Tuesday 28 June 2011

Club Night 24th June

Steve and I played another couple of games of the Crusader campaign. Our first game was quite a one sided game, with the British defending in a breakthrough scenario, but as they were an armoured force they had very little on the table and the Axis forces took full advantage of this.
My armoured cars rushed across the table to sit on the objective leaving an impressive trail of dust.Meanwhile the mass of Italian armour descended on the scattered British infantry and began to drive them back from their positions.Until they found themselves surrounded and were cut down by the tanks and another Axis victory was recorded driving the British forces North into another pocket.Our second game was far closer as played another cauldron battle, following our now familiar process of grinding each other down and trying to avoid defeat until the enemy broke, which they duly did, resulting in another pocket of allied troops destroyed or captured.

London Toy Soldier Show June 2011

I headed up to the King and Country Toy soldier show. We played a fun quick little game set in the Sudan with the lovely new Britains figures, where I had the pleasure(!) of cutting down Mikes characters, I also got a chance to snap some picture of the beautiful (and pricey) figures on offer.
Above: The Sudanese palace, Below: The Mahdist forces
Above: The British Zariba, Below: Figarati beach landing
Above: DAK on the TM Terrain stand, Below: Jon Jenkins Sudanese
Above and Below: British and Americas AWI by King and Country
Above: King and Country Italian War memorial (a bit big for my 15mms!), Below: Britains AWI
Above and Below: King and Country M13/40 variants

Club Night 22nd June

Chris and I headed up the club to try out Malifaux with his Order of the Chimera under Marcus against my Lady J crew. It was very slow going as we learnt the rules, but brilliant fun, and as a bonus I managed to win both games. I'd like to say due to my brilliance, but with a game like Malifaux, you need to know your crews strengths and weaknesses and Marcus is a bit more subtly and will take more learning than Lady J's simple charge in and hit everything approach!

A longer write up of future games will be posted when I take some pictures and don't leave it so long to write up the games!

Monday 6 June 2011

Club Sunday 5th June

Steve K and I headed up the club on Sunday to play some more games in the Crusader campaign. The first game saw my Bersaglieri from Trieste against a force of British armour with RHA support in a cauldron battle. The initial British deployment looked very sparse, but I know the 25 pounders were hidden out there somewhere.
The supporting armour from the DAK swept forward into a battery of 2 pounder portees. However there heavier guns and the massed fire-power I bought to bare on the enemy artillery reduced their anti-tank ability and enabled the Panzers to drive across the British positions and claim victory.

Our second game saw a German force attack more British armour and artillery support in another cauldron battle. Again the British kept their heavy artillery hidden until the last minute
This time it was much tougher as the force were far closer matched, and there were some nervous moments as two platoons of Stuarts arrived on the flanks of the Panzers. Fortunately their shooting was inaccurate, but then so was my return fire. The next exchange of fire was much more even.
In the end the Germans gradually crept forward, pouring fire on the British positions and managed to claim a narrow victory, although in the campaign we drove the British back, we lost the Panzer regiment which was a major blow.

Saturday 4 June 2011

Club Night 3rd June

The end of turn 4 was very good for the Axis forces as we managed to steal the initiative and push Ariete further south cutting off the major British thrust towards Tobruk. As we entered turn 5 the luck continued and I managed to win enough battle arrows to attack all the cut off elements, starting in the south and moving north, while an attack from 15th Panzer was launched to cut off another British attack towards Tobruk.

On Friday Steve K and I set up to play the first two attacks against the cut off British while Duncan commanded a German defence against an attack by the New Zealanders near Bardia. Duncan managed to hold off the British although it was a tough fight.

In the first game the isolated British Armoured regiment found that being out of supply reduced their strength while Ariete launch all 3 of its tank battalions against them. With the few British deployed in an arc during a cauldron battle I deployed a big arc of tanks against them. My superior numbers meant I could afford to sit and let the British come to me and destroyed them in short order by massed fire-power for a decisive victory, wiping out the British regiment in the campaign.
In the second game I attacked the second isolated British regiment with a force of Bersaglieri, supported by some heavy guns. In a breakthrough mission with an immobile force this could have proved problematic, but the allied commander made a mistake and deployed his armour forward, so I was able to deploy no less than 12 guns ranging in calibre from 47mm up to 100mm against them and destroyed all but 1, which sensibly was abandoned as the crew fled.
The rest of the battle was a little tougher as I ground forward under fire and tried to push the British infantry off the objective, but when their supporting armour turned up and also fell to my anti-tank guns victory was inevitable and once again the Italians were victorious, destroying another British regiment. The next game was scheduled for the following Sunday where I would attempt to wipe out a larger, but now totally isolated British force to decisively swing the campaign in the Axis favour by wiping out a large part of the allied armoured forces.

Wednesday 1 June 2011

Club Game Sunday 30th May

Mike has organised both Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000 leagues to run over the next 9 months. Since Chris D was off work and I was taking along weekend we decided to meet up for the inaugural game of the Warhammer league, pitting my Beastmen against Chris' Goblins.

And it was a struggle! Chris fielded a pair of giant spiders, but they actually were the least of my worries. He also had 4 units of 40 night goblin archers. And these caused me serious issues. Using volley fire they could chuck out 30 shots a turn, and if I tried to actually attack them, unleash 3 fanatics each.

And this was my downfall. My largely unarmed Beastmen suffered under unending missile fire. It may only be S3 against T4, but with the number of shots the odds were in the Gobbos favour. This was not helped by the unerring accuracy of their bolt shooters bringing down my giant, and failed charge rolls for my minotaurs exposing them to more fire so neither of my elite units even made it into combat.

Although my general on his chariot managed to cleave through a couple of units with some support the rest of my army fell. The only upside is the enemy shaman-general managed to blow himself up repeatedly and give away some valuable victory points. Hopefully the results for the rest of the league will improve!

Club Night 27th May

Steve K and I headed up early to do some club maintenance. Once we were done we played a game of Dystopian wars game with Luke joining us using a scenario generator from the Spartan Games Forum.

We rolled up the caught at anchor scenario with my Prussians being caught. The FSA swept forward and then sped into range and unlashed a devastating opening salvo, destroying the majority of frigates.

Although some of my ships then managed to get under-way and a viscous fight started in the mouth of the harbour as my battleship demonstrated its awesome short range firepower by returning the favour and wiping out the enemy frigates, while the cruiser from both side suffered in a mutual exchange.

The enemy battle ship and its supporting scout airships bombarded my sky fortress from range with rockets leaving it badly damaged and aflame and as the game proceeded the situation did not improve and the Prussians were defeated.

In the evening we played a Napoleonic Naval game with Langton Miniatures Signal Close Action rules. The purpose was to try out proper squadron orders and the increased strategic movement,. With all this it was not massively exciting as there was little fire exchanged but I liked some of the rules mechanisms. The multiple dice rolls for the entire turn was nice, but I felt some of the tasks seemed overly complicated for something intended for multiple vessels, they would appear more appropriate for single ship actions. I'd like to play them again before I pass judgement now we know what we are doing properly.