I ran two playtests of my Vauban's Wars rules after re-writing them a couple years ago to use Field of Battle game mechanics rather than traditional Piquet mechanics. I did that to make the Siege games run faster and more streamlined. I like what I see so far.
I chose a historical siege this time with the 1758 siege of Olmütz:
http://www.kronoskaf.com/syw/index.php?title=1758_-_Siege_of_Olm%C3%BCtz
This siege has everything that you want in a game: weather issues, flooding, good supplies for the garrison, lots of trench raids, spies, magazine explosions, etc.
The first game was tough on the Prussians as I had the first parallel too far out just like the real siege and they were stuck having to move forward to be able to start doing any harm to the fortress. Also the Wasserfort (Water Fort) was a literal thorn in their side during the advancement.
We had lots of laughs around terrible spies, trench raids, and bumbling sappers.
There are some photos below with text in them describing the situation. This was turned out to be a great playtest as I'm doing some minor tweaks then we will go at it again next week.
Fortress is from an very old company of unknown name. The pieces are foam cast and very light weight. I usually find a piece or two at a miniatures convention flee market. I have all the pieces I really need for this style of fort and I'm working on my Vauban fortress from PaperTerrain.com.
Austrians made effective use of Trench Raids to send Prussian sappers back to their Rally Point, which made it more difficult to make progress in the siege for the Prussians.
Once the Prussians got to the third parallel, they were finally able to make some progress in breaching the walls of the fortress.
View from the Austrian Town Hall of Olmütz. We had to stop due to time, but we were able to finish 3.5 weeks of the siege by this point in time.
This next week, we will start the Prussians about six inches closer (inside artillery range, which
means they can start hitting the walls immediately if they like).
The Besiegers deck is going to have one more Sapper card, and one less Move card.
I’m going to take out one Siege Drags On from both sides (i.e. – one less extra card added to the deck).
Likely the Austrians will have an Average leader this time D10 vs D10.
I’m hoping this allows us to get to the 3rd parallel quicker and allow the Prussians to soften up the wall a bit without having to move to another parallel first. That historical scenario was brutal for the Prussians.
2nd Siege Game
tbd
Great looking table. Very excited to see some more of the vauban wars development occuring. How long was your gaming session?
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you have answered this before but who made your vauban fortress?
Daveb, I added a note to the post about the fortress. It is 15 years old and is no longer in production as far as I know. Don't even know the company that made it.
ReplyDeleteAh yes. That sounds familiar, I'm pretty sure I asked a long time ago. How is the paper terrain one shaping up? I look at it thoughtfully from time to time.
ReplyDeleteLooks great Eric. It seems you are close to having these rules where you want them.
ReplyDelete@Daveb, the PaperTerrain fort is taking some time as it is a lot of work, but is the only true representation of a Vauban fortress and glacias out there. I'll get it done, but need to finish this playtesting first.
ReplyDelete@Peter - yes, I'll likely send you and Tim copies for final proofing if you don't mind.
Sure, happy to look them over when they are ready!
ReplyDelete