The Battle of Fort Fenrir

 

    First a little background, the BroXT has been recently experimenting with approaching old school D&D as a wargame as well as whether or not it can handle battles larger than the Adventurers vs. the Dungeon's Denizens. Due to my impeccable takes on old Elon's House of Gentlemanly Discourse, I was brought in to play one of these battles, the results of which would affect an ongoing AD&D 1^st Edition campaign (Trollopulous). My opponent for this exercise was Jake Letourneau. I was given the command of Lord Fenrir and the task of defending Fort Fenrir from the marauding Severed Head Orcs commanded by Jake. The Rules used were the tips from Jeffro Johnson's article on scaling combat from BROZER as well as AD&D's rules and suggestions on how to play out mass battles as scattered in the unparalleled Dungeon Master's Guide. Due to the fact that we live about 2,000 miles apart from each other we played the game last night over video chat in Discord, with Jake hosting the table and armies (represented by colored cubes marked to show the unit type). We set the figure scale at 1:10 and got to work, it took us about two-and-a-half hours to resolve, and while some mistakes were made and things forgotten in the heat of the moment (due to both of us still learning the intricaces of 1^st Edition AD&D), a good time was had by all and a very reasonable outcome was produced in a short amount of time.

    Fort Fenrir is a small keep supporting and protecting about 1,000 local inhabitants. The fate of this battle would decide the fates of many. The Orders of Battle were:

Lord Fenrir's Host:

Lord Fenrir, a 9^th level Lawful-Good Fighter

His 5 retainers (1 4^th level Magic-User, 1 5^th level Cleric, 1 5^th level Fighter, 2 4^th level Fighters) and a 6^th level Captain (all except the Magic-User were assigned as Leaders of various formations in the host)

The fort's garrison:

12 Heavy Cavalry

16 Light Cavalry

20 Spearmen

8 Armored Heavy Crossbowmen

and his personal army:

20 Medium Cavalry

20 Light Cavarly

20 Heavy Foot

20 Light Foot

40 Heavy Crossbowmen

20 Light Crossbowmen

The Severed Head Orcs (as best as I can remember and approximate):

Grok'narr their chieftain

Sikks their shaman

5 Assassins

15 Orc leaders

5 Ogres

90 Orcs with Ranseurs

30 Orcs with Longbows

30 Orcs with Heavy Crossbows

 

 

We arranged our troops thusly:

    The Orcish horde arrived outside the gates as dusk approached, Lord Fenrir wisely decided to sally forth and bring the fight to the foe rather than wait until night fell and their infravision gave them a large advantage. He had the initiative on the first turn, but decided to be prudent and cautious, the Crossbowmen were ordered to ready themselves for when the foe came in range, and the Light Horse sent out to the flanks in the hopes of forcing the advancing scum to spread themselves thinner. And advance they did, the Crossbowmen let their bolts fly to minimal damage and the battle was soon begun!

    The Orcish arrows and bolts did some light damage to the Light Horse and Heavy Foot, one company of Orcish infantry with Grok'narr at their head charged headlong into the Heavy Foot and Lord Fenrir being able to get in a free shot due to the extra length of the Ranseurs vs. the Heavy Foot's Lucern Hammers, one Stand of Heavy Foot was taken down and Lord Fenrir charged in to challenge Grok'narr to single combat! The Magic-User's Magic Missile was confounded the Orc Chieftain, as he squared off with our gallant hero. Due to his impressive attacks and +1 Long Sword, the Chieftain was quickly cut down by Fenrir, and with his demise the magical aura emanating from the Severed Head banner he carried (which gave the entire horde +1 Hit Dice) ceased and the battle seemed assured to go in Fenrir's favor! While this was occuring, the Cavalry maneuvered to charge and engage various factions of the Orcish horde. The Heavy Cavalry and the Cleric managed to get in the rear of the Heavy Crossbowmen, the Medium Cavalry made a gallant charge with lances down against a unit of Ranseur armed Orcs, the Light Cavalry and their attached leveled leaders dashed into the the Assassins and longbow Orcs; and the Crossbowmen fired over the melee in front of them at the advancing Ogres, while the left flank Spears set themselves to receive a charge from the lumbering brutes. The Cavalry charges all bore fruit, except for the Medium Horse, who were dismounted by the fiendish Ranseurs.

The Battle Rages

    As the melees raged, the Crossbowmen were able to bring down the Ogres. Victory seemed assured, but before the day was done the tides of battle would turn again and again. The Orcs engaging the Heavy Foot and Fenrir were aided by another company of their foul compatriots, the Spearmen of the garrison were cut down by crossbow fire (due to the small size of the cavalry detachments we agreed that they were busily entangling the Orc leaders in the rear giving the Orcish Crossbows one last chance to fire), and the Spear-armed Light Foot of the army charged to help their comrades. The Orcs were able to take down Stand after Stand of our courageous forces, while in return only Fenrir's blows seemed to find purchase as he cut a swath through the enemy. The now dismounted Medium Foot were disarmed by the Ranseurs of their foes, while the other Cavalry began to make short work of their opponents. The death of the Chieftain triggered the first of many morale checks and the Orcs were out for revenge (only the Ranseur armed Orcs who had disarmed the Medium Horse fled the field the rest resolved to fight it out)!

    The tide of battle turned yet again. The Light Cavarly slew the Assassins and wheeled around to engage with the main scrum, the other Light Cavalry charged in to help the dismounted and disarmed Medium Cavalry (who had now been engaged by the opportunistic Longbow Orcs), the Magic-User's last Magic Missile struck down Snikk the Orcish Shaman. As the last of our infantry fell around their courageous lord, our remaining retainers and the Crossbowmen charged in to his aid. By the end of the turn morale was checked again, the Longbow and Crossbow Orcs had fled. Our own casualties now reached the point where our morale was shaken, the Medium (now dismounted) Cavalry also decided discretion was the better part of valor and quietly left the field, the remaining Light and Heavy Cavalry did also (in retrospect I may have botched a couple of these rolls and not accounted for some modifiers). But the main scrum held on as the last of the Orc Infantry charged the unprotected Heavy Crossbows. Blow after blow was struck, Orcs and men fell slain, the last of the charging Orcs surrendered to the brave and victorious Crossbowmen and soon all that was left was 20 Orcs with Ranseurs, 5 Orc leaders facing off against Fenrir and 2 leveled Fighters. In his +1 Plate Fenrir was nigh invincible, but the foul pig-faced monstrosities caught a lucky blow and he was knocked unconscious! One last turn would decide the fate of all, and what had seemed like an assured and easy victory moments ago now turned into a real nail-biter.

    The Crossbowmen failed their morale check and disengaged back toward the safety of the fort, the Orcs seeing a chance to turn this embarrassing and costly defeat into a victory rallied in attempt to drive back the Fighters and capture the downed lord. The Magic-User knew it was his time to defend his liege and rushed forward to engage the last of the Orc captains, muttering the arcane words of Blazing Hands he slew them in fiery death! The 6^th level Captain cut down the 10 Orcs who had downed Fenrir and the 4^th level Fighter chased off the last of the foes! The day was won, but at what cost. The Cavalry would need to be recalled and rested, the Infantry would need to be tended and replaced, a hard lesson was learned about giving Crossbowmen more protection than just the shirts on their back, and the wounded Fenrir would need lots of bedrest while he decided what was to be done with his 10 prisoners. But those would be questions for another day and another player, for now there was toasts to be had, wounds to be tended, and feasting to a glorious victory over the forces of evil!

The final tally of casualties were:

1 Unconscious Lord Fenrir

16 Light Horse wounded/killed (20 Light Horse fled and to be reprimanded)

10 Medium Horse wounded/killed (10 fled)

20 Spearmen

20 Light Foot

20 Heavy Foot

10 Heavy Crossbowmen

10 Light Crossbowmen

Surviving:

20 Heavy Crossbowmen

10 Armored Crossbowmen from the Garrison

10 Light Crossbowmen

All the Orcs and Ogres and leaders were slain except

10 Capture Orcs with Ranseurs

1 Leader and his assistants fled

20 Orc Longbows fled

10 Orc Crossbows fled

10 Orc Ranseurs fled

 

 

In conclusion, I think the experiment was a success. While I wouldn't consider this a true wargame or something I'd run on a whim (I think there's better fantasy battle rules out there). This simple scaling system will give you results that can play out at a table session of your RPG group without requiring players to learn a whole new system that they'll probably rarely use. It produced an adequate battle with a story that will be remembered by all involved, triumphs and defeats not just of the army but of individual units as well, which will increase player investment in their imagined characters and forces. I would wholeheartedly recommend trying this at your table, so that your PCs can have their “Theoden at the Pelennor Fields” moments and not just have those happen off screen. The ability to zoom in and out of scale is a boon to the system as well (allowing for the mass combat of units while simultaneously allowing single combats like between Fenrir and Grok'narr, while still allowing for Fenrir to cut down swaths of enemy mooks like a true hero). And for those more enterprising RPG players it serves as a good introduction to the wonderful world of wargaming, hopefully to inspire them to take up another fascinating and fulfilling hobby!

A Boy's first foray into wargaming

    As mentioned in the last post, I recently introduced my son (7) to wargaming, and he did quite well in his first two battles. Here is how that came to be and what came to pass...

    Around Thanksgiving, he discovered Little Wars TV, and was enthralled. While he was devouring their back catalog, I asked if he'd be interested in giving what they were doing a try. He enthusiastically replied, and I began thinking about what I could do to put something together for him. Between him and his sister, I don't have the time I once did to sit and paint up armies; nor can I justify selfishly spending the money required to put together a top tier army of miniature figures. Thinking about how to put this together for him in a way more engaging than a cardboard chit boardgame, but with less financial and time investment than a traditional miniatures game; I remembered something Games Workshop used to do to encourage entry into the hobby in their '90s boxed starter games, papercraft! I spent some time scouring the internet for what's new in the world of paper terrain and miniatures (having had a book of skirmish based Civil War paper flats as a boy). I quickly found Peter Dennis and his paperboys (here and here) as well as the wonderful resource and community of his facebook group.

    I downloaded one of the FREE sample pages from Peter's website, and tried my hand at snipping, the results were better than I remember paper soldiers being. Just before his Christmas Break began, I showed my son the lines of figures Peter had made for Helion Publishing and asked which era he was most interested in. He responded with the American Revolution, and for the cost of a few dollars in the pdf, quality paper, glue, nice detail scissors, and a presentation board sheet for basing, I was off to the races. I read over Andy Callan's 2 page introductory rules that were included in the book, and they seemed easy enough for a 7 year old to grasp, but nuanced enough that it wasn't just a game of “who rolls higher wins.” I proceeded to spend the next two-and-a-half weeks printing, cutting, folding, gluing, snipping, and basing the forces Mr. Callan suggested for an introductory battle. The army was coming together at rate I would never have been able to accomplish with traditional figures. By New Years, I had them as well as some basic terrain (a house and some fencing), now we needed to make a battlefield.

     In the Paperboys group, someone had mentioned that you could use felt yardage as a sort of sandtable by putting shirts or towels underneath to form hills and the lightweight of the figures would be supported and give a more realistic looking hill shape than other commercially available or DIY options. After a quick trip to the local Hobby Lobby, I came home with a few yards of Olive Green felt, as well as other colors to indicate different terrain features (Kelly Green for woods, golden yellow and copper brown for fields, & c.). Fortunately, my parents live close by and agreed to host the game on their dining room table, and mentioned they still had some of the terrain features my dad made for me as a boy (particularly several yards worth of nice real stone walls, that ended up being the perfect height for the ~28mm paperboys). I went over to their house after the kids were in bed to set up the battlefield and introduce my dad to the rules (I had decided it would be fair to give him one side and for myself to act as an advisor for my son and a referee for edge cases that always seem to come up in these kinds of games). The battlefield was relatively simple, a house on a hill served as the objective, a dense wood protected it's flank, fences and walls crisscrossed the area to make maneuvering a bit of a challenge. In the morning the forces would join and the little general would get a chance to shine.

    The objective of the battle was simple: The Brits needed to drive the Americans from the hill, the Americans shatter the British regiments (in the introductory rules a unit cannot move once it has taken 50% casualties, and if it takes more than 50% it is removed from the field entirely). The forces were a bit lopsided to account for the increased quality in discipline and training of the British regulars. Here is the Order of Battle:

Americans (commanded by my dad) had 1 General (who could be attached to a Regiment to help influence them in movement or combat at risk of becoming a casualty) commanding:

2 Regiments (6 stands each) of Continental Line (equal in quality to the British)

3 Regiments (6 stands each) of Militia (who shoot well, but in melee are always at a disadvantage)

2 Detachments (4 stands each) of Riflemen (incredible mobility, range, and accuracy, but only fired half their stands at a time due to the laborious process of loading a rifle vs. a musket)

1 Artillery Detachment (good range, but low chance of doing any real damage unless up close)

British (commanded by my son) had 1 General commanding:

4 Regiments (6 stands each) of Regulars (each represented by different types of troops for easy identification: 1 Highlanders, 1 British Regulars, 1 Hessian Fusiliers, 1 Hessian Grenadiers)

2 Artillery Detachments

 

    We mistakenly alternated deployments, and my dad countered my son at every opportunity. The final deployments were the Riflemen to secure the woods and were opposed by the Hessian Grenadiers, in the Center the Militia and Artillery were to secure the Hill and were opposed by the Highlanders and 1 British Cannon, on the far flank the 2 Continental Regiments were going to square off against the British Regulars and Hessians and the final cannon. We were set to begin!

    Before we began the young general took me outside to conduct a “pre-battle briefing” as he had seen on the Little Wars episodes; his plan was simple, use the Grenadiers and Highlanders to fix the enemy in place while the Hessians and Regulars smashed the flank and rolled up the American line. The first couple turns were spent moving troops into position (the rules use card draw to determine how well the Regiments follow your orders). The Grenadiers and Highlanders were making good progress, but the Hessians were slow to move and the flank attack would now be made in echelon. The Americans were having difficulties getting the militia to the hill and were getting bogged down and stacked up on themselves.

 

 

    By Turn 3 the British flank attack had closed with the Continental Line, and attempted to drive them off with a bayonet charge! The American fire and bravado drove the Brits back handedly, rendering them almost completely ineffective for the rest of the battle. Meanwhile in the Center, the Highlanders pushed back the Militia and American guns. And in the Woods, the Grenadiers had broken one of the Riflemen Detachments.

    The young general took me outside for a mid-game conference, his original plan had been dashed, but he was determined to persevere and snatch Victory from the Jaws of Defeat! He needed to hold the Highlanders in the Center, while the Grenadiers pushed through the woods and the damaged remnants of the flank assault redeployed to drive the Militia back. This was a risky plan, as the Highlanders were now almost completely surrounded and taking fire from all sides. It took 3 turns for the maneuvering to be complete, and despite the withering fire from the Americans, the Highlanders didn't lose a single casualty (due to both some bad attack rolls on my dad's part, and some fantastic disruption saves on my son's). Most turns resulted in the Americans whiffing their shots, but on the final turn before the maneuvering was completed the Scots received 10 hits from the Americans, and managed to rally 8 of them (at the end of the turn each unit rolls dice to rally its hits, if after rallying the unit has over 3 hits, it removes 1 stand equal to every hit over 3; his dice rolling was nothing short of miraculous).

    Now that aid had arrived, the Highlanders attacked! Capturing the enemy guns, and driving a Militia Regiment from the field. The great brawl had begun, as soon the Grenadiers charged another Militia Regiment and drove them back in a heavy combat. For turn after turn Regiments charged and counter-charged into the maelstrom. Soon, all the Militia had been broken or routed, the Grenadiers had been destroyed, and the battle hung in the balance as the Continentals and Highlanders squared off for a final showdown.

    After several tense rounds of hand to hand combat, the Continentals were finally driven from the field, the Highlanders and their young general were victorious! Despite being involved in five separate melees and several rounds of blistering enemy fire, the Highlanders emerged not only bathed in Glory, but without having suffered a single casualty! They would be heralded in the British broadsheets and paraded in front of the King himself whenever they finally returned back to Britain! The young general thoroughly enjoyed himself, it was all he talked about for several days. A new wargamer had been born!

    A couple days later, on the last day of his break, I asked him if he'd like to play again against me. He stuck to the same deployment as against his grandfather. I tried to be a little fancier and push a Militia and a Rifle Detachment through the Woods, hold the Center with the Continentals, and hold the open flank by the House with the other Rifles and the rest of the Militia. My militia struggled to maneuver through the woods and were easily dispatched by the Grenadiers, the open flank was rolled up like a sleeve by the Regulars and Hessians, and the Highlanders held the Center in place while the jaws slowly snapped together. It was an even more impressive victory for the British; if the first battle against his grandpa was a bloody Bunker Hill, this was are thorough trouncing like Camden.

Introduction & Bona Fides

 Welcome, friends!

     I go by Hoot, welcome to my blog.  I am a father of two and pushing 40.  I've been playing games of all sorts since I was a kid and am now introducing my oldest (a lad of seven) to this wonderful hobby!

     My  first computer game was Microprose's WWI dogfighting classic "Knights of the Sky."  From there I moved on to Red Baron 3D, the first two Warcraft games, the first two Diablo games, Starcraft, the Total War series, Combat Mission series, and various other Strategy, Tactical, RPG, Shooter, and Simulator games.

     My first real boardgames (not including classics like Candyland, Battleship, or Monopoly) were games like Risk, Heroquest (at a friend's house), Axis & Allies, and various Avalon Hill titles (especially Gettysburg).

     My first tabletop miniatures game was the ACW classic Fire & Fury.  I also spent much time and treasure on 5th edition Warhammer Fantasy Battle.  I've played and dabbled in all sorts of miniatures games ranging from Ancients, Medievals, ACW, WWI dogfights, WWII skirmish and battalion level tactical games.

     Due to religious reasons, I wasn't allowed to play RPGs like D&D as a kid, but have always found the concept fascinating, and have as an adult enjoyed the older RPG classics as well as select newer titles.

    I put most of these hobbies away in my 20s while I was out being young and having fun.  What brought me back into these hobbies is my son, who is the spitting image of myself at his age.  Just after his 7th birthday, he discovered the Little Wars TV Youtube Channel and was enthralled.  He spent the next month binging their content repeatedly, to the consternation of his little sister.  Around the same time I discovered Peter Dennis' wonderful Paperboys ( Helion Publishing's Books and Peter's Paperboys website ) and decided to put together a small game for him!

     Over the course of Christmas Break, I put together two small American Revolution era Armies (totaling 65 stands of troops), and using the introductory rules provided in the Paperboys Wargaming the American Revolution book by Andy Callan (of "Loose Files and American Scramble" fame) we played through the battle two times.  I'll give a more detailed report of those games in an upcoming post.  I've also introduced him to Avalon Hill's "B-17: Queen of the Skies" and plan to write those up, too.

I hope you enjoy my chronicle of my return to the hobby and introduction of this wonderful thinking-man's pastime to my son!

 

Pictured Below the American forces I snipped together for my son's first game: