2025 Hammfilade Saturday - GDC Battle of Logovo (pt 4 - Right flank [main event])

 

 

My knowledge of what happened on the right flank (of the spano-russians) is spotty at best. It was ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE TABLE. Also, it wast narrow at times to pass people.

 

 The French cleverly overloaded this flank (already owning the flank by a wrap around deployment). The Spano-Russians dropped their redoubts here, anchored the hinge at the Onion domed orthodox church, and loaded up this side with a infantry heavy, cav poor force. 

 

 

UNFORTUNATELY the corp was built of brittle units (2 strength points vs 3), this meant that in most cases each stand/division was gone after one serious fight. 

Almost immediately the Spanish were ejected from the church (cue jokes about orthodox vs catholics). The church was now a traffic issue rather than a hardpoint.   

 

Steady pressure from the hordes of French dismantle the first redoubt at the hinge. French certainly had an impressive artillery concentration on the flank, were they had placed their guard corp. 

 

 

 

 

 

 Pushing through the opening they begin to 'pinch' the second redoubt. Cleverly they have chosen to hammer a line of troops along the table baseline (damn the flanks!). I'm not sure if it was a conscious choice or a morale check that had the spanish pulling back further. 

 

 

 

Already the Russian reserve under Miloradovich (guard equivalent) is reacting to the pressure on the right and repositioning guns and troops.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pressure from the centre has created a challenge to do this. The cavalry reserves (2 corp) are moving to the centre as well, to hopefully allow Miloradovich to pivot right.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 The lone redoubt holds, but not for much longer. The Russians were surprised, (but probably shouldn't have been) that when they were lost all their corp suffered a morale step loss. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

At last the mess is somewhat cleaned up. There's a fighting lull as both sides are tidying lines. Troops continue to die under the steady cannon bombardment however. 

It's subtle (not many units left), but the Spanish vaporize due to a failed morale check. Across the table the players are all starting to try and pick off weakened units and shakey corp to try and degrade army wide morale. It's getting dicey even for mostly intact corp. 

  The armies are largely pivoting to form an 'east-west' front vs the original 'north-south'. There isn't a single corp on the table that isn't at risk of routing on a bad roll (1 in 3 for most, 1 in 6 for the 'healthy' ones). 

The french on their right (closest) are looking at a push by artillery, cavalry, and 2 corp across the river against their Line of communication. The defenders are present...but worn. 

 

On the french left they have a lot of weak troops and reorganization to effect before pushing onto the relatively fresh ressian guard supported by a strong artillery park. Tough sledding there.  

An extended rule discussion (this is why the rules change every year) derails us for a while. We all agree that this is, truly, a bloody draw.  No commander is interested in advancing their worn forces and breaking/routing their whole corp. It's not particularly surprising as the forces were intentionally strength matched at the beginning (actual composition was what we varied on, but each unit had a duplicate on the enemy potential roster). You'd need to be an insane commander (or a wargamer) to go ahead with this meeting engagement. 

It appeared our three new players had a good time, and certainly the regulars did. We likely will have a game/table setup at enfilade 2026 (now in Tacoma). 

2025 Hammfilade Saturday - GDC Battle of Logovo (pt 3 - Centre)

The centre to Right flank was were the main event was. Gortshakov (lower left) was originally meant to help cause grief for the French right flank, but they left such a tiny force there it was soon dragged into the main event. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The armies faced at a sabres length at the start of the game along a line that took a 90 degree turn at the onion domed orthodox church. 

 

 

 

 

 

Behind the church on the Spano-Russian flank were 3 fleche redoubts. In a non optimal outcome, the fleches were defended by a horde of poorly motivated/trained Spanish (lots of elements but not much staying power).  

 

 

 

In the Centre we had one of our new players (Chris? Craig?) with Tolstoy and the elite/guard corp reserve immediately behind him. It actually ended up being a fairly challenging command as both sides destroyed their centres quickly and the heavy french assault on the flank required the reserve to commit early to a hinge point.  

 

 

 

 

 

To be honest, my understanding of the fight on the far side of the table was a bit superficial. It seems as though tons of casualties developed with early assaults and then the Centres fell quiet for a bit since artillery was tearing both sides apart. 

 

The Russian Reserves are fully committed in the centre/hinge right. Depleted french units are being murdered by the still robust (thanks to the artillery reserve) Russian cannons creating a no mans land in the middle. 
 

 

 

   

 

 

Gortshakov shuffled from the left towards the centre and helped set up a late day push towards the French LOC. 

Both sides were on the dagger edge of breaking by this point. 


 

2025 Hammfilade Saturday - GDC Battle of Logovo (pt 2 Left Spano-Russian Flank)

 James and I had brought troops as suggested by Doug. Hilariously we both decided to bring our Spanish as we don't get to use them much. Thus the Spano-Russian intervention was created. 

 

The spanish anchored both flanks for some reason. On my flank I had Gazan and Bagration pushing on one side of the river to cave in the French right. It was held by a token force of poles and two small french cavalry corp. 

Across the river Gortchacov held the river line and fired cannon (where line of site permitted). He would soon realize he need to push toward the Centre Right to help avoid the collapse of our forces in the centre and right flank. 

Poor command die rolls (pips) made for a slow advance on this side. Cannon are particularly hard to get moving foward on the attack, and the Poles were well played by a new player, Garret, constantly giving just enough ground and launching local counter attacks to prevent overly aggressive advances. The Cavalry was able to hide behind the tree line from Gortsachov and made for difficult opponents to hunt. 

The flank was largely a side show for the game but very late in the game this flank was busted open and left a (long) march towards the french LOC, held by a small but credible force.

 More pics after the break...

2025 Hammfilade Saturday - GDC Battle of Logovo (pt 1 setup)

 Saturday had us setting up for the semi annual General du Corp game. It's a convention fast play ruleset (not published). Bases are roughly a division, commands are corp. Turns represent 30min. Each player commanded 2 corp (roughly). Since we have done most of the historical battles Doug decided to make up a roster of 12-15 corp. The two teams then were able to select 10...both sides having an option to sacrifice a choice to get a benefit (Russians took some fleche/redoubt fortifications and a large artillery reserve). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The teams split up to make their choice, and then decide a rough battle plan and setup  blindly. The table was split down the middle plus the left flank(s) were also open for placement (i.e. both sides could immediately be subject to a flank attack on their right). A stream (crossable but disordering) was roughly diagonal across the whole table).  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We positioned cards in alternating fashion to denote the start point of the leader of each corp. The cards were flipped and placement of the troops happened alternating in order of the cards. It was fun and different and we ended up with some interesting match ups. 

 

 

 

The Russian plan (my side) was to  go artillery heavy on the left in a crossfire to give the french a problem to solve. We dropped our fortifications on the right, assuming an attack there, created a battle line across the front, and left a strong reserve of cavalry and elite infantry. 

 

 

 

 

 

The french overloaded their left flank and refused the right. A token force was left there. The centre had a reasonable force to push. Roughly 60-90 minutes after 'starting' we were all setup and ready to start fighting. 

 

2025 Hammfilade - Bad 6s cavalry game

 Another August rolls around and Doug hosted another weekend of gaming at his lovely basement set up. Friday  we started off with some napoleonic cavalry fight. Originally the rules began as a riff off of dragon rampant, but they have evolved quite far towards a system that is descriptively called '6's are bad'.

 

 

 

Units are 12 horse (we experimented with some small units of 6 as well). Generally speaking you try and activate your unit to do an action by not rolling a 6. As you go on you will accumulate BAPs (bad action points) which increase your friction, you roll extra dice and 6's are bad (a 6 is not only a fail but also increases your BAPs). There are opportunities for rallying/recovery to get rid of BAPs. The units have 2 actions a turn.....assuming they pass the first action. 

 

Movement into contact is a fight. After a fight the loser has to rally off all his BAPs before they can reform. Getting hit while unformed puts you at substantial disadvantage. 

 

 

 

 

The game was largely French vs Anglo-Allied. There was very little balancing. There are some unit characteristics but they don't do a whole lot (light, heavy, armored, hussar, lancer). We were play testing leaders (which were OP and the french had a bunch) and a cannon (which needs some tuning).  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Game play was fast and free wheeling and it was very common to hit the opponent and then have to deal with a counter charge for long enough that the original opponent was able to pull themselves back together and start moving again.  

 

 

 

 

We all had 2 units. Doug had one of his units chased off the board, and then finally (FINALLY) managed to get a shot off with the single cannon on the game (roll to, limber/unlimber, move, load, fire, accurate hit, and then........a bucket of dice).  

My largely intact hussar unit disintegrated. Naturally I rolled something like 10 or 11 6's out of 24 dice, but I think even with more predictable rolls the gun is a one hit to cripple a unit. 

There was much hilarity at this result including from myself, it was just such a terrible example of rolling.  

 

 

 

My other unit kept the barn between the gun and itself as we started to think about how to hunt the gun down. Eventually it got late and it had been a travel day for many so we retired.  

 

Salute 2011: Bob Murch China Station

 Vagabond posted some pictures of 'China Station' the (somewhat) famous table of Bob Murch (sculptor and proprietor of Pulp Figures ). He is/was hoping to do something in the same feel....colonial, edge of empire, heart of adventure aesthetic (If I'm groking his post correctly). I casual mentioned in the comments that I had played a game on the table before and he asked me if I knew where any more pictures were......

 

 

 Trumpeter Salute (Vancouver BC April) often sees Bob Murch visit/come out (he lives a couple hours away). I'm not sure how often he hosts games but he certainly has his stall with an awesome display of figs to tempt your spending cash. In 2011 I was lucky enough to sign up in time to play. He game each of the players a hat corresponding to the command. Damn there were a lot of them. Also the secret objectives of every player sometimes overlapped and sometimes completely opposed other players. 

 

What I recall is I was a British commander of a small column of colonial troops (sikhs) and an armored car. We needed to escort some civilians (science types and ladies) safely to the ships. There were some Germans in our way, I forget their exact mission (maybe find some science maguffin in a crate), but VERY USUALLY we joined forces to march on the town. The Chinese Warlord wanted to extract as much money and goods from anyone coming into town (the combined force was able to stare him down well). The science types (suspected of having the maguffin) wanted to sneak a crate containing a poorly sedated giant gorilla to the ships. The zepplin troopers, a radical german outfit, needed to hit the other germans for something but didn't feel confident to do it with the combined brit/german column. The Tong were somehow duplicitous to the Chinese warlord (maybe wanting to steal equipment in town). And there was some sort of two fisted larger than life Hero character also trying to achieve something (possible related to the scientists, the gorilla, or something else in town). 

Hilariously the British-German truce finally broke down in the alleys of town very close to the ships as the British opened fire with their machine gun armoured car on the Germans (it only seemed prudent). It's possible I wasn't a total jerk in that the Germans may have triggered something (The gorilla, now in a frenzy, escaping from his box)....but I can't quite remember. There was hilarity all around. I think the Zepplin trooper was the only person who had quite limited game options (I really was hoping to see the flying zepplin trooper models hit the table). 

 Here is the eye candy pictorial essay to follow.  

Hammfest 2024 - GdC Battle of Friedland (pt 3/end)

 

 The Russians have been surprised by the timely arrival of the Corsican Ogre. What looked like defeat in detail for the French has turned into a bit of a pell mell dash for the safety of the far side of the river. While this initial picture makes things look well in hand for the Russians, it's a bit more nuanced. The crossing goes through the town of Friedland, which restricts the speed and capacity of movement. There's going to be bunch up and the French will have time to engage. Furthermore, despite there being fixed movement, units moving anything other than mostly forward, do move slower so that it's possible to have them be caught. 

The Russians are down to 2 cavalry units (1 fresh) versus at least 3 fresh french ones in a unified cavalry corp. Once the Russian infantry are forced into square it's a safe bet that formation is doomed. Morale is brittle so there are real risks to sacrificing units.

To the Russians benefit, their cannon emplacements across the river have been doing great work. To avoid cannon fire entirely would delay the pursuit, so the French have been forced to weather the storm. If I recall correctly the Russian artillery dice were a bit hot.

We know see the rush hour traffic building up at the bridge. French are in close contact with the Russian rearguard.

Not great, but probably manageable. Doctorow's reserve corp is doing exactly what they need to be doing.

Ah crap. The continued fallback of General Peter (RU) on the right and general attrition of cannons there has freed up the French under General Kevin again. 

The pressure is developing for a move across the river into the rear guard flank. Stress!

 

Command ranges and low rolls for pips to move troops I think stymied the french a bit. The hot russian cannons didn't do them any favours. It's possible they failed a morale check and fell back for a turn (about 30 minutes real time). 

That breather essentially cinched the rest of the game.

The forces consolidate back towards their lines. I believe we called this one a minor or marginal win for the Russians. Mostly as Napoleon failed to deliver a punishing blow to the Russians when given an opening.

 

 

Another fun game of GdC. While we keep thinking the rules are in their final shape there is some contemplation of having units that go to 0 strength not leave the table. This would mean

1/. they would continue to be traffic problems. 

2/.they would require commands to evacuate (so command of the corp doesn't improve as you lose troops, which is kinda a thing that happens right now....I'm not pip starved when I have no troops to command!)

3/. Exist on the table to continue to use as a punching bag for the enemy to incur further moral losses and tests (so it's more likely for the whole corp to go poof. Currently it can be hard to attrition the corps enough and force enough tests to make that happen).

2+3/. They are a liability to have around and thus make a more interesting set of decisions for the players.

UPDATE: Play testing has shown that keeping troops on the table is less fun. There's a proposal to requires some PiPs to make them disappear, so that they are still a (more limited) liability, but won't be a continual fun draining hassle.