Slitherine

A FoGN scenario: a pre-battle engagement

Background: a major engagement is in the offing within the next week and various opposing Corps’ are manoeuvring into their pre-assigned positions ahead of the ‘big day’. Your Corps has been sent on a sweep off to one flank of the main army when your advanced Division encounters an enemy force seemingly set on the same goal as you. Dispatch riders are immediately sent off to your army commander and your orders are confirmed as needing to secure your initial objectives as quickly as possible. Unfortunately your formations are spread out across a wide area of march and are likely arrive piecemeal – however your orders have made it clear to you that time is of the essence!

1. This scenario is for an equal sized points-based game

2. Terrain setting as per a normal points-based game.

3. Initiative and determination of attacker and defender as per a normal points-based game except that no flank marching or reserves are permitted.

4. The attacker selects one of the two table quarters on their half of the table as their initial deployment area. The defenders deployment area is the quarter diagonally opposite the attackers. Both sides now place their LoC in accordance with the normal restrictions for LoC deployment, defender first. The defender also places any FF or immobile artillery units at this time.

5. The defender now places an objective marker within 16MU of the table centre, followed by the attacker doing the same. No objective can be placed within 8MU of any other objective nor of a LoC. (Objective markers are just that: markers. An objective has no effect on line of sight or movement and merely ‘marks’ a single spot on the table. Objective markers can otherwise be placed anywhere except in impassable terrain.)

6. The defender deploys any one of their divisions within their own deployment area. All other divisions and the corps commander are held off table.

7. The attacker now places any one of their divisions within their own deployment area but with no unit can be deployed within 16MU of any enemy unit (though ignoring any FF unless occupied). All other divisions and the corps commander are held off table.

8. The attacker has first move. No movement restrictions are in place for the defender’s first 2 moves.

9. Starting from their first turn, each active player can test to bring on their off-table divisions (and corps commander).

The active player makes a test for each of their off-table generals at the beginning of each of their movement phases (only) using a number of dice equal to each general’s skill level (ie exceptional =3, skilled = 2, competent = 1) and needing a 5+ on any dice to be successful. Successful tests allow that division to bring up to 3 units onto the table in that movement phase. Any remaining units of that division move onto the table in subsequent movement phases at 3 units per turn but without a further need to test. A divisional general enters attached to the first unit of their division that moves onto the table. The corps commander moves onto the table alone using up a CP to do so. For each successfully testing general, throw one dice to determine the point of entry onto the active players table edge as follows: on a score of 1 or 2 the point of entry is the left-hand corner, 3 or 4 the centre of the table edge, 5 or 6 the right-hand corner - all units of that general must enter within 8MU of that point of entry. Units moving onto the table measure their movement from the table edge and can be in any legal formation (artillery will move on-table limbered).

NB: The corps commander cannot allocate any CPs in the command phase of a turn until they themselves are on-table, but once on-table can allocate any CPs in the command phase as normal plus to off-table generals in the form of 1 additional dice per CP allocated to an off-table divisional general and used solely to boost the number of dice for testing to arrive on-table for that turn only.

10. Any side holding either both objectives or holding 1 objective plus being in undisputed control of the opposing LoC automatically wins the game, otherwise normal victory conditions apply. A player is deemed to hold an objective if they have an unbroken unit within 4MU of an objective and there are no unbroken enemy units within 4MU of that objective.

Hmmm. Interesting.

Any additional movement for unreformed infantry in the first bit of the game or when arriving?

Good point . . . I'd worked on the assumption of reformed vs reformed and unreformed vs unreformed and therefore hadn't considered it . . .


How's about: in the event of unreformed moving troops vs reformed (only), the unreformed player should be able to move troops as if reformed in the first two moves only (as is the case for an attacker in normal games) ?

We are trying the scenario out on Monday, so will report back in due course.

Well ! The scenario made for an interesting game indeed. Definitely different to how I have approached most of my FoGN play thus far.

Neither Andrew nor I mini-maxed our army construction in advance and just played with a normal competition mix of 800pts – he using his Italians; me, 1812 French. BTB, Andrew is my role model for coming up with new and interesting mixes in his army compositions and this one was no different. Mine was the last outing of the “panzer division” of 4 cuirassier/carabineer units, 2 superior drilled (1 officer attach), 2 average drilled; this was coupled with the compulsory French Infantry division (superior drilled Swiss line with a gun, veteran French line with a gun, average drilled light and average drilled artillery) and an allied Neapolitan mixed division (3 poor conscript line, average drilled artillery, poor drilled LC and poor drilled guard LC guard). Andrew had an infantry and mixed division (each with 3 average drilled line 2 w cav attachs and a average drilled artillery unit, and a HC unit with the mixed division) and 2 cav divisions (4 HC units 1 of which was guard shock and a LC unit). Andrew had a skilled CC plus 1 skilled and 3 competent DCs, I had my (now) usual exceptional CC and 3 competent DCs.

Andrew and I both chose to deploy our mixed divisions as the single division on-table at the outset. As attacker - gotta love the +3 exceptional ! - I managed to bring on the infantry division and CC in my first move. Andrew brought on his skilled infantry division and a cav division. My last division (the panzer division) came on in turn two as did Andrews last division.

Where the scenario made for a very different game was in that our on-table divisions were centrally deployed (to cover the objectives and LoC) and so the shape of the game was determined by where and what arrived. My infantry division turned up on my left and Andrew’s arrived on his right so they squared off. My cavalry turned up on my right, Andrew’s behind his centre and on his left and thus, again squared off against each other. In order to progress the game then I felt compelled to engage in the cavalry duel (not my favourite thing at all). My cavalry was constrained by a combination of terrain and arriving 3 units followed by 1 and so I entered the combat a lot more strung out than I would ever normally entertain by choice in a ‘normal’ deployment game.

In the centre, Andrew was constrained by terrain also and found his infantry there needing to be more defensive cos they were menaced by my Neapolitan LC and artillery. This allowed me to seize the compulsory steep/gentle hill (and run off his gunners) and thus potentially hold two objectives. Of course I then needed to divert one of the LC units to support the cavalry duel and so the sole poor drilled vélites a’ cheval ended up parked up in extended line on top of the hill in question where they remained for the rest of the game (safe, completely ineffective and also tying up his centre infantry – but stopping the recovery of his guns).

After initial successes, Andrew’s more coherent cavalry wing cleaned up the panzer division to resoundingly win that flank at the cost of a broken unit of HC and 2 wavering units (inc his sole LC unit). I think he had only 1 unspent cav unit remaining on that flank.

On my left, the infantry duel suffered a short set back when he blasted my veterans out of the line wavering with some good shooting, but I ultimately returned the favour with my light infantry and artillery effectively turning the shooting exchange my way. Andrew, for reasons of expediency and very cramped space, had diverted his artillery unit on that flank through difficult terrain and at 2MU per turn it was effectively out of the game. In the last couple of game turns I managed to break a couple of his infantry units on that flank. At the end of 4 hours (when we called ‘time’), we had both lost 9 ACV out of our 28 and so the game was a draw.

Some observations:

1. The game developed a lot more slowly than a ‘normal’ game due to the inherent time lag of manoeuvring units onto the table.
2. The shape of the game was determined by where/what arrived. Had any of the arriving divisions appeared in different places than they did, the game would have taken a completely different turn of events.
3. Because divisions arrive separately, there was no time to end up concentrating forces or getting combined arms working together very much. These days, for example, I almost always operate my artillery units in pairs – in this game that wasn’t possible and so the artillery influence was reduced (and choosing where to go with them was more important as a result given the need to move them into place). Also, we ended up having an infantry exchange with no cavalry influence in it whatsoever (except his pesky cav attachments reducing my fire !).
4. Terrain in relation to division arrivals made a key impact on how the game shaped up too. My panzer division arrived in the furthest corner and had to wind its way in and around terrain (buildings and woods) to get engaged with Andrew’s and so arrived piecemeal. Sure, I could have waited, but he was equally constrained by only having narrow (ish) gaps to operate his cavalry through and thus by going after him as I did that effectively meant that by the time the cavalry duel was over his (or mine, if I had won it) cavalry were unable to influence any other part of the game. As another example, Andrew's artillery supporting his infantry division had nowhere much to deploy effectively.
5. You end up getting to use ALL of your army and not just the bits you either attack or defend with.
6. You get to play across the whole table (or we did – my arriving divisions arrived on opposite corners of my rear edge, and Andrew had one arrive in each corner and one in the middle) and you have to manoeuvre pretty much your whole army into place.
7. CP use ended up quite constrained for us due to divisions arriving far away from the CC were pretty much on their own in terms of CPs (generally too far away to allocate to). I imagine having only a competent CC in this scenario could be problematic I think cos it would require a deliberate effort to spend CPs to move them somewhere useful.

All in all, a good experience. And very much a different game entirely.

We talked about some potential changes to the scenario. For example you could allow the CC to come on-table leading the 1st unit of the 1st division to arrive. Or whether the defender should be allowed to deploy normally and not just into one quarter.

On balance, though, worth a try IMHO, esp if you want a different game than the straight up points game.

KeefM wrote:For each successfully testing general, throw one dice to determine the point of entry onto the active players table edge as follows: on a score of 1 or 2 the point of entry is the left-hand corner, 3 or 4 the centre of the table edge, 5 or 6 the right-hand corner - all units of that general must enter within 8MU of that point of entry. Units moving onto the table measure their movement from the table edge and can be in any legal formation (artillery will move on-table limbered).

So when you say "corner" you do mean the corner within 8 MU. Same for "centre" you mean the dead center of the edge.

This looks like fun.

Yes, the corners and centre are both +/- 8MU . . . which isn't a lot. We talked about whether or not that shouldn't be 12MU too. But 8MU worked okay. And measuring movement from the table edge makes for a bit of a traffic jam if you don't think about what comes next and where it needs to head to !

It all made for a good game . . . I have a couple more trial scenarios to post up, which I will get onto in the next week or so.

These are great. I've been working on several adaptions from Charles Grant book as well. Just need time...every time I think I have time I am assigned to do stuff by my 4-years old.

I just tried this scenario out on Thursday and it produced a very enjoyable game thank you for submitting it. We went with 12MU deployment rather than the 8MU. The only other modification I would make is for deciding where the divisions come onto the table: 1-2-3 and the player chooses, 4-5-6 it is in the left corner, centre, or right corner respectively. This balances out luck and decision making I think.