Preparing for a remote ECW siege game

This week I am preparing for a remote siege game with Jon from Palouse Wargaming Journal. Something I am very much looking forward to after spending most of last week incapacitated due to a bad back that left me floored, quite literally. We will be using the “Siege Works” rules by Solo Wargames, available on WargameVault. They are a paper and pen game that I have adapted for use on the tabletop where the besieging player gradually constructs parallels and trenches, and positions batteries. While having various disruptions, such as sorties and disease among the troops, slowing them down.

An example of the tabletop.

The game is essentially a resource-management challenge. Where the besieger must allocate their scarce, and sometimes dwindling, resources to quickly build their parallels, trenches, and gun batteries so they can breach the walls and launch an assault on the fortified town before a relief force arrives.

The besieged have prepared the fortified town.

The original rules are set in the Napoleonic era, but I will use them for an English Civil War siege of a fortified town. In preparation for the game, I laid out the all the trenches on the tabletop and measured them to get the starting position of the first parallel. 

The parallels and trenches are built using six-inch segments with some restrictions. For example, the first parallel must be 30 inches long before the attacker can advance the zig-zag trenches and begin the second parallel which must be 24 inches long and starts 12 inches closer to the fort. Each gun battery will require 12 inches (two lengths) of parallel to be constructed before they can be established. 

There will be room on the tabletop for an artillery park.

The zig-zag trenches are brown felt cut into strips and the parallels are made from wooded dowel with a fly-wire repair kit wrapped around them for a wicker effect.

A close up view of the parallel lengths.

While I have tried to get as many siege activities as possible onto the tabletop. Tracking of resources off-table is still necessary, especially for remote play where not everything on the tabletop is easily seen. To help handle this a simple resource tracker was drawn up. Nothing fancy, just a series of boxes for placing dice as markers, with a few printed siege drawings pasted on to make it look less boring.

The resource tracker.

So everything is now ready for the remote game.