What Worked, What Didn't: Soldier's Companion

As promised, my thoughts on Helvetican Messiah with emphasis on the Soldier's Companion rules.

What worked: 

• The scenario map in the book made setting up the table easy
• Actually, having the whole scenario setup detailed in the book made the setup easy.
• The rules cover a lot of situations, often with illustrations - what counts as a flank attack, enfilade, volley fire, etc. Although I ended up using very few of those rules, it was nice knowing they were there.
• The hit mechanic for small arms - you hit on a 6. That number is modified by a variety of factors. If the number required is greater than 6, you need a 6, and then the opposing side rolls 1d6 against the total modifiers (so if I needed an 11 to hit (+5 total modifiers), I need a 6 to hit, and then if I do roll a 6, the opposing side rolls 1d6 and saves on a roll of 1 to 5).
• Troop formations have an in-game impact in terms of melee, firing, and morale, as well as the usual movement rates. G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T., which I use for the same genre, does not have this.
• Melee is opposed die rolls and the size of the difference determines the result - simple and allows multiple result states other than "winner" and "dead." Multiple attackers on a single defender, the attacker rolls for each attacker and uses the highest number rolled for determining results.
• The seize the initiative mechanic for troops laying an ambush allowed lizard warriors to make contact with the Riesling platoon without getting shot up before they could get there.
• Keeping the lizard warriors in cover meant they could use their Fieldcraft rating to avoid being hit. It proved to be quite effective at slowing their rate of attrition. I also like how Fieldcraft impacts the ability to spot a concealed unit - spotting is done at 5x the Fieldcraft rating, which came into play in the final shoot out.
• Automatic disorder for each unit involved in a melee. This just makes sense. Melee is chaotic, to think you'd maintain your line in this situation is absurd.
• My "solo AI" which was simply a d10 vs the number of lizard warriors in a unit. If the unit passed their morale check, I rolled a d10. If the result was greater ,they faded back into cover to reappear at a different point on the table. This was to give them the advantage I felt they would have in the jungles of their homeland.
• Quick ref sheets in the back of the book were handy

What didn't work:

• Initiative - Against irregulars, regular troops get +1 on the initiative roll which makes it very hard to win initiative for irregulars, at least by my dice rolling. One improbable result was that Major Carnap was able to rally his disordered and shaken platoon, reform line, and then fire upon the lizard warriors without them being able to do anything, since they were a melee weapon only sub-warband. As a solo player, the initiative system doesn't really do much for throwing wrenches in my plans if I'm running the regular troops. G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. with its unit card initiative for the win.

• Morale system - I like the morale stages and the checked result (which can be devastating) but the 2d6 check against a target number, while it worked, seemed clunkier to me than the check against figures remaining. The latter, I find, makes it more likely that units will break as they are withered away. Because casualties do not have a cumulative effect on the morale target number (at least the rules aren't written in a way that makes that clear if they do), you can (and I did) have units with 80% casualties staying on the table.

• Scaling the movement /ranges. This was my fault. The game, from what I can gather, is written for 25mm/28mm and I am using 15mm. So, I scaled the movement and shooting ranges accordingly. This was a mistake - even in G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. i tend to use the ranges as written regardless of figure scale. It wasn't game breaking, but it made things tedious.

• Slow (for me). The game is slow compared to G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. for the same number of figures/units on the board. I understand that not everyone wants to finish playing in an hour or two, but I have very little time to game and need to start and finish in a 2 hour window usually. 1 platoon and an officer (9 figures) vs 1 warband and a shaman (19 figures) took nearly 3 hours to play. Even if I subtract an hour for having to look some things up (which I do with G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. for that matter), I'd still be looking at 2 hours for a very small encounter.

• Quick ref tables for morale should really include some mention of casualties /  forced to rear (for melee) and their impact on the morale number. Also there's a +/- sign missing on the hit number modifier for targets in Column, Mass or Disorder. It seemed to me that it should be -1 (thus improving your chance to hit). 

The Verdict:

I had a great time and was really into the game, but would I use these rules again? 

Probably not - at least, not without tweaking. They were fun, but they were too slow for me. That's my deal breaker. 

So does that mean G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. for whatever the campaign holds? Maybe, maybe not. There is a lot I liked about Soldier's Companion that I'd hate to lose. 

Almost two years ago, I started mashing up G.A.S.L.I.G.H.T. with some of what I had gathered from a brief skimming of Soldier's Companion. I think I may need to revisit that idea now that I've actually played the latter.

Preparations for the Return to Helvetica Continue

I played another quick scenario with Soldier's Companion the other night to learn the mechanics and, as hoped, missile armed irregulars can, in fact, make life difficult for imperial troops.

Bolstered by this "discovery", I feel ready to play out the scenario, Martian Messiah, from the rule book, with a few changes to fit my imaginary world and the island of Helvetica.

The setup: A lizard folk shaman has been sowing seeds of rebellion among the northern lizard folk tribes, formerly under Sauvignon -Blanc's rule. Rather than send a punitive expedition to rout out the instigator, the commander of Riesling forces on the island of Helvetica deemed it best to send a small force, a single platoon, led by an officer, with the intent to capture or kill the shaman with as little fanfare as possible. There is the ever growing concern that his message might make its way to the southern tribes and plunge the island into chaos. The clouds of war loom large over the continent, so little support would be forthcoming in the event.

Forces:
Riesling - 1 platoon + 1 officer, 9 figures total., V1 (Veteran, Fieldcraft 1)
Lizard folk - 1 warband (19 figures) split into two 9-figure sub groups +the shaman. (Experienced, Fieldcraft 3)

Of course, since this is the next chapter in a campaign (documented here, scroll down to Battle for Helvetica), I can' simply rush to the table to play.

After all, there are names to look up for the officers and ncos, a map to review, a map to re-do in Hexographer just because, considerations of how/if this will be a one-off or if it will be a prelude to a Featherstone style colonial campaign, etc.

I don't need to do all of this before the lead hits the table, but some of it might impact the "AI" for the lizard folk. So, at the rate I'm going, I hope to be ready to play by the weekend.

Space 1889: Soldier's Companion First Impressions

Actually, 1st impressions may not be wholly accurate.

 I acquired Soldier's Companion (in dead tree) a few years ago, around the same time I acquired some French Foreign Legion and Lizard Men in 15mm. I really wanted the book more for source material / campaign background ideas than for gaming and so, while i read them, it was never with the intent of actually playing the rules, either wargame or as RPG.

But, as part of the Save a Dead Tree project, I decided to spend some time with them and actually use them. 

Last night, I had a chance to break out a half-warband of lizard warriors and a squad of Prussian infantry (aka my imagi-nation of Riesling) to try out the basics of the rules.

[As an aside, it was great seeing these figures again. It has been quite some time since I brought them out last and it was a bit like going home. Victorian Sci-Fi / Darkest Africa type games were some of the first I really invested time in. For a long time, the lizard folk were my largest force]

Wow. It sucks to be irregular infantry armed only with melee weapons.

Initiative is 1d6 for each side, highest score of result + modifiers goes first. As it turns out, regular vs. irregular get a +1 bonus right off the bat. 

Only the winner of initiative does any moving - the loser can defensive fire or participate in any melee it's dragged into, but can't instigate any of its own.

In my first quick setup, the lizard folk were in the open, possibly a charge distance away - they never moved and were shot to pieces. Even with the long range penalty, they dropped like flies. Morale didn't even allow them to flee.

Speaking of morale, it's not entirely clear to me whether or not casualties count on successive morale checks or only in the turn in which they occur. As written, it sounds to me like the latter, which led to the unusual situation of 2 lizard warriors passing morale checks when a comrade was dropped.

For the second setup, I took Mr. Chadwick's advice on playing irregular's from his Designer Notes chapter, and had the lizard folk ambush the Riesling soldiers. By starting hidden, they could automatically steal the initiative.

If I am reading the rules correctly, defensive fire occurs before melee and so charging troops can be shot up at any point along their charge path. The result is that the lizard folk were stopped halfway to their objective, having failed their morale check.

Although it looked like it'd be a repeat of the first test there on out, luck was on the lizard warriors' side and they won the initiative several times - but troops that are "checked" (failed their morale) can't act in the remainder of the turn in which they are checked, or in the entire turn after, so much of those wins were negated.

I think it was in my Intro. to Philosophy class that we talked about two runners, who having run halfway to the finish line, run half of the remaining distance to reach it, and then half of that again, and so on, but never reach the end (because you can split numbers in half infinitely) - obviously physical objects can travel distances, so something is up. 

Anyway, that's how the lizard warriors advanced, never quite making it close enough to contact the European troops. And in the end, they were slaughtered.

I want to try some bow armed irregulars next, because at least they can attack from a distance.

My goal is to play the Martian Messiah scenario from the rule book, reskinned for Helvetica and then go from there for perhaps a mini-campaign.