November 2023 Report

Some of you may have noticed there was no October report, this was mainly due to me being away in Japan for two weeks and the rest of the gang not bothering to organise anything for the month 🙄 Fear not though we are back on track with a fairly busy month of gaming.

First up was a 28mm Ardennes game using Dave’s recently completed set up – the coldness of the shed rather matched the setting 😂🥶

In this scenario a Ranger squad plus a HQ element were defending a crossroads against some previously rebuffed Germans now coming on at two entry points from across a deep stream.

The German squad advancing over the sole bridge took casualties from the Rangers holed up in a ruined building but managed to take them down and move on.

The cost of doing business.

“Hold your position!”

Ultimately the Rangers were reduced to only 3 effectives and the crossroads was lost but it was a bitter victory for the Germans.

Next up was the ongoing learning curve of our Iran Iraq adventure. Some more terrain for this one which made it a bit more difficult to get a bead on those vulnerable T54’s & T55’s 😁

Much fun was had at the beginning of the game with the Iranians struggling to get the correct die score to deploy which allowed the Iraqis to advance .

Of course once the Iranians got their act together the Iraqis started to suffer.

Unfortunately this was one of those games where players had to be elsewhere after only a couple of hours of play so we called it with the Iraqis having a lot of burning tanks on the table. 😏

Next up was something new for us, one of the guys has recently got into Victory at Sea from Warlord so he bought his stuff over and we played an introductory game with his Pacific forces.

I’m not sure any of us really knew what we were doing so there was a fair bit of stop start as we checked the rules but that is inevitable and like all naval games the ships got far closer to each other than reality.

Ultimately we had a good little game, certainly enough to play again soon, and in fact more ships have been bought and painted up!

Another outing for the Ardennes was next and the last for this year in the arctic shed 😂

This time both sides had off table mortar support randomly generated – the Germans did better from this and certainly made life difficult for the Americans.

Despite an heroic defence the Americans were overrun again – “I think I need to get some weapons support for the Yanks” So looks like the small and contained project is going to grow a bit 😂🤣

Next was an away game featuring galactic monks, armoured robots and some very pretty scenery.

Personally I had no idea what was going on but dice were rolled, figures fell and we had a laugh so no bad thing really.

Returning to more mainstream gaming our next effort was the Successors, later Ptolemaic v later Seleucid.

The main reason for playing was to try out some additions to the collection as seen above 😀

The Ptolemaic army was the most standardised, featuring 4 battalions of Kleruchoi pike on the right centre screened by Rhodians & Cretans and a unit of Thureophoroi and Agema pike on the left centre, both were flanked by formed cavalry with the better horse on the left screened by Bedouin camelry, a solitary elephant squadron took the centre.

The Seleucids were an eclectic bunch. Their left centre comprised two units of Galatians and one of Thracians screened by three elephant squadrons with scythed chariots and veteran cavalry on the wing, the right centre comprised the Silver Shields (the later incarnation) and another battalion of pike screened by some levied psiloi while their flank cavalry comprised Galatians, Bedouin and a single unit of elites.

The battle took some twists and turns. As usual the cavalry actions started and finished first; on the Seleucid right the Bedouin cancelled each other out, the Galatians were destroyed and eventually the victorious Ptolemaic cavalry were on their way to the enemy camp. On the Seleucid left a hard fought affair saw the Ptolemaics seen off and the chariots performed well but not in a way to seem anachronistic.

In the centre much fun was had with rampaging elephants and their ultimate deaths 😄 which broke up the nice neat lines of both sides. The Galatians & Thracians did better against the pikes than anticipated at first but once the pikes started grinding on it wasn’t so good 😮 The good quality pikes cancelled each other out and an inconclusive pushing match was all that was going to happen there but the Thureophoroi performed badly and fled.

Ultimately the Ptolemaics shaded it but it had been a close run thing and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Our next foray was another Iran Iraq effort this time with more terrain to break up lines of sight – and it worked!

On this occasion the Iraqis, comprising a reinforced mechanised infantry brigade, were tasked with seizing a section of railway and the adjoining settlements and had the early advantage of being screened by a large hill for their left flank force and a dried river bed for the right.

The Iranians deployed their tank forces to defend the railway line and settlements and the infantry to hold their end of the river bed. They also had an FAO although the artillery had limited ammunition.

On the Iranian left, despite a gallant defence and the off table artillery, the aggressive Iraqi attack with the better tanks forced the position and by the end of the game the Iranians were totally destroyed. From a rules mechanism point of view (CWC) everything worked fine and as realistically as one can expect which was a positive thing as we progress with the project.

On the Iranian right the two tank battalions took the fight to the Iraqis and we had the comedy show of the T54’s & T55’s boldly advancing from around the hill and almost immediately falling back as the opposition opened fire 😃

Ultimately the Iranians bit off more than they could chew as once they crested the hill the Iraqi infantry swarmed them and made them pay the price for being un protected. Again the rules mechanisms worked well.

Bruised but not yet out of it the Iranians fell back to the rail line to carry on the fight but now their reduced numbers gave the Iraqi armour more of a chance and the losses mounted.

With our physical gaming time drawing to a close we belated consulted the rules about army break points and realised the Iranians were over it so diced and the Iranians beat an immediate retreat. Complete Iraqi victory and a project proceeding in the right direction.

Final game of the month was a western gunfight from our loosely connected campaign set in the fictional Dardanell County.

Bounty hunters came looking for an easy score.

Bounty hunters died 😂🤣

In terms of work completed some additions were made to the Successors project.

The ill fated Thureophoroi

And stuff is going on to EBay in a bid to clear the storage.

So until December, enjoy your gaming and be a good person. Cheers!