Border Control-Roman Style 50AD

Another Thursday,another fast-paced and exciting game,Romans against Gauls for control of a border crossing point. I took command of the Gauls and Brian took command of the Romans.

The scenario,my plan was to attack the relieving force with chariots,cavalry and warbands,to stop them from helping the border control troops,Brian's plan was the opposite,ie to break my warbands,and keep control of the crossing point.

This photo gives a good idea of what the starting positions of all the troops was,and how difficult a task we both had to achieve our objectives.The central hill was fought over for the whole of the game!!

My attack begins,I assaulted both forts with two warbands and skirmishers,Brian replied with bolt throwers and archers,in the centre I pushed on over the bridge and was met by a cohort of aux. infantry,who were beaten back in the first round of melee-was this going to be "pushover" for the Gauls??

On the left,I have "swamped" Brian's Cavalry,and my warbands are moving up to take on his legionaries.
Having dealt with his cavalry,my warbands were,in turn,soundly sent packing by the cohorts!!-great stuff.

This shot shows the moment of impact,the pila from Brian's cohorts took a dreadful toll on the Gauls,and the ensuing melee saw all but one of my units beaten and forced to retire!!

Meanwhile,on a nearby hill,the Romans are doing a good job of defending the position against all comers!!
Both Brian and myself kept sending fresh troops to try and gain an advantage,but Brian's troops were becoming weak,and with no support available from the Legion,things were looking black!!

My persistent attacks on the forts continue,at one point Brian decided to come out of the left hand fort and attack me!! With excellent results,I might add!!,however the right hand fort was taken by my troops,making Brian's position a little tenuous!!

With my cavalry threatening both flanks of the Legion,my warbands regrouping for another charge,and the central hill still under threat against weakened Roman units,we decided to call it a day,with the Romans waving a white flag,and the Gauls victorious!!-hurrah.
Once again a great game,which could have gone either way,one bonus,I suppose, is that Brian didn't manage to poke himself,or me,in the eye!!
We probably won't be playing on Sunday,but keep in touch lads.

The "Cyclops incident" Sudan 1898!!

"The desert sands were stained with red,the gatling's jammed,the Colonel's dead,Brian gave a desolate sigh,and promptly poked himself in the eye!!
Now why Brian decided to poke himself in the eye,half way through the game last night,we'll probably never know-was it boredom,or an attention seeking cry for help from a tortured soul??
But the fact remains he did poke himself in the eye-of course we were very sympathetic,amid peals of laughter,and jokes about Nelson,Dr Hook,and even Pete Burns!!
Now on with the game.....

The scenario,Brian(aka Cyclops) was in charge of the British column "A",Richard was in charge of British column "B" and Lord Lucan (AKA Dave) was in charge of the Punjabi contingent,Graham was in charge of the Ansars,leaving Paul to command the Haddendowah,whilst I tried to instill some kind of order as referee.

Now it must be pointed out that Richard is a relative new-comer to Colonial games,and is more used to sedate lines of properly formed troops moving slowly across the board,the last thing he expected was to be attacked immediately by wild tribesmen and cavalry,from all angles!!
This shot shows his Seaforths being attacked,and behind the "mountain" his Camel corps are being hacked to death by Baggara cavalry!
The Punjabi infantry in the foreground are busy shooting everything that Graham sends against them!

Dave's Punjabi infantry,good position,backed up by a small mountain gun,nothing was going to shift them.

Meanwhile,Brian,who still had both his eyes at this point,was trying to get to Punjabi hill,with his column,is being put under pressure from the Haddendowah.This was a good move by Paul,who managed to split Brian's forces,causing him some trouble.
I do believe it was at this point that a controversial refereeing decision,prompted Brian to demonstrate that when he was in the Army(British),he could call down accurate artillery fire using only his line of vision,and whilst waving his fingers perilously close to his face,managed to blind himself for the rest of the game-oh how we laughed!!

Paul's force attacking Brian,this was the last move of the game,and if Brian could throw a five on his dice he would win this vast melee and save the whole of the British force,including Richard's remaining troops,but alas not the brave Punjabi's who had fled!!-Old Cyclops only managed to do it didn't he!!!
This was a brief but interesting game,if only Brian could have seen it!!
Dave brought some figures along to show us,here are some photo's......

Very nice Dave!!
I received a very large parcel from Warrior Miniatures,full of "El Cid" figures,Moors and Spanish,so can't wait to get stuck into them!!
Roll on Thursday,one last shot of that great "pupil" of history,who gave" one in the eye" to the Sudanese,oh dear,the jokes couldn't get any "cornea" could they??

Oh hell!! with that look we'll all be given a "black spot" next week!!

Dacians vs Romans

Well what a week,both Brian and I are expecting a hand written note from George Osborne thanking us for saving the economy!!-Brian has bought a new lap-top computer,and I have ordered a boat load of figures from Warrior Miniatures(watch this space)
But onto more sublime things,last night I gave my Dacian army a run out against a Roman army commanded by the "chuckle brothers" Paul and Brian-and what a game it turned out to be,at the end of the night my nerves were shredded and I had to drown my sorrow in the demon drink!!

This is the very simple scenario,I held the high ground and fort,Brian and Paul were to attack me,and capture the fort-simple!!

The top photo shows Paul's dispositions against the fort,and the bottom photo shows Brian's dispositions against the dreaded Sarmatian cavalry,and well-placed warbands,ready to strike any advancing Romans in the flank!

All hell breaks loose on Brian's flank,as I charge into his lines,hoping to catch him whilst he is busy moving his cohorts into an extended line,meanwhile the cavalry have moved against each other,brushing the archer units aside.

On Paul's flank,I have elected to charge with two warbands,and combine the other one with the centre cavalry,in an attempt to clear away Brian's archers. Paul's cohorts took a terrible toll with the pila,and I was sorely beaten to say the least,however I put my commander into the fray to stop my troops from retiring.

My extra heavy cavalry are doing well,combined with the warband I put with them,they are driving the Roman horse back-however things were not going as swimmingly with my warbands,who were being chewed up and spat out by Brian's cohorts!!

To negate the effect of my bolt-throwing machine and javelins,Paul has adopted the Testudo formation(very crude cardboard items- I must get round to painting the Warrior miniatures ones,blue!)
This proved very effective and the melee at the wall of the fort was short-lived and bloody,I did manage to slow his advance into the fort down a bit,and actually drove one cohort back-hurrah!!

Paul is employing a good tactic in this shot,he has placed his slingers in front of his second wave of attacking cohorts,taking casualties off my defenders before he launches the final assault,and takes the fort!!

A final shot,I have had to put my CinC into the melee to try and stop Brian from rampaging all over my warbands! With Brian and Paul both successful,I pleaded for a draw but they wouldn't accept it-obviously not Gentlemen!! so I was declared the loser.
Yet another good and interesting game,full of colour and movement(most of mine was backwards!!)
Roll on Sunday.
All of the figures used in this game were either Lancashire Games or Prince August.

Battle of Necropolis 480BC

Last night we fought the ficticious battle of Necropolis,pitting Greeks against Persians.

Because of "staff" shortages (Richard and Dave were working) I took command of the Spartans,Paul was in charge of the City Hoplites,Brian was commanding the elite Persian troops and Graham was in command of the troops attacking the City.I threw a 5 on my dice to decide when I was coming onto the board,so Brian and I were indolent for the first 4 moves-Paul and Graham weren't!!

Graham's first attack going in against the knee-high walls,stoutly defended by Paul,Graham won the first two melees,and looked like the whole game would be over before Brian and I even got to grips!!

Not so fast!! Superior weapons began to tell and the Persians are knocked back from the walls as Paul launches a counter-attack from the right hand woods.Graham stuck at his task and readied the other units of axe-men and spearmen to advance.

The Spartans have arrived,and Brian is deploying his troops to meet them,his archers(hidden in the woods,) did some damage to my columns,however they were frightened by the wind whistling in the trees and took this as a bad omen and retired!!

CRASH!! the Spartans and mercenary hoplites hit each other,whilst the remaining unit of Spartans dashes across the stream to engage a unit of Immortals!
Brian got the better of the fight with his Mercenaries,and pushed me back,I now started to regret sending 2 units of Spartans to help Paul!!

Meanwhile,back at the City,Graham is pressing onwards again,Paul is stoutly defending again,this is going to be tight! and Graham still has uncommitted troops in his rear.
Graham,at this point,won the melee on our left hand part of the wall,but declined to push forward into the city!!

My part of the table is "sparse" of Spartans!! Brian has pushed two units back and is in the process of "chewing" the other ones up too!!-It's up to you now Paul-can you do it??

Of course you can!! Necropolis is devoid of Persians,and my Spartans are manning the walls-hurrah!!

However,because Brian was in the process of delivering a right hook with his troops,a draw was declared,although it must be pointed out that the objective of the game was to capture the City!!

This was a really interesting game with problems for both sides,and I feel we all played our parts well!

Roll on Thursday-only one game,at night, but as yet I haven't decided what we'll be doing.

Battle of Cochester1644AD

This morning Brian and I had a "grand" game based on a Royalist attack on Colchester,being held by the Parliamentarians-The game could be titled "the King is dead-long live the King"(read on!!)

This is a shot of the table before any movement,Brian is mounting his attacks from the right.

Brian decided to attack me along the whole front,his cavalry on both flanks are moving into position,this is going to be bloody!!

The left flank of my position,with the cavalry shaping up to charge each other-Cochester can just be seen,being attacked with "gusto"

The troops to the right of the town are being attacked here,I managed to do quite well with both gun and volley fire,and kept Brian's royalists at a distance-for a while!!

My cavalry are victorious! pushing Brian's cavalry back!! However Cochester was under serious pressure,and I was going to have to reinforce it with my two regiments seen to the left of the town.

I took this photo to show the panic my troops have instilled in Brian! If you look carefully you will notice the Commander of the two white regiments,is facing the wrong way!! Pay attention Brian!!
Anyway back to the battle..............

Colchester has fallen!!Brian's troops are victorious!! However in his haste to get the melee won,Brian let no other than King Charles the First,lead his troops over the barricade,and,as luck would have it,I threw the appropriate dice,and the King ended his days in a bloodied heap on the streets of the town-hurrah!!

This is the scene on my right flank,my cavalry were doing well against superior odds,then Brian moved his reserve cavalry onto my flank,and one cavalry regiment fled,and the other was being surrounded-flank lost!!

As my only success was my left flank,Colchester and my right flank being in Royalist hands,Brian was declared the winner,even though the Royalist were now a leaderless rabble!!
A cracking game,good tactics and battle plans,lots of movement,what more could you ask for??
Brian and I have been painting some archer units for our armies,Brian's are late Romans from Foundry,mine are western and eastern archers for my 2nd Century Romans from Lancashire Games....

Western archers,and Eastern archers,with command group for the Eastern,nice figures,very easily painted although I found the Bows very weak and liable to break,however I used the old trick of coating them with nail varnish(the wife's not mine!!) and that gave them more strength-to be fair Allan from Lancahire Games does tend to give you more figures in his packs than advertised,so any breakages are replaced.

Brian's Late Roman archers,which he bought off E-Bay ( I won't even mention the fact that he thought he was buying Horse Archers!!) These are Foundry figures,and he has decided to Varnish his figures now,which I think makes them look good,good poses,with front rank shooting and back rank loading etc.-very nice.
We won't be playing tonight,but Paul is coming round to help me set up the game for Sunday-Greeks against Persians-Roll on Sunday!!

Napoleonic Game 6.10.13.

Last night Graham laid on a most spectacular game for us,set after Waterloo,when the French had to drain their depots,and call up militia and provincial troops to stop the Allies from reaching Paris.
I was commanding the French against Brian and Richard who had a coalition of Austrians,Brunswick and Russian troops.
Basically I was defending a ridge with a village at either end,and the Allies had to capture the positions and get a gun battery over the hill (did somebody mention me there??)

Move number one,and the whole of the known world seems to be advancing on my positions!!
Richard was in charge of the Brunswickers,and mounted a most ferocious attack on the right hand village which contained troops who can only be described as "crap"-however at the end of the game I still held the village and had given Richard a bloody nose!!

Richard's rifles are giving me something to think about-because of his superior range I couldn't shoot back at him,but as it happens he kept missing!!-lucky or what??
Meanwhile in the centre,Brian was trying to get his troops into some sort of order,however my artillery,placed beside the left hand village was doing great work,and stopped some of his advance,allowing me to mount an audacious cavalry attack against his light troops,forcing them into square!!

This is a shot from Richard's side of the board,showing his attack on the village and against my troops on the ridge-cracking stuff,I was slowly being out-numbered,and in danger of being "swamped"-would the dice God be kind to me?-YES!! with a good deal of luck I held on to the ridge on this flank,but now Brian was piling the pressure onto my left hand village and ridge position.

A bit of a lull has settled on the battle field in this shot,giving me time to reorganise,and especially to move all of my cavalry onto my left,behind the village-it can't remain this quiet for long though!!

I thought not!! with guns blazing and drums beating,the big advance begins! With the poor troops I have under my command I couldn't possibly stand up to this,could I?-Oh yes I could!!

Look at this!! I have exchanged my battered regiments for fresh ones,and am exchanging volley for volley with the cream of the Austrian army!!Richard is sneaking up on me on his flank attempting to out-gun me on the ridge-good move!!

Both Brian and I have launched our cavalry at each other in this photo,the melee swung both ways,I won the first round,Brian won the second,I won the third etc. etc.- At this point my nerves are shattered,the village walls have been knocked down by pin-point artillery fire,and Brian's Russians have smashed into my "crap" defenders,who turned out to be not so "crap" and eventually beat him back-hurrah!!

The contest for the ridge is still being fiercely fought,but I still have possession of it and the two villages,this was move number 15, and the Alllies were no where near gaining their objective,so I was declared the winner!! Just as well really 'cos it looks like Brian has lost all interest-pay attention Brian!!

This was a good game-well thought out,and balanced,congratulations to Graham.
Roll on Thursday.