July 2026 Report

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The summer heat is still with us and no one has died.

First game of the month was from our El Cid collection using our home grown rules. The forces this time were an Almoravid & Emirates army and a later Christian Spanish army.

The Christians deployed with a strong right wing of Norman crusaders and Caballeros Hidalgos screened by Jinettes and veteran Caballeros on the left. The centre was occupied by the infantry comprised of Andalusian bows and spears and a strong force of mercenary spears and crossbowmen.

The Moslem opposition formed up with their Emirate cavalry on the left and Berber cavalry on the right while the centre was occupied by Andalusian spearmen and bowmen on the centre left and Berber and Black Guard foot on the centre right.

The opening turns featured some pretty ineffective shooting from everyone while the cavalry manoeuvred for advantage.

First in were the Norman crusaders who not surprisingly duffed up their opposition and then rolled on to the next guys.

The Christians weren’t having it their own way however as the Almoravid retainers crashed into the Hidalgos and sent them packing. Fairly even game so far.

The infantry fight then started to gain some traction and some of the Andalusian foot said goodbye.

With so much cavalry available on both sides (9 Moslem and 8 Christian) the temptation to throw units in was taken by both sides resulting in ongoing cavalry melees on both sides of the battlefield.

In the infantry centre the Black Guard made their presence felt, first shooting to weaken the opposition and then charging to contact and crushing their opponents.

Not everything was going the way of the Almoravids and by late afternoon their cavalry right wing was collapsing under the relentless pressure of the Caballeros.

However the Christian right was having problems of it’s own. It was going to be down to the infantry.

The collapse, when it came, came quickly. The Black Guard had punched a serious hole in the Christian line and the rest of the Moslem infantry followed on unopposed. Time to go home.

Next up was an away game of American Civil War using Rebels & Patriots in an ongoing Shenandoah Valley campaign.

In this encounter a weak Union force of two brigades encountered three brigades of Confederates at the township of Woodstock.

Outnumbered as they were the Union tried to make best use of the terrain. Their left brigade attempted to seize the outskirts of the town and defend from their and the right brigade positioned itself on a hill overlooking the town whilst throwing it’s skirmishers over the river to the right to slow down the Confederate brigade approaching through the marshy ground extending out from the river.

The Confederates advanced boldly through the town bringing the weight of two brigades to bear against the left Union brigade. Artillery on both sides opened up and caused some casualties with the Union coming off worse being outnumbered in guns.

The action amongst the buildings was short and sharp with the Union coming off worse – a couple of disastrous morale rolls didn’t help! The Union on the hill sensed an opportunity to intervene as the Confederates were occupied to their front and advanced down the hill but again the superior Confederate artillery made it’s presence felt and the advance was halted.

Ultimately Confederate numbers began to tell and rather than have two brigades destroyed (it was a campaign after all) the Union commanders ceded the field in the hope of fighting another day.

Our next set to was another of our 80’s Gold War actions in 6mm using Modern Spearhead, this time an ‘equal points’ encounter game between a cut down Bundeswehr armoured brigade and a more or less full strength Soviet tank regiment. Both sides had air and artillery assets. The game was scheduled for 8 turns.

The Bundeswehr deployed on a broad front. Battalion 33 deployed on the far left with an advance planned to take them across the highway to their front, through the fields and on to the power plant, Battalion 34 deployed in the centre adjacent to the rail line with a plan to advance alongside the rail line, across the farmland and take up positions at the large farm complex opposite, Battalion 37 meanwhile, on the other side of the river was to advance along its banks and cross upstream.

The Soviets deployed two T-62 battalions on their right (opposite Battalion 33 as it turned out) with orders to advance up to the highway, the motor rifle battalion was deployed inside the wood outside the power plant just behind the aim point of Battalion 34 and the T-80 battalion was deployed to the left of the power plant with orders to sweep across the farmland and take up positions at the railway line.

Once troops could see each other it was the Bundeswehr who suffered early casualties as the T-80s opened fire on Battalion 34.

Both sides deployed their air power early. The SU-25s for the Soviets.

And the Starfighters for the Germans.

Once the T-62s and the Leopards from Battalion 33 got in sight of each other the Soviets took one hell of a beating and the German commander thought the day was going to be his……..

The arrival of the Hind flight started to turn things around for the Soviets. The limited AA assets the Germans had was sufficient and those ATGWs started to make a mess.

Burning Leopards.

German Phantoms role in.

Bundeswehr losses mounted and two battalions failed critical morale checks.

At the end of turn 6 we called it. One Bundeswehr battalion was completely wiped out, one was in retreat and one was on hold. The Soviets had the battered T-62s in retreat but the T-80s were most certainly still in the fight and the motor rifle battalion was untouched.

Our next game was a return to our long neglected modern skirmish collection – we reckon we haven’t played for at least a year, maybe 18 months. The scenario was set during the Iraqi insurgency 2012, two SAS teams, Blue & Red were deployed in country to rendezvous with a defecting insurgency leader and his fighters at an abandoned fort now on the outskirts of a town. The rules were Spectre Operations V2.

The SAS advanced cautiously down the dirt road into the town, one team in the Cougar and one in a Humvee. The advance went well and despite some hostile looks from the locals all was quiet – obviously its a wargame so its not going to be quiet for long!

Once at the market area two of Red team exited the Cougar and took up positions scanning the rooftops and ignoring civilians shouting abuse as they randomly crisscrossed the area. The Humvee gently nudged open the doors to the fort and two of the team escorted it in. Still quiet.

It’s probably worth mentioning that the civilians moved randomly based on a directional dice and how close they were to the soldiers. Once they were a couple of moves away they stopped moving, if they got up close we diced to see whether they got angry or whispered a word of warning. During this part of the game one of the British players did say about one of the randomly moving civilians, “I wonder what she’s got in that holdall?” This will be important later 🙄

Once the Humvee had entered the fort it all started to go a bit wrong. Sure enough their was the car they had been advised belonged to the leader but the two dead bodies alongside it weren’t part of the brief – they were in fact the insurgency leader and his driver. Then the team heard the ‘whoosh’ of an RPG and all hell broke loose!

Insurgency gunmen now started to appear out of the barracks and up on the battlements. The good news was that in a firefight (even a surprise) the SAS were going to give back better than they got and so they did in the initial exchange.

Then we had one of those wargames moments which captured reality in a horrible way. The woman with the holdall had randomly walked through the gates of the fort just before the shooting started and stopped. In the next turn two of Blue team came through the gates and ended their move right next to her. In her turn she pulled the pin. We diced. It was a successful detonation and two of Blue team were dead.

From then on it was all downhill for Blue team. The two remaining members were in a very lopsided gunfight with superior numbers and were essentially trapped. On the outside Red team were popping away at anyone they could see on the roofs but then two technicals full of insurgents swung into view from the rear of the fort – 10 activation points were in view at the start of the game from where two more insurgent teams might appear on a die roll, if the SAS moved over them at any point then no activation could occur there (a couple had already gone).

Inevitably Blue team ran out of luck and the comms went dead.

Faced with superior numbers and no assets on line Red team fell back.

Our final game was an eastern medieval battle between Golden Horde Mongols and Russian princes using our in development Timurid rules. The Russians had four divisions, two of Boyars and Lithuanian mercenaries, one of Polk infantry and one of allied Kazak skirmish cavalry. The Golden Horde had two divisions Mongol horse, mixed heavies and lights and one of Cuman allies plus a single regiment of Guard with the Khan.

In deployment the Russians placed the bulk of their army to the left of the stream that bisected the battlefield and stationed their Kazaks on the other side with orders to swing around the flank of the Mongols. The Mongols deployed on a broad front which happened to align with the Russians while their allies were out on the left where they ended up facing the Kazaks.

Russians ready for action.

There were a lot of bows in this game so both sides were keen to get a move on; the Mongols because literally everyone had a bow and the Russians because the Boyars didn’t have bows so wanted to get stuck in early.

The Russian plan was for their Lithuanians to lead the advance of both cavalry divisions and drive off the opposing Mongol lights. This worked to a limited extent; yes the lights were driven off but then the heavier Mongols drove off the Lithuanians and the Mongols were free to use their superior firepower.

After the initial arrow storm it was down to the serious hand to hand fighting.

The judicious commitment of the Guard swung a couple of melees.

In a bold effort to turn the fight the Russian player committed both of his divisional leaders to the fray; both died and with it Russian resistance.

In pretty short order the Russians were effectively destroyed, only ‘the poor bloody infantry’ were left 😟

As a game the battle whipped along, as a rules trial it was pretty pleasing and I don’t think there is much left to do, just some fine tuning of the command system. Yes the bows are pretty deadly but that is what I want and when both sides are all bows (Timurid v Golden Horde) it should be pretty interesting 😀

A mixed bag on the reading front. The soft back reprint of Mallenson’s account of the French in India was a fascinating read and revealed a plethora of engagements easily able to played on the tabletop – it’s not all about Plassey! Lloyd Clark’s book left me a bit dissatisfied; too much of the page count is spent on the machinations of pre war Nazi and Soviet internal politics and then the lead into the war, I found myself saying “for god’s sake get on with it!” and when he did it was all a bit anti climatic. The Rohmer book I picked up for a quid somewhere just out of interest and it was less interesting than it should have been; the author couldn’t seem to make up his mind whether he wanted to recount his own wartime experiences of flying photo reconnaissance, write a heliography about Patton or write the shortest ever history of the Normany invasion up to the escape of the Germans through the Falaise pocket.

On the painting and modelling front my collection of painted aircraft for the 6mm Cold War finally got based satisfactorily and some saw action in our game described earlier.

And that’s it really. The task of clearing out elements of the collection continues but man is it slow 😞

June 2026 Report

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A month of funerals and holidays but we managed a fairly productive month.

First game of the month was Successors, this time a refight of the battle of Gaza 312BC where Demetrius, son of Antigonus, took on Ptolemy I and lost.

We managed to recreate the forces of both sides from interpretations by modern authors and set up according to those sources.

The Antigonid set up gave us a strange deployment whereby Demetrius had a strong body of pike on his right centre flanked by a weak skirmish cavalry wing and a strong cavalry centre and centre left screened by elephants. Ptolemy had a more traditional deployment, a numerically inferior infantry centre composed mainly of Greek mercenaries and two wings of cavalry; the right wing was settler cavalry sitting behind Persian skirmishers who were themselves protected by caltrops, the left wing was skirmish cavalry and a single elephant squadron.

As is nearly always the case with these games the cavalry got the ball rolling. The Demetrian cavalry were first out of the gate; on the right the weak skirmish wing under Andronicus did better than history and saw off their opposite numbers but some cunning manoeuvring by Ptolemy saw the peltasts from his infantry line wheel in and shower them with javelins ultimately removing them from the battle. On the left Demetrius and his Xystophoroi headed out to the flank accompanied by the Tarentines while the elephant corps and their supporting cavalry headed for the easy target of the Persian skirmishers only to be brought to a grinding halt by the caltrops. The caltrops were hidden at the commencement of the game and not revealed until the elephants were one turn away – the Demetrian player knew the history but we had agreed to have orders that reflected the action of the day and only allow changes once contact was made.

In the centre the infantry advanced on each other stoutly – Ptolemy knew he was outmatched but planned on his more nimble peltasts swinging in to attack the flank of the pikes while the hoplites held. It didn’t work but in a different game it might well have.

No Successors game is complete without elephants!

The Demetrian elephants were well and truly stuck at the caltrop line and even rubbish Persian infantry could whittle them down.

And they died 😢

In the centre the Ptolemaic line started to crack as the weight of the Demetrian pike battalions prevailed.

Out on the left flank Demetrius personally led his cavalry into the melee and prevailed ultimately seeing off two out of the three settler cavalry units. The Ptolemaic right was now open and the Demetrian cavalry started to flow behind the Persians and towards the already collapsing infantry centre. A complete reversal of history 😀

Our next effort was an 8 turn encounter battle for our Iran Iraq collection using Cold War Commander (amended). The table consisted of a series of objectives allocated varying points values, most points gained by turn 8 is the winner unless the combat group fails morale.

Both sides had several brigades to choose from each with their own points values and then additional assets that could be chosen to make up a ceiling number. The Iranians chose the 1st Armoured of the 92nd Armoured Division which gave them two Chieftain battalions, a Mechanised Infantry battalion, an armoured cavalry battalion and an armoured artillery battalion; their only additional asset was an F14 Tomcat squadron. The Iraqis chose the 10th Armoured (forerunner of the Republican Guard) which gave them three T-72 battalions and a Mechanised Infantry battalion; their additional assets were a Mirage squadron, a Gazelle squadron with ATGW, a BRDM Sagger company and a couple of off table 2S1 self propelled gun batteries.

As it was an encounter game the battalions arrived randomly according to a die roll and the Iranians got on the table quickly.

The Iraqi T-72s started to get into position trying to avoid the better ranged Chieftains with their better penetrative power.

The Iranian armoured cavalry opted to come on behind the river in the corner, the plan being to use their amphibious ability to cross and seize the transmitter tower position while their M150s gave ATGW covering fire from the river bank.

The Iranians pushed their M109s forward to shoot in their tanks but this was a complete bust, the very vulnerable machines were soon on fire and the remainder of the battalion sought cover.

The Iraqis used the cover close to their deployment area early on so that the Chieftains couldn’t see them and it certainly kept one battalion intact for the bulk of the game.

The arrival of the Iraqi Gazelles meant 4 turns of playing hunter seeker with the Iranian armour.

The arrival of the Iranian Tomcats was quite a sight although their impact wasn’t as great as the paint job 😂

As the battle developed the other two T-72 battalions attempted to envelop the Iranian flanks. On the one flank they shot up the Armoured Cavalry battalion and on the other captured the oil storage depot and its rail link.

As we rolled into turn 8 the game was on a knife edge. In terms of the rules the Iraqis had achieved a minor victory for losses inflicted on the Iranians, the Iranians had however scored more objective points for seizing the transmitter station and the town. So I guess a draw 🙄

Next was a more traditional/commercial game when we gave Hail Caesar II a go using 15mm Romans in an AD69 civil war set to. The terrain was fairly randomised, several hills and a couple of woods.

Both sides were more or less the same, six or seven legions per side plus auxilia and some cavalry. Deployment however was different; on the one side a single shallow line covering most of the table, on the other a double ranked line aimed between two low hills, auxilia on one flank cavalry on the other.

As in most ancients wargames the cavalry were in first, this time fighting over a low hill. The guys who got the charge in didn’t gain any advantage for that and ultimately lost and retired. Nobody cares about cavalry anyway 😀

The infantry took forever to get close, mainly due to crap die rolling and the random nature of the movement.

Some auxilia bowmen got on a hill and then found out they couldn’t shoot off it. Huh?

Then we got into the infantry scrap and bloody hell this was brutal!

Depth definitely trumped line and in the blink of an eye 4 legions were gone.

The empty space where 7 legions were! Mainly due to the mechanism where a victorious unit can turn in on the next enemy in line and fight again (and again) with considerable advantages.

It was a brutal game and quite fun for one player but was it any kind of representation of warfare of the time period? I don’t think so. That said I can absolutely see why the rules are so popular; we had never played the rules before yet we smashed through a game easily with quite a lot of figures on the table. We play all day but with less figures I can see why a 3 hour club night game can easily be completed including set up and put away. Not a set for me in the long term but it has set us the task of finding a rules set that will enable us to get the forgotten 15mm ancients out every now and then.

Our last game was a return to our GNW collection but this time Swedes v Danes in a fairly balanced encounter game around a village and a river crossing.

The Swedes comprised 4 infantry brigades in two divisions, one tasked with seizing the village and the other tasked with destroying the infantry on the Danish right of the village. The cavalry were in two brigades, one deployed out on the left to attack the enemy infantry in advance of their own infantry and then break through to swing behind the Danish line, the other was to cross the river bridge in the centre and swing out to the right where a couple of Danish militia brigades looked like easy pickings.

The Danes had a wide range of troop types and sought to use them as effectively as they could. The two weak militia brigades were stuck right out on the left to guard a secondary bridge crossing and hopefully not get involved in any serious fighting – these were the guys singled out for some Swedish cavalry attention. The Lieb brigade and the Foot Guards brigade were deployed to advance and hold the village – they were slightly closer than their Swedish opposite numbers so should make it while on either flank two line brigades, stiffened by a combined grenadier battalion each, were to support. The sole cavalry brigade started the game at the back in reserve.

The Swedes were, as usual, full of themselves, and so the left wing cavalry galloped into action and smashed into the grenadiers of the opposing line infantry brigade. This didn’t go quite as planned and the cavalry were repulsed.

Undeterred a second cavalry regiment was thrown in, this time against a line battalion but to no avail. Things were not going according to plan!

Meanwhile at the village the Lieb and Foot Guards had indeed got there first so were more difficult to hit with musketry and when it came to bayonet work more difficult to winkle out. Just like Blenheim, this village sucked the Swedes into a day long struggle.

They don’t know anything but attack…..

And sometimes it ends in tears 😢 By the end of the game the left flank Swedish cavalry brigade was completely exhausted.

Sensing an opportunity the Foot Guards took on the weakened Swedish first infantry line.

And the results were pretty impressive…..

The Lieb brigade was finally ejected from the village but the Swedish victors were in no state to do anything more than occupy real estate.

A bad day for the Swedes. One cavalry brigade completely knackered the other making zero progress against the militia – one battalion did rout but the stupid Swedes who charged them took up pursuit and never returned leaving two cavalry regiments to face the firepower of five infantry regiments and the Danish horse brigade now closing on their flank.. On the infantry side the lead brigades of both divisions were done leaving the second line to take on the Danish Foot Guards and the two supporting line battalions. A clear Danish victory.

In other news, some additional 6mm buildings were acquired so an industrial park and an airfield are planned for the Cold War games.

Some more hoplites added to the Successors collection, we probably have enough now for an Achaean League.

Some additional 6mm built up areas for the Cold War games completed.

And finally, on a sombre note, we said goodbye to our gaming stalwart, Derek. Always available for a game and super enthusiastic about the group and the hobby, he will be missed.

May 2026 Report

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Despite the fantastic weather that closed out the month it has been a bit of a downer of a month for the group. The funeral of our oldest member who died in April and the collapse and subsequent death of our most regular member early in the month. Gaming has therefore been a little muted 😞

Our first game of the month was another in our 80’s Cold War set up. In this scenario the Belgian 17th Armoured were defending against a push through by the Soviet 21st Guards Armoured.

The game was as much about getting the balance of forces right using the Modern Spearhead campaign system as playing an enjoyable scenario. As it turned out we got both right, more or less.

In terms of numbers on the ground the sides weren’t too far apart. The Belgians fielded two Guides battalions – 2 x 12 Leopard 1s & two Carabineer battalions – 2 x 12 mechanised infantry with an on table company of M109s. The Soviets had their traditional three tank battalions – a mix of 9 each T80s and T62s plus a BMP1 battalion and their own on table artillery support. Where the disparity manifested itself was in the off table air and artillery support available to the Soviets and the lack of AA elements fielded by the Belgians.

The game was a tough one for the Belgians. They managed to move onto some defendable terrain but once they called in the M109s in a supporting fire role the Soviets zeroed in on them with counter battery fire. It wasn’t devastating but it wore down the company.

It was the Soviet command of the skies that made the difference however. First on were the deadly Hinds who due to the lack of AA cover were able to free roam. The rules do a good job of restricting where helicopters can go and who they can shoot at so it isn’t a complete turkey shoot but the Belgian player was certainly cursing his lack of AA.

The Frogfoots did indulge in a bit of a turkey shoot and did considerable damage to the Belgian armour. Again the limitations applied by the rules in terms of the number of sorties prevented this from becoming overpowering although that probably wasn’t the view of the Belgian player 😂🤣

As the game progressed the Soviets started to capture their objectives – apologies for the tanks sitting on top of rooves, I need to curate the protos better, it isn’t a board game!

Although gamely putting together a defence, with one Carabineer battalion retreated off and a Guides battalion reduced to one third strength, the Belgians had to concede they were in no position to prevent a Soviet breakthrough.

I think we have pretty much grasped the rules now, the next task is designing scenarios that are both balanced and enjoyable.

Our next game was in fact our demonstration game of the battle of Minden 1759 at Partizan – that came round fast! We had a bit of drama regarding early set up on the Saturday so Sunday was a bit of a rush round to be ready when the doors opened.

Minden is one of those battles much loved by British military history writers and wargamers but frankly a bit of a bore to play. However it was a bit of a passion project for Dave who has spent the last two years off and on painting all the Allied units that were at the battle – and very pretty they looked too 😀

For those whose SYW history is a bit hazy here is the potted history of the action. Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, commanding an allied army of British, Hanoverian, Hessian & Brunswick troops tempted a larger French army under Marshal Louis de Contades to give battle on the plains outside the fortress of Minden. In a confusion of orders, 8 regiments of British & Hanoverian infantry under General von Sporcken, advanced on the mass of French cavalry occupying the centre of the French line. Faced with no alternative, the French cavalry, under the Duc de Fitzjames, attacked in three successive waves, the third being the elite Gendarmerie of France, and were shot to pieces as they came. There then followed another confusion of orders when Lord George Sackville, commanding the British & Hanoverian right wing cavalry, misunderstood/ignored repeated messages from Ferdinand to lose his cavalry and roll up the French line. The shattered French retreated and were of no further threat for the rest of the year, Sackville was court martialled and removed from command, Contades was also replaced in the ever revolving door of French command.

For our refight all units were in their historical starting points and mainly had hold orders. Sporcken would be sent orders to advance as soon as the French did something – their infantry advanced on the village of Maulbeerkamp and the odds favoured him obeying.

Fitzjames would issue orders to his three cavalry commanders as soon as the British advanced. Elsewhere the battle was essentially static.

The game went much as the real event. The cavalry advanced, the infantry shot them (plus support from nearby artillery), and the cavalry retreated. Rinse and repeat.

It did look very pretty and we hoped the spectacle was enjoyable for those who visited the stand but as for playing, well that wasn’t so great.

On the plus side, our long standing home grown rules set coped with the numbers and the vagaries of command very well and we didn’t have to surreptitiously fiddle the results of a firefight or a melee to suit the narrative. Next year something a bit less crowded 😁

Our final game of the month was a complete change of pace being a Rapid Fire Reloaded Desert War action featuring two Commonwealth forward positions weak in armour being attacked by two Afrika Corps battle groups aiming to overwhelm the allies before reinforcements could arrive.

The early turns saw the German behemoth roll forward seeking targets for their superior firepower.

The Panzers took some minor damage as they came on.

But the allies took far more serious damage. Where were the reinforcements?

The reinforcements started to arrive, now we’ve got a fight!

The Panzers start to feel the heat!

But it’s not all roses for the allies.

Ultimately the allies prevailed and the German attack ground to a halt amidst a field of burning vehicles.

The Reloaded rules aren’t perfect and can be a bit dice driven but that said they give a perfectly entertaining game for a period we won’t play that often.

On the reading front I gave Tuchman’s classic a go having picked it up cheap. I have no particular desire to game WWI and despite revisionist writings it still is ‘lions led by donkeys’. That said the book was a good read, clear concise and focussed – it is the first month of the war and the events leading to it. Who the bad guys are is pretty clear and the actions of nearly everyone range from the brave (Belgium), through the stupid (France & Russia) to the perfidious (Great Britain). The Africa book was an attempt to get a bit of a handle on exactly what was happening during mainly the C20th in the many wars on that blighted continent. The book doesn’t pretend to be exhaustive, a half dozen pages per conflict, but it does give a depressing insight and opened a door to researching maybe some of the more ‘acceptable conflicts’.

Managed to get some additions done for the ongoing Iran Iraq collection.

A bit more terrain to hide in.

And that was the month. Another funeral next month and the sorting of fallen comrades collections. In the meantime, play well and be good.

April 2026 Report

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What the hell happened to April! A third of 2026 has gone but hey we are still alive and that is a good thing 😁

Our first game of the month was a 1980’s Cold War action using what seems to have become our go to set of rules, Modern Spearhead. The rules require a bit more work in terms of the pre game set up but overall the result is worth it.

This game was a bit of a hasty set up following last minute cancellations that scuppered the original planned game. As it turned out we had a fine time with our reduced numbers creating a follow on game from the end of march where both sides are racing for a strategic crossroads further along the front from the original battle. In this scenario a Bundeswehr armoured brigade was taking on two Warpac armoured regiments, one East German using T72s and one Soviet using T62s and T80s (yes we know they should all be the same tanks in a regiment but we only realised that after we’d painted them!).

The Bundeswehr advanced with their tank battalions on either side of the crossroads over the countryside with attached AA cover while the Marder’s carrying the combat teams sped up the road to seize the buildings around the crossroads.

The Warpac forces split the battlefield in two with the Soviets (above) advancing en masse on the right and the East Germans mirroring on the left.

The fight for the crossroads soon got going with the Marder combat teams having the slight advantage of having got there first.

This was our first go at the rules for fighting in built up areas and we’re not sure we got it quite right🤔 It certainly got a bit tense and ultimately the Soviet BMPs overwhelmed the Marders.

We made liberal use of air assets on both sides and the TOW armed Lynx (on loan from the RAF) proved pretty devastating.

And the Frogfoot were equally devastating for the Soviets – ouch!

The Hinds weren’t quite as effective as usual and the much maligned (by us anyway) AA cover did actually work.

Ultimately however the Bundeswehr had to concede the battle area, the crossroads was taken and the two main tank brigades were in retreat with losses being followed by the intact East Germans.

I still don’t thing we have got the balance quite right and whatever you may think about points value games they do give you that. The army lists for the rules are great but without a brake on what you can deploy there can be a tendency towards a miniatures arms race – ‘well the list says I can have 4 Harriers so I will’.

Our next foray was Eastern Renaissance with the Poles and Swedes being turned out along with support acts – Germans for the Poles and Danes for the Swedes.

Because the armies hadn’t seen the light of day for a while we kind of overdid it! Remember that Gary Oldman meme “Everyone!” well that was us 🤣

The fun aspect of the period is the maniacs known as the winged hussars. No set of rules depicting these guys should allow anything other than “charge!” and the Polish player duly obliged.

By a quirk of deployment the hussars, on the left of the Polish line, ended up facing the bulk of the Swedish pike, in this case the Scots Brigade.

But the hussars didn’t care and after a thrilling series of charges, melees and charges again the Swedish wing gave way. The hussars however were in no fit state to do anything about it.

Over on the other wing waves of German, Swedish, Danish and Finnish cavalry crashed into each other in a series of attacks going one way and then the next. Ultimately the Germans gained the upper hand and the Swedish wing collapsed. Victory to the Poles.

The game was way too big but it did look very pretty 😀

Next up was a return to Iran Iraq using Cold War Commander, this time with several amendments.

Our fight was an encounter action between the Iranian 92nd Armoured and the Iraqi 26th Armoured. The 92nd featured two battalions of the mighty Chieftains, a single mechanised infantry battalion and an armoured cavalry battalion. The Iraqis had three battalions of T62s and a mechanised infantry battalion. Both sides had air and artillery support.

As is typical of these kind of games the individual battalions arrived piecemeal, here the Iranian mechanised infantry race for the relative safety of the built up areas.

Unusually the airpower arrived when called, Tomcats set to make a mess of BTR60s.

The stars of the show for the Iranians were the M150s sitting on a convenient hill flinging TOWs across the table.

Iraqi infantry scrambling from their BTR60s and deploying their Gazelles to go hunting Chieftains.

Iraqi tanks piling in on the left,

The Iraqi advance stalled at the dried river bed – that open ground is deadly!

The Iraqis did manage to get their SU-22s into play and gave the Iranians a bit of a scare.

Ultimately however it was an Iranian victory, two of the Iraqi tank battalions were finished (mainly due to the TOWs) and the rest were pinned at the dried river bed.

In terms of the modifications we tried, generally they worked. The big one was leaving casualties on stands rather than removing at the end of the turn, this certainly meant that the Chieftains had to be a bit more circumspect (although still pretty deadly). The changes to the Recon rules seem to be going in the right direction as do the changes to the vulnerability of the infantry. Our next task will be the rules on cover.

Next was return to our Guadalcanal campaign, this time a fictional interlude before the final game to take account of how well the Americans have been doing.

As always the game is played to simulate night shooting and the Japanese objective is to bombard Henderson air field effectively before daylight comes.

Once the map movement was over the sea became very busy!

The game very quickly became who can sink the most opposition using torpedoes 🤣😂

Although gun fire did account for some.

Eventually dawn came and the airfield remained undamaged. One game left to go…..

Our final roll out was one from the ongoing development of the Timurid era rules, this time Mamluks v Timurids.

For this encounter the Timurids divided their forces into two Persian/Timurid cavalry divisions with elephant support, a large militia skirmish infantry force featuring bombards, naphtha throwers and hand gunners and an allied Turcoman division. The Mamluks had two divisions of Emirs Mamluks, one of Royal Mamluks, their own Turcomans and their own militia infantry.

The Mamluks deployed their Turcomans and Royal Mamluks on the right, the militia skirmish infantry sprawled across the centre and the Emirs mamluks on the left. The Timurids mirrored the enemy militia with their own but used this screen to cover their two Persian divisions while the Turcomans took the right flank; the Timurids therefore risked having their left turned on the gamble of overwhelming the Mamluk centre.

The initial turns were all about the shooting, after all virtually everyone had a bow!

Given how rubbish they all were, the skirmishers held up remarkably well but eventually decided that the rear was the best place to be.

Sooner or later you need to get stuck in if you are going to win a battle and both sides obliged.

On the Timurid right it all went their way and in due course one division of Emirs Mamluks was on the run.

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse 🤣

On the Timurid left however the story was as expected, the Turcomans filled the void and despite the best efforts of the left centre Persian division the Royal mamluks were able to break through.

Ultimately both left wings were finished and the centre had nothing going on – both militias were shot up so we had the classic wargamers draw.

Overall I was happy with how the rules played out despite having missed a couple of things – duh! Some more work to be done but nearly there I reckon.

On the reading front it was an eclectic month with the Ordnance Survey book being the star read – I didn’t even realise I had it in the collection!

On the painting and modelling front I finally applied myself to painting and basing a job lot of micro armour stuff I got off eBay recently.

I should have enough to field an independent Soviet tank regiment to bolster my East Germans.

Because I only had a vague idea of what I had painted I put up a load of photos on the Modern Spearhead Facebook page and two members were super generous with their time and expertise. Sometimes social media can work really well 😊

Well that’s it for the month. Spending this weekend working out the troop deployment for our Minden game at Partizan, hope to see you there. In the meantime, play well, play fair.

March 2026 Report

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Wading out of a very wet March into the emergence of Spring and some decent games behind us.

First out of the gate and a first for us as a group was a Western Desert game in 20mm using Rapid Fire Reloaded. We had discussed doing Western Desert for over a year maybe in 10mm using our existing desert terrain when Dave acquired a matched pair of Germans and Allies and so we were set.

The scenario was fictitious but using the orders of battle from the various publications put out by the rules publishers. In our scenario we had an Allied force holding out at the top end of the 8 x 6 table awaiting relief from Commonwealth forces arriving from either side of the long edges near the bottom of the table. About two thirds of the way up of the table Italian and German forces were arriving from either side of the long edges with the objective of preventing the relief. The Allied force holding out was purely representative, the game was the four commands.

Full disclosure, we got stuff wrong 😮 For instance it wasn’t until we were half way through we realised we were using the wrong quick reference sheet 🤣we were using the one for the rules as they were not the cut down version they now are. We also got the wrong stats for some of the vehicles but our enjoyment was undimmed.

The keynotes of the game were as follows.

The initial Allied advance saw some early success with the elimination of a Panzer III company.

And then the Marder IIIs went up in smoke. “great set of rules!”

Then the Axis started to get their act together with the Germans doing all the heavy lifting so far.

The Italians made an appearance 🤔

But the “tommies” didn’t have it all their own way.

And a level of revenge was extracted.

Quite how stuff got this close to each other we weren’t sure……

Definitely got something wrong 🙄

The Commonwealth forces didn’t break through and so we called it. Reflecting on the game afterward we all said we enjoyed it and would play again, just need to do a bit more reading up on the admitedly very simple (but elegant) rules and use the correct play sheet 😁😂

Next was my personal favourite, Successors. This time we had a ‘what if’ encounter between Demetrious Poliorcetes and Lysimachus set against the real campaign of 288BC where both general manoeuvred but never met in battle.

Neither side was flush with pikes. Demetrious had 2 battalions against the 3 of Lysimachus (one of which was Veteran), both sides had Hoplites, allied Athenians for Demetrious and the more traditional mercenaries for Lysimachus. Both sides had a mix of formed and skirmish cavalry, a single veteran Xystophoroi each and others of equal or lesser worth. Demetrious outnumbered Lysimachus on the elephant front 3:1 and both sides had a plethora of peltasts and psiloi.

The terrain was mainly an open plain with several low hills and light woods scattered about. Lysimachus deployed with all of his cavalry on the left wing under Phietaeros fronted by the single elephant squadron (1 model) while the infantry occupied the centre and right in a single line, Thracians on the left, pike under Prepelaus in the centre and the hoplites under Menas on the right, all fronted by psiloi. Demetrius also deployed his cavalry, under Pithon, in one wing but on the right so amazingly the cavalry were opposite each other – this had a positive effect on the game, his centre and left read from right to left, pikes, hoplites, peltasts, all fronted by psiloi.

Given the configuration of the armies the opening turns were all about the cavalry. As the infantry trudged forward the horse had at it which was great fun but much like the reality of the time fairly inconsequential to the real fight.

Demetrious had the advantage in elephants and Lysimachus the advantage in numbers and morale class of his cavalry.

The battle swung back and forth to no real advantage, the Xystophoroi of Lysimachus retreated off table being forced back by a combination of elephant and skirmish horse working together, two elephants panicked and created their usual mess but none died and the satrap horse of Demetrious both routed and later rallied at the camp.

The real deal was of course the infantry clash and this time we had a proper clash and a proper result.

Once the psiloi had done their thing, which largely favoured Demetrious, their was a marked reluctance to actually get stuck in – some pretty poor morale rolls across the line and a reluctance from the players to put their leaders into the units to beef up their chances.

Eventually the fires of courage were stoked and troops committed albeit a little on the uncoordinated side.

From the off it was going to be Lysimachus day, he gained the upper hand and never let go.

His hoplites routed their opposition hoplites and the Demetrian peltasts, his veteran pike routed their opposing pikes and one of his other pike battalions routed the 2nd opposition hoplites. The only consolation for Demetrius was his other pike battalion routing their opposite numbers but it was a decisive Lysimachid victory.

As a game this worked almost perfectly. The cavalry had their own little fight and that was that. The infantry lined up and went for it (eventually!) and a decisive decision was obtained, the final line up favoured Lysimachus in that one of his hoplites got to take on the weaker peltasts – javelins not being great against long pointy sticks and one of his pikes faced hoplites but that was just the luck of the draw. A good game and recreation of the time and the place.

Our next foray was the Carlist Wars and a refight of the battle of Ormaiztegui, January 1835, a modest and fairly indecisive battle which we reckoned could be easily fought to a conclusion, although this wasn’t helped by a power outage on the evening of the game. Gaming by candlelight, how quaint 😀

The Carlists began the game in control of the village of the battle name with portion of their force and the rest moving up, the Isabelinos were therefore on the attack all along the line.

The initial defence.

Battle being joined seriously all along the line with the Isabelinos struggling to maintain their offensive.

The fight for the village begins with a musketry duel. I’m not convinced by the teddy bear fur.

The Isabelinos launched a bayonet charge at the walls.

Despite the desperate fighting at the village the Isabelinos ran out of steam, their attack columns had stalled and two generals were down – desperately leading those attack columns, so they called it a day and we blew out the candles 🤣

Next, another refight, this time Dennewitz, 6th September 1813 using Volley & Bayonet.

One of those games where some troops are on and others are coming at various times, particularly noted for the great long column the bulk of the French army was in as it marched up from the south (off the table) which left Bertrand and his IV Corps to start the battle.

The Prussians opted for an aggressive policy to open the battle given their initial disparity in numbers demonstrated by von Oppen charging his Dragoons into the Chasseurs of Lorge which saw the eventual destruction of Lorge but left von Oppen unfit for anything else.

Continuing the theme, Thuemen attacked Morand in a fight which left both divisions exhausted.

The long French column of VII and XII Corps came marching on – the blank bases representing the strung out column of the brigade base. The French players really struggled with this concept during the game which affected their ability to deploy effectively – not a rules problem, a player problem.

Fontanelli’s division gave a good account of itself storming the Windmill Heights held by by von Lindenau but eventually fell back exhausted leaving the Prussians just about clinging on.

At Kaltenborn, where the French had gained a tenuous lodgement von Bullow’s cavalry restored the line and gave the strung out column a fright.

It took some time but Oudinot finally got his Corps into some kind of fighting shape.

And threw everything in to breakthrough.

Now the French were getting it together but would they breakthrough before the end of the assigned number of turns?

In short, no, but they did do better than their historical prototype so there is solace to be gained there.

A tough game and a real struggle for the French.

Next up, Wars of Religion, Early Spanish v Early Dutch. Another village to defend, this time by the Dutch and their English allies. The Spanish Tercios and Walloon loyalists are out of shot preparing their attack, both sides cavalry are out on the open ground.

Spanish lancers and pistoleers preparing to advance.

Dutch lancers and supporting cuirassier. “the ground’s a bit uneven m’lord”. I think I actively dislike the teddy bear fur.

First cavalry clash.

Initially the fighting favoured the Spanish but then in an amazing turn around (also known as bad dice) the Dutch gained the upper hand and scattered their opponents.

It soon went from bad to worse as the Spanish cavalry line dissolved and two unscathed Dutch cuirassier regiments were galloping free on the Spanish right.

Tercio preparing to storm the village. They will in fact be stopped.

The freewheeling cuirassier are about to overrun the Spanish guns. I don’t know if the ‘disordered’ marker is a battle condition or an accurate reflection of the effect of the teddy bear fur 😃

The game kind of petered out – sometimes games do that, the collapse of the Spanish cavalry right wing was compounded by the failure of the Walloons to do anything on the left which meant the Tercios were stalled and unsupported. Dutch victory.

Our final game was a second run at Modern Spearhead in an ambitious (maybe too ambitious) two day game. We had a written scenario with situation reports for both sides – Operation Gorky Park for Warpac and Operation Rapid Response for NATO and OBs for East Germans, Soviets, Belgians and BAOR. I’m not sure whether the effort that goes into this is worth it but it gives me a sense of time and place.

In brief, the scenario was an initial Soviet advance has pushed the Bundeswehr defenders back across the river Oker in full retreat but divisional reorganisation has stalled the Soviet advance briefly and now they are about to resume the advance with only one tank regiment but reinforced by an East German tank regiment. Objectives; secure the autobahn and bridge over the Oker, secure the town of Braunschweig and its adjacent power plant, seize the goods and passenger rail lines. Meanwhile, at Braunschweig, the Belgian 17th Armoured Brigade has been rushed forward to defend the town and its power plant, keep the rail lines open and maybe recapture the bridge over the Oker; a BAOR taskforce is promised to be coming up the autobahn at some point.

Getting troops on the table took some time but finally we got started.

The Warpac players opted for a two flank attack; the East Germans would advance on Braunschweig and the passenger rail station while the Soviets would secure the autobahn bridge and swing wide to seize the goods station and the power plant. The reality of this plan meant that the East Germans did the heavy lifting and the Soviets were too far away to help.

The East Germans crossed the Oker with two battalions, one via an old stone bridge and the other further up via a recently laid pontoon bridge.

One of the two Belgian Leopard battalions moved up to a walled lane on the right flank of the town.

The Soviets rolled forward en masse, it looked pretty impressive…

The second Leopard battalion moved up early on the bridge – this might not have been the best of moves 🤔

The Soviets called up one of their Fitters for an attack run, it didn’t achieve much but we learnt how the air rules worked.

The BAOR arrive early, great for the Belgians, not so great for the east Germans.

Some Lynxs arrived so we got to see how the helicopter rules played out.

A general note on the air rules as a whole. The mechanics are relatively simple but the detail is in the load outs and mission types which we kind of made up as we went along, to get the full value we are going to have to do some pre work before the next game.

Not to left out the Harriers joined in the air war 😁 Now they were pretty ineffective and have limited game time but the need for AA to be up with the battalions was clearly illustrated.

The Soviets crawl on.

The Lynxs are back….

….and we find that ATGW are pretty good at blocking bridges 🤣

Soviet motor rifle battalion racing for the rail bridge.

East Germans seriously engaged and it isn’t going well.

Nope, still not going well.

Some compensation for the East Germans.

Its all going terribly wrong for the East Germans as the attack on Braunschweig falls apart and what’s left of the battalions fall back across the Oker.

Safe and sound.

The game was planned as a 12 turn game but by the end of turn 10 it was essentially over. The East German brigade was well and truly screwed and in retreat while the sole Soviet gain was the main bridge over the Oker. Yes the Belgians finally had both Leopard battalions in retreat but the combat teams were firmly ensconced in the town and power plant – we didn’t get to see how close combat worked and the BAOR combat group was untouched – shells just bounce off the Chieftains 😂🤣Successful NATO defence.

Reflecting on the game afterward it was perhaps over ambitious for our second game but that said the rules played out perfectly ok despite us screwing up on some of the finer points. What the ratio of NATO to Warpac brigades needs to be for a more ‘balanced game’ – I hate the phrase, I don’t know. More work required. So far though the change to the rules has been an overall positive experience.

On the reading front, these two were finished. The Norwich book is late 80’s and shows its age in places but the author does know how to tell history in a readable way and that is to be welcomed. The Afghanistan book is one of the many produced at the time and generally along the theme of bad political decisions, unclear aims, brave soldiers etc, better and more honest efforts have been produced since.

Finally, went to my mate Marks funeral; Rammstein’s “Adieu” as the entrance music – epic 😀

And on that note, thank you for reading and goodbye until next moth.

February 2026 Report

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A short month but still keeping ourselves busy.

First up was the next in our Guadalcanal campaign, this one being what is known to history as ‘The First Battle of Guadalcanal’ A per our previous games the initial movements were plotted on gridded maps, adjudicated by the umpire, and once sightings had been made the task forces were deployed. Objectives were simple, the Japanese to get close enough to the opposite table edge to bombard Henderson Field and the Americans to stop them. The game was played at night so limited ranges and the rules, as usual, were Victory at Sea.

The Japanese were first on and sailed straight forward towards the deploying American fleet. Both sides had split into two task forces and these arrived at different times on the table.

The early exchanges favoured the Japanese with the Salt lake City going under due to gunfire from the Kongo and more devastatingly from destroyer fired torpedoes.

The USN got revenge on a measly destroyer 🙄

The second Japanese task force arrived and things were starting to look a bit grim for the Americans.

However the the Cushing unloaded every torpedo it had at the mighty Congo and down it went with a roar – loud shouts from the American player!

Ships were now starting to fill the playing space as both sides manoeuvred to get in close enough to fire and get the best angles. Many torpedoes were let loose.

The Atlanta was sunk by torpedoes, along with the Sterett, the Juneau and the Cushing; American losses were climbing.

The Americans did manage to sink the Nagara – a glorious event I failed to capture, and things looked grim but on turn 7 with dawn not far away 3 US heavy cruisers arrived and it was time for the Japanese to go or face massed aerial bombardment from the planes they had failed to destroy on Henderson Field.

Despite their losses the game was a win for the Americans mainly due to the fact that the Japanese lost sight of their objective and got distracted with sinking American ships and not bombarding the airfield. One game left to go in the series.

Next up was a very ambitious (maybe too ambitious) refight of the battle of the Battle of Hastenbeck 1757, the first serious engagement of the Seven Years War.

Our plan is to work our way through all the battles in Savory’s, His Britannic Majesty’s Army in Germany During the Seven Years War, a bit of a tall task that will keep us occupied for this year and probably the next.

At Hastenbeck an ‘Army of Observation’ comprising Hanoverians, Hessians and Brunswickers under William Duke of Cumberland stood on high ground behind the village of Hastenbeck facing a numerically stronger French army under the Marshal Charles d’Estrees.

Belying the popular image of French incompetence d’Estrees showed sound strategic abilities in crossing a major river at night and marching quickly to force Cumberland to fight or lose Hanover. As the armies deployed d’Estrees showed further initiative in sending a large flank force under Francois de Chevert to turn the Hanoverian left on the Obensburg, wooded high ground which Cumberland thought to be impenetrable.

The battle was a slog, as was our game – we were genuinely exhausted at the end. The attack by Chevert made good headway to start with driving in the weak opposition and signalling to the main army to begin their attack. Cumberland, realising his peril, ordered several grenadier battalions out of the line to restore the position on the Obensburg and sent frantic calls to the rear for whatever troops were available. The French centre advanced slowly across marshy ground at the foot of the hill and took serious casualties from the Hanoverian guns on the high ground but eventually overran the guns and Cumberland began to withdraw, a French victory in the making. However on the Obensburg the grenadiers had held up the French long enough for some late arriving reinforcements to turn the tide somewhat assisted by one of Cheverts brigades mistaking a Swiss brigade for Hanoverians and opening fire! d’Estrees now thought he was having his flank turned and so halted the attack. By the time both commanders realised they were still in with a chance of victory it was too late, Cumberland was retreating and d’Estrees had lost the momentum to pursue the allies.

We began our fight with Chevert already in place but after the allied players had taken their places – cries of WTF! were a joy to hear, nobody it seemed had actually read up on the battle 😂

All along the French front the battalions began their advance.

The early fighting was of course on the Obensburg and Cumberland the player sent messengers galloping off to the rear – he was told he had reserves, while he sent additional couriers to the grenadier battalions guarding his forward guns and to the brigade on the left of the line to turn to face. All of this of course took time even in wargaming terms and so he had to sweat it out and hope his jaegers and weak line held out.

And they did! The French were hampered by the terrain and their numbers meant they kind of got in each others way. The jaegers were eventually driven off along with their supporting line infantry but just as the disordered French were emerging from the woods the Hanoverians were turning to face, now it would be a different kind of a fight…..

Back in the centre the French line pressed slowly on braving the artillery bombardment from the hill.

In time, and it seemed like forever to the French, their troops began to pierce the Hessian line although all semblance of order was gone and so individual battalions made headway while others fell back to rally and come again.

The Hessian 2nd line moved steadied themselves as the first line drifted back spent.

On the right centre the French had high hopes that their better disciplined Swiss brigade would make a dent in the Hanoverian line but they were literally shot to pieces and the brigade collapsed.

Back on the Obensburg the reserves arrived and turned the tide, Cheverts attack ground to a halt.

Over on the far right of the allied position the Hanoverian horse received orders to advance against the French left, mainly comprised of the grenadiers de Roi who had collapsed the Hessian line. Not the best of choices especially as this was the signal for the opposing French horse to respond.

Chevert managed to rally enough of his command to threaten the Hanoverian line but not enough for a final push.

The high water mark of the French attack, left centre. The Hessian brigades have failed their morale checks, several battalions have virtually ceased to exist and their cavalry had been halted by musket fire, the best they could do now was cover a retreat. The French facing them are only slightly better off, the Grenadiers de Roi battalion are spent but the Grenadiers Royaux are in decent enough shape to occupy the crest and there are plenty of cavalry following on behind.

The high water mark of the French attack, right centre. The Hanoverians are in full retreat with several battalions virtually destroyed, the Brunswick centre however is virtually untouched and stands defiant. The opposing French are pretty much done, their first brigade was shot to pieces and virtually ceased to exist, the second and third line are at the crest but in no condition to go any further. On the right however the German brigade followed by an Austrian brigade is in good health having pushed through the shattered Swiss and advancing steadily.

And that was it. A costly French victory but a victory nonetheless. I don’t know about the little generals but I was knackered!

A complete change of pace next, 1980’s cold war Europe using a ‘new’ set of rules, Modern Spearhead. Yes I am well aware that Modern Spearhead is not new at all having been published in the late 80’s and perhaps has had it’s time in the sun. However one of our group has become a bit dissatisfied with our go to set, Cold War Commander, and so in the spirit of comradeship we agreed to give MSH a go, the scale is roughly the same and no rebasing was required so off we went with a simple scenario; an understrength Soviet tank division tasked with breaking through the NATO lines (ie get off the other side of the table) and a reinforced Bundeswehr tank brigade tasked with stopping them. We opted not to use the artillery or aircraft for this game so we could concentrate on the basic mechanics.

The rules require written orders (very perfunctory) but importantly a map on which you mark the exact route of advance for each brigade from which you cannot deviate without a higher level command. Personally, I loved this. We also used hidden movement via the maps which meant one of us had to be umpire which in a small group like ours is not ideal. For me this didn’t work and I’d rather we didn’t use it again, it was too much messing about and quite frankly whatever the player can see it doesn’t matter as the map route is king.

The Soviet player initially advanced on a broad front which we soon realised was a mistake as it meant that a single Soviet tank battalion would end up facing off to more powerful and flexible NATO battalion which in the battle of the armour would be death for the Soviets. In terms of shooting the rules are brutal!

The NATO player deployed out from his start lines to try and seize choice terrain and dominate the battle field. In this early encounter he certainly did and the Soviet player became a bit despondent.

As we played on the Soviet player got more of a hang of using the terrain but his commands were still strung out across the table.

Changing orders for NATO is easier than WARPAC and so the Bundeswehr were able to go on the attack and try and exploit a gap in the Soviet lines.

After a chat and a reset the Soviet player started to deploy to take advantages of open flanks – the smaller number of Bundeswehr can’t be everywhere.

And to deploy multiple battalions – kill one there is another to take it’s place.

The Bundeswehr traded space and fell back.

Ultimately the Bundeswehr gun line held and the Soviets failed to break through.

Overall I liked the rules and hope we can play them again with guns and planes. Are they better than CWC? The jury is out for me. They are certainly more nuanced, you have got to think about your plan a lot more carefully and some of the mechanisms are better, the orders and map I have already mentioned, target priorities means that you don’t have elements artificially shooting all over the table just to score easy points, the comparison of attack and defence is simple and the fact that elements only fire once in a turn should make the game quicker – ours wasn’t but it was our first go. The army lists have a feeling of being a bit of a work in progress and the lack of a points system makes creating a balanced game a bit of a challenge – I recognise that many gamers can’t stand the idea of army lists and points and I sympathise with those views but the relative worth of one unit against another does give you an insight into how the rules writer saw his game unfolding.

Next up was an away game of ACW using Rebels and Patriots upscaled for brigades. The game was the first in hopefully a series of campaign games set in the Shenandoah Valley. Two guys who live away are the divisional commanders who submit orders to the umpire who in turn comes up with a battle day, those of us lowly brigade commanders who can make it turn up with our brigades and play, those who can’t make it then their brigade has got ‘lost’ on the way to the fight.

Our first game then featured two Union brigades attacking across a field and a stream against three confederate brigades with superior artillery. Why? Because that’s what the orders from division said to do 🙄

To avoid the obvious problem of numbers the Union concentrated on one side of the field and attempted to overwhelm the two brigades facing them before the third one got into the action.

Initially the plan worked quite well, the artillery sited themselves on high ground and did some damage, the infantry advanced covered by some effective skirmisher fire and the cavalry regiment actually charged and saw off a rebel regiment.

Then it all went to pieces. The cavalry were stuck in the middle of the Confederate lines and got shot up badly, the advancing infantry were ambushed from woods and the third brigade dragged its big guns into range and eliminated the Union guns. The Union commanders then decided discretion was the better part of valour and retreated.

Our final game was a return to our Dark Age/Early Medieval set up which hasn’t seen the light of day for over a year!

For this one we did a semi historical set up in that we chose the period of the Tyrants in early 5th Century Gaul, specifically the encounter in 410AD between Constantine III and his former protégé Gerontius outside the walls of the city of Arles.

Constantine had the slightly larger but more cosmopolitan force; his son Constans commanded a body of Roman horse on the right wing supplemented by Hunnic mercenaries, working left along the line was a body of militia from Arles under Germanus, then a body of Roman foot under his other son Julian (actually dead by this time), and finally a body of Burgundian allies under Edobich next to the walls of Arles. Constantine himself deployed with Constans (historically he stayed inside Arles).

Deployed opposite was Gerontius. On the right, under the walls of Arles, was the man himself with a powerful all Roman cavalry contingent, next to him was Apollinaris and four regiments of Auxilium Palatinum and then out on the left a Visigoth allied contingent of horse and foot under Theudis.

A general advance by both sides occupied the first couple of turns and then first blood was tasted by one of the Equites Superior regiments under Gerontius who smashed into the lead Burgundian warband and sent it rolling back where it came from. An unexpected result that left a bit of a hole in the Constantine left flank – in fairness all the odds were with the cavalry and they rolled incredibly well.

Not to be outdone, Constantine trotted his cataphracts into the Visigoth cavalry who similarly fled pursued by the Romans…

Who then ran into the Visigoth foot who were made of stronger stuff and held on.

The fighting then locked in all along the line as general order was lost and each body fought its own little war.

Auxilium taking on ‘barbarians’

Constantine’s foot centre grinding forward against a the Visigoth cavalry now commanded directly by Theudis.

More of the infantry centre.

Gerontius and his cavalry have now seen off all of the Burgundian contingent and are turning in on the Constantine centre.

We just didn’t have the time to finish it ☹ The Burgundians were gone and most of the Visgoths but the cavalry of Gerontius were now in the rear of Constantine so we called it a victory for Gerontius. Slightly unsatisfying but not every game can be perfect.

In other news got some additions done for the Iran Iraq project.

Read this. A bit dry. A pure history book rather than a history book that informs my hobby.

Went to our first show of the year, Hammerhead. Visitors only. Well attended, decent mix of trade and games.

I got distracted playing in my mate Charlies Napoleonic Naval game, so no further photos. Out of the Lardy school, which as anyone who knows me isn’t my thing, but here we didn’t have any of the silly pun names and nonsense random events, just a game that played well and gave you a notion of Napoleonic naval warfare.

And finally it was goodbye to my mate of seven years Mark Woolley of M & C Painting who lost his three year battle with bowel cancer. I met Mark as a customer at the Reading show when it was still at the Leisure Centre and then became friends over the years. A big personality, always free with his advice on paints & painting, and a ‘unique’ sense of humour. I shall certainly miss him.

On that sombre note February is over, bring on March and the Spring.

January 2026 Report

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So, a new year dawns and our kick off game was Iran Iraq using our usual Cold War Commander rules.

This one was a narrative driven game, 12 turns long. Both sides began off table – the Iraqi 10th armoured brigade coming from the east and the Iranian 92nd armoured brigade coming from the west, and both were aiming for the main highway. The Iranians began the game with an armoured cavalry battalion on table proceeding east in column on a minor road and the Iraqis had BRDM-2 Sagger platoons randomly placed on the tabletop. Both sides had pre determined possible entry points for individual battalions but these could not dice to enter until the recon elements had reported back – a die roll for each element determined the turn number.

I wont detail who arrived when but the choice of where was critical. The Iranians could arrive on the minor road used by the cavalry, further to the south, in the corner, initially covered by a hill and north behind the river bend facing the town – in they chose this route they were given bridging equipment. The Iraqis had their own minor road facing the town, the northern end of the main highway and the far northern corner. The Iranians chose the table edge behind the river for their mechanised infantry and aimed for a small village, their two Chieftain battalions chose the minor road and the corner. The Iraqis chose the minor road for their 1st & 2nd armoured plus the 10th mechanised and the corner for the 3rd armoured, all the Iraqi armour were T72s.

In the opening moves the Iranians dithered; the infantry occupied the ruins for no real reason and then later got out and went somewhere else – apologies for the photo of the flying infantry, players just can’t resist! the M150s were under utilised – blasting the opposing BRDMs would have been a prudent thing to do. The Chieftain battalions rolled badly and so the initial fighting was over to the cavalry.

The Iraqi mechanised arrived before the tanks and occupied the town over the next couple of turns, sighting their Faggot and Sagger support platoons to cover the open ground to the south. An added plus for the Iraqis was the prompt arrival of their FAO who took up residence on the radio tower hill with a clear line of sight over most of the battlefield.

Well before the Chieftains arrived the 2nd and 3rd T72 battalions arrived; the 3rd rolled into the town and pretty much stayed there for the game – that town was never going to fall, the 2nd rolled south toward the highway intent on messing up the cavalry, the FAC found himself a nice little hillock to sit on.

Heading towards the halfway point of the game the Iraqis were doing a good job of combined arms co-operation. The FAC successfully called in the Mirages on two runs and that along with supporting tank fire eliminated the big threat of the M150s – the M150s did get off some shots and some T72s burned but there was plenty more where they came from 😁 Up in the north it became a bit of a turkey shoot, at first the Iranians couldn’t decide whether to push for the river or occupy the village so just sort of sat around and then rolled blunder upon blunder which left their HQ reduced to being essentially inactive which meant that when the Iraqis called in their artillery (one barrage of which was smack on target) a lot of M113s and the men inside died 😢 The Iraqi 1st battalion also arrived and headed south toward the sacred mosque – couldn’t be occupied by either side.

Passing the half way point the Chieftains arrived along with the FAC and FAO but it was going to be an uphill struggle.

One of the fun aspects of an Iranian force is the sight of F14 Tomcats roaring over the battlefield; what is not so much fun is when they deviate way off target and bomb the sacred mosque twice! Cries of “war crime!” echoed across the table – somewhat ironic in the light of modern day events but we are playing a wargame.

The Iraqi air continued to be more successful and pecked away at the plucky cavalry battalion.

Back on the ground the Chieftains did start to make their presence felt and the Iraqi 2nd battalion felt the heat in a big way effectively ending up as a burning screen for the 1st battalion who sneaked around the now burning mosque.

The game soon became one of cat and mouse as the Iraqis tried to stay out of the way of the superior Chieftains and hoped to score just enough hits to push the Iranians beyond their break point. If I’m honest this did become a bit ‘gamey’ but somewhat inevitable I guess.

As the game entered its final stage the Iranians had managed to avoid reaching their break point by 3 points and so theoretically it was a draw but objectively the Iraqis had scored a victory and the Iranians would be forced to withdraw.

The game played out over two sessions, that wasn’t the intent but I think on the first day we were all still suffering from ‘Christmas stodge’ so our faculties were on low power 🤣 Reflecting on the game itself, the narrative worked out fine and gave both sides a challenge; for the Iraqis, deal as much damage as possible before the big boys arrive – they did! for the Iranians, use the on table stuff to establish an early dominance – they didn’t. The die rolls for arrivals certainly favoured the Iraqis but the Iranians didn’t help themselves by dithering; they dithered about crossing the river – one of the tank battalions would have been the better choice here because even if it didn’t cross it had the range to shoot a fair way across the table, they dithered with the M150s and they dithered with the Chieftains – way too cautious about the ATGWs. A good start to the year and a game that was also noteworthy for a huge amount of blunders on both sides which provoked much hilarity all round.

Next on the calendar, and still on a cold war theme, was a personal away day down Oxford way to play a divisional level game on a 27 foot long table over two days using a set of rules under development by Alasdair Harley who came into contact with via Facebook – I went away for the weekend to meet a bloke I met on Facebook 🤣

I liked the rules. Each base (see above) represented a tank battalion for Warpac – I think NATO forces are slightly different and so you fight at a brigade level which means that some things are a bit abstracted but overall it worked well.

As the Warpac player you do feel like you are using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut and the losses do pile up, which in theory is what most think might have happened. Overall I had a good weekend and would play it again.

Back on home turf we refought the battle of Nordlingen 1634, the one the Swedes should never have fought and having fought as the Swedes I can see why!

For those in need of a history lesson the Swedes under Gustav Horn and Bernhard of Saxe Weimar took on a numerically superior Imperial/Spanish force in defensive positions under the cardinal Infante Ferdinand and Ferdinand of Hungary. On the Swedish right Horn relentlessly attacked uphill against entrenched Spanish tercios for several hours while Bernhard occupied the Imperial centre and right to prevent them reinforcing the left. The disparity in numbers meant that Bernhard was hard pushed to do anything of note and so consequently Horn fell back exhausted and as he tried to disengage was hit by an Imperial counter attack which swept away the Swedes in a rout which saw the end of Swedish involvement in the war.

In our attempt at history the armies were deployed as per the historical prototypes – as much as can be determined from conflicting sources but once deployed players could act as they wished.

Our redoubtable Swedes opted for the cavalry stratagem, using Bernhard’s cavalry to batter the right of the Imperial line and to filter Horn’s cavalry across the back of the Swedish line to follow on through the gaps punched by Bernhard. Meanwhile Horn would demonstrate against the fortified hill position.

The problem with plans is they rarely survive contact with the enemy 🙄 Bernhard’s attack didn’t go quite as well as expected and was stopped almost as soon as it began. The ride of Horn’s cavalry took longer than anticipated and when they arrived there were no real holes to exploit just defeat to reinforce 😮

Bernhard did manage to commit some of his infantry but numbers told against him.

There was a bit of a fight for the hill when the cocky Spanish came down to fight like proper gentlemen and got a bit of a duffing but the death of Horn and Spanish cavalry flowing round the flanks now that Horn’s own cavalry had gone meant that history was repeated, just differently.

Our final battle was Timurids v Mamluks in the ongoing development of my rules for the period. The battle was an equal points game – refights and narratives are somewhere in the future. The Timurids featured two divisions of formed cavalry and skirmish cavalry plus elephants equating roughly to a tumen of 10,000 overseen by the Army General and his Guard plus a separate contingent of White Sheep Turcomen. The Mamluks featured the Royal Mamluks accompanying the Army General, two divisions of Emirs Mamluks, exclusively made up of formed cavalry supported by city militias plus separate contingents of Black Sheep Turcomen and Bedouin.

Looking out from the Mamluk lines a stream between two low hills flowed diagonally across the table ending in a wooded pond area on the edge of the left centre of the Timurid baseline. A track entered from the opposite corner to cross the stream and end at an abandoned crusader fort in the middle of the battlefield. A low hill extended from the Mamluk left edge centrally into the gaming area, an obvious magnet to both sides.

The Mamluks deployed from the hills/stream left to their side edge, Turcomen next to the hill, then Emirs Mamluks with Royal Mamluks behind and then past the castle the Bedouin screening the other Emirs mamluk division.

The Timurids deployed with both divisions on their right between the table edge and the wooded pond with the Turcomen out beyond the pond over the stream. The Guard sat behind the centre.

My vision for the rules and the games is lots of arrow fire with contact in the closing stages and within the first two turns the Bedouin experienced just that; they advanced up to the low hill and were met at the top by a barrage of arrows from the skirmish cavalry elements of the right hand Timurid division. Two failed morale tests later and they were on their way.

The rest of the day saw the fight on and around that hill flow back and forth with the Timurids benefitting from better armour but hampered by stampeding elephants. Eventually the Timurids prevailed and the flank was lost.

In the centre it was much as I envisioned; skirmish cavalry in cantabrian circle firing out and everyone else letting fly where they could. The constricted space between castle and stream rather favoured the smaller Timurid division, the mamluks suffered from trying to fit in the swirling Turcomen, the Royal mamluks and the Emirs mamluks.

The battle was always going to be won or lost in the centre and as we played on that became clear.

The collapse of the Mamluk right.

As we closed the day out both divisions of Emirs Mamluks are gone. The Royal Mamluks remain but the Timurids are pushing both flanks and have uncommitted cavalry. The day belonged to the Timurids.

We had the chance to fight the battle again a couple of days later with different commanders. The Timurids deployed basically the same if a bit further over to their left which meant that the Turcomen were further over the stream. The mamluks deployed differently; their Bedouin were out on the far right hoping to swing around the Timurid left, the Turcomen were on the left screening one division of Emirs Mamluks, the other division was to the right of the castle with the Royal Mamluks behind.

This time the Mamluks were not so constricted in the centre and gave a better account of themselves.

On the ‘hill of death’ honours were more even and the slow moving Timurid heavy armoured formed cavalry took too long to get in and make a difference – thank Allah for elephants!

At the close we were back in the centre again with both sides having pierced the others line essentially leaving a stalemate.

Overall I’m pleased with the rules. Some more work to be done on the command and control especially the issuing of changes of orders by drums and trumpets – stay tuned 😂

Still haven’t got my mojo back for painting and modelling, just not feeling it. My reading fell victim to socialising but I have been reading this, an excellent read about Generals doing their best with limited resources and scant direction in an important but less well documented corner of the war – the Trans Mississippi. refreshing not having to read yet another book that is all about Grant.

That’s it, so until next time, play well and be respectful.

December 2025 Report

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The inescapable Christmas illnesses and Christmas events thinned our ranks a bit over the month but we struggled on manfully 😂

Our opening game was a return to Gerard’s 15mm Samurai with Ieyasu Tokugawa facing off to Ishida Mitsunari using our amended version of Battles in the Age of War.

A large portion of the game time with the rules is taken up in the pre game activities sorting out the quality levels of the various general under the Daimyo and the number of dice assigned to army traits such as treachery, spies, leadership, politics, etc. For us this generally takes about an hour which might be of putting for some players but we have all day to play so what the hell.

Notionally,Tokugawa was the attacking side with 3 clans distributed evenly over the table edge while Mitsunari, with 1 clan missing off table, made the best use of the terrain for his 2 on table clans.

The early couple of moves saw the Tokugawa army advance on its broad front. Opposite them the Mitsunari army tried to buy time until the third clan returned, Kenshin, on the left, fell back and Shingen, on the right, manoeuvred to the centre hoping the marshy stream to its right rear would delay the advancing Noataka clan long enough.

The first clash came with the centre clan of the Tokugawa line, Toshiie, hitting Shingen and ultimately collapsing it.

On the Mitsunari left, Kenshin and Honda met in a brawling conflict which ultimately saw Kenshin leave the field in defeat.

In the centre of the Mitsunari line the unnamed third clan had turned up and got itself organised but it was too late, two thirds of the army was gone, retreat was the only option.

Next up was a game of ‘For King and Parliament’ refighting a minor battle I’ve forgotten the name of 🤣

Full disclosure here, I’m not a particular fan of the mechanics of the Simon Miller stable of rule sets, they are too much like a board game for me and the playing cards and markers distract from the aesthetic. That said, if someone invites you to a game and you accept then you are obliged to keep your thoughts to yourself and play with a good grace.

Both sides were deployed more or less historically which meant the Parliamentarian foot had the advantage of the higher ground and largely kept to it forcing the Royalists to do the attacking. The cavalry from both sides was out on the flat land beyond the hills.

The cavalry actions occupied a good deal of the playing time with regiments being thrown in, rallying (sometimes) and being thrown in again. This was pretty brutal stuff (I think we might have got something wrong 🤔) but fun in a kind of abstract way.

Ultimately the cavalry space was largely empty with honours going to the parliamentarians.

The fight for the hill started while the cavalry struggle was going on and then occupied us solely until we called time.

My takeaway from the infantry combat was that the forlorn hope were especially effective…

And the ‘proper’ fighting was a bit of a lottery. But maybe that is as it should be?

Next up was what could be called a series of unfortunate (or fortunate, depending on your viewpoint) events. Someone suggested we play French Wars of Religion a period we had not played for quite sometime and so we took on the second battle of any note, Saint Denys 1567, having fought Dreux 1562 twice already. The rules were our tried and trusted ‘For King or Faith’.

As a game this is a difficult call. Historically the Royalists far outnumbered the Huguenots as demonstrated by the time it took for the army to march out of Paris and deploy. No self respecting wargamer would willingly line up with 3 bodies of cavalry on the flat to face of to double their number, especially when those opposing cavalry were backed by Swiss, artillery and substantial bodies of home grown foot – the Huguenot foot were a few arquebusiers hiding in flanking villages. None the less that was the history so off we went!

Historically, the Royalists attempted to outflank the shorter Huguenot line but strayed too close to the villages and became disordered from arquebus fire. The Huguenot cavalry then charged these horse and saw them off into the Royalist main line where an inconclusive melee saw the Royalist commander, the Connestable Montmorency, killed and the Paris militia fleeing back to Paris. The Huguenots rallied back to the villages ready for a second round but the leaderless Royalists showed no inclination to fight on and the action petered out.

In our refight the Royalists were far better organised and managed to advance their whole cavalry line forward (more or less) – the rules restrict the number of units that can action to the skill rating of the commanders of the battailles.

First contact was between Francois Montmorency (Royalist) and Conde (Huguenot) which ultimately resulted in the death of Montmorency.

Next along the line the Connestable clashed with the Admiral Coligny and the Connestable defied history and didn’t die.

Despite their lack of numbers the Huguenots hung on.

Coligny retreated and the Huguenots committed their reserve infantry to stabilise the situation.

We had a random option for the Duke d’Andelot to cross the river Seine on the Huguenot right and he arrived late in the game – he actually arrived on the next day.

Out on the Huguenot left Biron (Royalist) charged and saw off Genlis (Huguenot).

With only a few scattered squadrons left the fight was over for the Huguenots and rallying on d’Andelot they yielded the field.

This is a tough ask for the Huguenot player and our Huguenots made a decent fight of it so well done them.

The Wars of Religion vibe had now got a will of its own and so we rolled into the next documented battle, Jarnac 1569, a confused mess which is difficult to unpick.

In brief the Huguenots under Conde and Coligny were spread out along a river line trying to prevent the Royalists under Tavannes from crossing but failed and their position was turned. This left Coligny with his half of the army spread over three villages and the only defensible point a marshy stream being approached by the Royalist advance guard. The ensuing battle saw the Huguenots defend the stream against superior numbers of Royalist foot until outflanked by cavalry who found a crossing point upstream. The fight then rolled back to the next village, cornettes of Huguenot cavalry were committed piecemeal to stem the flow and were swept away as the Royalists committed more cavalry to the fight. Ultimately the Huguenots were back at the third village as Conde arrived with the other half of the army. This completed what chose to call Jarnac part one and fought as our next game.

Our refight was as close as we could get to the small numbers of the original. A regiment of Huguenot shot defended the stream facing off to twice their number advancing on them. Behind them were a couple of cornettes of cavalry, then a village with enfants perdus, then some more cornettes, then the last village with a full body or horse and foot. Besides the foot facing across the stream the Royalists had a body of horse poised at the designated crossing point and then 3 regiments of reiters ready follow on at a predetermined point but who might arrive early on a random die roll – they didn’t.

The early moves saw the Huguenots do as well as their historical prototypes and hold off the larger Royalist force (above) – this was helped a bit by the Royalist player keeping one unit behind the other and not expanding out to one side to get more shots in.

The Royalist horse under de Guise crossed the stream and now the Huguenots were aware.

Partly due to luck and partly due to Royalist lack of concentration, de la Noue’s Huguenot horse caught de Guise in column and sent his force reeling back across the stream.

As de Guise was sent packing on came the reiters.

The fight at the stream went on with both sides losing regimental colonels.

At the stream de la Noue is reinforced by d’Andelot. Who will prevail, lance or pistol?

De la Noue and his cornettes are shot to pieces but d’Andelot presses his attack.

One of the reiters are stopped but d’Andelot is forced to retire.

One of the reiters that got through shoot up the foot at the stream.

The second (and somewhat reduced) reiters ride forward to be confronted by Coligny’s full regiment. I think we know how this is going to end….

Yep. Coligny sweeps away the reiters.

The Royalist advance is stopped. Losses will be adjudicated for part two.

In the historical version of what we called Jarnac part two (essentially later that afternoon) the battlefield had swung 90 degrees with the Royalists advancing in a wide arc from their crossing point and the Hugenots conforming. This left Coligny and Conde with 3 bodies of horse facing around three times their number in Royalist horse backed by several regiments of foot, the royal swiss and artillery while their own reduced infantry defended a line of swamps and ponds off to their right against the reiters. Just like Saint Denys the Huguenots attacked with massively inferior numbers but this time it went very badly, they got through the first line but the royalist infantry held firm giving time for the reiters to sweep onto the flank. In the confusion Conde was killed and the Huguenots extricated themselves as best they could.

In our refight the royalist flanking force was much reduced and this made a significant difference to their contribution, also the numbers of royalist horse were down, all a reflection of part one.

As our refight kicked off the Huguenots rather surprisingly turned about and retreated back across the road, reasoning that it would enable one of their units to face off to the advancing reiters and give the royalist cavalry more ground to cover before they got to grips.

The opening moves didn’t go well for the royalists; the Huguenots used some of the enfant perdus defending the ponds to take pot shots at their cavalry and managed to shoot oth Montpensier and d’Anjou out of the saddle essentially halting those units for a brief while and buying the Huguenots time – they were very lucky shots!

Out on the Huguenot right flank Montgomery’s horse stalled the brave breakthrough by the royalist reiters, three regiments might have been a very different story 🤨

In the centre the main bodies of horse clashed.

Numbers told for the royalists.

The advance of the Swiss ended it for the Huguenots.

I think we’ve killed off our Wars of Religion mania for a while now but it was a very useful experience for me at least. It reawakened my love of the period and has spurred me on to rework the rules in the light of new research and better ideas of how to play; a new year resolution before the year was out 😂🤣

In between the Wars of Religion mania we managed to experience a WWII skirmish game, rather appropriately using our snow covered Ardennes terrain.

Three squads of Americans were holding a crossroads unaware of an advance by two reinforced German squads.

The Germans had several rounds of off table mortar fire to plot prior to the game commencement and the Americans had three minefields that could be laid. Neither did a damm thing 😂🤣

The Germans approached by two routes north of the American positions, one over a bridge and into a wood, the second through the main wood and out onto the road flanking the American position.

Caution was the name of the game until it wasn’t. The Germans had to advance and used as much of the cover as they could, the Americans waited and when they did open up it was only with a single man to start so as to draw the Germans out and then open up fully.

The German advance down the road nearly worked except that as a last minute deployment whim the American player had deployed a sergeant with a Thompson forward in a stand of trees mainly to observe and what a gift a column of infantry presented. Merry Christmas!

Then it just got worse as a fire team down the road joined in.

It was officially a German disaster. Next time look before you move 🙄

And that was the month and the year over. No real hobby work done during this month, too many distractions but back into it next year. So it remains to wish everyone who reads this a Happy New Year and see you in 2026.

November 2025 Report

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Winter is coming. The games however are undeterred.

First game of the month was from our GNW collection – “Action at Sychevka” a narrative game.

In this fictional encounter both sides – Russians and Swedes were heading for the village of Sychevka, the Swedes thinking there are supplies there, the Russians because they have heard that’s where the Swedes are going. Both sides had separate columns heading towards the village; the Swedes had a cavalry vanguard under Horn (above) out in front but they got lost and have turned up on the far right of the Swedish advance and are awaiting orders, in the centre a 3 brigade infantry column under Count Lewenhaupt is advancing on the village and out on the left a 2 brigade cavalry column under Major General Creutz is emerging from a defile somewhat surprised to find Horn in the wrong place! The Russians had a 2 brigade cavalry column under Major General Bauer marching on, the centre and left was under the overall command of Field Marshal Sheremetiev comprising a cavalry & infantry force out on the left – 1 x cavalry & 2 x infantry brigades and a similar cavalry & infantry force in the centre with a cavalry brigade leading and 2 infantry brigades following.

Both sides had general orders of “advance to the village of Sychevka” (except Horn who was sitting around wondering what to do) and so senior commanders were having to issue orders as the enemy became visible and as brigades marched on. In the initial stages this rather favoured the Russians whose centre dragoon brigade under Tiernischov duly advanced on the village and got off their horses.

The opening action therefore centred around the dragoons holding the village which they did remarkably well – partly due to a rules cock up by the umpire (me!) and partly due to the normally aggressive Swedes being over cautious.

While the infantry struggle for the village developed the first cavalry action commenced on the Russian right as Kroptov and Golitsyn committed their brigades against Hard and Armfeldt.

This rolling cavalry melee occupied most of the game with Swedish regiments, Taube, Ducker, Smaland and Ostgota taking serious losses – Taube was in fact lost from the battle, while Kroptov’s horse grenadiers, and regiments, Archangelski, St Petersburgski, Tverski and Narvski took equally heavy losses. Both sides saw their brigades fail morale but the difference that decided the day was the better ability of the Swedes to rally.

Back at the village the Swedes had sorted themselves out and orders had been given. Stackelberg’s brigade (seen above) stormed the village driving out the dragoons and entering a firefight with Pfennigbeir’s brigade which ultimately they lost – both Jonkoping battalions were seriously shot up and the brigade retired hurt.

However the other two brigades of Lewenhaupt’s command, Sparre and von Liewen flanked either side of the village and took on Sheremetiev’s remaining 3 brigades – Sparre in fact took on two, Hallart and Golovin and smashed them both up.

Out on the Swedish right Horn didn’t have the best of days. When he received his orders to advance on the Russian left the dragoons he should have attacked had already dismounted amongst some burnt out buildings and proceeded to shoot him up supported by Hallart’s infantry (before Sparre arrived), forcing him to retire – Ostgota in fact left the table badly depleted. However, in an inexplicable turn of events the Russians got a bit cocky, remounted and came after the Swedes who rallied and gave the Russians a bit of a drubbing (seen above), this did however see Horn and his brigade leave the table giving chase to Repnin’s brigade.

We were now getting to the end of things, Sparre was getting stuck in – none of this shooting nonsense for him!

Bauer’s command was in it’s death throws.

The village was surrounded – buildings removed for ease of play.

It was over. A bloody day for both sides but by the end all the Russian brigades were on the run. Great game.

Next up a return to the Pacific with Victory at Sea. A simple equal points game this time with each side given free choice within the 1943 time frame and both sides having a “free” carrier and aircraft either on table or off. As a bit of a “can I do it?” the Japanese player chose to just have the Yamato battleship and the aircraft carrier off table – meant the air cover was slightly delayed in arriving, the Americans chose a mixed force from destroyers up to their own older battleship.

The game was essentially one of the Yamato keeping enough distance between itself and the Americans and preventing them concentrating fire. It nearly worked!

The main worry for the Yamato was the American planes and if the American player had handled them better it would have been a very short game!

However, the American chose to attack piecemeal and this allowed the Japanese player to “zero in” – see what I did there 😂and take out a lot of the American air strength.

They even got a chance to attack the American carrier.

And damage the Chicago and Houston.

The duel of the “big boys” saw the sinking of the New Mexico.

But you can’t fight against multiple ships and not take damage and the Yamato took some unlucky hits which slowed her and the sharks (aka American destroyers) began to circle.

Multiple torpedo hits and it was the end for the Yamato 😢

Our next game was a return to long neglected ‘modern’ skirmish, this time in our Syrian Civil War ruins set up.

Our basic scenario was Hezbollah and Islamic Front units clashing in the ruins of Aleppo. Both sides had a couple of squads plus a tank – the Hezbollah squads were smaller but better trained and they had a T72, Islamic Front were bigger squads but their tank was a T55, although they did have a truck mounted ZSU.

Both sides advanced cautiously, partly because it was the right thing to do and partly because we were a bit rusty with the rules – it had been over a year since our last game.

Both sides worked their way around the central hospital building utilising the cover as best they could.

One of the Islamic Front squads detoured into one of the wrecked buildings, a bad decision which effectively kept that unit out of the majority of the game as it picked it’s way through the wreckage to no advantage.

The “oh shit!” moment that can only happen in a wargame 😂

Fortune favoured the T72. Scratch one T55.

The bad luck streak continued for Islamic Front continued when their ZSU gunner was cut down before ever firing a shot.

Islamic Front fighters press on.

“man the barricades!”

Oh dear.

Both sides took losses but ultimately the losses were more severe for Islamic Front and they withdrew, ceding this piece of war ravaged ground.

Our next effort was a roll out of the Timurid project. This has been a long running saga of me rebasing (twice!) and reconfiguring all my old Mongol, Ilkhanid, Russian, Persian and Mameluke figures into a representation of the armies of Timur, Tokhtamish and sundry others of the C14th. There are far better and more accurate figures out there nowadays but the sheer expense alone was enough to kick that idea into the bin and frankly in a lot of instances the differences are marginal and the set up is for home consumption only. The rules are a version of the proven Successors rules and as a first run out I was really pleased.

Our armies were a Timurid force in two divisions both containing formed & skirmish cavalry plus an elephant and an allied division of White Sheep Turcoman. Facing them was a Golden Horde Mongol force in two divisions containing formed & skirmish cavalry, a Guards division of elite formed cavalry and skirmish cavalry and a division of Russian allies containing boyars and Polk.

Both sides advanced steadily and the skirmishers went into the wargames representation of cantabrian circle.

Once players got the hang of the idea that is was a game about shooting – nearly everyone has a bow, the arrows started to fly.

However, the stars of the show were the boyars who hurtled across the table, shook off casualties from bow fire and smashed a hole in the centre of the Timurid line – well that was unexpected!

Elsewhere it was all about the shooting and the person who managed to concentrate the most fire at a critical point had the advantage – in this particular run it was the Golden Horde who grasped the concept quicker than their Timurid opponent.

The collapse of the Timurid centre had enough of a ripple effect for the Timurid player to concede and we had quite a chat about the rules and the game – all positive and some good suggestions to go forward with, next task, rebase all the Russians to take on the Golden Horde.

Next up was a ‘reconquista’ game featuring a Norman excursion into Andalusia where they are met by a united front. The sides were pre set out so it was just a question of writing any orders and having at it.

The Normans were deployed in three divisions, strong right wing of knights, centre of spearmen covered by skirmishers and a left of allied light troops. Naturally it was the knights that started the action and all seemed to be going well.

Into contact, encouraged by their General and still going well. This is going to be easy…..

Meanwhile the Andalusian right gets into action and as the allied light horse fell away the General leads in his nobles to stabilise the situation. You know where this is going…..

“kill!”

And then there were two dead generals and it was all over. Oh dear 😭

Final game was a ‘back of beyond’ away game where the British were landing once again to plant the union jack where it had no reason to be opposed by two afghan hill tribes allied to Red and White Russians – history was a distant second here.

Each side had it’s own set of objectives, some easily achieved, some downright impossible, but the scenery and figures did look very nice.

Hill tribesmen ready for the conflict – they didn’t fire a shot 😂

White Russian Cossacks attacking an armoured car.

And destroying it.

I’m really not sure who won the game, it was more of a case who didn’t. The White Russians and allied hill tribe definitely failed, The Reds obliterated one British force but I’m not sure that was their objective 🤔, the other hill tribe didn’t appear until the end but the second British force disembarked and captured the railway station with minimal casualties so I guess they won. In these kind of games it doesn’t really matter, they are played for a laugh and plenty of laughs were had.

Some painting and modelling was done. Here a mosque for the 10mm set up.

Bridging units.

AA fire support.

Thureophoroi for the Successors.

This months reading. The McNab was an ok generalist assessment of the Roman Army, I wasn’t completely convinced by some of his takes. The Tom Clancy I read because of our interest in Cold War gaming and all I can say is, no wonder we were all paranoid in the 80’s! Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia is very much of it’s time and obviously not a Beevor mighty tome but in a slim volume it tells you a lot about the war in the snapshot of time that Orwell was in that particular front, still worth a read.

Well that’s it for November, Christmas is coming but there are still games to play before we drink and eat ourselves into oblivion so keep well and play nice.

October 2025 Report

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Coughs and colds have meant a bit of a lean month but we did have ‘The Other Partizan’

Our first game of the month was a 1980’s cold war attack defend scenario with the Soviets having to push on through after an initial breakthrough. The rules were Cold War Commander.

Outnumbered but not outgunned the Bundeswehr opted for taking the battle to the Soviets – big mistake!

The Soviets deployed a full tank regiment (3 x tank battalions & 1 x motorised infantry) plus air and artillery assets with the option to flank march (which they did) against 2 combined arms Leopard & Marder battalions and a small reserve Leopard battalion. The Soviets had to take the battle to the Germans and had 8 moves to do it in.

The Bundeswehr command decisions were not good and each mistake compounded another. The first was bunching one battalion up behind a fence line like a Napoleonic grand battery and never moving – originally this had some merit as the battalion was back from the fence line and so out of LOS but once up they were fair game to the HINDs and FAO/FAC call downs plus the added problem of this being the flank that the soviet flank march arrived on 😒

The second miss step was swinging the right flank tank battalion out of a perfectly good defensive spot and roar across the open countryside to try and turn the flank of the Soviets. This did have some merit as the Soviets had deployed en masse to their right (opposing the German left) but open ground in the rules (and in real life) is deadly. The better option was to utilise the cover to swing behind his own lines and reinforce the centre and left.

The Soviets made better use of the cover on their deployment frontage dumping off the infantry in a wood and using the BMPs to fire their ATGWs out from the edge.

As in all games there were some comedy moments, like the flank march that took FOREVER to arrive much to the frustration of the commander and the fact that the Napoleonic grand battery just plain refused to acknowledge it was there 😮.

Under the cover of their air and artillery (which didn’t eliminate anything much but did keep German heads down) the Soviets moved onto the high ground dominating the grand battery and with the help of the finally arriving flank march pounded the Leopards into dust – at odds of over 2:1 even inferior Soviet armour is going to mess up the opposition especially as the flank march was literally getting flank shots in.

By the end of turn 5 it was all over, the Germans were on the run and the Soviets pushed on through. Lesson to learn? If you are defending then defend, the longer range Leopard guns in cover will always have the advantage, as the Soviet player pointed out the German players just can’t resist roaring about the table 🤣.

Before our next game we had a group outing to ‘The Other Partizan’. This was our 2nd time of not putting a game on and the plan was to have one of the table sale spots to get rid of some of our excess stuff but someone screwed up the booking 😖😞😤. That said we were kind of glad the plan failed because the set up for those folk who were selling was poor. A gazebo/tent in the open in the generally better weather of May is fine but on a cold foggy day in October not so good especially as one side of the tent was open to the elements – thank god it didn’t rain. If the organisers are going to copy the idea of Hammerhead then bring it inside like they do and have the admissions & merchandising outside in the tented area, lets face it by lunch time the bulk of admissions are done anyway.

Now before I say anything else I need to be clear, I think Richard and Laurence do a fantastic job of organising the show – quite what will happen when they pack it in will be interesting, but it is billed as the premier show for quality games and I’m not sure that is so. In my view, and that’s all it is, quantity has taken over from quality, the number of games on display simply cannot all be premier league standard. The quantity also made it quite difficult to get around and view some of the games and I felt the games in the centre perhaps didn’t get a fair shake, again just my take, there are plenty of podcast reports out there lavishing high praise so I’m probably in a very small minority.

Next up was a refight of part of the 2nd day at Wagram using 15mm Volley & Bayonet.

Our chosen piece of history was the attack of Massena’s IV Corps alongside the Danube towards Klenau’s VI Corps while the main battle raged off to his right. The villages of Aspern, Essling and Breitenlee were his objectives.

The initial French moves were more of a stumble than a confident advance and the Austrians scored some early jabs in the developing contest overrunning some guns and seeing off an assault on Essling.

Not to be left out in the ‘how not to do it’ stakes the Austrians then obligingly sent Vincent’s hussars in against the cuirassier of St Sulpice and not surprisingly paid a heavy price.

The French still hadn’t quite got their act together and some piecemeal attacks got beaten back.

Aspern came under a far better co-ordinated attack and duly fell, the French were getting into their stride now.

The French continued to press and the Austrians started to fall back.

Breitenlee was stormed and the right and left anchors of the Austrian position were gone.

The field belongs to the French who despite a stuttering start did better than Massena on the day and completely destroyed Klenau’s command.

Next up was a weekend away in Stone for a cold war game with the Cold War Commanders group, my 3rd, Gerard’s 2nd, organised and loosely umpired by Richard Phillips. This years scenario was Denmark; a couple of divisions worth of Warsaw Pact elements were pushing north up the Jutland peninsula while a naval/VDV force assaulted the island of Fyn to secure the eastern flank of the advance. NATO was represented by the Danes occupying the island and the mainland shore over a bridge and West German, British and US forces defending the vital E20 highway. All told we had 13 players, a significant band of gamers in one space!

In such a large game it’s difficult to capture what is going on over the whole table so this will be what I managed to pick up from conversations and the occasional trawl up the table. What I do know is that as Warsaw Pact we had to seize the island and eliminate the HAWK batteries stationed there and size the town of Odense, then working our way down there were the towns of Middlefart, Kolding and the airport.

The first day was largely taken up with manoeuvring and initial contacts. The more serious fighting was on Fyn where the Danes were giving a good account of themselves and at Kolding where Soviet armour surged forward. Further down the table there was a lot of command fumbling as the East German brigade (me) stuttered forward and the Guards tank brigade (Gerard) hunkered down in woods opposite the the airfield not wanting to risk the open ground.

Second day was more intense as serious fighting erupted all along the front. First to go were the HAWK batteries, falling to VDV forces as the Danes were pushed back into Odense, the fighting for Kolding was brutal but it finally fell to the Soviets.

Down the E20 the East Germans had a bit of a scare when the the US airborne defending the road line launched a do or die assault on the hills overlooking their position where the FAO’s were sited but for once the artillery responded with little drift and the infantry battalion and supporting tank company were vaporised leaving the way clear for a push to the E20. Apologies for the tanks sitting on top of the trees, with so many players it just becomes impossible to have the time to make it look pretty.

At the airfield the USMC held on despite some serious shelling from the Guards armour – for some strange reason I don’t have a photo of this.

Time called, the East Germans had breached the E20 and were circling behind what was left of the US airborne brigade, further up the highway the Soviets had breached it in two more places. A clear Warsaw Pact victory.

This was quite exhausting and fair play to Richard for keeping us on track especially when players had several different interpretations of the same rules 🤣😂. Like all these big game events the actual playing area you are involved in is not much bigger than a large table at home and without a proper briefing session on something like the Friday night – something the WHC used to do very well, there will always be the tendency to fragment and become isolated in your approach to the game, this in turn can result in some players having nothing very much to do – the USMC player literally could do nothing unless Gerard attacked and there was nothing to force him to do so. I find it difficult enough to co-ordinate 4-6 players so 13 is way out there!

Back home and old reliable, Successors! Late period Seleucid and Ptolemaics took to the field in a curious battle.

The Seleucids went full on ‘super weapons’, 4 squadrons of chariots, 4 of elephants and 2 regiments of cataphracts, leaving a couple of pike battalions protected by Thureophoroi and Thracians. The Ptolemaics were far more sensible, deploying settler pike and cavalry, plus Galatian warbands and assorted other heavy cavalry. Because of their limited numbers the Seleucids opted for a compact deployment, elephants out on the flanks to dissuade any cavalry attacks and the chariots in the centre backed by either the cataphracts or the pikes with soft sand splitting the centre. The Ptolemaics spread out, settler cavalry on the left others on the right, pikes spread across the centre interspersed with their own elephants Galatians on the left of the pike and nothing on the right as there was a village to anchor on.

The battle opened with the chariots surging forward and making a mess.

Followed closely by the elephants who really did make a mess of the settler cavalry.

The spreading out of the Ptolemaics rather favoured the compact Seleucid deployment which if it got outflanked would have been in trouble but the elephants on the left put paid to the settler cavalry and the Ptolemaic left cavalry (above)were so far out that it took a lot of time to swing in and by then the centre was resolving itself.

The Galatians tried to turn it for the Ptolemaics (well the pikes were doing nothing 🙄) and clearing their way through bits of destroyed chariots (they only stand for the first contact and then are destroyed) but missile fire whittled them down.

In went the cataphracts and didn’t really do much.

Thureophoroi did no better and were seen off by the already badly mauled Galatians.

However as we called time the Ptolemaics were done. Both cavalry wings neutralised and their fighting Galatians about to be seriously duffed up. Seleucid victory.

A really odd but fun game. The pikes didn’t get a look in which from a Ptolemaic perspective was a real problem. The exotics on both sides were all over the show, we had chariots hitting elephants, elephants rampaging, dead elephants and destroyed chariots creating obstacles and the allies doing all the fighting!

Our final game was an away day fighting ACW using Rebels and Patriots, not my favourite set of rules but a pleasant enough game.

Four commands, four points of entry; Union from the north west & north east, Confederate from the south east & south west. Objectives? I don’t think there was one 🤔

None the less we all ended up near a creek and began blasting away.

The Union got over the creek and onto the high ground making heavy weather of some enemy skirmishers.

Confederates seize a different hill.

All fought out. Union on one side of the creek, Confederates on the other.

Well that was the games but in other news I did manage to get some Pendraken emplacements done to use as tank berms for our Iran Iraq set up.

And some Iranian bridge layers.

And an Iranian armoured cavalry battalion.

Plus some engineers.

And rebasing my myriad collection of Mongols, Russians, Mamluks, etc to become Timurids and friends/enemies. This is going to be a bit of a journey, the Timurids and Golden Horde are essentially done, Russians, Jalayarids, Mamluks next. Rules done enough for a first draft run through. Looking forward to it.

And I thought I’d start sharing what I’d read during the month, can’t share Audible listens very easily though.

Anyway, thanks for reading, comments always welcome. In the meantime, enjoy your gaming, respect your opponents.