A brief review of Arrowstorm rules and battle report

I recently purchase the Arrowstorm medieval rules written by Daniel Mersey, better known for his work on the Lion Rampant rules. These rules are available at a reasonable price ($9.47) on Wargame Vault under the publisher "Daniel’s Game Emporium". You just have to download and print. The design notes which are many, tabletop setup, rules, army lists, and quick reference take up 34 pages.

What caught my interest in these rules was the activation system which uses a tactics chart, and they are intended for a fast play game. Interestingly, the rules themselves were based upon some rules used for recreating the Battle of Evesham, 1265, and published previously in Military Wargames magazine (issue 387). These are also included in the 34 pages.

The tabletop prepared and the armies deployed.

The rules downloaded and printed. There was only one colour page, the rest being black and white and not heavy on the use of ink. 34 Pages in all.

The rules use an offset grid, with each square needing to accommodate up to 6 units (3 friendly and 3 enemy units). Initially, this posed a challenge for me as my units were based on two 4-inch by 3-inch stands and I play on a 6-foot by 4-foot tabletop. After experimenting with various approaches and square sizes, including halving my units to a single stand within the grid, I ultimately decided to adopt a free movement system. This meant that units needed to operate in a cohesive block with other units, so 3 units operating together were placed one behind each other. On the tabletop this gave the impression of the armies being organised into battles, provided a medieval look to the game.

The game uses an offset square grid. But I was able to adjust the rules to use free movement as my unit basing was too large to really accommodate up to 6 units in a square.

The deployed armies into blocks (or battles). Most of the blocks have 2 or 3 units.

The main reason behind my purchase of this Arrowstorm was its activation system, which revolves around a tactics chart. This chart comprises 12 tactical options, such as movement, battling, shooting, etc., with players taking turns to select their preferred tactic. Additionally, the inclusion of a couple of special tactics unique to each army list adds some characteristics to the armies; for instance, "arrowstorm" is a special tactic for the English Hundred Years War armies giving a bowmen unit extra benefits when shooting. 

Players are limited to choosing a maximum of 4 tactics in most cases. I found the whole tactical chart mechanism most enjoyable and intriguing, for example:

• Selecting the “seize the initiative” tactic, allowing you to activate a unit or group of units first, but at the expense of an activation. 
• Choose a tactic that might not directly benefit your army but by selecting it will hinder your opponent's choices.

The other feature of note are that activations apply to the square containing the units, not the individual unit, although you can just activate one unit if you choose to do so. For my game the activation is applied to groups of units. Units or groups of units can be activated more than once during a game turn, so units may end up shoot or moving twice.

Tactics being selected on the tactical chart. Generally 4 tactical are selected, but this can be reduced or increased in certain situations.

The combat mechanics are straight-forward, each unit type has an assigned a battle rating which dictates the number of combat dice rolled. Battle rates are reduced as units accrue hits. Typically, groups of units in a square engage in combat rather than individual units. In most cases players are allowed to allocate any hits among their units as they see fit. Moreover, special tactics and commanders have the ability to increase or decrease the number of dice rolled in combat. 

A Battle report…

Arrowstorm provides rules and army lists with a unit point system for a player to select their army and setup the tabletop. For this test game the following order of battle was used.

French:

• 2 x Mounted Knights
• 2 x Mounted Sergeants
• 3 x Crossbows
• 1 x Foot Knights
• 2 x Spears

English:

• 1 x Mounted Sergeants
• 3 x Longbows
• 3 x Foot Knights
• 2 x Spears

The French were formed into 4 battles with cavalry positioned on each flank and the English into 3 main battles with a single units of mounted sergeants on their left flank.

The initial deployment. The English army is deployed in front of a town.

Turn 1 - The French seize the initiative, pushing forward their mounted knights along with one of their central battles containing two crossbow units. Volleys of arrows are exchanged, resulting in a hits allocated across the units within each battle. (Note - the English seized the initiative for the next game turn.)

Turn 1 - both sides advance.

Turn 2 - After seizing the initiative, the English unleash an arrowstorm upon the French mounted knights, inflicting casualties, although the knights persist in their charge. Nevertheless, significantly weakened, they are eventually eliminated at some cost by the English battle comprising archers, spearmen, and foot knights. On the opposite flank, the French commander leads his troops forward, resulting in a swift clash with the opposing English battle, with casualties being sustained on both sides.

Turn 2 - The French mounted knights are eliminated while two battles engage in melee.

Turn 3 - The French commander leading his troops successfully eliminated the opposing English battle in melee, all the while both armies continuously showering their opposition with arrows. The English make no manoeuvres, opting instead to focus on rallying their troops.

Turn 3 - The French right battle eliminates an English battle.

Turn 4 - The English army was happy to persist in shooting with their remaining bowmen, while the French, somewhat belatedly, advanced their mounted sergeants and engage in some rallying efforts.

Turn 4 - The French try an reorganise and bring up their mounted sergeants while under constant shooting by the English bowmen.

Turn 5 - Observing the battle's momentum was favouring the English and their defensive strategy, the French commander initiates an assault with his significantly diminished battle. However, the opposing English battle, under the leadership of their commander, easily repels the impulsive attack. Witnessing their commander's downfall, the French forces withdraw, conceding victory to the English.

Turn 5 - A final assault by the French is not successful and the English triumph this day.

A most enjoyable first game and all completed after 30-40 minutes.

Thoughts on the first game…

I found the tactical system to be most enjoyable as it introduces a planning aspect to the start of each game turn.

Following a single play through, referring to the rules became minimal, aside from checking on the  special tactics.

The use of free movement and unit groups appeared to work. One restriction I implemented was that when a group of units is in contact with another group (similar to opposing units occupying the same square in the rules), you can only add to your group if it comprises fewer than 3 units, and flanking or rear attacks are not permitted. Similar to squares, this requires careful consideration of the unit composition within your groups (battles).

The combat mechanics, both shooting and melee, are straightforward and abstracted (as stated in the game’s design notes). However, they tend to result in rather bloody and decisive encounters with few prolonged engagements. This can give a significant advantage to units striking first. Although, if so desired, the rules could be easily be tweaked to provide less decisive outcomes.

The tactics chart, particularly its restriction of activations, compels players to maintain their units grouped into cohesive battles. Dividing units too thinly can result in a significant portion of the army remaining inactive in the game, and if attacked they would put up little resistance. 

I found these to be a very interesting set of rules, particularly the tactic chart rule mechanism, all in all very clever. The set of rules is part of the “You Command” series of rule by Daniel’s Game Emporium which offers other period Dark Ages and WW2 using similar tactical chart approaches.

It is very tempting to get some 6mm or 10mm medieval figures and create a small footprint game for the dining room table. Says me reaching for the credit card.

A surprise dice bag

In my recent medieval wargames I've been using a dice-pull approach for activation of units organised into “Battles”, and have been using a repurposed bag to store and draw the dice from.

A medieval game underway.

Anyway I am no longer lacking a dice bag. My wife has stitched together a very handy, and themed, dice bag for me. The bag also includes a toggle to hold the draw-strings fast so the dice don’t escape when they are not being used.

A new dice bag themed with numbers kindly made by my wife.

Over the past week I have been trying some of the suggestions and ideas made in the comments of the last post (thank you for your insights). In the games played, I have been using single base units, rather than the two base units I often use for the games, allowing me to field double the number of units which are eliminated after taking three hits. This low number of hits allows me to use my homemade cardboard casualty markers to track hits. They are a much better aesthetic than using dice or markers to track hits.

Hits are tracked by cardboard casualties.

Details of how I made the markers are made can be found here.

After quite a few Medieval games I now have an English Civil War game setup for a change of period.

Minifig Medieval Mayhem

This weekend I decided it was time to have a medieval wargame with my old collection of MiniFigs. It seems like it has been a while since these miniatures have graced the tabletop.

A flank attack scenario from One-Hours Wargames is set up.

Minifig cavalry on the charge pay no heed to their hypothetical colour schemes.

Over the past year or so, I've tried various activation systems with my medieval games, where units roll dice to determine if they can activate. The required score varied depending on the number of hits they have taken. This system has worked well using a variation of One-Hour Wargames rules where the games have 6 to 8 units per side. However, this weekend, I wanted to organise the armies into 3-4 commanded groups or "battles” made up of different troop types, which would require a different activation approach.

My usual army organisation based on troop types with each unit consisting or two bases.

The army organised into “battles” with mixed infantry types. Each base is a separate unit.

In recent remote games with Jon of Palouse Wargaming Journal, he uses rules that will often use a dice pull activation system. Where each commander and their associated units are activated when their army's coloured die is drawn from a bag. The turn ends when all dice are drawn. At the start of each turn, the number of colored dice placed in the bag corresponds to the number of commanders in an army. The number of dice used are reduced as commanded groups are eliminated during the game. I enjoyed this activation approach because it creates a level of suspense and encourages decision-making as players try to determine which units to activate first to gain an advantage or hopefully momentum if they successfully drawn twice.

A dice bag was found.

When applying the dice draw activation method in my medieval game, for example, an English army consisting of three "battles" and a commanded group of bowmen would have four red dice placed in the dice bag. While a French army with three "battles" only would only have three white dice placed in the dice bag.

Over the weekend, I tested this activation method in one game and for the following game introduced a variation by incorporating a single green die. When drawn, this green die immediately concluded the game turn. To accommodate the possibility of an early turn end, I modified the combat rules from one-sided melees to simultaneous melees, otherwise some units in melee would not have to opportunity to fight back.

A second game is set up.

Out of the two activation methods, I am favouring the approach that allows all units to activate. One reason for my preference is the scenario where a group of knights initiate a charge towards the enemy army but are forced to abruptly halt due to the green die being drawn in the next turn, leaving them paused mid-charge. I find there are enough challenges with the dice draw allowing the opposing army to a cause interruptions to the best laid plans.

Another close up of a the 1970’s painting style - one figure seems to be wearing a kaftan!

Over this week I will be hopefully playing a few more test games in the evenings before updating my home brew rules with my scribbled notes.

Painting some additional samurai figures and headquarters

During the last couple of weekends, I've been gradually expanding my red and blue samurai armies. My armies include various types of figures: primarily, the smaller and slender Minifigs S Range samurai figures, which make up the majority of my collection, along with the bulkier Minifigs Samurai from a later range and a few Dixon Samurai. To these “hodge-podgy” armies I've have recently been adding some plastic 1/72 figures that work reasonably well when viewed on the tabletop with the S Range figures.

Red army headquarters

Blue army headquarters

This use of plastic figures all began a couple of years back when I started looking to find some samurai horses for my cavalry figures from the S Range, which were lacking mounts. While you can still buy the Minifigs S Range samurai from Caliver Books, unfortunately, they no longer possess the moulds to cast the horses. As a possible alternative, I initially purchased some Zvezda Samurai cavalry figures and found their horses were a suitable match for my cavalry units. This got me looking at their other samurai options, specifically, the headquarters kits and samurai foot soldiers.

The headquarters proved particularly useful and they look good. Any minor scale variance in the 1/72 figures and my other 25mm figures isn't a significant concern since it's a complete set, and I won't be intermingling them with other figures on the tabletop. I do mix scales a bit already with my buildings which are often one scale down from my miniatures, for example 15mm buildings are generally used with my 20-25mm units.

Ashigaru unit which has Minifigs S range figures in the second row and 1/72 plastics in the front row.

A better view for a size comparison.

When it came to some of the infantry units, I decided to blend Minifigs S Range soldiers with the 1/72 infantry, which are slightly smaller in scale. Initially, I thought this may be a bad idea mixing them up, but to compensate for any potential height disparities, I added Sashimono banners to help disguise any differences. The one difficulty I did have was the the plastic figure poses were too dynamic, so I am being careful in my choice of figure.

Arquebus unit.

The original need to search for alternative horses.

All painted up in a very basic block fashion with a lick of gloss to give a toy soldier look.

Having now completed this bit of painting, I am now eager to get these freshly painted units, especially the headquarter units, onto the tabletop for a wargame

ACW game report

This week I've been busy testing morale rules in a few American Civil War (ACW) games and playing a remote WW1 Palestine game with Jon. In the next post, I'll share a report on the WW1 Arab rebellion attack on a train in that game.

Fog of war?

In one of my recent ACW test games, I tried out the “flank attack (2)” scenario from the One-Hour Wargames book. However, I added a twist by incorporating Grant's tile approach from Programmed Wargame Scenarios to create different tabletop layout variations. I little bit more information on this approach can be found in a previous post here.

The centre row has the original flank attack layout split into left flank, centre, and right flank. The top and bottom rows are possible variations.

The left flank, centre, and right flanks are determined using dice.

The final tabletop layout is decided for a 4 foot by 6 foot tabletop.

Using these tiles as a guide the tabletop is setup and the troops deployed using the following order of battle. Both sides begin the game with one reserve cavalry unit.

Union:

• 3 x Infantry
• 2 x Veteran Infantry
• 1 x Artillery
• Reserves - 1 x Cavalry

Confederate:

• 4 x Infantry
• 1 x Veteran Infantry
• 1 x Artillery
• Reserves - 1 x Cavalry

The tabletop all setup for a game.

A small portion of the Confederate force faces a larger Union force positioned on a hill.

The remaining Confederate force is positioned on the Union flank.

The game will consist of 15 turns, and the main objective is to gain control of the large hill that is currently occupied by the Union force. Both sides have their own deck of shuffled event cards, and each turn one card is revealed. These event cards can either provide advantages or pose challenges for a side. Among the cards in the deck is the Reserves card, which, when revealed, signals the arrival of the reserve cavalry.

Event cards are used in the game

Here is the battle report in pictures…

Confederate forces begin their advance on the flank and in the centre. Union forces react to the flank attack and look to counter in the Confederate in the centre by advancing.

On the flank Confederate forces press forward trying to take advantage their surprise arrival on the Union left flank.

In the centre Confederate forces retire, partially due to failed morale dice rolls and also discretion.

Union forces are under pressure on the flank as Confederate artillery support their flank attack.

Some Union units are forced to retire and attempt to regroup.

The Confederate attack is progressing well as Union forces are trying to reorganise a second line of defence.

The Union defence is struggling to hold.

The attacking Confederate units are starting to accumulate hits, increasing the likelihood of forced retirements. 

Confederate reserves arrive in the form of cavalry.

All Union forces have now retired to defend the hill.

Confederate attacking units are forced to retire before regrouping and entering the fray again. Union infantry are putting up a good defence.

With their flank attack losing its effectiveness, the Confederate centre begins to advance supported by their cavalry reserve which have arrived on the left flank.

All Confederate forces are pressing forward.

Union units are trying to reorganise and fill the gaps in their defensive line.

A much thinned down line is still holding on.

Things are looking pretty grim for the Union defenders with a few game turns remaining.

Units on both sides are depleted close to the end of the game, but the Confederates still have the greater number of units. 

The arrival of the Union in the penultimate turn allowed the Union to just hold on to the hill at the end of the game. 

The rules used in this game was testing out a variation  of the One-Hour Wargames American Civil War rules. The variation used D3 dice to replace D6 dice so hits are D3+1, D3, and D3-1 rather than D6+2, D6, and D6-2. Unit are eliminated after taking 9 or more hits. Additional morale rules are added so any unit that sustains hits during the shooting phase must undergo a morale test.

The procedure for the test is as follows: 

• Roll D6 and double the score.
• If the doubled score greater than the number of hits the unit has taken, it passes the morale test.
• If the doubled score is less than or equal to the number of hits, the unit must retreat 12" directly away from the enemy. During this retreat, the unit can pass through friendly units and must end up facing away from the enemy.
• Any unit forced off the tabletop is eliminated.

Any unit that has retreated during the opponent's shooting phase retains the ability to move or shoot during its own player's turn. However, retreating units always end up facing away from the enemy and will have to pivot and move to face the enemy again.