Club Night 25th June

Duncan and I played a 1/300th Cold War scenario using Modern Spearhead rules with Fire & Fury inspired command rules that used to be available on the Timecast website. Our scenario pitted some Canadians defending three river crossings to be re-enforced by whatever NATO could make available, against a Helo assault by the Russians to capture the bridges for the following up tank division.

It started well as the two bridges I chose to attack being defended by the poorest quality of Duncan's 3 companies, why the better quality company was defending the more isolated bridge, but I decided the supporting defences were worth the risk for my forces being able to support each other.

My Airborne troops landed and quickly engaged the defenders with the support of their helicopter gunships. Meanwhile a disorganised NATO response was beginning with a battalion of slow moving Chieftains arriving at the furthest road from the actual fighting! In contrast the Soviets were arriving in a nice organised formations, spread along all three of the possible roads.

While the troops on the third road, that had not been attacked by air landings ran into stiff opposition, with all the NATO reserves arriving on the same two roads at this end of the battle field and the Apache and Air strikes coming in there too, they made little headway. However at the opposite end the green company defending the bridge was defeated and the Soviets began to deploy themselves around the bridge in the town to defend it as the first elements of the follow up forces crossed the bridge.

In the centre the progress was slower but the assault force having linked up with the follow up armour, the were making good headway and pushing NATO back and eventually secured this crossing to.

Although casualties had been high, the WARPACT forces had taken two crossings, helped by organised reserves, while the NATO forces all arrived at the opposite end of the battlefield. If they had arrived at the end the main Soviet attack went in, it could have been very different.

Horus Heresy @ Luke's, 23 June

On a sunny Wednesday evening, heartened by England's ability to scrape through to the World Cup knockout stages, Luke and I decided to play another game of Fantasy Flight Games Horus Heresy Board game. We have played this once before, and I won as the Imperial forces, by Luke's initial corruption and bombardment being very unsuccessful and then storming aboard the Vengeful Spirit with Sangunius and his Blood Angels and cut a path to Horus, before finally cutting him down.

This time we swapped sides and I took the role of the traitors and Luke played the staunch loyalists. My first move after some successful corruption and bombardment was to drop pods some World Eaters into the southern hive and attack the Fabricator General and his men. I succeeded in driving all his men out, before being forced to retire in turn. In the battle that had erupted where men had turned to the forces of chaos I defeated the Imperials and found myself in control of all 4 spaceports earlier than planned, so now tried to reinforce as quickly as possible to hold onto them until I could claim victory.

Angragon and the forces of Khorne found themselves under a viscous counterattack from the Khan and his White Scars. Despite the loss of Angragon I managed to hold the spaceport, and eventually re-enforce it (Here I also used a nice little card combo, terrify with daemons to force three units of lesser rank to rout with blood for the blood god, to make routers be eliminated instead).

Meanwhile I had re-enforced two of the other spaceports with the forces of Tzeentch and Slaanesh. The eternity gate spaceport however was held by a small force, although it included Montarion and a Chaos Titan. An attempt to reinforce it with Death Guard Marines in Drop Pods met with utter failure as they were all destroyed by the mass of defence lasers around the port. The Imperial forces then launched their final counter attack. By the time this was over we would be virtually at the spaceport victory turn and if they had not dislodged the traitors all was lost. Rogal Dorn led Imperial army units, Blood Angels and his own Imperial Fists against the bridgehead. Using the combat card maleficent plague I forced Luke to use 5 shield to avoid the risk of having his whole force wiped out. This meant that his final play of card gave him 10 damage, I countered 3, leaving 7 to absorb, which I managed leaving just one battered Nurgle war-band to hold the port, and claim victory for the forces of Horus. Should Luke have taken the risk to ensure he had the combat power? We will now never know for Terra has fallen to the Chaos lords.

Warlords Doubles Tornemant 13th June

I, and a very sleepy Luke, just off a night shift, headed down to Wargames heaven in Brighton to participate in Warhammer double tournament, and to meet up with the lads from Pompey. AS we needed painted figures, Luke used his dwarves and I finished off my bright wizard to add to my empire. With a force built around fire-power, we were not going to do amazingly, but avoiding any serious defeats was our aim.

Game 1: Vs. Double Daemons 835 to 1172, minor defeat
Our first game was against a combined Daemon army, led by two Khornate heralds on Juggers supported by a horde of fleshhounds. We managed to shoot off most of the fleshhounds and take the charge on our toughest units, but even so there was nothing we could do to stop the combined might of the two heralds. We did stop the flank attack from the fiends of Slaanesh, but with the rest of the army hiding outside our gun line there was little we could do to score any more victory points.

Games 2: Vs. Dark Elf & Skavern 1090 to 825, minor victory
Our second game combined the shooting of a Dark Elf army with the numbers of a Skavern army. It was a vicious close game, but the highlight was the Hydra charging the steam tank, failing to hurt it and fleeing, only to be run down by it the following turn!

Game 3: Vs. Dark Elf & Orc 1046 to 1088, draw
The third game was against an army not dissimilar to the previous one we had faced, although the Orcs had slightly less numbers and more combat prowess than the Skavern. Again it was a tight close game that was highly enjoyable.

Game 4: Vs. Double Skavern 330 to 1697, massacred
Our last game was the least enjoyable, and very one sided. However this should not take anything away from our jovial and likable opponents. Unlike some armies present they had a fairly balanced army. However we made the mistake of letting them go first, and then, when they unveiled their Storm Banner to prevent us shooting, it was almost all over. The fact we failed our rolls to fire our cannon and the steam tank did not help. Nor did the fact that once the steam tank took some slight damage, I could roll nothing but 6's for the steam points so it just took more damage and did nothing. The only highlight was that we almost killed the plague furnace, by cleverly running away from it into a wood. It was stuck with just 1 wound left, but there was nothing left to finish it off.

We finished a lowly 12th, but most disappointing was that we picked up no most sporting awards. I suspect there may have been some partisan scoring going on here as one thing Luke and I always pride ourselves on is that we play games in a friendly manner and try to have fun first, with victory second.

Club Night 11th June

Yet another FOW games, and I'm not getting bored yet! This time Mike and I used his DAK to take on Luke's 8th Army. Centred around a newly arrive Tiger, the Germans were lucky to get an elite crew (three sixes rolled for crew skills). However a breakthrough scenario seriously tested the smaller German force against the entrenched British. With the heavily armoured Motor platoons the British laid down a devastating fire, enhanced by their artillery and decimated the DAK infantry. No matter how good the Tiger crew was, on its own against increasing numbers of British armour and anti-tank guns, with its supporting armour failing to show up, the British took the victory.

A second scenario placed the British in the centre of the table in a cauldron battle. This time the quality of the Germans told, as they were able to bring all their forces to bear, and overrun the antitank guns and 25 pounders with their infantry while the armour attacked from the opposite direction. With their own armour destroyed and their antitank smashed there was nothing the British could do to resist the German attack.

Club Night 4th June

Luke and I played a FOW, joined by Chris Dell and Steve K, with an Italian force of infantry and artillery defending in a cauldron battle against a British armoured force. The infantry company deployed in a large circle, with each platoon occupying half the position , with an artillery battery covering it. The British were lucky with their deployment, enabling them to concentrate their forces against one side of the enemies position, negating half their force. Despite some initial casualties from the guns the British tanks were able to overrun the infantry positions, followed up by their supporting armour. Spread over such a wide position, and with limited antitank suppressed by the 25 pounders, there was little the Italians could do to repel them.

Partizan 2010 and Mikes

I took a week off work and headed up to Mike's for some well earned R&R. After a nightmare journey around the M25 I finally arrived. We spent Saturday preparing for Partizan on the Sunday. Mike had made some beautiful (yet simple) stone walls and entrenchments which between us we sprayed up and painted, along with some flexible road made from plant pot self watering material. We sorted out all the figures and finalised the scenario. Below is the confederate force all organised and ready to pack up.
With a very full car we arrived at Kelham hall and began to set up. Yet again we managed to pull off a very good looking table with only minimal planning by just calculating everything on paper. How we keep manage to make this work is beyond me, but the table top looked fabulous and with the 54mm figures on it looked even better. The battle for Pardees field or lower Culp's hill was ready to go.

Chris and Al took the Union forces while Mike and I had the Confederates. The Confederate plan was to sweep over Culp's hill while occupying the majority of the Union forces. Unfortunately while my flank complied, Mike could not pass a command roll and I found myself facing the bulk of the Union army alone. Taking heavy casualties I managed to seize the lower hill, but was halted here, and the counter attack from the reserve brigade and Pardee's Pennsylvanians driving the confederates back.

After a lunch break Mike seemed to have been revitalised and began to advance and tie up part of the Union forces, while the Alabamans of O'Neals brigade occupied the original Confederate starting positions in a revised battle plan that sought more to avoid defeat than claim victory. However an opportunity presented itself and some of the Alabamans attacked Culp's hill and seized the heights. A late counter attack from McDougalls 2nd Brigade resulted in the game finishing with two beaten brigades occupying the hill, 1 Union and 1 Confederate and neither side able to claim victory.

A quite Monday followed where Mike and I spent the day organising rules for the Boxer Rebellion using Black Powder, so hopefully we will soon be able to run one of these.