Flow interrupted by hospital shenanigans but still managed to a variety of games in, so without further ado….
First up was what has now become our monthly foray into the Pacific for a WWII fleet action.
This time we took a scenario from the book and diced for upgrades and deployment positions which decidedly favoured the US side – all their planes were in the air at the beginning of the game.
Mass dive bombing saw an early sinking of a Japanese heavy cruiser – “remember Pearl Harbour!”
The Japanese were revenged with the sinking of the Portland and the Indianapolis.
Ultimately it was a points victory to the US by quite a large margin.
Next up was a Timurid v Mamluk game using our adaptations to the Hussaria rules. This collection doesn’t get much of an outing but this was a cracking game, so much so I’m finally finishing the units that never quite got done 😂
The largely open plain was broken up by randomly placed wadis which ended up congregating in the middle of the playing area. The Timurids deployed their White Sheep Turks in the centre facing the wadis and then the much heavier Timurid horse screened by rubbish skirmish foot and not so rubbish Jagatai skirmish horse on the wings, the left being weighted for a mighty attack. The Mamluks had their Black Sheep Turks out on the right wing and then 3 divisions of heavy horse spread evenly across the rest of the battlefield each screened by militia skirmishers.
The early action was on the Timurid left where their Jagatai horse were driven off by the Turkomen.
Then it got even more messy when the Turcomen Askari saw off the first line of Timurid cavalry. Could this be an early tea?
Nah. The second line armoured Timurids stabilised the front and the first line rallied. The tide was turning.
Both sides soon became fully committed and arrows darkened the skies. The elephants were largely ornamental very much like their historical prototypes.
Much blood was spilt but neither side could make decisive headway – the Timurids had the class & the armour the mamluks had the numbers. Unusually for us we had to call it a draw.
Our next foray was the ever popular Iran Iraq period. In this game the Iraqi 15th Mechanised and 26th Armoured were tasked with seizing a strategic rail head (seizing meaning they couldn’t just blow it up 😏) within 8 game turns. The Iraqis had scheduled artillery they had to assign prior to the game start. The unknown Iranian defenders were the 92nd Armoured, largely obscured by the terrain at the start of the game.
The Iraqis advanced on a broad front keeping their inferior armour back hoping to tempt the Iranians to reveal themselves and placing faith in their scheduled artillery strikes.
The Iranians did reveal themselves and the feared Chieftains wreaked havoc on the Iraqi armour effectively rendering it useless.
The Iraqi infantry wisely debussed and slogged their way forward taking one of the outlying villages.
The Iraqi armour bravely firing away.
Chieftains start to take losses.
Ultimately the 26th Armoured failed its morale (although it did hang on longer than expected) and retreated which left the 15th Mechanised high and dry at Turn 8 with the rail head firmly in Iranian hands.
The game was the Assault scenario from the CWC book which gives the attacker 50% more points but even so it’s a tough scenario to get a win from.
Next up was a game from the bunker being Sikh Wars, British attacking a defended Sikh village.
The British were in two commands, a right command of 3 brigades of foot supported by a brigade of cavalry tasked with taking the village and a left command of 2 brigades of horse supported by 2 brigades of sepoys tasked with keeping the large force of Sikh irregular cavalry at bay.
The stars of the show! Usually the camel gunners are a bit of a nuisance and then they die but due to over confidence by the British cavalry commander (thinking they’d just melt away) and judicious use of the camels mobility by the Sikh player they inflicted significant casualties.
Once the allied cavalry got stuck in the Sikh irregulars collapsed in the time honoured tradition and 3 brigades either died or fled the field; the allies were however severely mauled by the fighting and the camel gunners potting away and were of no further use.
The British & EIC marched through shot and shell and despite a few pauses finally stormed the village.
“At them with the bayonet!”
The village is taken. God save the Queen!
Our next foray was the first outing for the new project, El Cid. This was the first of what will probably be a series of trial runs with the sets of rules we think might do the job and if they don’t then it’s down to writing our own but that would be a last resort.
Our final game for the month was an Italian Wars clash at the bunker, French v Milanese.
The Milanese were on the defensive having a town to defend and so kept their decent cavalry back for as long as they could.
In the town the rot started early with one unit abandoning it’s position after some early artillery fire. This was the shape of things to come and once the Swiss loomed closer it was all over.
The fun part of a French Italian Wars army is of course the gendarmes and despite their small unit sizes (much as history) and casualty accumulation they just kept on coming.
Gendarmes love charging pikes 🙄😃
Swiss smash Milanese pikes.
“Be off with you!”
And with the Swiss bulldozing their way into the town our last game of the month was over.
In other news half a dozen or so more 10mm desert buildings were completed – I think that’s enough now 😁
I also got some FAO & FAC bases done for CWC.
Also got the chance to see Martin Bourboulon’s two part adaptation of The Three Musketeers; serious, gritty, plot deviations that worked (or at least weren’t stupid), worth a look.
And with that we bid farewell to April and hope that May brings some decent weather!