French and Indian Wars,playtest game 14.3.13.

For this morning's game,Brian and I decided to playtest my newest project.Basically we used our "normal" rules,with just a little bit of tweaking here and there,mainly musket ranges and movement.
I tried to put into the playtest as many situations as I could think of,ie. ambushes,melees,fire-fights,and lots of movement,plus a couple of "marksmen" on both sides livened the game up somewhat!!

This first photo shows a general advance to contact by both sides,the new movement certainly came as a bit of a surprise-very quick!!

These are Brian's canoes paddling swiftly across the lake trying to outflank me-however I had hidden Rangers along the shore line,who shot these brave braves to pieces!!

Fire-fights and melees going on in this shot,Brian's marksman has just shot one of my company leaders,who counted for morale but not fighting points.

Having got rid of Brian's Indians on the lake,I launched a company of Rangers across the lake and onto Brian's flank.

The Rangers have landed,and I can now mount a strong attack onto the Indian's flank.

Melee in the woods! Brian's Indians were giving me a lesson in close combat here !!

This is a shot of the whole table,showing outflanking move,melee and fire-fight on far flank.

The end!! We had a good game,showing that our "universal rules" can and do cover every period,with just a little bit of tweaking,hopefully we'll be rolling this out on Sunday.

Battle of Copenhagen 1704. 10.3.13.

Last night 4 of us turned up to play this ficticious battle,based on a French invasion of Denmark.
The battle centred around 3 strongpoints,namely a small and insignificant village called Falst,occupied by one "raw" regiment of Danes(this village was meant to be just a "thorn in the side" of the attacking French,under Graham,but it turned out to be a "Hougomont-style" nuisance instead,with the French sending 6 regiments against it,and Brian sending his English reinforcements (3 regiments) to support it !!!!

The other 2 strongpoints were a town on the left flank of the Danes,called Mon,defended by me and attacked by Paul,and of course the city of Copenhagen,defended by Brian.
Reinforcements,in the form of an Irish brigade and a brigade of English (arriving by ship!) were due on move number 3.

This first photo shows the Danish left flank,and the town of Mon,about to be assailed by numerous French troops under Paul's command,the Irish are about to come onto the board just beyond the bridge.

This shows Copenhagen, and Graham's initial positions facing the city,plus our centre made up of cavalry and supporting infantry,what could go wrong? once the English arrive it's game over,isn't it??

Hurrah,the English ship has just sailed into the bay,the troops have manned the landing barges,and now it's up to Brian to decide where they will land,obviously it will be where they are needed most ,won't it ??

The Irish have also arrived,they will no doubt,like the English (?) make a real impact on the game !
At this time my centre and flank were being sorely tested by attack,after attack,Paul and Graham combining their infantry and cavalry wonderfully well. But don't worry,the English are going to land in a tactically important place soon.

On the Mon flank,my left,Paul has just forced one of my regiments back and has captured my gun (pure luck of course !) the centre is now looking fragile,however I've done well in the town and am holding my own (no law against that-yet!!)

This shot is of Hougomont,sorry Falst,being attacked by 3 regiments of French,you can just see the English "swanning around" in their little boats in the background,will they land on the flank of the main French line,or maybe in Copenhagen itself,ready to take some of the pressure off my troops, oh the suspense is killing me!!

The massive cavalry battle in the centre erupts! Graham did well here,supporting his front rank with squadrons from the rear squadrons,and pushing me back,however I refused to be drawn into a mass melee,and retire my rear squadrons to the flanks,ready to attack him if the opportunity arose,and it did!!

This shot shows Graham wondering ,like the rest of us, why Brian has decided to land his "veteran" English brigade behind the "Hougomont" which has become Falst,Graham also panicked and threw the rest of his infantry into stopping the English!! The French have a saying for this "quelle cock-up!!
The astute reader will notice that I am under considerable pressure on my flank and in the centre,I wish I had some reinforcements! Is that the Irish I see forming a beautiful firing line,combining nicely with the French right flank troops? I wish I had some reinforcements!!

My flank and centre have collapsed under weight of numbers,from the original French force under Paul,plus of course, his reinforcements,I wish I had some reinforcements!

That's right,sail away and report a victory to the Admiralty,Mon has fallen,Falst is in a state of ruin,and Copenhagen is about to be captured,if only I had some reinforcements!!
Brian and I lost the game,which was played in good spirit,correct tactics were used,and the "bay" was used,what more could you want from a wargame-well,some reinforcements would have been nice!!

Roll on Thursday when Brian and I will be play-testing my Indians and Rangers.

Bay Watch,painting update.

I finished my "bay" project earlier than I thought,so here are some photo's;

I have outlined the required shape of the bay in this shot,and have painted the blue onto it.

This shows the banks painted on,using a mix of brown and green poster paints,as per lake!

Some "unkindly" souls may think that this is a photo from my holidays when I was a lad! However it's not,I have put a couple of palm trees and a mountain on to the bay to see what the end effect will look like-I'm pleased!!

Same terrain pieces,different angle! Hopefully the lake and bay will give us a bit more flexibility in our games,and we can incorporate beach landings,attacks on ports etc.etc.

I wish to report that,whilst I was doing these very important "projects" my wife was busy decorating the kitchen!! Well, division of labour,equal rights,it's only fair that I make sure she's spending her time productively !! (I hope she doesn't read this)

Supplies,Surprise Brittania 60AD.

Last night 4 of us played an Ancients game based upon an ambush of a Roman supply train,by a bunch of Barbarian warbands.
Richard and I were the Barbarian commanders,and Paul and Brian assumed the roles of Roman commanders.

The scenario was that a supply train (Paul) was approaching a Roman Fort (Brian),that had sent out an escort to see it into the fort,however a combination of German and Gallic tribes were out to capture the supply train,defeat the Roman escort and capture the Fort !!

The first photo shows Brian's command,and his escort on its way to meet up with Paul.

This is my command,a mixed bunch of warbands,cavalry and a couple of chariots,the Roman commanders could not react to our positions until we had cleared the tree lines.

This shows Paul's supply train marching onto the board,being watched by a German tribe (these were actually a decoy,and could not be used aggressively !!)

This is Richard's command,he had firm instructions to capture the fort,and/or distract as many Roman troops away from my main attack on the escort and supply train,he did a damned good job !!

Battle is joined ! My Gauls have launched themselves at the escort troops,at the same time as Richard is attacking the fort,things did not go as planned,due to our rotten "random movement dice" throws,which saw 3 of my units refusing to move,and 2 of Richard's !!

In this shot,Richard has managed to get into the fort,against great odds,however the Romans have support, and fought back,eventually pushing the Germans back out of the fort.
Brian was told he could use my never-used Tetudos,however he decided not to,and so they sat in their box,alone and rejected,just waiting for someone to play with them.(sounds like my Willy!!)

Look at this ! Germans all over the place,it was like watching the "Hokey-Cokey" in,out ,in out,shake it all about !! This was an exciting part of the battle,both Brian and Richard reinforcing the melee,and hoping for a good dice throw.

This is a view from Paul's side of the table,his Auxilliary inf. and cavalry are just managing to hold me in the melees,but Richards pressure is telling,and Brian had to divert his cohorts,thus allowing me to "double-up" on Paul's hard-pressed troops.

Brian's escort troops are being hard pressed in this shot,as Richard piles more and more warbands into the melee,however Brian had "spare " cohorts and he piled them into the fray too,until a massive brawl was taking place just outside the fort.

The Romans,under Brian's capable command,is winning the day,and Richard's Germans are being forced back,their morale broke and they fled !!

This shows Brian trying to cope with adding up all his points in the melee,it's amazing how counting 3 numbers gets quite difficult at times !! -serves him right for not using the Testudos !! Richard looks to be "Gloating"- now that's a bad thing to do,as we all know.

A tremendous game,good fun,and could have gone either way,at the end of the night,the Romans got their supply train into the fort,which was still in Roman hands,however the Gauls were still strong and in a position to attack the fort,so we called it a draw,although if I'm honest a Roman win would have been fairer.

I, as you know, have been working on a French and Indian war project,and I thought it would enhance the planned games if we had a "lake" as a bit of terrain,consequently I bought a piece of MDF (for 50p-no expense spared with me!!) drew an outline of the required lake,making sure that my other terrain pieces,ie. mountains,trees etc. fitted onto the shoreline,and painted the surface blue.

In this photo I have painted the shoreline a mixture of brown and green (poster paint) and must admit I was pleased with the result.Just to be sure I painted another coat of blue,and then another coat of the brown/green mix,placed some terrain pieces onto the finished article,and took the following photo's.

So far so good,everything fits in ok,and I like the look of it.

Indians!!just to get the feel of the period.

Now I'm just showing off my photographic skills !! The overall effect is just what I wanted,and on the back of the Lake ,I'm goint to paint a "bay" so we can have beach landings etc.That, hopefully will be done by Friday.

Epic Marlburian battle.28.2.13.

Last night's game saw an epic battle,devised by Brian,consisting of two equal armies fighting for set objectives,which had been given points values,the winner was the army with most points at the end of the night.
Paul commanded an Anglo-Danish army consisting of 12 inf. regiments and 6 cavalry regiments,whilst Icommanded a mixed Irish-Spanish-Bavarian army of the same size.---No artillery !!

The table was laid out with a road disecting the width,with a farm at both ends,and a hill and a wood in front of each position-these were the objectives we had to take.

Paul elected to place all of his infantry and half of his cavalry on the left of his farm,leaving only 3 cavalry to defend the right hand portion of his side of the board. I elected to split my army equally to the left and right of the road on my side of the board.

The battle commenced with a general movement forward by both sides,I held my left flank back for a couple of moves to see where Paul's thrust was going to be,I then swung my Bavarians into action,and tried to outflank him,and stormed his farm at the same time.

This is shot of my right flank attempting to take the hill on Paul's left flank,with my combined Irish and Spanish troops,Paul's farm can be seen in the left background.Brian's newly painted Danish infantry are in the thick of the fire-fight,as well as some British infantry.

This is Paul,surveying the advancing Bavarians,who are menacing his lines and farm,the fire-fight on the hill went on for most of the game,with Paul cunningly trying to outflank my right,with infantry.I had placed half my cavalry on my right flank,and, as our rules do not permit cavalry,in this period,to frontally charge infantry,they were impotent,and I had to try and extricate them without getting fired on!!

Both sides are blazing away in this shot,although my Irish are being outflanked,because of the retiring cavalry,this was my "undoing" on this hill,and,at the end of the game,Paul was successful in gaining the points for it.

This shot shows my Bavarians gaining ground and putting Paul's British contingent under alot of pressure,hiscavalry have retired from their original position and he is massing them in his centre.Having moved forward un-opposed I have captured the wood and hill to my front,and gained their points values.

At this point in the epic fire-fight,Paul said "something's got to give soon" and it did!! One of my Irish regiments broke,however at the same time two of Paul's regiments decided to call it a day and retired.Paul was in a good position,because he had massed all of his infantry on this flank,and could replace the fleeing units from his reserves-I could not!!

This shows Paul's magnificent outflanking move against my Irish,now having to face two fronts,with my "impotent" cavalry milling around like spare legs!!

My Bavarians have been ordered to capture the farm,more easily said than done!After two rounds of melee,they were "seen off" by the brave defenders,and Paul had saved his farm,and more importantly,the points it represented.

The final photo! After 16 moves it was quarter past ten,so we decided to count the points up,it turned out that we both had the same number of points,so a draw was declared,which was a very fair result.

A good game,lots of manoeuvre,lots of excitement,highs and lows,what more could you want from a wargame? Well done to Brian for coming up with this scenario,and it was good to have Dave "pop in " for a couple of hours before going on to night shift -now there's dedication!!

Roll on Sunday.

Macedonians etc. vs Romans 27.2.13.

As I was feeling a bit better this morning,Brian and I decided we would have an Ancients game.
As a bit of a change we put Imperial Romans,c/w auxilliaries and Barbarian troops against a "hotch-pot" army of Macedonians,Thracians and Illyrians!!
Brian took the Romans and I took the Macedonians etc.

This first photo shows the overall set up of the table,Romans on the left,and Macedonians etc. on the right.

This is a shot of my central phalanx,which advanced in grand style towards the waiting Roman ranks.

This is the Roman centre,cohorts poised,ready to do battle against the mighty phalanx,if only I can persuade Brian to abandon his pila,I might stand a chance !!

Early moves,Brian and I both had the same plan,try to outflank with auxilliaries and Barbarians,and cavalry,hold in the centre,for as long as possible,and then sweep onto any exposed flank!! sounds simple,and it was,but with mixed fortunes along the way.

Brian's barbarians have charged my left flank,his cohorts are making headway in the centre,am I about to be undone ??

This is my right flank under pressure from a combination of arms!! This battle swung both ways for a while,and I thought I had won the flank,only to be charged by two cohorts,brought swiftly up to save the day for the Romans.

With a "flurry" of low dice scores,Brian managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory,and I pushed him back along the whole of the centre,however,as we all know,the Romans are nothing if not persistent,and they fought back well.

This is a shot of my left flank,being pressurised by a bunch of hairy and wild Barbarians,whilst the Roman cavalry are putting my light cavalry to flight!!

My left flank is under pressure,my right flank is gone,and now the Roman cohorts are breaking through my centre !!

This is the final photo,with the Roman general (Brian) sending more and more troops into the fray,I had nothing left to stem the tide,and the Romans were declared the winners.
This was,once again, a great game,good tactics and battle plans,playing to the strengths of the troop types in our armies.

Roll on Thursday night,me against Paul,in a scenario devised by Brian,who will be referee.