Theater of War: Campaigns made easy

Theater of War (hereafter referred to as TOW) is a Piquet campaign system written by Brent Oman. I wanted to write this review because the rules are really a gem and they don't seem to be well-known in the wargaming community. TOW is written with Piquet in mind, but could be easily adapted for any rule set. The small booklet contains 92 pages of tables and rules and the pack includes sample rosters, sequence cards, and maps. The rules can be used to play any historical campaign from Biblical Wars to the Vietnam War.

I've participated in many campaigns in my wargaming career and almost every one has started with a great deal of enthusiasm, but inevitably one campaign side killed the campaign by massing forces for a battle that were larger than the tabletop forces could represent. The campaigns would also generate battles that the players weren't interested in fighting on the tabletop. "Oh yeah, I'd love to defend with my 5,000 militia against your 40,000 regulars. Let's devote a weekend to that battle." TOW avoids both of these campaign-slayers.

First, you have to set the time scale and map scale for your campaign. Are you campaigning around Gettysburg in July 1863 or are you recreating the Eastern Theater in 1863? My intent is to use TOW to recreate Lee's 1862 Sharpsburg campaign. The map will have the Potomac as its southern border. It will be roughly divided by a north-south mountain range. The action will take place in Maryland and Pennsylvania.

The map can be divided up into map areas that are defined by terrain type as Light, Medium, and Heavy. Light areas cost less movement points, Heavy areas cost more movement points. Certain movement areas might be worth from 1 to 4 campaign(victory) points. In my campaign, Harper's Ferry is valuable and would be worth 4 points.

You next have to establish your campaign roster. This a roster of all the units that will be available to your side during the campaign. A formula allows you to calculate the campaign roster size based on the quality of your army's Piquet sequence deck and army list. You then compare the unit total from the formula with the army list from the appropriate Piquet supplement and fill out the roster.

For example, my 1862 Confederate campaign roster lists 2 elite infantry units, 6 regular infantry units, 5 militia infantry units, 2 regular smoothbore artillery batteries, and 3 regular medium cavalry units. A total of 18 units. The 1862 Union sequence deck is terribly inefficient. As a result, the Union campaign roster calculation authorizes a total roster size of 28 units!!! 1 elite infantry unit, 11 regular infantry units, 11 militia infantry units, 3 artillery batteries (1 of them is elite), and 2 cavalry units (1 is militia). Starting to look like Antietam, huh?

So, right now you know the Rebels will never have more than 18 units on the wargaming table and the Union will never have more than 28 units. Now, you Rebels shouldn't get too worried because General McClellan might have those units available, but he still has to get them to the battlefield.

Okay, so how does Little Mac get all these units onto the table?

Your armies are called Battle Groups(BG). BG's range in size from 1(smallest) to 4(biggest). Your BG's move around the campaign map according to how your campaign game plays out. The total sizes of your BG's depends on your historical period, Medieval can have a total of 6, ACW can have 8, Vietnam has 10. Basically, as your staffwork becomes more sophisticated, you can have more individual BG's running around on the map.

You have your map. You have your roster. Now you build your Campaign Sequence deck. If you have the Piquet supplements, your army Sequence decks convert directly into the Campaign deck. When you play a campaign turn, you roll a d20 vs your opponent's d20. The winner gains the Initiative and is able to use the die roll difference in Impetus to flip cards from the Campaign Sequence deck. (So, in my campaign example, the Confederates roll a 17 and the Union rolls a 12. The Confederates gain the Initiative and have 5 Impetus.)

Being McClellan (or Lee)

The Sequence deck supplies cards to your Campaign Hand. There are three basic types of cards: Campaign cards, Battle cards, and Campaign/Battle cards. It costs 1 Impetus to play a card, draw a card from the deck, or discard a card from your hand. There is a maximum size of your Campaign Hand. Summer: 6, Spring/Fall: 5 and Winter: 4. Playing the Campaign cards from your Campaign Hand allow you to do the following:

• move BG's into Light Terrain,
• move BG's into Medium Terrain
• move BG's into Heavy Terrain
• establish supply depots, combine/split BG's
• you waste an action
• some bad cards make your BG's withdraw or drain your remaining Impetus
• scout enemy BG's
• trace supply, count campaign points for occupied map areas
• besiege fortresses
• build your Battle Hand
• engage in a battle
• halve movement costs
• wild card (any of the above)

The Battle cards in your Campaign Hand are called your Battle Hand. The Battle Hand can be used to increase the size and power of your tabletop army in a battle. Battle Hand cards are Attack*, Defend*, Retire*, Flank*, Strength, and Strategic Reserve (if appropriate). Instead of playing cards to move your BG's on the campaign map, you can instead place these Battle Hand cards into your BH hand to use in case you become engaged in a battle.

When two opposing BG's are in the same campaign movement area, and the Initiative player plays an Engage in Battle card, and burns an Impetus to initiate the battle, we now have a tabletop battle. Initiating a tabletop battle ends the Campaign turn. The Campaign turn also ends when a player runs through his entire Campaign Sequence deck or both players tie on their Initiative die rolls.

When a battle is started, both sides now play their Battle hands. The Battle cards I marked with an asterisk above are battle type cards. You can only play one kind of battle type card in battle, but you might have more than one of that kind in your Battle Hand. A table in the rulebook cross references the played battle type cards and dictates what type of battle will be wargamed: Attack vs Defend, Encounter, Flank vs Attack, etc.

More than one battle type card (i.e. 3 Attack cards) can increase the value of your table top army. Strength cards also add to the value of your tabletop force. The Strategic Reserve card can add special "Imperial Guard" type reserves to the battlefield if that is appropriate for your particular campaign.

Picking your killing ground

Once you play the cards from your Battle Hands, you can determine which side has the advantage based on better Battle cards and/or superior BG size. The advantage lets you flip more Army Characterization Deck(from basic Piquet) cards than your opponent to determine the size of your tabletop force. Generally the advantage will let you randomly draw more units than your opponent from your campaign roster. Some special cards also let you hand pick the best units instead of trusting the random draw.

The units selected from the campaign roster are entered into each player's battle roster. The units are formed into commands. TOW uses card draws from each army's Sequence Deck to establish the terrain on the battlefield modified by the campaign area in which the battle occurred (Light, Medium, or Heavy). The battlefield objectives are established using card draws from the same Sequence Decks. Some objectives award victory points. Some objectives confer morale bonuses on the owners.

Once the terrain and objectives are laid out on the table, it's time for each player to deploy their commands. Each player simultaneously flips cards from their Sequence Decks. The flipped cards dictate who deploys commands first and in which zones on the table they can be deployed.

When the troops are deployed onto the table, the combat begins. Based on your particular rule system, once the battlefield victor is determined, the level of victory is translated into consequences in the campaign game. There are three levels of victory: Crushing, Decisive, and Marginal. Losing battles make your BG's retreat on the campaign map and a percentage of the units in the losing BG's will suffer a downgrade in combat effectiveness in their next battle. Winning battles also moves you closer to victory in the campaign, right???....

So, how do you win the damn campaign?!?

Each side has National Will (NW). When your National Will reaches zero, you lose the campaign. Each battlefield loss costs your side a corresponding loss in NW. The level of victory, size of the losing BG, and value of the campaign map area where the loss occurred can all increase the cost in NW that a battle loss will inflict on the loser.

Another way you can lose NW is when the Campaign card "Supply" is played for the first time during the Campaign turn. Both sides then add up the Campaign Points (VP) of any campaign areas occupied solely by their BG's. The side with less occupied Campaign Points deducts the difference from its National Will.

This is interesting because in my Sharpsburg campaign, I might leave AP Hill's Division in Harper's Ferry, hoping to score some Campaign Points, but if the Supply card doesn't come quickly I don't get to count those points. So, the Rebel player might leave old AP down there waiting for the points when he could really use his BG back with the main army. It becomes a race against time. Do I leave a BG down there to score the points or bring it back to fight the incoming Union troops? Sound familiar?

Summary

Theater of War lets you run a campaign, organize the armies, generate the battlefields, and keep track of victory. Like most Piquet-based systems, the sequence decks generate a lot of uncertainty about what the future holds for your little Battle Groups.

You might want your BG to move into the light terrain outside Frederick, Maryland, but until you get that Light Terrain Move card, it's not going to happen for you. Just like in real historical campaigns, your armies and subordinate generals don't always react right away to your orders and desires.

Do you concentrate on marching your armies to execute your masterplan or try to build up your hand to improve the Battle cards you have available in case Stonewall Jackson is lurking in ambush behind that mountain range? Is that Battle Group in front of you a screening force or the Army of the Potomac on the move?

Even if you're not a Piquet player, the cards supplied with the rules allow you to customize each campaign deck to reflect the strengths and weaknesses of the opposing forces. With some tweaking, TOW can be modified to give you an excellent campaign system.

If you are a Piquet player, the rules allow you to fight campaigns with any army from any Piquet supplement you own. This is a must-have for the Piquet library.

The production values are decent. Some of the type is a little small and you won't see any interior color pictures, but the book is jammed full of typo-free tables, charts, and rules. There are some black and white photos of nicely painted miniatures. The package includes sample battle maps, campaign maps, and sheets of Campaign Sequence cards you need to cut out to play with.

Theater of War is available for $30 from the Piquet website

LED Gunfire Lights

I went to Historicon this year and had a chance to watch a great Napoleonics game put on by Architects of War and the Perry Brothers. While I watched the game with great admiration, I suddenly saw one of the players put smoke in front of one of the units. The smoke had little flashing lights inside of it that made it look exactly as if the troops were firing their muskets.

I was very impressed by the effect these smoke markers created on the table. You put a few flashers behind a strip of pillow batting (filling for pillows available in cheap large bags from JoAnn Fabrics) and you have your gunsmoke. It gives the battlefield a very active look as if combat is occurring even in areas where the player action is not focused. For Piquet, they make great markers to indicate unloaded units who have fired.

Almost immediately after getting off of the airplane from Pennsylvania, I emailed Architects of War and asked about the lights. They told me the lights were LED flashing lights. An extensive search on the internet found two websites that supplied them in a variety of colors.

extremeglow.com
flashingblinkylight.net

They're called a variety of names like "LED blinking round body pins". Apparently they are used for rave parties.... Whatever.

The LED flashers are thimble-sized metal cylinders with a magnetic bottom. You pull out a small paper tab, twist the bottom half, and they begin to flash two different colors. Don't lose the paper tab because you can reinsert it into the flasher to keep it from accidentally lighting up. They give off no heat and come in a variety of color combinations.

Red/Yellow works great for tank fires, cannons, and building fires. I prefer Yellow/Yellow for musket fire. Other colors would work great for sci-fi and fantasy. Yellow/Yellow is actually hard to find.

I made a video to show how the lights can look on the battlefield. Obviously, it's hard to see them in a photo. I lowered the room lights a bit so the flashers are more visible. It makes them a little more "flashy" in the low light, but in good lighting, the flashes look more like real gunfire. Neither of these are professional films, okay? I made them quickly to illustrate the effect, so spare me the filming critiques. :)

Battle of Preacher's Knob Part 1

I recently purchased Theater of War(TOW) and Hallowed Ground(HG) from Piquet. TOW is a campaign system designed for use with Piquet. HG is designed to wargame battles from the Mexican War to the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. I plan to use it for my American Civil War armies.

TOW uses the existing sequence decks for Piquet armies of any historical period and converts them into campaign decks that are used to march your armies on the map at a higher strategic level. When armies become engaged in a battle on the campaign map, the rules then use the armies' sequence decks to generate:

• the units that appear on the battlefield (from a campaign roster),
• the type of battle that is fought (Attack, Defend, etc.),
  
• the terrain on the table,
  
• the victory objectives (some give you victory points, some give you a morale bonus), and
  
• the sequence and location that commands deploy on the table.

One of the nice aspects of the TOW rules is you know how many units you will need to have painted before the campaign begins. A formula calculates the size of an army's campaign roster based on the quality of the army's sequence deck.

My campaign is an 1862 Eastern Theater ACW campaign. Using the TOW rules, the Confederates get 18 units on their campaign roster. The Union army gets 28 units on its campaign roster because its deck is poorer in quality.

On Saturday, we generated a battle using the TOW rules. This battle is a Level 3 Union battlegroup attacking vs a defending Level 2 Rebel battlegroup. The Level 2 Rebel battlegroup had a one level advantage from its battle hand.

The Union drew 18 units from their campaign roster. The Confederates had a great draw that pulled all 18 units from their campaign roster. The Union had a 3:2 artillery advantage. The Confederates had a 3:2 advantage in cavalry.

We used a roster for the units and didn't roll for their quality until they saw action. This adds some fog of war to the game because you don't know how good your troops are until they "see the elephant." I actually rolled very well for troop quality with some minor exceptions.

The commander of the Union (played by Greg) is McClellan (ABYSMAL skill) while the Rebel commander (played by yours truly) is R.E. Lee (SUPERIOR skill).

Hallowed Ground is actually 3 rule sets in one. It allows you to game at three different tactical levels:

• one unit is a company
• one unit is a regiment
• one unit is a brigade

For this game we will be using the Grand tactical rules, so each unit is a brigade. This battle will represent a full battle between the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac.

(ABOVE) Here's the battlefield that was generated. The Confederates deployed on the left long side. The Union on the right long side. The hill in the Confederate center is Preacher's Knob. It is worth 4 morale chips to the occupier. In the far Confederate left corner is a swamp that overlooks a road that leads to the Confederate line of retreat. It is worth 8 morale chips. In the Union right flank corner is a Class II woods worth 11 victory pojnts. In the Union left flank (off picture) is a swamp worth 5 victory points.

(ABOVE) The Confederate left flank. Dismounted cavalry is deployed in the swamp to protect the Confederate line of retreat. Unfortunately I rolled a POOR commander for them. That might come back to haunt me.

(ABOVE) My Confederate center, on top of Preacher's Knob, is occupied by Hoods's division. It's my best division led by Hood, a SKILLED commander.

(ABOVE) The Confederate right flank is guarded by Johnson's Division. A.P. Hill's Division is resting in the woods behind Preacher's Knob as the army reserve.

(ABOVE) The battle begins as artillery from Anderson's Division duels with the Union Artillery Reserve.

(ABOVE) Wheeler's dismounted cavalry stares across open ground on the Confederate left as Hooker's Union 1st Corps emerges from the woods opposite them (BELOW). Where is JEB Stuart when I need him?

(ABOVE) McClellan (Greg) elected not to dismount his cavalry. He sent them riding around in a wide sweep to attempt to get behind the right flank of the Confederate position.

(ABOVE) Unfortunately for the Union, I then pulled 11 Impetus. This allowed Johnson's Division to advance and one of his infantry brigades unleashed a terrible volley into the flank of a cavalry brigade. This volley devastated their mounted ranks and led to a rout by that brigade. (BELOW) Also, ATTENTION!!! ATTENTION!!! If you look at the smoke in the picture below, you can see one of my LED flashers in the smoke fired by the infantry. If you haven't started using them, I recommend them highly. They make the units look like they are firing with flashing yellow lights lighting up the smoke. The LED flashers don't usually show up in the photos, so I'm excited.

(ABOVE) Greg's cavalry commander (Custer?) was not to be discouraged by this result and he continued on his ride around the Confederate right flank. Here one of Johnson's brigades is again shooting into the remaining cavalry brigade's flank. The brave cavalry brigade took casualties, survived(!?!), were meleed in the flank, won the melee(?!?!?), routed my infantry(??!!?!?!), pursued, until they were finally finished off by a volley from the second line of Johnson's Division. Not a bad ride.

(ABOVE) Yeah, I know the gunner is in Union uniform. Maybe it's a militia uniform. It is 1862.

(ABOVE) Here's Greg's view of the same gun. His artillery must have taken ten shots at this battery.
(ABOVE) The Union launched Hooker's I Corps from the woods into an attack against the Confederate left center. Greg ran off a string of 30 to 40 Impetus in a row and two of his brigades smashed into an elite Louisianan brigade and a fiesty Floridian brigade. The Texans turned out to be tired (rolled a 3) and the Floridians were determined (rolled a 20). None of it mattered and the Union routed both brigades.
(ABOVE) Anderson attempts to rally his units as the routed flow around him like an unstoppable wave.

(ABOVE) Close up of the shot. This reminds me of Bragg attempting to rally his army as they ran off Missionary Ridge.

Greg had to leave just as he was starting to win, so I plan on leaving the game set up so we can finish it at a later date.

Piquet Game Alert!

Greg and I will be running an English Civil War Piquet game at Aerohobbies Game Store in Santa Monica at 11:00 am this Sunday, October 24. This period uses the Anchor of Faith supplement. Players and the simply curious are welcome to join in the fun. We provide the miniatures, terrain and rules. You provide the enthusiasm. Post a comment below if you think you might attend.

Aerohobbies is located at 2918 Santa Monica Blvd # 3, Santa Monica, CA 90404.

(ABOVE) This is a painting of Greg trying to count my army morale chips.

Color Piquet Cards

I recently made a set of Piquet sequence cards, but I wanted to develop a more visually appealing version of the cards. I designed the cards to look like Magic cards with artwork on the upper half of the card that reflects the action allowed by the card. I pulled most of the art from old paintings I found on the internet.

The lower half lists the title of the card and I figured out how to place smaller text below the titles to explain how the cards work. This way the players don't have to always refer back to the rulebook to see what they can do on each card. They can just read the card.

(ABOVE) This is the full set of cards. This deck gives you enough options to form a deck for any Hundred Years War army from Band of Brothers.

(ABOVE) The murder of Louis d'Orleans by the Burgundians and a painting of a river crossing.

(ABOVE) The "Sleeping Knight" painting. Perfect for the wasted impetus that comes with Milling Around.

(ABOVE) Knights puzzling their way through the woods.

(ABOVE) You better pray when you pull this card.

(ABOVE) I love this painting. The levies in the painting look nervous.

(ABOVE) Joan of Arc, of course.

(ABOVE) Another appropriate painting.

(ABOVE) Henry V

(ABOVE) I kept the backs the same because I like the neutrality of the black and white.

Making Card Decks

One of the most important parts of Piquet is the use of Sequence cards to dictate the action in the game. Each army has its own Sequence Deck which reflects its particular strengths and weaknesses. You can only move your cavalry when the you flips your Cavalry Move In Open card. You need a Melee Resolution card to fight a melee. You need a Missile Reload card to reload your bowmen. Each historical supplement comes with sheets of cards you can cut out to make up these Sequence Decks. I laminated my cards and they are good enough to game with, but I was concerned they might become worn out after a lot of gaming.

I think I first heard of a website named artscow.com on the Too Fat Lardies Yahoo group. This company allows you to custom design decks of playing cards with any images or writing you want. You can even choose to remove the poker suits and symbols from the cards, but I opted to keep them so I could use the cards for Band of Brother's "Beat the Drum" army generation rules.

I chose a black and white picture for the back of the cards because I liked the image, but you can use color images. It also makes the deck a little more neutral and easier to use for any army.

When I tried to use jpg files, the card designer program warned me the images might not have enough resolution, so I used a bmp file I found on the internet instead. The deck cost about $12-$15. The cards are durable and comparable in quality to a real poker deck.

(ABOVE) Close-up of the card backs.

(ABOVE) Here's the full 52 card deck. Two decks should provide enough cards for two armies.

(ABOVE) Here are the fronts of the cards. I put exclamation points on those cards which have bad effects. I originally wanted to include an explanation of what each card allowed in smaller font below each title, but the card design program wouldn't let me have more than one font size on the front.

The Convention Game: Agincourt

Well, we played out the battle of Agincourt at the local convention: Gateway 2010. Luckily, I had at least one experienced player on each side. Jason and Adam (French) and Ilan (English) had all played Piquet before. Jason and Ilan also played in the play-test games before the convention. Two English players were new and one French player was new, but they seemed to get the hang of the rules as we played.

Overall, I'm not really happy with the way the green metal bases look, but the figures are based individually for Warhammer Ancient Battles and I wanted to have some flexibility to try them out for different systems so I'll have to put up with them for now. I'd be willing to commit to basing for Piquet stands, but I want to be sure the guys I play against are ready to make the move before I do. Nothing is more annoying than having to rebase your figures for another new rule set. So far, everyone seems to like Piquet: Band of Brothers, so it looks promising.

(ABOVE) Here's the opposing sides before the game began. The English (left) began showering the French (right) with long range volley fire. The French ran to the battle line and launched their attack. The voice of the Constable of France could be heard pleading, "Remember the plan!!!"

(ABOVE) Closeup of the French mounted units on the left flank. Not many, huh? Where were the rest? Sleeping, arguing, eating, watering their horses, sulking....you get the idea. These were Greg's knights. Greg contributed approximately 90 figures to the battle which took some of the painting pressure off of me. Thanks Greg!

(ABOVE) The English longbows behind their stakes.

(ABOVE) The French right flank mounted knights charge against the English and Welsh longbows. Those stakes look painful!! Their leader, Cligny de Brabant, was shot through the visor by a longbowman and died instantly (1 in 20 chance). This was significant because his unit later routed the longbowmen in melee, but without the leadership of Brabant, the mounted knights pursued the fleeing archers with reckless abandon and were not seen again on the battlefield.

(ABOVE) The French dismounted men-at-arms (right) made great progress across the muddy field. At this point, the mounted knights were already fleeing from the battle, but the relatively unharmed dismounted knights were about to come to grips with the nervous longbowmen.

(ABOVE) The French king's sacred banner, the Oriflamme, leads the way to inspire the French. Never mind the fact that the French king and the Dauphine were safely camped back at Rouen, eating delicacies and getting manicures.

(ABOVE) Well, that was the high water point for the French. After we broke for lunch, the English went on an impetus tear. 19 impetus, 16 impetus, and then 8 impetus. A series of devastating point blank longbow volleys ripped through the French ranks as the archers fired, reloaded, then fired again. Lord Camoys led his band of English men-at-arms to victory against their heavily armored opposition. Camoys then started to threaten the flanks of the neighboring units. You can see his unit at the bottom of the picture.

Henry V lead his noble household and the Knights of the Garter into the battle and smashed the disordered column of French nobles facing him. Henry then wheeled his trusted companions into the flank of another disordered block of French knights which fled amid shouts of "Treachery!"

The red arrows are bad. One red arrow means they're routing. Two red arrows mean they're routing and can't be rallied. The battle ended shortly thereafter with a resounding English victory.