War Without an Enemy - Converting Numbers

Notwithstanding Iain's astute comment that War Without an Enemy ('WWAE') looks a little too involved to just be a battle generator, I ploughed on to have a look at how many models might be needed.

First off I did a stock take of my models and came up with the following numbers.

13 Jan 2021	Horse	Foot	Dragoons	Staff and Train
Command stands	20	17	1
Trooper stands	94		8
Pike blocks		16
Musket/dism.dragoons/firelocks		35
Clubmen stands		3
Mounted officers/staff				26
Field guns				8
Ships/fortress guns				4
Limbers				4
Wagons				3

To put some context on this, each Horse stand is 3 figures, notionally representing a troop of about 60 men in my rules. A Foot stand is 10-12 figures representing a pike block or a shot wing of 200-240 men. In my tactical rules ('Jacob Astley's Prayer' see below*) the command stands are supernumerary and are to show what the unit is doing - e.g. in front of the unit means it's advancing; behind it is stationary. [Aside: looking at these numbers I'm short of a Foot command stand, but have plenty of spare command figures].

Then I totted up the Strength Points on the wooden blocks that come with WWAE, and came up with the following.

Royalist	Total Strength	Units
Horse	30	10
Foot	69	8
Guns	6	3
Clubmen	3	0
Parliamentarian	Total Strength	Units
Horse	27	9
Foot	87	10
Guns	8	4
Clubmen	3	1
Combined	Total Strength	Units
Horse	57	19
Foot	156	17
Guns	14	7
Clubmen	6	2

The Total Strength shows the theoretical maximum numbers. However, it is unlikely that it would get to the point when more than 1/3 of the total armies got into in a battle. The rule mechanisms encourage you to disperse your armies in order to take cities and territories, and to avoid attrition by having too many troops in one area.

The final column shows a notional number of units if say 1/3 of the totals came face-to-face. In this scheme each Horse Strength Point converts to 1 unit and each 3 Foot Strength Points convert to 1 unit. The relative ratios of Horse and Foot to SPs fits with the fact that my horse units are a dozen figures whilst my foot are 3 dozen. Gun SPs are halved to arrive at the required number of model guns. That all works out very conveniently close to my total collection. Strictly speaking I'm about 30 figures short of the horse total - 2 packs of Mr Pengilley's excellent little models.

So a little army under the command of Old Robin like this on the board.......

Strength Points: Horse 3; Foot 12, Guns 4. The little halberd icon on Essex's block shows it is foot as well as a Leader.

....would convert to something like this on the table.

To be honest though, if it ever got to a full on mash-up I would not use Jacob Astley's Prayer, which are more suited to medium sized battles. I would run such a large game with In Deo Veritas or Ramekin ECW C&C. In both of those two I can use the command stands as whatever is the opposite of supernumerary, so I can eke out more units.

Glad I've got that sorted. I can move on to the next challenge.

* "Lord, help me today to realize that thou wilt be speaking to me through the events of the day, through people, through things, and through all creation. Give me ears, eyes and heart to perceive thee, however veiled thy presence may be. Give me insight to see through the exterior of things to the interior truth. Give me thy Spirit of discernment. O Lord, Thou knowest how busy I must be this day. If I forget [the rules], do not Thou forget me. Amen.”