Repurposing this for a bit, for D&D

 OK, how to create a Roll20 Character
Start by opening a blank character sheet, and clicking the Charactermancer button

You should see this screen :

First, pick a race from the drop down. You can pick each race and click the I icon to see the details about that race in the right-hand pane, and in the screen below the race (see next)

This shows the choice of a Goliath race (big, not too bright, strong - half human/half Giant). At this point you choose Alignment as well (thats a separate topic, it dictates the characters approach to life. I often leave this til the end of the process, once I know more about the character.

This is the lower half of the page, showing what the skill specialty of this race is, and any special powers they get

Next page, you pick the class - this determines what your character can do, in terms of wielding weapons, casting spells, and other skills. You can see at the top, the character has 2 Strength and 1 Constitution from their race. These are bonuses, which get applied later

I chose a Fighter for this character, as they are generally the simplest to play, with the fewest options and choices in combat. Basically you run up and hit things. This is a very necessary part of any group. This allows the choice of 2 skills (which I've done from the drop down lists) and a Fighting Style (again, you can pick each possible style and see the description of it just below, til you find which one sounds good to you).

This is the lower part of the screen, showing what other special bits the class of this character gets.

The next screen is where you choose what abilities your character has. There are six of these:|

Strength is obvious

Dexterity is agility and quickness, and skill with hands

Constitution is how well you sustain damage done to you, and how quick you recover it

Intelligence is ... knowledge

Wisdom is common sense, and spiritual strength

Charisma is ... well, charisma, how attractive you are in personality (and maybe in looks)

These are all in a range of 1 to 20, for describing all races and types. Players always start with a basic 8 in all abilities, and 27 points to spend to increase them. Each point over 13 costs double, and the maximum you can raise any ability to is 15 (at this point, during the game you can improve them)

The points are allocated just by clicking on the score you want for each. When allocating, it's important to know that the benefit you derive from each ability half the amount above 10 the score is, so having even numbers for your abilities is more beneficial and efficient

As you allocate these, the scores above will adjust. Note that you can get above 15 with abilities due to your racial bonuses. 

Next, you pick your background, which determines what additional skills you have: but mostly this is for flavour, giving some depth to your character, and gives you ideas for a backstory of how they became an adventurer.

Lower down this page you can pick personality traits from dropdown lists (or roll for them randomly).

Then you pick equipment, which is always Class Equipment (from the top dropdown) then specifics. In this example, the goliath as a fighter has a choice of leather (light) or chainmail (heavy) armour. This is because some fighters are focussed on strength and need heavy armour, others are based on quickness and dexterity, so benefit more from light armour that doesnt slow them down.

Next you get to pick spells, which Fighters dont get

Then you get to pick Feats, which noone* starts with (this screen is of use when you get to higher levels)

Then you pick your physical details - there are largely up to your whim, you can get suggestions on these from the right-hand pane describing your race

Finally you get the review screen - anything you've omitted to fill out will be spelt out in Red here, and you can use the buttons above above the abilities to get back to any earlier screen.

Once you apply the changes, you get your final character sheet:

this is the lower half of the character sheet.  For spell casters, there's another tab specifying spells, but thats not a concern for Fighters :)

New beginnings

Well, after moving to New Orleans & spending a couple of years there unable/unwilling to wargame, I've sold off all my 18ths (and the vast bulk of my 28s, pun definitely intended), so time to slowly rebuild.

Refight: Lobositz

This is a refight of Lobositz (1756) , at 50% scale-down (i.e. one battalion on the table per 2 battalions in the OOB for the battle), using KK rules, with the stouthearted (& stoutwaisted) forces of Krupp standing in for Prussian, and the vile Skyrians subbing for Austria.

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Debouching out of the hill passes, the dark blue forces formed up facing the Elbe, and Prinz Heinrich smiled his best wintry smile. It looked to him as if he'd caught the Skyrians on the hop, partly entangled in the village of Lobositz and trying to cover their retreat over the Elbe, while half their cavalry was mired behind the Morellenbach, a swampy stream, and the village of Sullowitz.

The full Kruppfalzian force faces the Skyrian centre and right. The Skyrian left is off camera (bottom right of photo)

He dispatched von Roentgen to cover the Austrian left with his own brigade and that of von Schwartzchild (scowling blackly). To his own left he posted Herzog von Bevern, with 2 brigades of foot and several heavy batteries to provide a tool to pry the Skyrians out of Lobositz, while the gap between was filled with 2 brigades of Cuirassiers, the Bayreuth Dragoons, more heavy batteries in support, and a few scruffy Hussars.

The Skyrian left, from the Kruppfalz side

Graf von Kirchwasser, on the other hand, was cursing fluidly. The damn bluecoats had marched faster than expected, and half his cavalry was still negotiating the damn marshes around Sullowitz, uncertainly guided by Graf von Hock, while the rest of his cavalry was sitting in front of his fortifications, while the good Herzog von Muller-Thurgau slept off a heavy night scouting the weinkellern. Damn and damn again, they were meant to be safe behind the breastworks. He hurriedly dispatched Spaetburgunder's foot to link the cavalry wings and stop them being both horribly exposed to flanking.

At least Pilsener's foot were esconced in the fortifications, and the advance guard were posted in advance in the centre, with von Traminer exposulating and speechifying to them.

The Krupp right wing, facing Spaetburgunder and some of the Skyrian horse in their centre

And von Riesling's brigade were posted in front of Lobositz, ready to contest the hillside and the village graveyard, with Tokaji's Avari brigade esconced in the village itself.

The Krupp left wing & the evicinity of Lobositz village

The battle opened with Kirchwasser, after eyeing the massed Krupp artillery opposite Lobositz, gingerly advance his right wing to slow down their advent into bombardment range, moving the Advance Guard and Muller-Thurgau's horse en echelon to avoid a hanging flank being exposed. Heinrich in turn ordered Bevern to probe towards Lobositz, while launching his massed cavalry in the centre towards the Skyrian horse, aiming to exploit his numerical superiority before the Skyrian left could reinforce them.

Von Hock, on the Skyrian left, cursed copiously. After diverting his artillery to the lone ford over this verdammt stream, he led his cuirassiers splashing across, only the Erherzog Ferdinand Kurasserie firmly bogged in the banks. More verdammt delays!

In the centre, the first clash occurred, when the Deaths' Head Hussars crossed sabres with Esterhazy's Hussars, and after a brief tussle, showed the superiority (well, of their uniforms anyway). After driving the Avarian horse back in confusion, a brief rush of blood to the head led them on to charge the supporting Waldeck Grenadiers, who decisively demonstrated why an uncontrolled rush of light horse wasn't a good idea. The Deaths'Head boys were last seen heading for the baggage train to, uh, reload (never rallied).

 The Krupp heavy horse surges forward eagerly, supported by foot on their right and the Bayreuth dragoons on their left

Spaetburgunder's foot thrusts forwards to counter the Krupp advance on their right.

The clash of sabres in the centre was short and furious. Serbelloni's Grenadiern zu Pferde were swept away by the Liebgarde, who then smartly wheeled left to take the Portugal Kurasserie in flank while facing the Lieb Carabiner. Given those unpalatable odds, the Skyrian regiment also took to its' heels, almost disintegrating in the pell-mell. The small contingent of Liechtenstein Dragoons then got swept up in the furious pursuit, dissolving under the Karabiniers sabres. 

Oppenheimer, leading his beloved Bayreuth Dragoons, meanwhile stooped upon the suddenly-isolated grenadiers of the Advance Guard, brushing aside both the Waldeck and the Daun grenadier battalions, before veering left to menace the open flank of the Skyrian infantry advance

 The joyous Krupp cavalry stymied by the field works in the centre. Bayreuth Dragoons (left) starting to scythe through the Skyrian right wing

the view from the Skyrian breastworks, with Pilsener's foot soberly regarding the cuirassiers running rampant 

On the Krupp left, von Fahrenheit had pushed forward in his usual hotheaded fashion, brushing back the Grenzer from their stone walls to the graveyard, while von Ohm's brigade moved up in column of battalions, squeezed for space (and anticipating resistance).

 Fahrenheit's troops locked in combat with IR4 Deutschmeister, while the Bayreuth Dragoons rudely barge into the flank of IR51 Gulyas

View of the struggle on the Krupp left, from side-on: The Hautcharmoy regiment has just driven back the Grenzer again while Treskow's regiment moves in support. IR 4 Deutschmeister tries to face 2 fronts to hold off the Bayreuth Dragoons and engage with IR4 Kalnein

 The Esterhazy hussars eventually rallied, and extruded themselves to menace the flank of the Prussian cuirassiers - the Margrave Friedrich Kurasserie, in an excess of enthusiasm, had attempted a sally against the firmly-entrenched Kurprinz regiment, to no avail at all.

 

On the Skyrian left,  Spaetburgunder eyed the rampaging cuirassiers with anxiety, and prodded his men forward, hoping to enmesh with the enemy foot and get further away from the menacing horse. Hock's brigade of cuirassiers had finally extricated themselves from the marshy banks of the kleinblutbach, and were showing signs of actually providing some support on his left.

On the Skyrian right, however, all was rack and ruin - the Bayreuth Dragoons had riffled through 4 battalions of  Rieslings brigade, leaving a battalion of Deutschmeister totally surrounded, and a battalion of Ferraris enclosed on 3 sides. The surviving battalions of Tokaji's brigade peered anxiously out from the houses of Lobositz and took the odd potshot, awaiting their own fate.

l'ecroulement de le Skyrie, as the observing Fitzjoie put it. Nearest, you can see the broken Liechtenstein dragoons attempting to swim the Elbe, with little success.

Then, as Hock's cavalry swept forward to combine with Spaetburgunders' clumsy advance, the Krupp cavalry finished rallying and reorganising.

And started carving up Spaetburgunder's open flank, assisted by a spirited attack by IR 20 Winterfeldt, Schwartzchild bravely waving his epee in the front rank, on  IR13/Moltke's regiment.

At this point, the Skyrian morale cracked. Tokaji covered the bridge over the Elbe while Pilsenau's brigade filed across it, then retreated thither as well. Spaetburgunders foot and the remnants of Muller-Thurgau's cavalry fled pell-mell to the east, while Hock's cuirassiers kept up a front to slow pursuit. The Advance Guard, hussars, dragoons, and grenadiers, either drowned in the stormy waters of the Elbe, or went into the bag.

Prinz Heinrich, delightedly celebrating a notable victory, drank half a glass of watered brandy in joy, and was actually seen to wave to his troops twice!

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Afterthoughts: By (historically) keeping a third of the Skyrian foot locked up in fortifications, the rest of their battle line faced significantly poor odds, and that quickly showed. I probably didn't give enough weight to hindrances to movement on the hill overlooking Lobositz, as that developed quicker than historically: and the rules seemed to give much quicker & more decisive results to the clash of horse in the centre, leading to a lack of time for the Skyrians to exploit on the left (also, either I got the scale horribly wrong, or something else, because the initial 'heavy bombardment' of artillery didnt seem feasible from the Krupp side).

The rest of the French

And the last of La grand armee du roi - the Gardes Francaises, the Grenadiers de France, 2 brigades of Chevaux Leger, the Cuirassiers de Roi, a stray foot regiment (Orleans), and last and definitely least, the Legion du Roi

July's labours

Well this month at least bore some fruit, namely the readying of the French mounted, artillery and general staff for the fray:

There, in its slightly blurry glory - the Gendarmerie, 2 regiments of the Maison, 4 of Chevaux leger, 2 of Dragoons, a dozen batteries of guns, a regiment of light infantry, one more brigade of French foot (Flandre et Eu), a round dozen somewhat abashed and hungover brigadiers,a couple of generals, and of course, front right, His Excellency Marshal Jean-luc Godard, directing things.

My one regret was not painting up a regiment of Wurttemburg Dragoons, in order that they could cross swords with the Wurtttemburg Dragoons(Au), the Wurttemburg Dragoons (Pr), or the Wurttemburg Dragoons (Wurttmburg!), all of which already rest their sabres in my cabinets. Still, there's always next month  ... and while I'm ordering the 12 figures necessary, I might as well round it up with a brigade or two of Russian cuirassiers ... hmm, plus some of those grenadiers, and maybe the Corps d'Observation .... oh, and some cossacks, and ... ah-ha! another essential, the Wurttemburg Dragoons(Ru).

vive le roi!

Well, re-emerging after a couple of busy months - fortunately not all my time was frittered away on fripperies of work and life, some time got dedicated to the serious stuff - in this case, 30 battalions of La grande armee de la Roi - 6 of Wild Geese, 4 Swiss, 4 Germans, and 16 of actual Frenchmen:

These guys are all OG 15s btw - very nice foot, shame about the horses.

Refight: Hochkirch

This was actually just a section of the battle of Hochkirch, with the scenario drawn from Kriegskunst (a lower-level SYW set of rules, in the GdB family).


The scenario involves the Austrian assault on the village of Hochkirch itself, with the Prussian main battery and infantry defences. Due to constraints (I didnt have a suitable terrain piece), the hill that the village should surmount has been omitted.

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The Kruppfalzen command was in the hands of Prinz Heinrich, and consisted of a pair of heavy batteries, GM von Roentgen's grenadiers (Manstein, Kanitz, Kreytzen and Kleist's battalions), and  Graf von Schwartzchild's brigade (IR1 Winterfeldt and IR20 Zastrow). He was fortunate in that the GM von Ohm's brigade (IR4 Kalnein and IR16 Dohna) was marching through the town at the time the Skyrian threat emerged, and he was able to bully Ohm into submitting to his command (after variable resistance)*, and he anxiously awaited the arrival of FML Lentulus with promised reinforcements (which turned out to be GM von Heisenberg's brigade, IR2 Ostergotland and IR3 Anhalt-Dessauer.

The Skyrian assault was masterminded by FM Erherzog von Spatlese (Chichi to his intimates), assisted by FML Markgraf Curacao. The latter led an attack from the west (left), consisting of GM von Muscat's brigade (Kaiser and Jung-Wolfenbuttel regiments), the Tokaji Grenzer, and Speckwuerfeln Jager, with accompanying artillery batteries, while Spatlese led** the main attack, spearheaded by FML von Traminer's grenadiers (Waldeck, Daun and Argenteau battalions), followed by FML Graf von Liebfraumilch's brigade (Nederlander and Isenburg regiments), and GM von Rieslings (Deutschmeister and Ferraris regiments), followed at a small distance by GM Tokaji's Ungrians (Gulyas and Pandour regiments).

The attack led off with Liebfraumilchs Brigade and the Grenadiers assaulting the breastworks atop Kleinfeldberg, and Rieslings Brigade assailing the Kreytzen Redoubt to the east, while Tokaji manouevres his Ungrians towards the open plain east of the town, looking for opportunities to turn the flank of the fortifications. Prince Heinrich meanwhile, hastened the leading elements of IR4 Kalnein into position to shore up the eastern defenses, and reduce the exposed position of his heavy batteries.

Meanwhile, Curacao led his forces spurring up the Vierblatten road to the west:

Liebfraumilch, finding his command overlapping the fortifications, attempted to swing the Nederlander Brigade to outflank the Krupp grenadiers, but accurate volleys drove the initial advance back, and rapid handling by Oberst Manstein kept the grenadiers facing successive threats as they developed to front then flank. The Skyrian grenadier column made hard going of even reaching the walls, swept by musketball and canister each time, the first two battalions were each forced to retire to reorganise, while the third battalion did manage to cross bayonets ... with unfortunate results for them.

Eventually, of course, weight of numbers told, and the Manstein Grenadiers were caught front and flank by Liebfraumilch's battalions, and sheer attrition reduced their fellows to relative impotence, and permitted further assaults on their front by the Daun Grenadiers. Von Riesling was encountering some trouble getting to grips with the Kreytzen Grenadiers, cramped for room to deploy: and repeated if erratic bombardment from the heavy Krupp guns kept disrupting his attacks before they could mature. However, he was cheered (and Prinz Heinrich worried) by the progress made by Tokaji in probing the open flank.

Fortunately for the good Prinz, von Heisenberg overcame his uncertainties and his brigade came hustling south in march order to counter the Ungrian posturing.

The view looking south of Curacao's attack, with the Grenzer outflanking IR20 esconced in the western perimeter, and the jager pinging away at the Winterfeldt regiment being held back in mobile reserve. In the left distance you can see the iron trap crushing the Manstein battalion of grenadiers, and the dwindling ranks of defence there.

Eventually, the Waldeck grenadiers forced their way across the breastworks and drove the Kanitz battalion back in tatters to lurk in the Visconti di Palmetto's townhouse on the edge of town, then wheeled to face the artillery (Cezanne's company), who let out a mighty blast of canister ....

that completely missed. Von Riesling tirelessly reorganised his men for another attempt to assail the fortifications to his front, cheered by the diversion the Ungrians to his right were providing for the Krupp heavy guns.

And indeed, the right wing got itself shaken out eventually, with the Deutschmeister regiment managing to exploit the opening on the hill to start flanking the redoubt, while Tokaji's men shook out into a single line of battalions, to reduce the bombardment they were receiving, and to face the approaching Schwartzchild.

 

 The Manstein grenadiers also eventually cracked under the weight, and attrition, and fled back to join their compatriots in the townhouse, and the whitecoats poured forward, eager to exploit the opening. Von Riesling's men, however, suffered a worse fate - the continuing dribble of losses to bombardment and musketry gradually reduced his battalions to relative impotence, and his final throw of the dice, an assault on the hopefully outflanked Kreytzen Grenadiers, was bloodily repulsed despite the FeldMarschall himself approaching and urging them on with waved hat (from a short distance, of course!)

This permitted the Prinz to release Ohm's men, who brightly turned and started driving on the exposed flank of the Skyrian attack. Liebfraumilch's men were rather stalled, finding the stout stone walls of the mayoral palace (and gin emporium) too daunting when defended by the stout Winterfeldt regiments (a succession of 6s plagued them with an inability to launch charges here), so there were driven to relying on some fairly desultory musketry to reduce the garrison. To their west, you can see the extremely dilatory Curacao urging his men to assault the rest of the perimeter, with indifferent results.

To the east, Tokaji's men had engaged with the Heisenberg brigade - while their greater width gave them some advantage in outshooting them, this was signally countered by renewed bombardment from the heavy batteries (and from the guns of Ohm's brigade, which were left behind in the rush of light)

The weight of metal, and the superior drill of the bluecoats, quickly told, and the Ungrians were quickly broken up and outflanked.

At this point, with the Skyrian right dissolved, and his centre disintegrating under flanking pressure, with no real progress made on the left (other than the Grenzers who had slipped into the village, looting the town hall and stealing the church plate and Prinz Heinrich's favorite bay, Emeltrude), Feldmarschall von Spatlese directed his men to fall back upon the uncommitted forces to south and west, to await further instructions.

Prinz Heinrich's men, much satisfied with their days work, settled down to enjoy the dubious delights of Hochkirch town, while the good Prinz himself walked, roundly cursing the damn skirmishers of course, to the remnants of Manstein's Grenadiers and praised them for their stern and agile defense against insuperable numbers, coming close to actually shedding a tear***

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*Dice roll to activate the brigade each turn until succeeded.

** using the word rather loosely

*** a Courtmartial offense in the Kruppsarmee, of course.

Post scriptum - upon reading some more of the battle, it is apparent I gave the whitecoats far too little advantage for surprise and catching the bluecoats in bivouac. Oh well, next time.