Drake's Dragons

Spurred by the dogfight I posted yesterday, I decided to start an aerial campaign. I resurrected a character and setting from my old blog.

The Lucranian War

The campaign is set in an imaginary world, where a diesel-era evil empire invades the democratic nation of Lucrania.

During this war, Devin Drake leads a squadron of brave aviators fighting against the might of the Empire.

Previously

The Dragons were marginally victorious in their last campaign, but suffered heavy casualties in the last two missions. They pulled out for some rest, but are now back in action.

I actually started a second campaign but it fizzled out. I'm considering that mission a one-off and am now starting a new campaign.

Mission: Intercept!

At the Dragons' airbase, the warning klaxons blare. Incoming air raid!

Only 2 Dragons, the commander Devin Drake and young Dewey Hobbes manage to get in the air.

Drake (green 1) flies a standard Goshawk fighter while Hobbes (green 2) pilots an obsolete Chick fighter. They face 2 Cobra fighters, an old Adder, and 3 Vulture medium bombers.

Using the heavy cloud cover, our heroes get a jump on the bombers. Hobbes damages one.

Then shoots it down. But the enemy fighters converge.

One gets on Drake's tail, damaging him. Hobbes takes damage in a crossfire.

Two fighters gang up on Hobbes and bring him down. Drake escapes into the clouds.

The cloud cover throws off the remaining bombers' aim. They do minimal damage.

They score 1 hit out of 4

The Lucranians are lucky the damage is not worse, but this goes down as a defeat for the Dragons.

Sadly, Hobbes did not survive the crash.

GAME NOTES

• Campaign Score - 0-1
• I determined the sides randomly. I think it was weighted a little heavily against the defenders. I will think about tweaking the randomizer.
• I use fictional planes for my fictional universe. There are 3 classes - obsolete, average, and advanced. I gave names for each class per nation.
• Lucrania - Chick (obsolete), Goshawk, and Peregrine (advanced)
• Empire - Adder, Cobra, and Viper fighters. Condor (light), Vulture (medium), and Buzzard (heavy) bombers.

A Nameless Battle with Nameless Foes

A few things have stimulated a desire to do a little aerial gaming:

• I watched a Crusty Colonel replay of an aerial game (Algernon Pulls it Off?)
• I pre-ordered Voidfighter. Although it is ostensibly a space combat game, I presume it will have many similarities to aerial combat.
• While de-consolidating, I had my aerial combat box out.

So now I take you over the fields of Flanders, as two nameless Allied pilots (green) run into a patrol of two equally nameless German pilots. All fly average planes.

The Allies spot the Germans first.

In game terms, the Allies had the advantage and got a bonus on their initial maneuver rolls.

But the Germans recover quickly and turn the tables on the allies. One plane is damaged.

A German gets on the tail of the second Allied plane, damaging it.

That plane decides to flee, and escapes into some clouds.

I initially placed the terrain down just for looks. But when the Allied pilot fled, I figured he'd head for the clouds.

The Germans gang up on the remaining Allied plane and shoot it down.

A decisive victory for the Germans!

A Naval Outing

Thanks to a message from the future, I discovered at the last moment that yesterday was International Naval Wargames Day. Thanks, Kaptain Kobold!

I decided to do a quick naval game. I settled on a Dominion of series variant called Dominion of the Oar and Ram by Mark Cordone. I found it on The Portable Wargame Facebook page.

I used my squadron counters, which come in 3 sizes. In addition, I have a couple of transport counters (such as the top center counter below).

I did not keep a record of the game. It's a generic Red vs Green battle. Red is trying to capture Green's transports.

Here you see the final turn. Red's large galleys flank and  board the transports, ending the battle.

Anyway, thrown together quickly so it did not capture my imagination. Hence the abbreviated report.

Some Thoughts on a Little Lissa

As I was toying with a backstory for last night's game, I thought about doing Lissa. After all, I've been in an 1866 mood. Ultimately, I choose to put Lissa aside for the moment. But now this whole experience has me thinking.

• A Dominion of variant should be able to handle Lissa.
• I'm not sure if my current squadron counters (seen above) work for later naval conflicts. I worked up some counters in line formation. They might work better.

• I also need more flag tokens to mark defeated squadrons.

MicroBattle 2025

These are the latest iteration of my MicroBattle rules for big battles. They're pretty much dead at this moment; I'm totally hooked on the Dominion of series instead. I just want to put these here for reference.

Basic Concepts

I designed MicroBattle for quick solo wargames where I don’t need to spend much time looking up rules or modifiers.

The TEST

MicroBattle’s key mechanic is the Resolution Test, or simply the TEST. A unit or figure makes a TEST whenever it engages in an uncertain activity, such as combat.

A TEST is a roll of a D6. The testing unit passes on a roll of 4 or better.

Advantages and Disadvantages

Circumstances may make an action harder or easier than normal. In these cases, apply modifiers to the TEST if the unit has an advantage or disadvantage.

Circumstance          Modifier    Target

Extreme Advantage        +2             2

Advantage                 +1             3

Normal                         0             4

Disadvantage                 -1             5

Extreme Disadvantage    -2             6

Another way to visualize advantages and disadvantages is that they change the target number to succeed. The Target column shows the resulting numbers.

Multiple Advantages or Disadvantages

An advantage with a disadvantage will cancel each other out.

Multiple advantages or multiple disadvantages do not necessarily stack. If they did, the target could go off the chart. Instead, I assume that it takes 3 or more advantages or disadvantages to result in a extreme.

Eyeballing

I do not have a list of every possible advantage or disadvantage. Instead, I generally eyeball the situation and make a judgement on where a situation lands on the circumstances chart.

 

The Battlefield

I use a square-gridded battlefield, usually 6 x 8 squares.

Rules for Big Battles

Rules for clashes between armies. Units are divisions or corps, although it is possible to scale down.

Set Up

Use these tables to generate random scenarios.

Scenario and Terrain

Roll Scenario                                                                                                         Terrain

1 Clash – cause the enemy to break                                                                 Clear

2 Breakthrough – move 1/3 of units off enemy’s base line                         Hill

3 Escape – like Breakthrough, but defense starts with small blocking force Hill

4 Defense – hold a prepared position                                                         Woods

5 Seize – both sides try to seize a strategic point                                         Rough or water

6 Retrieve – retrieve and return to baseline                                                 Built up area

Army Order of Battle

Roll for number of units per army based on unit type.

• Primary - 2 to 4 (D3+1)
• Secondary - 0 to 2 (D3-1)

You can add or subtract units to get the sides relatively equal.

Rules for Conducting the Battle.

Turn Sequence

1. Initiative: Opposed roll. High roll first.
2. Side 1 Turn
• Activate: Activate D6 units, modified by commander quality (-2 if army under 50%
• Move: 1 space for infantry and artillery. 2 spaces for cavalry. Move orthogonally only.
• Light may TEST to move an extra space.
• March – move +1 space if 4+ spaces from enemy
• TEST to move through rough terrain.
• Combat: See below
• Rally: 1 attempt per turn per commander. May attempt in lieu of other actions for the unit. TEST to remove a disorder marker.
3. Side 2 Turn: Same as Side 1 Turn

Combat

• Ranges: Melee = 0 (unit moves into enemy square), Volley Fire = 1, Skirmish = 2, Artillery = 3 (count ranges orthogonally)
• To Hit: TEST to hit (1 TEST per defending unit)
• Combat Results
• Attacker passes TEST - Defender defeated
• Attacker FAILS TEST - Attacker defeated IF defender can counter
• Defeat
• Defeated unit makes 2 TESTs
• Disorder TEST Fail - Add a disorder marker. 
• A light unit may TEST to retreat instead
• Retreat TEST Fail - Retreat 1 space (diagonal OK)
• Take a disorder marker if cannot retreat

Following Up

Victorious units may move into a vacated space. Cavalry may make an additional attack.

Army Morale

TEST when an army reaches 50% casualties or loses another unit beyond 50%.

Failure = army defeated and retreats from the battlefield.

The Austro-Italian War Continues

I had some free time so I decided to follow up from the Battle of Custarda.

The Battle of the Carbonara River

After defeating the Italians at Custarda, the Austrians pursue. The Italians take up a defensive position behind a small fordable river called the Carbonara.

The Austrians (white, bottom) initiate the attack by sending their elite jaegers in a probe across the river. The Italian line infantry sends them reeling back. Then an artillery duel begins; the Austrians get the best of it,

The Italians send some Bersaglieri against the Austrian artillery. The Bersaglieri succeed, but at such high cost that they are also rendered ineffective.

Note: The Bersaglieri are not elite in this game. Still hurting from the last battle, I guess.

The Italians try to plug the gap with some unreliable cavalry. The cavalry bolts instead. Then the Italian infantry on the left attacks the Austrians Grenzers. The attack devastates both sides.

Decimated, the Italian army retreats.

Aftermath

With two shocking defeats, the Italians sue for peace. Venezia remains in Austrian hands.

GAME NOTES

• I think I will close out this campaign with a 2-0 Austrian victory.
• The river provided a defensive bonus to the Italians. It did not apply against artillery, however.
• Forgot to deploy my generals, which means I forgot rallies once again. D'oh!
• I've been getting confused shuffling back and forth between different versions of Dominion of, so I created a generic horse & musket version. I used this version for my battle.
• I also created a random army generator - loosely based off the one in Dominion of Frederick the Great, but tweaked a little so armies without elites are possible. I used my generator to come up with these armies.

An Italian Diversion

Rather than return to my version of the Italian campaign of the Seven Week's War, I now turn my attention to Napoleonics. This recent distraction occurred because of this post on The Wargames Website.

Because I'm just getting my feet wet with the Dominion of Napoleon Bonaparte rules, I decided to use one of the published battles. The first one in the book includes Austrians, so there we go.

Battle of Montenotte (1796)

The Austrian general Count Argenteau leads his corps in an attack on a French position. The French are in redoubts.

Notes: I used gray markers for defensive advantage; I could have put down some walls instead.

The initial Austrian attack (right) routs the French infantry. An attempt to rally fail.

But the French line infantry rout the Austrians in the center. Argenteau fails to rally his men.

A disaster for the Austrians! The French rout two infantry units.

Argenteau brings up his reserves and launches his Hussars against the French line infantry. The French break and flee. Alas, an Austrian infantry column on the right also breaks.

The Hussars flank the French position and drive the infantry away.

A bloody victory for Argenteau and the Austrians!

GAME NOTES

• This was actually a fairly long battle. There were 2-3 turns where nothing happened, so I did not take photos.
• Just realized that I should have marked the Hussars as unreliable after their first  victory. Oh well, fog of war.
• This reminds me that I need some more counters and markers:
• I used light infantry counters for line infantry. But I should make some dedicated line infantry counters.
• I should make some markers to indicate unreliable infantry.

De-consolidation

Back in December, I consolidated all my MicroBattle stuff into 2 boxes - one with the game components and another with spare armies.

One benefit was that I could fit a bigger battlefield into the bigger box. I planned to reuse the battlefields for land and aerial combat.

Then in January I discovered Dominion of the Spear, which completely revolutionized my gaming. As a result, I am now de-consolidating. Fortunately, I held onto my smaller boxes.

Here is my latest setup (sans my naval box).

• My original MicroBattle Big Battles box (left) now houses the Dominion of materials, including brown and green battlefields, some terrain, marker, armies, dice, and QRS cards.
• I moved my aerial combat stuff back into a small box (right).
• I even have a new box (circular box bottom center) for my "gladiator" games.
• Online, I saw someone had a round gladiator box that they decorated to look like a Roman colosseum. Love it! So I bought a small round box that I plan to turn into an arena. I haven't done it yet.