Monongahela, a FIW big battle

[Tomsche]

Monongahela, a FIW big battle at TSA

This game, using the Songs of rules, featured 11 players and a few 100 figures in an ill fated attack by the British forces.

http://tomsche69.blogspot.be/2018/02/monongahela-tsa-french-indian-war-big.html

IMG_20180203_111650 by Tomsche Murrath, on Flickr

[FifteensAway]

A few comments, first, beautiful board and figures and basing so great job there.  I guess we can call the fort just across the river as modeler's/gamer's license even though there wasn't a fort just across the river at the Monogahela battle, but, heck, it's just a game.  Like the deer, extra points from me any time there is suitable wildlife on the table.  No harm, no foul the main fort is a wooden stockade unlike the real one, we can't all have exactly what we need so sometimes we make do - and it looked good.

Probably be more appreciated if the thread was under the Flouncy Shirts label, much more French and Indian War stuff there than here on the Old West page.  That's up to the moderator, though.

Now, for my pet peeve - and this drives me a bit nuts.  Why limit the game to the narrow length of the long table?  That virtually guarantees a British victory absent the worst die rolling in the entire history of die rolling.  What made the Monogahela a disaster for the British was their exposed flanks as the Native Americans (Indians) moved down either flank after the initial contact against the head of the column.  Maybe you didn't have a wide enough river but could have just created a bend in the river for the British to cross.  Remember, also, the advance portion of the British column was well across the river before contact.

If you play the scenario again - and the French players deserve this - set a river along the long axis of the board with hills and forest cover to either side of the British column advance so that they can be attacked in devastating fashion against their flanks.  And then see who comes out on top.  Better to just dispense with the river entirely because it had no part in the battle until the pursuit after the battle was well won.

And, again, I generally hate games that run the long length of the table because it deprives an opponent of any chance to attack a flank - especially true in large scale figure games.  Even if you've never read your Sun Tzu, at least consult the tenets of Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf!

However, for looks, the game was a thing of beauty and thanks for sharing.

Oh, advancing as I describe means you don't lag behind and never get into action and, better, there is a real chance of the British actually reaching the fort - if they survive the triple envelopment of front and both flanks.

[zippyfusenet]

That's a great looking game Tomsche, thanks for all the photos. First-rate figures and terrain, I especially like your big trees, and what an enormous table - is that 6 meters X 2 meters? It looked like everyone had fun playing.

I wonder how you ran a game that big with the SODT rules? As you note they're skirmish-level rules where normally only one figure at a time activates. How did you adapt them to such a big multi-player game?

[Tomsche]

About length vs width, I`ll take that up with the organiser of the game next friday when I see him again.

We adapted the rules a little in that all the attacking roles for example where thrown together for a "unit", usually 12 men, then the defender threw his dice one by one for the roll off.  The attacker firstly would lay his dice in any order he wanted (which mostly was high to low), then as they where rolled off they where put next to the one of the attacker and the results calculated afterwards.  Didn`t go perfect yet, but it did speed it all up a little

[zippyfusenet]

Thanks for that explanation Tomsche. I like the SODT rules. I also have several hundred 28mm figures for F&IW, so I'm curious about running big games with the Song Of rules engine. May I ask more questions about how you adapted SODT for this game?

I suppose you're activating figures by unit: the leader rolls his 1, 2 or 3 action dice, they're tested against the worst quality in the unit, as if for a March order, and then every figure in the unit gets however many actions. Do all figures in the unit have to take the same action(s), or can one guy stand up while others take aimed shots and another reloads?

I follow your explanation about resolving musket fire unit vs. unit. What if figures in the firing unit have different weapons (musket vs. rifle vs. bow, fr. ex.)? What if target figures are at different ranges or have different cover benefits or some are prone? What if more figures are shooting than there are targets (roll a defense dice for every shot taken?)? In a normal SODT game, if multiple figures fire at the same figure, they fire one at a time, and the result of one attack could affect the next attack - fr. ex., if the defender is knocked down, that will affect the next shot taken at him. I suppose that doesn't happen when one unit volleys at another.

How do you resolve melee?

Do multiple units on the same side activate at the same time?

Thx.

[Tomsche]

No, we settled on 4+ with 3 dice to see how many actions every unit could take, +1 free action if the big general was in range (18 inch).  We did have the unit make all the same actions within the use of a point though (all reload, all move, that sort of thing) for the combination of shooting and standing up.  Those that where down could stand up, the rest (if loaded) could fire.

We did make sure all models in a unit had the same type of weapon though, for easiness sake.  CDBs and rangers had rifled, all "white" infantry and 2/3rds of the native americans muskets, and some small native american units had bows, but no mix and match within one unit. 

Basically, every "unit" was an enlarged single figure for the original rules as a rough guideline on how it would be tackled.

[mikedemana]

Thanks for the explanations of how you adapted the rules for such a big battle. All very clever and sounds like they worked. I agree with the orientation -- better to have players fighting across the battlefield's long edge, rather than along it. But that is a scenario designer's choice.

One thing I do here for games with up to 8 players is "divide" the table into separate 1 meter square battlefields using scenery (river, thick patch of woods, hills, etc.). Then the players fight one-on-one in their separate square, but with rules provisions to send reinforcements and such. I even add in a little grand tactical aspect and make the four forces slightly different sizes. The players secretly huddle and decide where to deploy their biggest force, second largest, and so on. This can results in some interesting matchups.

In the end, I count up victory points for the entire table to determine which side won the scenario. One historical engagement I did this way was the Battle of Bloody Run from Pontiac's Rebellion. In this engagement, the Americans are attacked while they march along a road, so it is perfect for that style of set up.
http://leadlegionaries.blogspot.com/2015/10/battle-of-bloody-run-at-advance-colors.html


Looking at the 12-foot long table from opposite ends of the battlefield





Oh, and finally: can I link your account on our First Command Wargames FB page, and the on the game reports page of our website?

Mike Demana
www.firstcommandwargames.com
http://leadlegionaries.blogspot.com/

[Tomsche]

Link ahead 

Now, just a thought, but doesn't the dividing up of the areas "screw over" the on the one hand team play, and team messes that happen in those battles?  Like pleas for where player a comes with his troops to reinforce a line, when both b anc c are begging for it?  Or one player who wasn't paying attention suddenly dashing froward, breaking up a defensive line?

I know that sounds like 'silly', but those sorts of tactical blunders are the things that for me make those big multi player battles great fun (like irl that political assigned general at gettysburg that put his line to far forward at his own devise, nearly costing the Union the battle)

[zippyfusenet]

Tomsche, it's been a couple of days since you posted without a reply, so I'll speak out of turn. I'm weak that way.

I've played in a couple of Mike Demana's multi-player SODT games and watched others. He often stages them at regional game conventions. (Thanks again, Mike!) There is really no team play. The events are four one-on-one games run side-by-side on a continuous terrain table. It's visually spectacular, Mike builds excellent models, but here is no interaction between the four pairs of players. Each one-on-one game proceeds independently at its own pace, not even the game turns are coordinated. One pair of players may be on turn 10 of their game, while the pair next to them has reached turn 17. So there's no need to modify the SODT rules, play proceeds as normal in any two-player game.

Mike always suggests that when a one-on-one game finishes, the winning player can move his surviving forces to intervene in an adjacent game, but I've rarely seen this happen. Usually the winner is happy to retire with his victory. Once I moved into an adjacent game, but the opponent, who was losing anyway, immediately quit - he didn't want to face three-to-one odds, and I can't blame him.

So. All of this is why I'm so curious about your effort to adapt SODT into a true multi-player game using hundreds of figures and play finished in an afternoon.

[Tomsche]

That`s because I didn`t get to the club yesterday to talk it over with the game organiser, it was slippery icey as heck here on the road 

I didn`t run the game, I was just one of the generals on the table, and the club reporter on duty    But we tend to keep our multiplayers all going in one big blob instead of splitting tables up.  Though we will have to do it for the 40k battle end of may, as we stand at 24 players and about 65000 points at the moment, which with the huge ranges, flyers and magical powers is more of a challenge to keep it all "on one table" so that will be effectively split up in 3 battles of 8 players each.

[mikedemana]

Hi everyone,

Thanks for the kind words. Yes, doing my side-by-side battles does indeed limit the types of scenarios that you can stage. So, the linear type battle that is broken up by terrain (like Bloody Run) are perfect, and simulate the confusion well. We also did the Raid on Deerfield, and did it in a square fashion rather than long rectangle. Town walls and fences and side of buildings were the "borders" between the different sectors. So, it is limited only by your inventiveness and creativitiy.

I have played many multiplayer games at conventions where we are lined up and simply roll forward, having little interaction with other sectors of the board. Players often tend to match off against an opponent across the table from them and both's energies are focused on each other - not those on either flank. The big limiter in the rules that I am trying to overcome is the wait time for your turn. If I ran an 8-player game, where players had to wait for 7 players to takes their actions before going again, it would be simply too slow, in my opinion. And Heaven forbid the player "crap out" on his roll after waiting that long (and have to wait again). I think the player would get up and leave the table (and I wouldn't blame them)! 

So, I really like how you guys were able to modify the rules and get it to flow, Tomsche. To each GM his or her own preferences, though. There is more than one way to approach this issue! Good discussion here!

Mike Demana
www.firstcommandwargames.com
http://leadlegionaries.blogspot.com/

[zippyfusenet]

If I ran an 8-player game, where players had to wait for 7 players to takes their actions before going again, it would be simply too slow...

This. It's a problem in 'scaling up' many interesting game designs, like The Sword And The Flame, or Koenigskrieg or any design where units or figures (!) activate one-at-a-time. Our Moccasins Trickled Blood uses similar scale and mechanics to TSATF, but with a basic IGO/UGO turn structure instead of unit activation by card turn, so that all the players on one side can move their units at the same time, and all combat can then be resolved at once, which makes OMTB better suited than TSATF for big multi-player games, IMHO.