Club Night 30th July

Tonight Andy and I played an Impetus game pitching Imperial Macedonians against Achemenid Persians. Andy was the defender with the Macedonians, a small force of good troops under quality leadership, while Scot joined me with a much larger Persian force of debatable quality, under some dubious commanders!

It immediately went from looking dubious to just bad, as the right Macedonian flank tuned out to be commanded by a better quality general than expected, while on the opposite flank the Persian cavalry was under a C-in-C who was not as good as he claimed to be!

The cavalry was quickly engaged and surprisingly the Persians held against their better opponents and began to grind them down, while the Macedonian infantry advanced slowly, and on mass towards the Persian troops.

The infantry engagement quickly focused on two areas, the centre where the Persians pelted their advancing enemy with missiles, killing some skirmishers but loosing some of their own in return. The main Macedonian pike blocks were unable to bring their fighting prowess to the fight as the Persians fell back, although their javelins and arrows were not enough to cause substantial losses. There was finally one small fight as the Persians sent their Greek Hopolites against part of the Pike block and managed to drive it back with a number of losses.

On the Persian right an equally balanced fight took place between the flank command and its levy infantry and the skirmishers and pelsats the Macedonian had sent through the wood.

On the opposite flank the Persian cavalry was finally being driven back by the numerically inferior, but qualitatively superior companions and their supporting horse. And it was this flank that proved to be decisive, as the guard cavalry was destroyed, the C-in-C fled the battle field and the rest of the cavalry began to take heavy looses. Eventually this caused the command to break, and with the losses elsewhere, although relatively light, it was enough to break the Persian army which withdrew leaving the victorious Macedonian in command of the field.

Crawley Club 26th July - Warhammer 8th Edition

Luke and I headed up the club after work to finally try out Warhammer 8th Edition. Luke took his old Dwarves and I used my Beastmen. It was a very bloody, but exciting game, which the Dwarves narrowly won.

The new rules have made the combats far more viscous and the new charge rules make movement that little less predictable, and the Dwarves are now a feasible close-combat army, much to Luke's joy.

The magic is far more random and can not be relied on as a battle winner. However it is also possible to cast the most powerful spells with the lowest of Wizards. My level 1 Shaman managed to summon a giant to the fight.

The change will take some getting used to, but it looks like GW have been really successful in adding a new lease of life to Warhammer and opening up new challenges for players. And I have to say not a moment too soon, the tournaments were beginning to stagnate and become samey with the same armies winning and the same tricks being used. Now we are all back to learning tactics for our armies afresh.

Club Night 23rd July

Tonight I joined a game run a 25mm French-Indian wars game run by Ian using the Savage Worlds role-play rules. This gives quite a quick skirmish with enough detail to be interesting, but not so much it gets bogged down. I commanded one of the French detachments defending the stockade, along with the Indians and a small unit of Coer de Bois outside the stockade. Steve H had a similar unit of French and the militia on the other side of the stockade.

Against me I had Andy and Steve K with two units of the infamous Ranger, British Regulars and British Marines (not yet Royal, that happened in 1802). While the Ranger moved out around each flank the British attacked the Indians and the Marines the stockade.

I was able to put out enough fire to disrupt the Rangers over round to my right with the Coer de Bois, while I had to hope the terrain delayed a similar move to my left. Meanwhile the Indians opened up a desultory fire against the Regulars as they implacably advanced upon them. Eventually they drove the Indians out with their bayonets just as the Rangers fell on their flank and only 4 survivors made it back to the stockade.

In the centre the Marine attacked straight up the hill at the Stockade. Carefully directed fire caused enough casualties and disruption that when they hit the wall they were outnumbered and I could move men to assist those fighting and swing the fights in my favour. The Marines were eventually driven off to be replaced by another wave of their fellow, who adopted the same approach.

The weary French struggled more but it was the same result, just in time for some of the French to move to the other wall to join the Indians, and some forces from the opposite side of the Stockade who had pinned down more British regular and their Indian allies ready to face the flanking Rangers and the other British Regulars. See the results of the other assaults and that were now on their own they chose discretion and withdrew leaving a victorious French still in command of their position.

Great Lakes Naval

Just a quick post, I have foudn some wonderful card ship models at the Warartisan, whch I ave purchased and plan to build and detail with Rod Langton figures and guns. This will be a wway off, but I will keep you posted.

Club Night 16th July

For the first time in a few weeks I had the pleasure of laying in a game I had not organised. Steve K set up an ACW black powder based loosely on a Quatre Bras type layout. I joined Ian commanding the Confederates, while Andy, Bob and Scott took the attacking Northerners.

I immediately decided the best defence is a good offence, and stormed off my hill, leaving Ian to hold the line while I put in a spoiling attack. And what an attack it was! I was nearer the Northerner board edge than I had started to my own and was fighting them hard as they tried to deploy from their match columns. In the Union numbers and short range artillery told and the Brigade was destroyed.

Their losses were not in vain through. Poor command had prevented the other Union flank advancing as quickly as it would like and our reserves had arrived threatening the columns on our right and reinforcing the centre, so by the time the Union troops had reorganised themselves and finally attacked the ridge the positions were stronger than they had been at the start of the game.

Despite the heavy losses, the Confederate had achieved a victory and delayed the Union advance. Now they should have been able to gather their army and will be in a better position for the next battle...

Club Night 9th July

Tonight I umpired a game of Bayonet and Ideology (BAIT) for the SCW. BAIT is a Peter Pig set of rules and very similar to PBI and I was fortunate enough to be part for the play test team for them. The initial Moroccan recon was very successful, but their attempt to transfer this intelligence into an attack less so. They did finally manage to launch an attack, but found the terrain their opponent had chosen to defend was heavily built up.

None the less they launched their attack on the first built up areas forming the outskirts of the larger town and moved their machine guns up around the flank. Despite losses they persisted in their attacks, under artillery cover and finally pushed into these first areas.

Attempts to push on further met with more losses and was unsuccessful, but still resulted in a narrow victory for the Moroccans as they had seized their primary objective and inflicted equally grievous losses in their enemy.

Club Night 2nd July

Tonight I ran an Indian Mutiny games, using a sightly modified Battle of Bareilly scenario courtesy of the Canberra black powder group. Ian and Steve K took the British, while Andy and Duncan took the Mutineers. The mutineers deployed in three lines (below), 1 on the river, a second on the hills behind and a third back in the cantonments.Duncan in his usual style took most of the Cavalry and the religious fanatics and stormed forward on either flank to delay the British advance. The British appeared to co-operate with some uninspired command rolls moving them forward very slowly. In contract the mutineers rushed forward, and their artillery proved remarkably accurate and discorded the British cavalry screen. On the British left they were even forced to rush their guns forward to counter what proved to be the first of many fanatic and cavalry charges.
In the centre the British line and Gurkhas advanced slowly with their flanks vulnerable to marauding natives. However, although the Indians were taking heavy casualties they were proving successful at delaying the advance, and as a result the mutineers line along the river and its supporting artillery on the hill behind was able to concentrate against the British centre and cause heavy casualties.

As both sides began to disengage due to losses it was clear that the Mutineers were the true victors, they had held their lines, stopped the British advance and could now retreat into the defences at Bareilly itself in good order, having lost very few of the Sepoys themselves.