Last week's battle reprised

On thinking about last week's battle we realised that most of the issues we had were to do with us not having played ancients for a long time & we were misremembering rules.  This week we fought with almost the same armies as last week, but having boned up on the ancient rules as well as making a couple of minor tweaks to the new order system. 
Only two players this week, Jim as Seleucis & Mike as Dimetrios.

Seleucis' army is on the near side of the table.  He has placed his phalanx in the centre flanked by Galacian foot on both sides of it & Galacian cavalry supported by elephants on both flanks.  His companions are in reserve behind the centre.
Dimetrios also put his phalanx in the centre with mercenary hoplites on the left & most of his cavalry on their left.  The other flank was covered by just two cavalry units & some horse archers.

On the near flank Dimetrios is trying to delay the Seleucid advance with his horse archers. 
In the centre the phalanxes advance cautiously on each other.  On the right of them Galacians have charges the hoplites which have been deployed in massed formation.  On the far flank Dimetrios is attacking with his cavalry,  Seleucis has sent his companions to support his right flank.

On the near flank the Seleucids are advancing despite significant losses to the horse archers.  In the centre the phalanxes have locked horns while the hoplites are getting the upper hand over the Galacians.  On the far flank Dimetrios' cavlry is getting the upper hand.

On the near flank the Galacians have overlapped Dimetrios' phalanx.  On the far flank Seleucis has had to commit his companions to plug the holes. 

The phalanx blocks at the right hand end of both phalanxes have been broken.  The hoplites have broken the Galacians on their flank, but the companions are pinning them down.  Both extreme flanks are still indecisive. 

Seleucis' left hand phalanx block has moved to the right to cover Dimetrious' victorious phalanx block, while the Galacian continue rolling up the other end of Dimetrious' phalanx.  Both flanks remain indecisive.

Both flanks have end up pretty much M.A.D. but Dimetrious' phalanx has been destroyed, rolled up from it's right flank.  In the last turn both sides went over 50% losses.  Dimterios having had 10 unit points broken out of 18 & Seleucis had lost 11 out of 21.  So a Phyrric victory for Seleucis.

The battle went much more smoothly than last week.  Having read up on the ancient rules helped, but also the tweaks made to address the issues that ancients showed up in the new system worked really well.    The simultaneous system provided a lot of instances in this battle where the players had to make decisions where the right choice depended on what the enemy did - introducing a skill element lacking in IGOUGO.

 

Successor battle with simultaneous movement

Seleucis: Jim & Mark: Phalanx, Galacian foot, Companions, Medium cavalry, Elephants, skirmishers.  
Dimetros:  Steve & Mike: Phalanx, Hoplites, Heavy Cavalry, horse archers, skirmishers.
Deployment method. Loser of toss puts down a brigade, then the winner puts down a brigade.  Toss again & repeat until all deployed.

The Seleucids are on the right.

Seleucis has deployed elephants behind his cavalry on both wings to support his & disrupt Dimetrios'. Dimetrios attacks with his cavalry on the near flank.
Both sides make a cautious advance on the far flank.  
Both sides are holding back in the centre.

On the far flank a confused indecisive fight is ongoing.
On the near flank Seleuicis is doing slightly better than Dimetrios.
In the centre Seleucis' phalanx has advanced, but not attacked. 

On the far flank Seleucis has turned a phalanx right to support his cavalry & elephants.
In the centre the hoplites have counter-charged the advance of the Seleucid phalanx.
On the near flank both side have heavy losses, but no one has won yet.

The far flank is pretty much M.A.D.
The Seleucid phalanx has failed to beat the hoplites & is falling back.
Dimetrios's phalanx is now advancing towards the Galacians.
The near flank is still indecisive. 

On the near flank the Seleucids have finally won, but have only 1 cavalry & 1 elephant unit fit to fight.  
The left end of the Galacian line which is not on the hill & has been shot up by horse archers earlier is in deep trouble against a phalanx.  The rest of Dimetrios' phalanx has declined attacking up the hill at the Galacians. 
The advance of the hoplites was halted when the phalanx reached the support of the Galacians.

At this stage neither side has failed their Army Morale Test, though Dimetrios is on wood & Seleucis not far off.  It could still go either way, but time was up so the battle was declared a draw.

This was our first trial of the simultaneous movement system with ancients.  We found that it didn't work quite as easily as with musket era battles we had been trialling it with, but part of that was that we hadn't played ancients for a long time.  With more HTH combat there was more scope for complex interactions of multiple units & we found that the modified HTH combat result table 
needs some fine tuning.   We're going to give it another go with ancients next week.

My new 3D Printer: Creality Ender-3 V3 SE

I bought my first 3D printer nearly 4 years ago.  It was a bottom of the range Ender filament printer that cost about $300.  It was a bitch to assemble & frustrating to learn to use, but once I got the hang of it worked pretty well most of the time.  

The quality of the models made with a filament printer is not as good as a more expensive resin printer, but perfectly adequate for wargame figures, & there's no hassles with noxious fumes.  The most frequent problem is failed adhesion to the base plate which happens occasionally for no apparent reason. There are a number of reasons this can happen, but eventually you learn the signs & can ID the issue & fix it without too much hassle.

After I proved to myself that 3-D printing was the future for wargaming & also useful for my work, I bought a second printer, a better model that cost about $350.  It had a better control unit, but otherwise not a lot different.  I wanted two printers for two reasons:  To speed up production, & to provide redundancy in case of breakdown.  A few months ago the second machine developed a fault in the extruder that I have been unable to fix.  The first machine is still working as good as new.

I bought the first two printers on-line, but Jaycar now stock them locally with a good range of models.    These include the Creality Ender-3 V3 SE on special for $250.  From looking at the display model I could see that despite the low price, it was a significant up-grade from the old models I have & the price was more than right, so I bought one. 

Old printer on the left, new printer on the right.

The old models came as a box of many bits that were a real pain to assemble with inadequate instructions that I needed to supplement with youtube videos & advice from Nick Bowler.  The new model is mainly pre-assembled into just 3 modules which are easily screwed together & also has a manual that is easy to understand.  

The old models require manual levelling with 4 knobs which is tedious & needs to be re-done frequently.  The new model has a self-levelling mode, which though slow is just one click.

Feeding a new filament into the extrusion module of the old design can be annoyingly tricky & I've found the module is such a tightly packed mess of tiny components I was unable to replace a fault & re-assemble it.  The new model has a larger, simpler, & easier to use feed mechanism which looks less prone to fault & easier to maintain. 

The old machines use a mini memory card that is fiddly & easy to lose.  The new one uses a bigger memory card that is much easier to use.  

The control screen is a further improvement over my second model. 

The only problem I had in getting the new one going was bed adhesion.  My first tries had no adhesion.  But the problem was easier to fix than on old modules, as the most common causes, the base getting out of level, or the z-offset drifting off optimum are much easier to adjust.  The self levelling function is one click so I'd done that so I knew that was right.  The Z-offset (the height of the nozzle for the first layer) was factory set at -1.5 but is easily adjusted from the control panel.  By trial & error I found that -2.5 was the Goldilocks spot. 

Previously, I wouldn't recommend getting a 3-D printer to anyone except serious nerds becasue of the  frustrating idiosyncrasies of the machines.  (I was fortunate to have an alpha nerd mentor in Nick to supplement youtube videos, plus engineering experience to help me learn the ropes).   The new model is not only remarkably cheap, but significantly easier to use.  It's still a bit more complex & fault prone than a 2-D paper printer, but not excessively so. 

While making the computer files for a model from scratch is a very difficult task requiring the mastery of very complex apps, there are heaps of ready made files available for download at moderate cost or free.    Apps that convert those files to the right format for the machine are free & pretty easy to use.   

Reprise of last weeks' battle

We reprised the battel we fought last week, but with Mark commanding the Russians.
French: Steve
Russians: Mark

The Russians deployed first, then the French.
French have heavily weighted their left flank.

The Russians have moved infantry to their right to meet the French advance.

Then French attack begins with a cavalry charge while the Russian infantry in the orchard fal back after taking high casualties from artillery & musket fire.

The Russian dragoons have been defeated but the French cavalry have fallen back from the line of squares.

The French infantry are attacking the farm while their cavalry pins down the Russian right flank

The French infantry have taken the farmhouse & orchard & cleared the hedgerow but the 2 Russian batteries are inflicting serious casualties.  On the far flank the French have started an advance following up the Russians who have pulled back to support the centre.

The French attack through the farm has run out of steam.  The French cavalry is powerless against the combination of squares & artillery & they only have 3 sound infantry units left on the right flank.  he French concede the battle.

We have fought a similar Napoleonic scenario three times as test games for our new simultaneous movement system.  The Russians won all three.   In the process we have ironed out a few bugs in the new rules & the players are all keen to try them out in ancients next week.  

   
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More Napoleonic with simultaneous movement

An encounter battle with French & Russian columns coming on roads from opposite ends of the table. 
French (Mark): 5 line, 1 legere, 3 dragoons, 2 battery.
Rusains (Jim): 8 line, 1 hussar, 1 dragoon, 2 batteries.
The French have a better command rating & shoot better, but the Russian infantry take an extra casualty before being shaken.

Both sides march their foot down the road in oposite parallel courses. 

The cavalry face off accross the river as the infantry move up.

The Russian cavalry dell back as their infantry & artillery depoyed.
The French are moving infantry up through the farm their cavalry towards the Russian right flank.

On the far flank the infantry stand out of musket range.
In the centre the French are attacking from the farm.
On teh near flank the French cavalry have charged the FRussian cavalry.  The Russian hussars were able to fall back behind infantry squares nbefore they broke, but their dragoons have been broken. 

On the far flank the French have now advanced to start a fire fight.
In the centre the French infantry have failed to break through.
On the near flank the French cavalry is regrouping.

On the near flank the French cavalry don't dare attack the line of squares.
In the centre the French attack has run out of steam.
On the afr flank, the Russain infantry had been getting the worst of teh mauket duel & fell back behind the ridge,  but when the Russian hussars moved over to support theire foot, the French broke off the attack & conceded the battle.

The draft rules for simultaneous movement are working well.  We saw a few oportunities for further improvement, but as we hoped, the system is providing an interesting change from IGOUGO. 

Napoleonic with simultaneous movement

This battle is a second play test of a proposed simultaneous movement system for our M2M house rules.

SteveJ: French with 7 line inf, 1 legere, 3 dragoons, 1 battery.
Jim: Russians with  10 line inf, 1 hussar, 1 dragoon, 2 batteries.
The Russians deployed first with objective to stop the French advancing to Smolensk.
The French deployed second up to 18" in from their table edge with the objective to drive the Russians off the road to Smolensk.

The French are on the far side of the table. They deployed overlapping the Russian right flank & have began to advance.

The French cavalry have swept forward towards the Russian horse.
French infantry have wrapped around the right flank of the Russian infantry which fell back to the cornfield. 
On the far flank, the French advanced, then fell back again after taking casualties from the Russian artillery & the Russians have  moved some of their reserves to the right.

The cavalry are slugging it out on the end of the lines.
The Russians have pulled back from the house with heavy casualties from the French artillery.

The French cavalry eventually prevailed, but only one unit remains fit to fight & it has fallen back from the line of squares  that had been deployed behind the Russian cavalry.  
The French infantry have driven the French back though the cornfield, but at high cost.
The French right has began an advance on the Russian left.

The French have been forced to fall back from the cornfield by fresh Russian infantry from reserve.
The French attack across the river has been halted.  The Russians have lost more units broken than the French, but the French have almost no units still fit to fight & concede the battle.

The simultaneous movement sequence system worked well.  The main advantage of simultaneous movement over IGOUGO is that you have to issue orders each turn without knowing what orders the enemy is issuing at the same time.  This is realistic, an interesting challenge, & provides scope for skill rather than the luck of diced command & reaction tests. There are also less complications in combat situations & their aftermaths.  

The big problem with simultaneous movement is the difficulty of devising a system of issuing orders that is both simple & unambiguous. I think I've done that by building on the system I developed for our Man o' War rules.  

    

  
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