Let me start by saying that this will not be a typical battle report. My goal is not to report how the battle went, nor give a blow-by-blow, but to review the Red (programmed) turns specifically, state the decision that I took, and discuss what refinements need to be made.
Scenario #8: Melee (One-Hour Wargames)
Red (Defender): Programmed
Just as a reminder, here is what the scenario's terrain looks like.
The scenario has two Red units on the hill at the start of the game. All other forces on both sides come in at various turns. There are six units in each army. The army composition is random for both sides. The scenario lasts 15 turns with Red taking the first turn.
Red Turn 1
I now believe this is a bad deployment as it anticipates Blue moving around the left flank. Better that it deploy in D4 and D5 facing South (the Blue baseline) and move on Red Turn 2, based on Blue's actual move.
Also, I realize that I did not think the deployment orders through. My order of preference in units to deploy here are Men-at-Arms then Knights. It is possible to have zero, one, or two Men-at-Arms units. What if you only had one? Should it deploy on the left or the right? (It should deploy on the right as the left is the position of maneuver and a Knight is more maneuverable.)
Red Turn 2
I brought on three Knight units as my move, using one to try and flank the hill from the East. The other two units will assault the hill frontally.
So, this is where the first rule refinement comes from.
Rule #1 says once you are on the hill, you stay on the hill. So that rule does not apply.
Rule #2 states that if there is an empty position on the hill, the closest unit to that position moves to occupy that position. It needs a qualifier that states that if you are already on the hill you may ignore the rule under some circumstances. Without the qualifier, a programmed unit would simply move back and forth between two empty positions on the hill. We do not want that.
That said, if a unit on a hill could make a move to block a Blue unit from gaining the hill, without risking its current position being take by a Blue unit, shouldn't it move to block? We will consider that rule later. For now we are just going to add the qualifier that if a unit is already on the hill it is not forced to obey Rule #2, nor will it count as the "closest unit".
Red Turn 3
During Blue's turn the Knight unit flanking the hill could not yet make a charge from the road. (Charging only allows a 45º pivot at the beginning of the turn and it was adjudged that the unit would clip the woods, so it had to move farther down the road to charge.) Now that Red reinforcements are coming on that really looks like a bad move. Nonetheless, let's review Red's decisions.
The two Red Knights on the hill have no decision to make. They are defending the hill, so they solemnly wait the charge from the Blue Knights.
The first unit entering from the road is a Red Knight. It can ignore Rule #1 as it is not on the hill. Rule #2 states that, as the closest unit, it must move towards the (closest) empty position on the hill. As it stands, that is also the position that is threatened by the West-most Blue Knight, so that is a good move. Red Knight #3 moves to occupy D5.
I need a new rule that covers the condition when a Red Archer unit is not on the hill and does not have a Blue target on the hill.
Red Turn 4
As you can see from the image above, Blue has attacked on the East end of the hill and frontally. One of the Blue Knight units has gained the heights. Before I go on with discussing Red's moves, I ran into an interesting issue with the OHW rules.
Notice the Red Archer unit on the bottom left. It is on the flank of the Blue Knight unit which is engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the Red Knight unit on the hill. Can the Red Archer unit fire into the Blue Knight unit? I know plenty of rules that would say 'no', or have a rule like one-half of the casualties are allocated to each side, but OHW is absolutely silent on the issue. Further, OHW is incredibly permissive, which lends me to believe a unit can shoot at an enemy unit in hand-to-hand combat. The one applicable rule I thought would apply was that a unit cannot be attacked on more than one face (in hand-to-hand combat) and that aligned nicely with, say, the rule in Dux Bellorum (which allows a missile unit to fire at a unit in close combat as long as the line of fire is completely clear of the enemy unit's base), so I felt I was on solid ground. What do you think?
By the way, the red and yellow die are both there because I misinterpreted the flank attack rule. It applies only to hand-to-hand combat and not to shooting. I sort of rationalized to myself that it would get double hits for flank, but one-half hits for "cover" (being in melee), so I only registered 5 hits. In this case, it worked out...
The Red Archer unit ignores Rules #1 and #2. Rule #3 would have applied if it were not for the Red Knight to the North of the hill being closer and the shot being blocked. So again, no applicable order applies to the Red Archer unit.
This is probably a separate rule from the one indicated above, which would govern firing. Given that you can only move or fire, which new rule should have precedence?The Red Knight unit to the North of the hill matches Rule #2 and #3. It occurs to me that I may need to switch the order of these – having the unit attack the Blue unit on the hill over first moving onto the hill itself – but I am not sure. I will leave that decision until next turn. As it stands, the move to obey either rule is the same. I also need to add a clause about not exposing your flank to the enemy at the end of your move. (Note that my Red Knight to the North maintained its facing. That was not in the program.
One other note: for some reason I did not bring on Blue's reinforcements on turn 4, but rather turn 5. I did not even realize this until writing this report, in fact. That was a big mistake.
Red Turn 5
This was an interesting turn, in terms of programming. I realized that the Red Knight unit had to obey Rule #2, so rather than attacking uphill against the Blue Knight it moved to the vacant hill position and faced to charge the following turn.
That move, in turn, triggers the option for Rule #3 to apply to the Red Archer unit. Now that the Blue Knight unit is exposed, the Red Archer unit shifted right in order to shoot in future turns.
The other two Red units, being engaged in hand-to-hand combat, can do nothing but continue to fight.
Red Turn 6
The last of the reinforcements enter the board. The Red Levy units enter from the West edge, North of the hill.
As the Knights on the hill are all in hand-to-hand combat, there are no decisions. That leaves the Red Archers and the two Red Levy to consider.
I began to feel that the angle was too sharp for the Red Archers to fire into the Blue Knights that it had shifted right to attack last turn. So, with rules 1 through 3 not in play, they fired at the Blue Knights at the East end of the hill. This was the first instance of where the program went in one direction one turn, then reversed back the next. Basically, I lost one turn of fire due to that 'indecision'. I can live with that result, but it is something to watch for in future games.
The first Red Levy unit acts on Rule #3, which is to attack the Blue Knight unit on the hill. It thus moves towards a position from which it can charges its flank. The second Red Levy unit, however, has no applicable orders.
What happens to a unit when there is no unoccupied hill position and other (closer) units are already engaging enemy units on the hill? I need an order to reinforce the weak link in the line.The original two Red Knight units on the hill are pretty beat up, so the second Red Levy unit moves left in order to fill any gap that may appear on the East end of the hill.
Red Turn 7
Blue was able to shoot down the weakened Red Knight unit on the East end of the hill, so the second Red Levy unit continues to shift left, as Rule #2 now applies to it.
The first Red Levy unit charges into contact of the flank of the Blue Knight unit on the hill.
The unengaged Red Knight cannot move from the hill and because I indicated earlier that a unit on the hill does not need to move to another unoccupied position on the hill, it simply stays put.
Finally, the Red Archer has no target and Rule #4 does not allow it to move farther off of the baseline. I allow it to do nothing, for now. But if it continues to stay out of the action, I may have to rethink its orders, especially as there is a possibility of having two such units.
Red Turn 8
The third Red Knight unit (that reinforced from the road) is gone, but the Red Levy was able to eliminate the Blue Knight unit they were both fighting before it was able to turn to flank. The Red Levy unit will gain the hill position.
The second Red Levy unit continues to shift left to occupy the East end of the hill. Once it gets there, however, I am not sure what it will do...
The Red Archer unit shoots at the advancing Blue Archer unit.
It may not have been a valid shot, considering that the Red Levy unit partially masks the line of sight. However, I generally go from unit center point-to-center point and that is not masked, so I allowed it. Would you have allowed the shot?
Red Turn 9
The first Red Levy unit has another Blue Knight unit to its flank so that means that Rule #3 now comes into play. It will simply face 90º to the right as it cannot charge.
The remaining Red Knight unit is nearly exhausted (as indicated by the arrow showing that it is four hits away from being destroyed).
The Red Archer unit continues to fire at the Blue Archer unit and the Red Levy unit finally gains the position on the East end of the hill. Its flank is exposed to the Blue Archer unit, but as it cannot turn 90º and charge it is relatively safe.
Red Turn 10
No unusual decisions. Red Archer fires. Red Levy holds firm.
Red Turn 11
The Blue Archer unit gets cut down by the Red Archer fire, relieving the last of the threats on the East flank. The Red Levy unit no longer needs to concern itself. Next turn we will look at how its orders should change, along with the Red Archer unit.
Note that the single, remaining Red Knight unit is still hanging on by a thread, with Blue having rolled terribly all of these turns.
Red Turn 12
Amazingly, Red Knight continues to hold on. One more hit and it collapses. This causes me to think about 'threats'. Red Levy cannot contribute to the melee between Red Knight and Blue Men-at-Arms because: a) it cannot come off of the hill (Rule #1); and b) it cannot move through the woods. If Red Levy were to stay facing South and the next turn Red Knight were to collapse, Blue Men-at-Arms would gain the hill (take the defeated Red Knight's position) and Red Levy would not be poised to charge as it could not turn 90º and charge.
I posit that there needs to be an order to allow a unit to change face on the hill which threatened from one side, but not threatened from the other. But I am not sure how to write the rule.Red Levy faces right in anticipation that Red Knight will collapse next turn.
Red Archer, meeting the conditions of Rule #3, slides to the right to shoot into the flank of Blue Knight on the hill.
Red Turn 13
As expected, Red Knight is eliminated and Blue Men-at-Arms advances to take its position. This triggers Rule #3 for Red Levy, who charges into the flank of the Blue Men-at-Arms. Clearly they were reluctant to do so as they rolled a '2'!
Red Archer finds the Blue Knights closer and shoots into their flank due to Rule #3.
Red Archer finds the Blue Knights closer and shoots into their flank due to Rule #3.
Red Turn 14
The Red Levy finally get their courage up and roll a hefty '6' on the die (which only counts as three hits, despite what the die shows), enough to vanquish the Blue Men-at-Arms (who had been badly mauled by the Red Knights Who Would Not Die).
The Red Archers continue to plink away at the Blue Knights. Don't ask me why the Blue Knights are facing down the hill; they should be facing the Red Levy. Don't ask me why the die says two hits, when the minimum is three. This picture clearly was messed up.
Red Turn 15
The end. The Red Levy and Red Archers pound the Blue Knights, inflicting a total of ten hits in a single round. (Ouch!) Baron Babbage clears the hill, leaving Red the victor.
Decision Review
So, here are the following additions that need to be made to the program:
- When a unit is already on the hill, it is not required to obey Rule #2. This stops a unit from shifting back and forth between unoccupied positions.
- When a unit is already on the hill, it may obey Rule #2 if:
- The direction it is turning towards either allows it to attack an enemy unit on the hill, or allows it to block an enemy unit from getting on the hill.
- The direction it is turning away from contains no possible threat to gaining a position on the hill.
- When an Archer unit does not have a Blue target on the hill to shoot at (or move towards), it has no order.
- When a non-Archer unit does not have an open hill position to move to (Rule #2) and no Blue unit on a hill position (or it cannot reach it), it has no order.
All in all I am very satisfied with the orders as is, and with these additions I think I am happy with it representing a cautious defender.
Very interesting. I take from this the unmodified Red orders still managed to defeat Blue? So an improved Red order system should make it even harder for Blue?
ReplyDeleteLet's just say the goal was to find where I was missing orders, which I did, and determine how to fill those gaps. But where the orders were clear, I played them as written. You will notice, for example, no unit on the hill moved off, despite several opportunities to, and the Archers never moved more than 6" from the baseline. From my viewpoint, the Red orders were a success.
DeleteMy play as Blue, however, was abysmal. I brought my last reinforcements on one turn too late, for example. I was still working through a gridded movement system and given that Red was relatively static, that hurt Blue more than Red. If these sound like lame excuses for why I was beaten by my own system, you could be forgiven for thinking that.
As for improving on it ... well maybe you should write your own Red Baron Babbage and let me know what its orders are. :) I would love the see a program where Red is aggressive and defends forward, or orders for a flanking Archer or Knight.
It is tempting. I have one hour wargames and as I mention /i have been tempted to play through the games. But I had an "ah ha" moment last week while reading these posts from you and revisiting some on other blogs. The scenarios are brain teasers and the rules provided the mechanism to solve them. The rues are to give a feel of the period but really to present different opportunities to play out the brain teasers. So my new goal is to play all the scenarios with the rules as they are. Probably on a grid like yours. But the goal is not a high priority at the moment. If I do get to it, I may use it as an opportunity to write some programmed opponents.
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