FIGHTING IN THE SWIEPWALD, 1866: A ONE HOUR SKIRMISH SCENARIO

 

The Prussian jager officer with his bugler at hand looks on from behind cover in the midst of the action. 

Greetings, dear reader(s).  There has been gaming activity in these parts. This post will present a brief overview (I can't really call it a "game report") of the most recent game of my One Hour Skirmish variant. This game was to give me practice running a  multi player OHSK game (four players).  Cutting to the chase, I can say that the multiplayer system (borrowed from AJ, of AJ's Wargming Blog) worked out well. For anyone familiar with the rules, each player gets their own deck of cards, but with only one joker (as opposed to two). For more, see the scenario which can be downloaded at the following:

SWIEPWALD SCENARIO FOR OHSKW (VARIANT)

Situation in brief: During the Battle of Koniggratz, there was heavy back and forth fighting in the Swiepwald Forest. This game focuses on a section of that fighting...

...in an area that became known as the "Meadow of Death." This was an area that had been harvested and the logs stacked in piles, and there was back and forth fighting across this zone. In this scenario, I put together a table roughly representative of the circled area in the above (you can clix pix for BIG PIX in this post--you may also want to check out my post on Logisticks). Specifically, this game represents one of these swings, with the Prussians having just advanced across the meadow and the Austrians committing another wave to push them back.

Austrian (left) and Prussian (right) squads ready to deploy

Each side has two squads of jagers, consisting of eight figures for the Austrians and seven for the Prussians. Each player controls a squad. Each squad includes two non-jagers representing soldiers who are still in the zone from earlier fighting. For the Austrians, these are grenzers and for the Prussians they are fusiliers. (Again, you can download the scenario pdf for more details). 

I used a randomized deployment...

...to represent the Prussians being spread across the zone and less organized, a six sided dice is rolled for each figure. The fusiliers are placed at one of the corresponding blue numbered locations within their squad zone. For the jagers, on a 1-4, they are deployed at one of the black numbered locations.  On a 5-6, the jager starts off table and enters using a move activation. 

The  Austrians, having been pushed back, start more compact. The grenzers deploy at white numbered locations corresponding to their die rolls within their squad zones. The Austrian jagers, who are counterattacking, don't roll for deployment, but start deployed on the table edge within their respective zones.  The Austrian jagers should be placed first, ahead of the Prussians and the grenzers. This deployment method worked out really well (surprisingly so), and will lend nice replay value to the scenario. The game lasts 12 turns. 

Victory conditions...

...each side has different objectives, but they combine to drive the action. The Prussians get 1 point for each surviving figure that they have at the end of the game forward of the road that runs parallel to their table edge, so they must contest the ground without becoming combat ineffective, but do have the advantage of position and defense. The Austrians gain 1 point for each log pile that they control, but are not penalized for losses (other than the effect that losing figures has on play). The Austrians can, however, cost the Prussians points by inflicting casualties (so there are some angles to be played between taking ground and engaging in firefights).  There are 15 Prussian figures and 15 log piles. The side with the most points wins. Alternately, if one side fails a morale check, it loses.  

So, how did our playtest go? Well, I was engaged with facilitating the game, so don't have a complete "battle report" but can give you an overall sense...

Above Left: The Austrians (Mike C, left, ran Squad 1, and Earl, right, ran Squad 2). Above Right: The Prussians (AJ, in the foreground, ran Squad 2, and Ralph ran Squad 1). 

Four out of six of Ralph's jagers started off board, while AJ's were more evenly distributed. So Ralph wound up having to bring up his fellows to get stuck in.  In this playtest, the Austrian jagers started off table and had to enter via a move activation (different than the version described above and now posted). Given that the Austrians require two activation points to fire vs one (representing the muzzle loading Lorenz vs the Prussian needle gun), a run of awful activation cards at the start of the game caused the Austrians to enter piecemeal, one figure at a time, in order to get in a move and a fire, or to enter several figures but be unable to fire. Although the Prussians had their own share of lousy card draws, the fact that they had more figures on the table and can fire with only 1 activation point meant that they were able to get on top of the Austrians early on.  The Austrians also had crummy luck with their  grenzers, who did start on table and could have provided some cover to get the jagers on table, but that didn't work out so well (in another game, it might go differently). 

On to a bit of eye candy: here are some shots of the action. Note that in OHSK, a figure that is hit is "downed": at the end of the turn, you check each downed figure to see if he becomes an actual casualty (or returns to action, sort of like a saving throw).  The red markers, if they are by themselves, indicate where a figure has become a casualty. If there is one behind a figure, it means that that figure is "down" (out of action), but waiting for the end of  the turn to decide whether he is out or not...

One of AJ's Prussian fusiliers facing the advancing Austrians early in the game.

Another view of the same: both of AJ's  fusiliers started in this advanced position. The other was picked off by Mike's advancing Austrians and has become a casualty.

Ralph's squad advances and takes up a position after entering the table.

Earl's (now outnumbered) Austrian Jagers battle forward. Having finally seen off Ralph's Prussian fusiliers who had been holding the log piles to their front, they start to trade shots with Ralph's jagers. Although the Austrians have a lower rate of fire, they have a range advantage over the Prussian needle guns. 

Mike's squad, along with the Austrian officer, taking up position on the Austrian left. The tabs indicate special capabilities. The chevron is the NCO (the "T" indicates that he is "Tough"). The "D1" is the squad sharpshooter ("Deadshot" in the rules). The "IN" on the leader indicates that he has the "Inspirational" attribute.

The Austrian casualty count: given that the Prussians also managed to get the initiative in all the early turns, meaning that they got to shoot first, things added up very quickly. The Austrians eventually failed their morale check, and that ended the game.  Although you have to accept that the run of the cards in OHSK will influence outcomes, it was clear that the consequences of bad cards were less drastic for the Prussians than the Austrians, compounding the already existing challenges of the burden of attack.  The playtest was still an enjoyable experience, despite this, and the final version of the scenario (presented here), does help to make the Austrians less brittle without putting the finger on the scale in their favor. We're looking forward to running it again to see how it goes!

Excelsior!