Club Night 16th March

Luke and I decided to give V3 another good play through (since the campaign had been V2 the finale was also V2 rules), and to try out some proper mid-war forces. Luke took a Grant squadron and I took my Squadrone Esplorante supported by tanks and self propelled guns. The first mission saw Luke attacking a breakthrough mission.

With my light armour dashing around to get flank and rear shots on the heavy Grants it quickly degenerated into a proper knife fight engagement, while my infantry tried to hold onto the village overlooking the objectives. However the heavy weight of the British armour proved my undoing and I was defeated in a great game.

Unfortunately our second game was not anywhere near as fun. It was the surrounded mission with me in the centre. With the open terrain and little room for manoeuvre and heavy armour on both sides I was smashed by the 75s using semi-indirect fire as I tried to close to a position where I could actually engage them.

Two games vs Luke. RECAM vs Grant sqdrn. Breakthrough, then surrounded.

Club Night 9th March

Luke and I dusted off (in some case literally) the figures and buildings from our 2009 show game and decided to give the original version of Ambush alley another try. This time we played the Alamo scenario with the Israelis under Luke in the centre and me commanding the Arabs surrounding them.
I hurried my forces forward to close with Luke's forces and stop them being able to move. My opening volleys pinned them down, but as they returned fire I began to take casualties. And now my problems began, although my force did receive regular reinforcements, they all seemed to be single special weapons men. With the way Ambush Alley works this is quite problematic as single men do not work at all, so all I was doing was adding to my existing teams at a slower rate than I was taking casualties without being able to attack from a different direction and stretch the Israelis.
I really enjoyed this game, but I am still not quite sure about the mechanism, we will just have to try the rules again!

Club Sunday 4th March

We finally managed to reschedule our campaign finale for Operation Crusader. With the British attempt to break out from Tobruk a failure it was already an Axis victory, but now I launched my forces in a final attempt to take the city against their reduced defenders.

To make a proper finale Luke came up with a 3 linked battle scenario. A force of Italian Bersaglieri had broken trough the lines and where in a cauldron scenario, whole another force launched an all out assault on another part of the lines, while my RECAFM force of armoured cars and light tanks launched a break through. The idea was that the breakthrough table led into the Italians side of the cauldron table, and the British side of the cauldron table led it the rear of the defences on the all out assault table. Forces could only move off one table to the next once they had won their table and took a full turn to arrive (the dust and noise signaling their potential arrival). In addition all undeployed troops formed a reserve pool and could be committed to any table, although no table could receive more reserves than it rolled to arrive.

I took my RECAFM force against Steve, while Luke commanded the defences against Scott's assault and new member Colin took the Allies against Rick on the final table.
I started with my usual recce moves and then smashed into one flank of the defenders and began rolling up their line, while on the other flank I chose not to dig my guns in and to use their full ROF to remove all threats. This very nearly worked, I certainly removed most of the anti-tank threats to let my armour roam free, but failed to knock out the MGs that then caused massed casualties among my artillery.
Meanwhile my vehicles swept around the flank and pushed on towards the objective. On the main assault Scott was pushing forward , while Rick had destroyed the immediate threats to his positions, but was coming up massed artillery fire and was unable to respond effectively.

As reserves began to arrive, we committed the mobile forces to my table and my motorcycle infantry joined in on the attack on the objective, while pioneers supported the main assault. With a secure position Rick received very few reserves. On the allied side Luke was left holding his defences with only the few units he started with, while Rick found more and more artillery added to his opponent and I faced all the light armour and anti-tank they could muster to stop my armoured cars.
Gradually numbers told and my force broke, while Rick had been pounded and with the arrival of Steve's forces was in an untenable situation. The bright spot for the Axis, is with no reserves Luke was in an increasingly stretched position and Scott finally became the first player to breakthrough and win an all-out assault.

Despite losing two and the three games and so losing overall, it was a Pyrrhic victory for the Allies as they had ultimately lost and their offensive had been repelled.

Club Night 2nd March

Luke, Steve and I played an early war Flames of War as our first test of the new 3rd edition of the rules. I took an infantry force, supported by all 12 of my new tankettes and Luke took a Jock column with Steve assisting him.

With two relatively immobile forces and a meeting engagement scenario this was always going to be a slow game. The British sat back, while I attacked with my tankettes on both flanks and initially made really good progress with massed machine gun fire and the limited anti-tank the British had. As I closed on the objectives it all went wrong though.

Under massed rifle fire I rolled massed of 1s and 2s and saw many of my tankettes stopped in their tracks or destroyed in the ensuing combat. Having been neaten back I launched an infantry assault on my left flank, but this met similar resistance.
At this point I know I was near to breaking and pulled back to try and stem the British counter attack, which was then launched and, with the loss of my CO, when I did reach breaking point they one.

I actually found this a very frustrating game as I was forced into attacking in what should have been a meeting engagement, and instead was an attack by me on an equal force that was really doomed to failure from the start.

On a more positive note I think the 3rd edition rules are exactly what a new edition should be. Eased by the fact 2nd edition players got a free copy, I think the club was always going to move onto the new edition, but I think this is a good thing, all the changes are for the best and see to properly evolve the rules, rather than changing for the sake of a new edition. The only thing I am less happy about is the auto-range in for aircraft. It makes sense in most theatres, but in the desert with no terrain to hide in they can become very powerful, especially when with the Italians I have very little AA compared to the Germans and, especially, the British Bofors.

Skirmish Wargames Weekend Pt. 3

On Sunday the terrain was changed by adding a mass of adobe buildings and a landing dock with a ship. One party of mountain men were at the dock to make a sale to the ships captain, while the others were out to prevent the sale! As I was running the rules my characters held back and did not get too involved, although one leapt on board the ship as it sailed away, inadvertently joining the ships crew!
The highlights for me was Beth and Pops arguing and fighting among themselves, despite being nominally on the same size, and the man mountain throwing his opponents left and right as if they were rag dolls.
Mikes chili then finished off a great gaming weekend.

Skirmish Wargames Weekend Pt. 2

Saturday saw us transfer to the Florence Nightingale hall, a short drive from Mikes, and set up the table for the weekend. With a bit of creativity Tom and I managed to get the floor laminate converted into a nice irregular river front, with a wide open desert adjacent to it as we travelled to the Sudan. Mike has been lucky enough (and we hate him for it!) to get one of the magnificent William Britain's Sudan river gunboats. This formed one part of the Allied forces, with a cannon and machine gun, while at the far end of the table two 3 man units of the Royal Sussex under Captain Winsbury and Sgt. Tom Chard were collecting fuel in a small wood. And then the Mahdists arrived

Arriving randomly along the board edge opposite the river the majority of the forces seemed to arrive at the opposite and of the table from the wood patrol and found themselves under fire from the machine gun and can in mounted on the steamer.

My force was quickly annihilated, but others managed to do better.
Ted managed to make it to the foot off the steamers gangplank before he was cut down. At the opposite end if the table two groups of Mahdi had arrived nearer the patrol and were cautiously advancing having seen the devastation wrought on their compatriots by the Europeans weaponry. They finally managed to engage the British infantry in melee, inflicting a number of casualties, including Sergeant Chard. Despite this the carnage from the machine gun had won a clear victory for the Anglo-Egyptians.

The second game for the day was supposed to continue in from the morning, but hadn't quite worked out correct, but we persevered none the less. The British were again deployed in the woods, but this time they had been cut off and had a camel corps force coming to their rescue.

While a number of Mahdi engaged the enemy directly, I was in ambush in the mosque and burst out as the camels rode past to attack them.
I was brushed aside by the Camel Corps although our forces against the British fared better in viscous melee, cutting down Sgt. Chard again!

Skirmish Wargames Weekend Pt. 1

I travelled up to Derbyshire to stay with Mike and be joined by a number of other skirmish gamers for a weekend of 54mm gaming. Friday afternoon saw myself, Mike, Ted and Alan G gathering at Mike's to play a Pavia game hosted by Ted with a mix of old Britains, some newer ones and some figures from the various Russian collectible ranges, including some of the most beautiful pavises I have ever seen. The detail was amazing.

The rules were the Foundry Conditorri rules and as I had seen nothing of them other than a fairly neutral review when they were first released I was interested in seeing how they worked. They are not really true skirmish rules, rather a small unit actions, we used half sized units, so foot were 8-12 and cavalry in groups of 5. The playsheet with the rules has masses of missing information, but Ted made up a much better additional set that included everything you needed to know.

I was the defender, with Alan and Mike attacking, while Ted umpired. All the units were laid out and I got to pick which ones I would use, and the attackers go the rest. I decided to go with the big pike block, with crossbowman and aquebusiers to flank them, a medium gun and a light gun. I added a unit of knights to this and a unit of mounted crossbow, which I made my veteran unit, with excellent shots.

As the attackers moved through the gap in the wall and advanced towards me, I rushed my mounted crossbow forward to one flank and began to borrow bolts into the advancing units, much to Mikes consternation, while Alan advanced up the opposite flank with the majority of the enemy foot.

Then things took a turn for worst. Conditorri uses random event cards, and Mike drew and played 'Fog'. Very accurate for Pavia, but the massive reduction in shooting range really hurt me. I committed my knights against the remains of Mikes foot that had been shot by the mounted crossbow, who had to redeploy as they found a swamp in front of them (another random event card). I ran this unit down, and the heavy gun behind them, but then Mike committed his own knights, who were the attackers elite unit and gradually got the upper hand in the combat.

Back on the ridge another random event card affect my crossbow men, who decided this wasn't looking too good and almost all of them fled from the table (although we maybe should have tweaked this card to allow for the smaller starting size of units)! By now Alan had remorselessly closed on my defenders and although the Pike was holding, the handgonners were being decimated. I committed the mounted crossbowmen to the rear of the melee against the pikemen to swing it in mu favour, but my pike block was then hit in the flank and the aquebesiers collapsed completely, while the mounted troops got charged in turn and a massed melee ensured in which I was at a serious disadvantage now my pike was not fighting just to the front and I was eventually defeated, although the casualties I had inflicted on the enemy were much higher than they expected, and that was with the fog hampering my firing.

The only thing I might have changed was the cards we used for wounding. Ted had a lovely set of period cards, which added a great flavour, but I kept getting confused as to what the suits corresponded to in the rules!