La Grande Armee gets "blooded"

 My WW1 French army took on a well placed German army guarding the HQ of General Kluck-it was bloody!!

The table set-up.French plan was to advance slowly frontally whilst the flanks would be attacked by swiftly moving columns of infantry,supported by artillery fire-what could possibly go wrong??

The German HQ,c/w defenders-artillery,machine guns and infantry.

French advance,columns outstripping the central force-all is going to plan.

The French attack begins(excuse "smoke" it is just to indicate which units are firing!)-both sides suffered casualties but not enough to deter the French-hurrah!

The order to charge is just about to be given-oh dear!!

Contact!!-go on boys(garcons?) give 'em the bayonet(they do not like it up 'em!)

The defences have been breached,but only in this one place-all along the rest of the line,the French were beaten!!

The French have been thrown out and forced to retire(its good being retired!)

Kluck is gloating-however he is in for a nasty shock-the British are on their way to support the French complete with a new fangled contraption in the way of a flying machine!!

Another interesting game-I'm getting into this period!

Battle of Mons 1914(World War John)

 Having finished my WW1 Germans and British,and "knocked" together some very basic rules,I thought I would have a game based very loosely on the Battle of Mons  1914.

The Germans had to cross the Mons-Conde canal,being held by the British,via two bridges,the resulting game was another solo "hit".

The German attack begins,in column,as if on a parade ground!

With the combinesd firepower of the British rifles and machine guns,plus a little pounding from artillery,it became quite clear that the Germans stood very little chance of crossing the canal!

The Germans still in column,as per orders,get to the bridges,whilst their colleagues line the bank of the canal and open fire on the British.

A heavy exchange of rifle fire ,but with the British under cover(actually "dug-in") the Germans are suffering!

Doomed to fail-a German column advances to be met with two machine guns and concentrated rifle fire-they were knocked to bits and had to retire(its good being retired!)

The failed attempt!! What was the German cinc(Kluck!) thinking of?

Final shots! Historically this went very well,so well in fact that I'm going to refight it again!

Following on from that game,it became apparent that I needed some French troops,if I was going to refight some of the early battles involving the British and French......................

Eh,voila!!! a French army painted in double quick time-lets see how they perform.