to Greece.

In fact one of the Italian armies in Albania has just enough MP to reach Nis and occupy it. I want to use the Bulgarians to help the assault on Salonika.

The action switches to Greece as the Luftwaffe stage down to a new base in Bulgaria, costing an air sortie so two remaining. After occupying Nis to open up the supply route,  the next order of business is to see if I can drive back the BEF. If I can force them to retreat, it will isolate the Greeks in the west and make attacking out of Albania much easier.

So, the panzer army attacks the BEF with air support and as it is such a critical battle, both sides throw in some ground support. In theory I could also drop the paras on the BEF, but I want to save them for if things get really critical

A Commonwealth field army is a rather different proposition to a weakened Yugoslavian garrison corps, and despite the panzers and Luftwaffe, we end up with +3 German and +2 Allies. Dropping the paras on them would reduce the Allied modifier to zero.

Unsurprisingly the attack fails as you need to win by a certain margin to even get a retreat, let alone a step loss. What a waste of an air sortie.

Still, having the panzers there stops the Salonika garrison retreating west, so now the German infantry and Bulgarians assault Salonika with air support. The Greeks still have one hex they can retreat to (the peninsular in the southeast), so aren't isolated.

Amazingly the evens dice roll is enough to push them back. The Greeks aren't as good as the BEF and extra +1 for the Bulgarian support was just enough to clinch it. The Greeks retreat southeast and the Germans occupy Salonika. If only the Allies had a 'sea evacuation' event! But they don't in this scenario.

That is two off the Greek National Will, but not enough to force a surrender, only taking Athens will do that.

After the panzers were halted at Thermopylae, the Italians make a Hail Mary attack from Albania and manage to roll 6:1. Just like DBA, this is really bad news for the loser. tbh, I'm really not a fan of opposed dice combat in a strategic game, give me a good CRT any day, it avoids this sort of silliness.

The Greeks suffer a step loss and are removed, while the Italians advance.

This in turn means the Allied position has gone from looking great to complete catastrophe in a single dice roll. To avoid being isolated by the victorious Italians, the BEF has to abandon Thermopylae and retreat further south to block the access route to Athens.

The isolated Greek army in the north counterattacks to try and retake Salonika. The terrain and weather put them at a considerable disadvantage to the German defenders.

Unsurprisingly the Greek attack fails and their army falls to low supply. I have the option to voluntarily eliminate it at this point, but I'd only be able to rebuild it in the construction phase of next turn so better to leave it in play and tie up some Axis units.

In the production phase the Axis recover a couple of air sorties, so they have three going into the next turn.

I took the isolated Greeks off to avoid clutter.

So, first thing in May 1941 was that the panzer army from Belgrade came piling down the railway line and just had enough MP left to attack the BEF. With air support and clear weather, this was enough to drive it back with a step loss. German panzers are pretty good in clear weather, even with bad terrain. The panzers deliberately didn't advance, so as to leave space for their mates.

The Germans go all in as they only have one chance to take Athens. The other panzer army (which is much closer so has loads of MP) rolls up to the weakened BEF and attacks it with every support option in range, including the paras. I burned a precious air sortie to base the Luftwaffe in para range. I could have paradropped direct into undefended Athens from there, but it is only a 50% chance of success.

It cost three MPs to move into position and three to mount the attack, the panzers have four MP left and could attack again if needed. Then one of the infantry units would need to rush past and take Athens. 

Unsurprisingly the weakened BEF are overwhelmed as the sky is black with bombers and there are panzers everywhere.

The panzers march unopposed into Athens, and Greece surrenders. Game over with another Axis win. tbh, after the catastrophe in Albania, that wasn't going to turn out any other way. 

The Albanian offensive was such an extreme result, I reset the game to that point in April 1941 and rolled it again. A much more average result this time. The Italian attack failed.

That left the Allies with two manouvre units to defend Athens. I didn't re roll Salonika as that would be stretching things too far. 

In the April allied turn they put the Greek infantry into Athens (I think it is still important to defend the city against paradrops) and the BEF onto a bottleneck with the flank covered by mountains.

I still wasn't far enough away to stop the Belgrade panzers railing down and attacking. They made an all out attack like the last game, including the paras as the Luftwaffe staged in air drop range.

The BEF took a step loss and retired. As before the Germans broke contact to leave space for a follow up attack on the narrow peninsular.

The other panzer army moved up and attacked with Luftwaffe support. 3MP to get to here and 3MP for the attack, so four MP left.

The panzers overran the BEF in one go. Drat!

And with four MP left and one sortie of Luftwaffe, it was  more than enough to crush the Greek garrison of Athens. Another Axis win.  If Salonika had held out, that would be have been a much more viable city to defend, but equally if both turns had been poor weather, I think the Axis would have struggled. Neither is very likely however (only 22% that both turns weather will be bad) so I think the chance of the allies winning this one are long. Despite parity in ground units and the awful terrain, the Axis advantages of position and troop quality are just too great.

That is still an interesting and enjoyable scenario, but I don't think it would be much fun as an opposed game. How many hex and counter games are played opposed these days in any case? I'm sure I saw some stats that solo play vastly exceed f2f play, but I cant recall.

I hope the blow-by-blow account wasnt too tedious, but I thought it was worthwhile to expose some of the game mechanics. I really like the integrated movement/combat system for mobile combat, very clever and works well. You do genuinely feel like Erich von Manstein planning a complex operational manouvre with with unit-at-a-time activation, but it can be a bit overhwelming at times and you yearn for something simple like AHGCs Afrika Korps.