Expansion

 Having got a small window of time between work and domestic duties, I have made a start on my version of Bob Cordery's Hare & Hounds Campaign set up. 

The setting is an imaginary "Ancients" situation, with the expansionist Republic of Vard seeking to subdue various tribes who have formed a confederacy to resist them. 

The H&H board was created by randomly generating a number of 3x3 Portable Wargame boards. I haven't drawn on the links but they follow the same pattern as described by Bob's illustration.

I'm using a pin board to keep track of the Army movements (8 Euros at Tesco!):

The Vard (Green pins) start with two Legions (numbers II and III) up near the frontier. The tribal armies are near their respective settlements. The composition of the Legions/Tribal Armies has been predetermined using a table similar to the random army tables in Neil Thomas's One Hour Wargames. Each Army has 6 units and a General.

Turn 1 sees the Vard cross the frontier. 

On Turn 2 the advancing Legions are opposed....

The First Battle:

 Legion II V The Anacondi Tribe.

 

The initial set up sees the Anacondi to the East (top of the picture) with three Cavalry units and three Infantry. The second Legion of the Vard Republic have three Infantry, 2 Cavalry and one Archer unit.

The Anacondi are aggressive and advance at once.

The Legion push the Anacondi back on the right while the centre holds with their left flank protected by dense forest.

  Pushing forward, the Chief of the Anacondi realizes too late that he has enemies to his rear

 the remaining tribesmen are surrounded, and the tribal force is annihilated! 

The surviving members of Legion II must now recuperate and wait for reinforcements before moving again.

The next game will see Legion III pitched against the Coronithi tribe.

Further to the last post, I have made a change to my conditional formatting to add a wooded hill instead of the second wood/forest grid. Thanks to Jonathan Freitag for suggesting this. I haven't adopted a separate town on a hill option - I may dice for this!

Random

 A recent discussion on Bob Cordery's blog, regarding generating random layouts for Portable Wargame boards, led me back to an idea I had some years ago for using MS Excel's conditional formatting function to do just that. Put simply, when a condition is met by the content of a spreadsheet cell, another cell will automatically be populated, say by a coloured fill. This enables a PW Grid to be randomly populated with colours representing scenery. 

The following demonstrates this using a 6x6 grid, a system I'm currently trying using 3x3PW rules.

Two identical grids are made, one contains a random number generating function, in this case set between 1 and 20, though this can easily be altered. The other has the conditional formatting set in each corresponding cell.

The sheet I have generated will populate the squares using the above values - I put two possible options for wooded/forested squares which I may edit. The hills and woods are universal across all 36 of the grids; the lakes are restricted to the middle two rows, and the Built Up Areas are restricted to the centre 4 squares. This was just a preference for my own purposes. The type of terrain to be generated can be tailored by the settings of the formatting.

Following are a few random examples that were created with the above settings:

Adding other features such as roads or rivers automatically is currently beyond the scope of this spreadsheet, however Lakes need to be fed by a water feature and settlements usually have some sort of track/road going to them, so these can be added as makes some sort of sense.

 

Having generated a number of boards, these can be brought together to be used as ready made battlefields for a Mini-Campaign in the style of Bob's Hare & Hounds game plan.

Acquisition

 Just added to the hobby library today, and acquired for €5.39 from WOB (I wasn't aware that it existed until it was mentioned by Brian Carrick):

Published in 1991 by Argus books and running to 112 pages, the book is mainly a Listing of companies producing metal figures in the Toy Soldier style starting in the 1970s through to publication date. Lots of black and white pictures plus some lovely pages of colour photographs. I'm not intending to start collecting, but it's a really nice book just to look at!

Seconds

 A second outing for Big Battles, Small Armies saw a home-brew scenario pulled together to try the rules with a mixture of unit types. 

Day 1 Dawn

The commander of Army Red has been ordered to take the hilltop village, currently held by an Infantry Battalion of Army Black. Red has 3 Infantry units, 2 cavalry and 1 Artillery. Black has 3 Infantry and 1 cavalry.

Red pounds away at the village with artillery
Both sides advance Cavalry and Infantry

Day 1 Midday - Red's artillery falls quiet having made no impression
Red's infantry and cavalry are both engaging the enemy

Army Black's commander is wounded!

The afternoon wears on with little give on either side

Night time Day 1 - Army Black rallies 

Day 2 Dawn - Red attacks with new vigour

Red's artillery re-enters the battle
Black's cavalry is forced back

The ferocity of Red's attack has been costly

Day 2 Afternoon - Red's attack falters

End of Day 2 - Both sides reach 0 Army Morale

With both sides simultaneously reaching zero Army Morale (akin to both reaching Exhaustion Point in PW) the battle was over. Army Black had held the village and were therefore the victors.  

New!

 

Having purchased a PDF copy of the Third Portable Wargame Compendium, and duly printing and binding it (there is still a reason for going to work, other than paying the bills), I was keen to start using my purchase. I thus gave Mark Cordone's Big Battles, Small Armies a run through. Put simply, this is an expanded 3x3PW on a bigger board with a morale system.

The first thing to tackle was the recording of Day and Night turns, as Big Battles may take longer than a standard wargame day. Enter the Amazing, Non-Mechanical Turnometer (Patent Pending, prototype Summer Variant model shown in the illustration). I have assumed two Night turns for Summer though this may not be the author's intent.

Turnometer

Game

In the time honoured tradition for testing a new system, I chose to use Donald Featherstone's Basic Battle 1, just Infantry on each side. Both sides had 4 Infantry units and a General; I therefore gave them each 5 Army Morale Points (though the General may not count as a unit so this may have been incorrect??)

Day 1 Turn 2 - The red and blue dice show the Army Morale

The two armies shoot at each other over the random hedge
The hedge offered no cover for musket fire, though would for melee

Day 1 Turn 7 - the sun is setting and Red has suffered hits, 
one unit destroyed and one unit damaged

During the night Red's damaged unit managed to rally 1SP

Day 2 Turn 1 - Red's firing pushes Black units back

Both sides take hits

Afternoon of Day 2 - Red's morale is failing

Red's Army Morale reaches 0 - defeat and retreat

I played a completely static game to get a feel for the rules which worked ok, though I have a few queries, for example what happens at night? Should the forces remain where they are (I did this) or should they fall back a set distance eg one grid? As Red's damaged unit regained an SP over night, I restored an Army Morale point, was this correct? It felt right so I did it. I count firing as an action, like moving, so when a side rolls a 1 for example, only 1 unit can move OR fire; I'm not sure if that's what is intended in the rules? Units in melee I would allow to fight without using actions??

Apart from my slight confusion with some of the rules, this was an enjoyable first go at BB,SA and it's a system I will explore some more.

Crossroads*

 *Please Note: This post refers to the Battle at the Crossroads and not the soap-opera set in the West Midlands of the UK, in case you feel cheated.

Today's Portable Wargame was based loosely on a scenario of Martin Rapier's that can be found here.

Setting

Winter has passed and the war between Red and Green is poised to recommence. Green attempts to preempt a Red invasion by attacking a supply line at a strategic Crossroads in the centre of a village. Red has possibly not stationed troops of sufficient quality guarding this vital position...

Grey squares indicate BUA (village and a farm). The two hills are heavily wooded and only passable by Light Infantry. Red starts with 2 infantry units rated Poor at Zone A, and a unit of infantry in the village. The roads are barely passable due to melting snow and heavy rain and confer no movement bonus. When the Poor class units first come under fire they must roll a d6 each turn - a 1 means they retreat at normal speed to the village. When they take their first hit they must roll d6 - 1,2,3 means they retreat as above. Once in the village they behave as per Portable Wargame rules. Green Army arrives on turn 1 (all on South base line). Red's remaining force arrives on North baseline on Turn 2. Green's objective is to occupy the Crossroads at the end of the battle.

 Game

Note: the purple dice remind me these units are Poor quality
Green's attack begins at once

One Red unit retreats but the other stubbornly resists

Green's cavalry bypass the occupied farm

Green's cavalry attempt to out flank the Red defenders

The farm defenders finally retreat

Green starts the assault on the village

The attack is slowing as Green takes hits

Everything is thrown at the defenders

Heavy losses for both sides have reduced them both to EP

The Poor quality troops, naturally, held out longer than expected, tying up Green's forces (shades of Sittangbad). I might try this again using OHW rules that would allow a fight to the last man, though the troops in the village are still going to be hard to winkle out.