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While listening to the Eurovision song contest, I am making some big updates to the counters graphics. Of course, this is just my vision as the artist will take them as input and create his own versions.

Moving an element a couple of pixels here or there… tweaking a color while learning the intricacies of Inkscape’s Countersheet extension. Yes, I definitely want everything to be right there, and not “just”.

For clarity, I came up with e.g. the following small changes.

Here monsieur Montcalm has received a yellow-ish box around his leader value. In playtesting, it wasn’t obvious which counter was a leader and which a combat unit. Well, now it’s fixed(?). Colors make such a difference!

The green circle with a “1” is the leader bonus – green means positive! And… red is negative – as with the fresh and untried Berry regiment’s 3rd battalion below.

One more small, recent update is the “Reg XXXX” – Montcalm was the highest-ranking French leader and can only lead regular infantry units. He wasn’t too impressed by the irregular troops, especially the native Americans (Indians) although understood their value in the vast forests of North America.

Below, I smeared the soldier as I am using some, well, “random images” for illustration during testing 🙂

Artillery is divided into several categories based on weight, so I made it easier to quickly identify units’ “weight class”. It’s those three “o”s with the yellow-ish background . Three is heavy; If it is less like medium, well, you’ll have less “o”s. More weight means more troops are needed to unload them from boats or to pull them into the frontline.

The iron vs. brass topic is still under consideration. I am not sure if it will make it to the final product. You can overload both types of cannon with extra powder, and they both will burst at some point, but is there any real difference?? Oh well, decisions decisions!

(“Legal nonsense”:) All graphics currently on the counters are for testing purposes only and will be re-created by the artist.

Today I wanted to print out my latest counters and logged in to GitHub as always. Hmm, no counter*.csv files anywhere to be seen… ehm, what? Then I thought what was I doing late last night – in a hurry. I did git rm c* and such. Eeek – it actually removed all files starting with “c” and not just the obsolete ones that I actually wanted to get rid of.

Thought #2. This is why I use git. It stores everything. I mean everything. So some googling later I right-clicked my freshly installed GitHub Windows desktop client and selected “revert changes”. “Push upstream” (or something). And it’s all back there!

The learning is that “rm” [remove] only the files you really want to remove. Nothing more, nothing less.

Our game continued the other day and we got some action on the map! The British army was pushing hard to engage some French troops that were trying to buy time to allow last minute entrenchments built on the heights of Carillon. The die rolls seemed to mostly go against the British and their casualties kept mounting.

Head-on attacks were conducted just to see how combat works 🙂 Morale loss due to casualties is not yet factored in, so the British & American troops just kept coming. Maybe not so ahistorical, after all…

While I am generally quite satisfied how the game plays overall, I will make small tweaks here and there to factor in for more historical feeling although some will undoubtedly argue just the opposite to be the case 🙂 I’ll try to limit the complexity and make the information easily available that is needed frequently, whether it is e.g. movement multipliers or combat modifiers. Another topic I am quite mindful of, is the clutter on the map – are there too many counters and if yes, what can I do to alleviate this?

The counters we use are actually rather old, I am still missing (test) art for some types completely and none of the ones we play with are in any way final. Nevertheless, I have been able to pick up many improvement ideas for clarity, whether being a bigger font size or some marker to separate combat values from leadership valuers. Truly golden feedfack so far!

It is quite tedious to create new counters manually, but looks like I have no choice as it will give us a much improved test environment when we can play using semi-realistic (final) counters. Final does not mean like the art is final but more like these are the elements I expect to see in the final product.

One of the mechanics that I am still trying to validate is the casualties. At the moment, I have made a compromise with the larger units by making a step loss in some cases to mean losing two strength points (SP), instead of just one. So, first of all, in most games a step loss flips the counter over to its weaker side and a second step loss eliminates it. Not so here. Each SP is about a hundred men and typically a hit in combat is one step loss equaling to the loss of one SP. To keep the number of counters a bit more manageable, I decided to have some of the step losses in large units as two SP. So instead of losing ~100 men, a large unit loses ~200 men. There are multiple counters for a given unit to represent this and their sizes go roughly like this: 9-7, 6-5, and 4-2 indicating there are three individual counters for the unit. The largest one is 9 (front) and 7 (back). If the unit suffers a single step loss being 9 SP strong, it will flip over to the backside with 7 SP and thus suffers a 2 SP loss.

Non-Indian infantry losses are marked on the “initial casualties track” by keeping track of the actual SP losses – 4 SP means 400 men. All of them are not permanent losses as some stragglers will return to the unit, or are mentally shaken or just lightly wounded. Once your losses reach 4 SP on the track for e.g. the regulars, the next day you can bring 1 SP back as reinforcements for that unit type. The remaining 3 SP will move to the “permanent casualties track” and will be included in the victory point calculations. However, each SP returning to combat is just a single SP and you’ll need two of those to flip that 7 SP counter back to the full 9 strength points.

Rangers, grenadiers or Highlanders cannot receive replacements. You need a computer to keep track of their casualties!

The current art is indeed a bit different from the above-seen test map. I definitely like it better as it has a more historical feel! Coloring is not final until it actually goes to print…

The map is quite big indeed. This is a draft version of the whole battlefield as of now, early May. It will eventually be cropped down, as a good chunk of the area has relatively little gaming value. The largest area to be removed is the wilderness on the bottom of the map (east side) and also, to some degree, the left (south) edge isn’t important game-wise. They’ll be trimmed at some point.

Below is a detail of the La Chute river connecting with Lake Champlain. A victory location has been added (and no, likely won’t be that exact hex) close to the sawmill. Also, the waterfalls are now on the river. A stream hex side is clearly different from a river. There are quite well-defined elevations, and finally, a die roll is required to navigate around that swampy island on the bottom when trying to reach the lake from the river. With a bad roll, British boats have to take the northern route and will become exposed to the artillery at Fort Carillon who have ranged their weapons well in advance.

Oh, the red line visible on the lower right hand side is just a “six hex range indicator” from the fort. Shot and shell might start raining on approaching troops around that line 🙂

Finally got the game in all its glory to someone else’s table! A long-time wargamer I met recently was kind enough to take it for a test drive. As I haven’t set it up for many months myself, and I was a little rusty with all the pieces, rules, charts, tables, and whatnot. Who was Eyre again? What was his role, or did I drop him out? Was artillery able to move in the forest? What happens when the British army lands? What does this number on the counter mean?

After some time and a bit of remembering & explaining the basics, we got going. And it was such fun to actually PLAY it!

I had a hard time remembering all the rules, movement values etc. as I usually focus on a single rule (topic) and think it through. How they all come together is a completely different beast. The game has to be historically accurate for those who really know their stuff, and naturally, a good & interesting game to play. It’s tough to balance it all.

My tester’s experience came through quite clearly. He provided comments and improvement possibilities here and there, thought about how the troops and commanders would likely have behaved in real life, and basically (seemed to me) he “played a better game” than Montcalm himself. Ok, that is not really a fair comparison – Montcalm had a colony to defend and thousands of real lives under his responsibility.

Anyway, it was great to see how someone who has no clue about the game, its components, or even the historical context, approached it. Are the rules and different components clear and understandable? Things definitely need to be clarified, simplified, and tested thoroughly. We spent some 4+ hours and “got going”, but not too far yet. All this does indicate, as I knew all along, that this will not be a light, one evening game. On the contrary – there is a lot of detail, although the idea is to keep it at a reasonable level. Players will face historically accurate challenges and complexity. A simple example is artillery: It will not move by itself, the gun (cannon) crew is a barebone crew to operate (fire) the piece and if you want to move it… you’ll need men, and a lot of them!

Finally some comments about the picture above. I received a map update the day before our session and obviously it’s not seen here. It was a relatively big update, but at this image resolution would not be that clear to most people (you see the older version). Several details were added, colors slightly adjusted, and some errors corrected, while there is still much more to do.

The version shown is a compilation of individual photo paper sheets taped together. It’s quite laborous to make, but I like the strong and relatively thick photo paper, and it looks quite sharp too! Besides, I can make a new version at home at any time with low cost. I haven’t used any of the local print shops yet because they seem to mostly print A0 in some type of poster paper which I think is not really that good at this stage.

Talking about A0 paper size, yes, the map will be rather sizable. It will not be A0 size(!), which is close to two 34×22 inch sheets (34″ is about 86 cm, and 22″ about 56 cm). I think the final size will be quite a bit less than 112 cm x 86 cm because there is a lot space that can and will be removed. There are areas that are definitely under-utilized in the game and will be either cut off or repurposed to something else like a holding box. This is one of the many aspect testing should highlight.

The main British army has landed! Group of counters below the fort are the French artillery and commanders inside the fort. The artist had added a few extra boxes on the lake which we repurposed on the fly as a holding box for the arty. Now I can scrap another sheet that I had set aside for all the artillery in Carillon.

Trains, planes, and … well, you probably know how it goes. Boats, ships, vessels, watercraft, whatever. The terms I use in the game have been changing like the seasons, but I’ll stick with “boats” for now.

Here a is walkthrough of what I’ve got in the game.

Canoes (UPDATE: Canoes were removed from the game)

Obviously small and light, the canoe is go to transportation for light troops and Indians. You can only carry so much, but they are easy to transport over land between bodies of water.

Bateaux

The bateau was the real workhorse of the North American wilderness, perhaps “comparable” to the Liberty ships of the Second World War? They were used to carry the bulk of the men and material across lakes and rivers. Between bodies of water, the men had to carry the bateaux, so e.g. from Hudson River to Lake George (or Wood Creek) – locally known as “Great Carrying Place”. This is not to be mixed with Oneida Carry, which may be the more famous Great Carrying Place. These overland portages could be several kilometers or miles long but there was no other option unless animals were available to haul the boats.

Bateaux came in many different sizes created by local carpenters, so a single bateau could carry maybe 10 or 20 men and quite a bit of cargo (barrels of food or gun powder, shot or shell for artillery, tents, and whatever an army might need to live and fight). Sometimes bateaux were also equipped with sails but typically they were rowed.

In the game I have two sizes for bateaux, basically small and large. The map does get a little cluttered with bateaux and canoes all over the place, but then again, that’s how it goes!

If the other guy leaves some unattended, just go get them!

Radeaux

Radeaux were rafts used to haul larger loads, such as artillery. Slow and cumbersome, but so necessary if you want to move heavy pieces to the other end of the lake. Sometimes they were made by joining a few bateaux together with a platform on top.

I am not yet 100% sure if I will allow artillery to fire from a Radeaux – likely yes, but time will tell if this sticks. There is definitely a penalty involved.

Artillery Castles

Two or three floating artillery platforms, which I simply call Artillery Castles, were documented by contemporaries. Their purpose was to support a contested landing at the end of the Lake George. However, the French pulled back once they realized the massive size of the approaching fleet. These Artillery Castles (I love the term!) had guns ready to bombard French positions during the landing.

Jacobs

In 1757, Lieutenant Louis-Thomas Jacau de Fiedmont of the French Royal Artillery tested adding cannons to bateaux and thus created the small gunboat called a “Jacob”. Apparently already used in the attack on Fort William Henry, I have decided to have a optional rule to enable a bit more support for the French. After all, if it could have been available in 1758, it should be available in “1758 Fort Carillon”.

Ships

Yep, there is more. Sources have not really been clear where the French “fleet” was located in July 1758, but we’ll have a few key vessels roaming the lake.

La Vigilante, a 10-gun schooner, and Saintonge, a lightly-armed barge showing its age, were the two main French ships on Lake Champlain at the time. Especially La Vigilante will bring a notable addition to the French defenses. If you have captain Payant* at the helm, he’ll give the Rangers a hard time if they try to cross the lake 🙂

* L’Amiral du lac Champlain, Joseph Payant dit St-Onge – or something; I don’t speak French, so please pardon my French!

Below is an image I took in 2014 at Fort Ticonderoga of a diorama showing various vessels on Lake Champlain. If I recall correctly, the diorama depicts vessels some twenty years after the battle, in mid-1770s.

Below is a pretty picture of the 42nd Regiment of Foot, i.e. the Black Watch, charging through the infamous abatis the French defenders had set up the day before in front of their lines. The diorama is located at the Black Watch Castle and Museum in Perth, Scotland.

In the game, abatis can be created on forest hexes, but it can also be destroyed e.g. by artillery fire. It took me a while before I made them separate hexes and not part of other fieldworks (due to the size). Who doesn’t love even more counters! There is a nice little penalty when attacking out of (“through”) an abatis hex, of course.

And yes, the 10 companies of the 42nd Regiment – that made the famous charges over the top – make up the biggest, strongest single combat unit in the game.

Big guns in the wilderness, literally in the middle of nowhere. No horses or other pack animals to pull them. Just men – a tough job.

So, artillery doesn’t move by itself. The (British) Royal Artillery was greatly understaffed at Carillon and had to rely on (provincial) troops to pull the heavy guns, howitzers and mortars to the front line. Even the gun crews were supplemented by men from the regular infantry companies.

The overwhelming numbers of the British army looks a little less overwhelming when you have to dedicate a good number of units to unload artillery and supplies from rafts (radeaux), transport the heavy weapons to the front line, clear roads to allow heavy artillery to reach places like the Rattlesnake Mountain which has a clear line of fire to the fort, or build various fieldworks to prepare an assault or siege.

Most of the French artillery sits inside the fort. It can be moved, but at a cost (try lifting a 5000 pound / 2500 kg piece of iron). Montcalm had a few 6-pounders with his troops close to the sawmill when the British landed, but they soon withdrew back to the fort. The British, on the other hand, arrived with an artillery train of over 40 pieces loaded on various rafts – prepared to force their way through any French resistance. There wasn’t any. Once the main army had landed, they had to start unloading these often massive pieces from radeaux (rafts) and it wasn’t exactly a top priority as the British commander James Abercromby* was rushing his army forward before the expected French reinforcements arrived.

Below is a French naval 18-pound cannon (actually, two of them), in the safety of the fort’s walls. Because of the naval or garrison carriage, it has very limited mobility (for now, only 4 movement points – these may and do often change as the game development and testing progresses). It’s an iron piece, as you may guess from “Irn”. I haven’t fully decided the difference between an iron and a brass piece yet. Time will tell… “H” means its heavy. And heavy means it is quite difficult to move, although it does pack quite a punch.

What about the “4-9”? What’s invisible at this time due to space restrictions is the “short” range of two hexes (should be 2-4-9). Short range means firing canister / case / grape against a soft target, such as infantry. Or battering down a fort wall with maximum effectiveness. “4” is the medium range, i.e. point blank (the shot flies more or less level) for this particular cannon type. “9” is long range – the distance in hexes you can fire but obviously with (quite a bit) less probability of actually hitting something or causing damage with a hit.

I will leave discussing overcharging artillery for later, once I have decided how to handle it.

PS. The images on the counters are definitely not final.

* Abercromby, Abercrombie. Take your pick.

It’s been slooow going, but finally my artist delivered! The background of the site now displays the updated map style – a marked improvement over the initial map. Obviously, this is still very much a draft and is definitely missing many details. It will need lots of tweaking but those can be finalized closer to final production.

Fort Carillon (Ticonderoga) and it’s immediate surroundings.

This is where the action started – Howes Landing. The main British army landed here at first light on July 6th, 1758 spearheaded by Rogers Rangers, various light infantry units, and the British grenadier companies.

I will start updating the progress of the game shortly. There is a lot of work to do, but it is moving on! I have an update on the map – it’s not perfect, but it’s good enough for now. Most of my time has gone to the rule editing and testing.

Cheers — Mikko