Club Night 19th August

Luke and I decided to channel our excitement over the release of Hellfire and Back and actually play some test games. We played around with various lists that we could build using proxies from our mid war to count as for early war, although we were surprised how much we could do without needing any new purchases.

Our first game matched a Comaigna Carri from the Italians against a British Jock Column in the new dust up scenario. With the high quality of the British, especially the RHA, I had a numerical advantage, but would have to cope with Italians with considerably less training and experience than I am used to, although their individual bravery is as good as ever. Setting up in opposite corners with an objective behind us I started with mostly armour and some supporting artillery, while the British deployed recce vehicles and 2 and 25 pounders of the RHA.

The massed RHA guns hammered my armour as I struggled with the handicap of the slow tanks before they had their engines upgraded and so an unusual lack of mobility. The recon swept around my right, joined my the British reserves and drove towards my artillery holding my objective, leaving just my CO among the burned out wrecks of the Italian armour.

However, hidden as he was by smoke and dust they ignored him and he was able to inflict heavy damage on the light British vehicles and my gunners (traditionally always the elite of the Italian armed forces) held off the rest, while my motorcycle troops arrived from reserve and swept onto the enemy objective, holding it despite heavy fire from the RHA as the British suddenly realised the nature of the threat and tried to react, but it was too late the Italians claimed a narrow and hard fought victory.

Above: Brits Flank attack, Below: Italians seize victory

After this game we decided we had time for another game, this time a Bersaglieri company against a British Armoured Regiment. However we ended up playing the new witches cauldron variant on the cauldron mission, and with no infantry and artillery support the British would have a very tough time defeating the dug in infantry with primary machine guns. And this was exactly what happened, the Italians lost some force to the weight of fire, and the coastal artillery when it tried to redeploy when the British attacked only on one flank, but in return dug-in 47 and 75mm guns made short work of the enemy armour, with the extra luck of hitting and stopping the CS tanks early on too. A decisive Italian victory.

Also on was a Great Northern war game. This has been a pet project of Andy and Colin's for some time and to see it all set out on the boards from Tannenburg it looked amazing so I took a couple of pictures.