On August 13, 1704, the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy won a resounding victory over the Franco-Bavarians under Marshal Tallard. But not on MY table... I, as Marlborough, was easily whomped by Fred Haub as Tallard. THE WARGAME, first published in 1972, edited by Peter Young, is in the library of most wargamers. Turn to page 46 of the book, and you see a beautiful colored photograph of the Blenheim battlefield, complete with miniatures. It was Fred Haub's idea to replicate the field from the photo... we counted the number of infantry, cavalry, and artillery units - which turned out to be way more than what we wanted - and so we scaled down the armies of both sides, enough to give us an interesting 3 hour battle. We each ended up with 7 infantry units... call them battalions, regiments, whatever you will... 6 cavalry units, and 4 batteries. Our infantry units contained 6 stands each, the cavalry were composed of 4 stands. Fred and I agreed that we each would write about the baffle, giving two opposite viewpoints, one of victor, one of loser. You are reading the loser's. Somewhere in this issue is Fred's input. Having set up the field, we decided to generate our own rules as we went along. First in the order of business were the movement distances to be covered by the infantry and cavalry. The result was: a basic move of 8 inches for infantry, and 16 for cavalry. Then we went one step further. Let's dice, we said, for the action increments allowed each side. A percentage dice throw of 70 or less and all units on the side had 2 "increments of action"; above 70 and the side was given 3 increments. On each increment, infantry could move its 8 inches, hence with 2 actions, it could advance a distance of 16 inches. Given 3 actions, it could advance 24 inches. This, of course, assumed that none of the available actions were used to fire. Fred "Tallard" Haub won the initiative on the very first bound, and diced for his actions. He got "2" actions, and immediately his cavalry charged. Note that with the 2 actions, each of his cavalry units could advance 32 inches... and off went one cavalry unit toward my lines. Obviously, we were going to test the melee rules. We faced each other across a stream called the Nebel... this required a percentage dice toss of 70 or less to cross ... this didn't hold up Haub's troopers at all. The particular horse unit was that of Lord Asquith ... some years ago, on a trip to England, I had visited Terry Wise's shop, and purchased the unit. Unlike my other 30mm figures, this was one of plastic, but it had been owned and painted by Stewart Asquith, and I thought it worthwhile to add it to the Simon collection. Lord Asquith's cavalry certainly proved out well for Haub, as it zipped across the Nebel (70 percent probability) to my side of the field and raced up Blenheim Ridge (70 percent probability) on which one of my guns was perched. The gun was permitted one action of defensive fire, but even though one stand of Asquith's 4-stand horse unit disappeared in the smoke, contact was made, and WHAMMO... off ran the surviving artillerists. On each increment of fire, a gun was allocated 4 10-sided dice termed "hit dice"; a toss of 1, 2, 3, or 4 was a hit. Similarly, each of the 6 stands in an infantry unit were given one hit die. I should note that, at the beginning of a bound, when a side was given its actions, the firing sequence for all units was: FIRE/LOAD/FIRE. If the side received 2 actions, therefore, its missile units could FIRE/LOAD, i.e., fire once. For 3 actions, it could FIRE/LOAD/FIRE, hence could fire twice. There was an "automatic reload" between bounds. Note that a 6-stand infantry unit firing twice on a 3-action bound received 12 hit dice, looking for 1's" through "4's". This would have produced a horrendous casualty rate, but we diluted the fire effect. Each hit on a unit placed a marker on the unit; three such markers and the unit lost one stand. On my left flank, I had 4 cavalry units. After 3 or 4 bounds, and number of melees, I decided that my cavalry were absolutely worthless. When hit, they were required to take a morale test... they failed most of these... and they lost all of the melees in which they engaged. The upshot was that, having successfully charged my gun (the famous exploit of Lord Asquith's unit), Haub established a position on my side of the Nebel on Blenheim Ridge, and I just couldn't drive him off. Spurred on by the Asquith's example, Haub's other long range cavalry charges proved immensely successful. The firing and melee procedures were similar, each side tossing hit dice... one die per infantry stand, two dice per cavalry stand. In melee, it was one-unit-on-one unit, but we were permitted to bring in one "supporting unit" to get a couple of extra dice. The support didn't really participate; it stood by while its men shouted encouraging things at the two engaged lead units; things like "Stick it in his ear!" and "Kick 'em again, this time lower!" and other military expressions. Deciding how near a support unit actually had to be to the melee took a bit of discussion. At first, we said that the unit had to be within 8 inches of the engaged units. Not close enough. This was expanded to 10 inches, and eventually to 12 inches. To provide its supporting dice, the support also had to pass a morale test. Around Bound #7 or 8, 1 decided that Blenheim Ridge was Haub's... in no way could I drive off his forces. He had effectually split my army in two. And so I decided to advance on both flanks. On my left flank, to Blenheim, and on my right flank, to Oberglau. My lead unit in the attack on Blenheim failed to cross the Nebel (70 percent chance) and got hung up, thus having to endure additional fire from the defenders. When my troops finally staggered across, they were down to 4 stands. The unit I had brought up to assist and provide support dice, also got hung up. Just a bad day at Blenheim. And on the right flank, although I drove off one of Haub's defending cavalry units, his infantry gave my boys what-for... I could make no headway against Oberglau. And so Marlborough's forces called it quits... we couldn't reproduce his magnificent victory of 1704. And next on the list... The battlefield we had set up for the 1704 encounter was rather bare; the photo in THE WARGAME had shown a minimum of trees, hills and other terrain items. I proceeded to add a number of small hills and many wooded areas... we were going to fight Blenheim, 1943, and see how the result differed from the previous encounter. Out came the troops of the Lannigan Brigade... WWII 20mm figures I had purchased at the last HISTORICON. Infantry were mounted 5 to a 2" by 3" stand; the stand was composed of magnetic material, and the men were based on washers. Each time a stand was hit, one figure was popped off. Each stand was termed a company, and for gaming purposes, three or four companies constituted a battalion. One tank stand represented a platoon. Whereas there was no need to track infantry casualties (figures were simply removed from the magnetized company stands), each armor stand did have its own data sheet. The sheet kept track of three parameters; an example for a tank is shown below. Each hit on the tank resulted in one entire column crossed out. POH Vulnerability Manpower 50 3 7 50 6 7 45 9 6 45 12 5 40 15 5 35 18 4 The P H' stands for Probability of Hit of the tank's main weapon. Firing at P. target in cover, for example, a modifier of -15 was used, hence the POH of 50 (for the undamaged tank) went down to 35%, and a dice throw of 35 or under hit the target. The Vulnerability' figure was the probability, each time the tank was hit, that it blew up on the spot. Note that the tank becomes more vulnerable as it takes hits (more columns crossed out). In fact, it can take only six hits total, before its removed from the battle. 'Manpower' was defined as the "strength" of the unit in determining the victor in close assault. An infantry stand used the number of figures left on its stand; the armor used its Manpower designation. Our modern battle of Blenheim only used five armored items, hence we had no trouble in recording data. However, I should note that in a scenario generated for another rules set, say COMMAND DECISION, which employs a few dozen tanks wandering around the battle field, I wouldn't recommend the above armor tracking procedure. Jim Butters took the part of Marlborough in our first run-through of the rules. We each had some 12 infantry stands, plus a couple of tanks/armored cars. We each were permitted to set up our forces anywhere on our side of the Nebel, and we each took advantage of this... I placed some infantry in Blenheim and Oberglau, while Jim occupied Unterglau. Most of my infantry were based in Blenheim, and I immediately attempted to cross the Nebel with them, thinking I could gain a foothold on Blenheim Ridge and then turn right toward Unterglau. Not so. Disaster overtook me, as Jim made an airstrike with one of his low-flying, nap-of-the-earth, sweptwing, supersonic F-897's. The sequence was composed of 8 phases: Completion of these 8 phases was defined to constitute 6 hours of battle time. If the battle started at 0600, therefore, a complete cycle of 6 hours brought us to 12:00 noon. Another cycle brought us to 1800 (6:00 PM), and the day's battle ended. Noon was when airstrikes occurred. It turned out (luck of the draw) that Jim's F-897 took off at noon on the very first turn. The plane entered the field on the eastern edge, near Blenheim, and proceeded to parallel the south bank of the Nebel. All of my troops were lined up along this bank of the Nebel, ready for their crossing. When an airstrike occurred, all ground movement ceased; only the plane was allowed to move. The aircraft moved in 8 inch increments; at the end of each increment, it could: a. "Strafe" targets just ahead of it i.e., those located in the next 8-inch increment, and b. "Bomb" those targets it had just overflown. Damage caused by the plane, by either strafing or bombing, was decided by the following table, using a percentage dice throw: 01 to 33 34 to 66 67 to 100 No damage 1 hit 2 hits The pilot of Jim's F-897, seeing one of my main battle tanks, the dreaded Albanian Z-58 Oust off the production line), ahead of it, decided to strafe ft. A high dice throw produced 2 hits. Using the Vulnerability number shown on the Z-58's data sheet, there was 6 percent chance the tank blew up... I tossed the dice... the tank survived. But now, the F-897 moved on, another 8 inch increment, this time overflying the Z-58, and the pilot dropped a bomb.. Another high dice throw... another 2 hits. The Z-58 had 4 of its 6 columns crossed out and there was a 12 percent chance that ft was destroyed. Alas! I tossed a "12" on the percentage dice! KABOOM, and my Z-58 was no more! One tank gone. But Jim's F-897 wasn't through yet. He overflew the remaining Z-58, scored 2 hits on ft (fortunately, it didn't blow up), and managed to inflict casualties on one of my infantry stands before I shot the plane down. All this occurred on the eastern side of the field, near Blenheim. Loss of one Z-58 and damage to the other put a crimp in my plans to cross the Nebel. But it turned out I had another problem. Most of my troops had been placed to the east, near Blenheim. On the western side, at Oberglau, I had stationed 2 companies of infantry (2 stands). Jim's infantry - he had about 5 companies - crossed the Nebel here, and a firefight ensued. The firing procedures were extremely simple. Each infantry stand of 5 figures had a basic 40 percent chance of causing one casualty to the target. We deducted -5 points if the target was in cover, and -5 points for every man missing from the firing stand. My troops did so well, causing major casualties to Jim's boys, that I had my 2 companies leap out of Oberglau, and charge the enemy. Another "alas"! In my thirst for glory, I left Oberglau unattended. While my infantry were battering those of Jim's, that sneaky fellow brought up a company of infantry, previously overlooked, and entered and captured Oberglau! Jim now possessed Oberglau and Unterglau, while all I owned was Blenheim and the wreckage of a couple of Z-58's. Zounds! Another bad day at Blenheim. Back to PW Review February 1997 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1997 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com