August 2024 report

The year is closing fast and summer is nearly over – did it actually begin? None the less we soldier on 😀

First up was a dark age (sorry early medieval) skirmish put on for a potential new recruit, an ex D&D player. A vaguely Byzantine looking wagon train waylaid by Swedish ruffians.

The rules were our own home grown set and the scenario quick and dirty enough for figures to get stuck in quickly, which they did and despite superior numbers the Byzantines were cut down to a man.

Such was the pace of the game that we had a second one, this time Viking v Viking, a longer but equally bloody affair. Whether the potential recruit will join us on a regular basis is yet to be seen (working patterns and all that) but he certainly seemed to have fun.

Next was another in the quest for a decent rule set to get the best out of the growing El Cid collection.

We tried Swordpoint again and although they work well enough there isn’t that spark yet which ignites the passion that went into painting the figures.

There’s a danger of Dave (who’s project this is) getting fed up and jacking it in so we have to find a way through. Maybe an adaptation of one of our existing sets? The jury is still out.

Next up was fan favourite, the Successors. This time Royal Ptolemaic v Antigonid Macedonian. The Ptolemaics were quite compact, a solid base of decent pike armed infantry fronted by enough skirmishers and a reasonable amount of formed and skirmish cavalry. The Antigonids were far more exotic, less cavalry and less pike but units of Galatians and Thracians which could be pretty deadly if used cleverly.

We played an ‘equal points’ game using our home grown rules and used the terrain and scouting rules which saw us start with an interesting layout that was promptly reduced by one side out scouting the other 😂😂

Undeterred our two Generals had at it but from very early on it became clear that errors had been made. The Ptolemaics deployed in two blocks, the pikes and their psiloi out on the left wing and the cavalry plus the elephant squadron in the centre, this meant that the cavalry were doing all the work while the pikes slowly wheeled across the field. The Antigonids deployed their pikes in the centre with their left against a stream and allied Hoplites & Thureophoroi on their right, all covered by psiloi; the actual right wing was all the cavalry and the left was the Thracians & Galatians beyond the stream, fairly classical but the Thracians & Galatians were going to have to get a move on and they had a stream to cross.

The early turns revealed the problems of deployment to both players early on; the Ptolemaic cavalry and it’s elephant support got shot down by the numerous psiloi elements fronting the Antigonid pikes and the force was by and large rendered useless – the Ptolemaic player looked on the verge of jacking it in 😦 however the Antigonid player also had problems, he realised he had thrown 3 units away by sticking them beyond the stream and was frantically changing the orders of his cavalry so they wouldn’t go hurtling into the Ptolemaic pikes.

At the midway point chickens were coming home to roost. The Antigonid cavalry got themselves into a complete mess, the lead unit of nobles did manage to successfully charge a disordered pike battalion and against all the odds sent it packing – wow! the others however ended up sandwiched between their own infantry, who’s advance was now slowed, and the Ptolemaic pike, and not surprisingly they died badly. The lack of a Ptolemaic cavalry wing however meant that the Galatians & Thracians were heading for the exposed camp.

Things looked up for the Ptolemaics as the battle unfolded, their success against the cavalry meant that they surged onto the Hoplites and Thureophoroi and after a tough slog defeated them and unhinged the Antigonid right. However the Antigonid centre was untouched and it’s psiloi were still being quite effective as the barbarian types headed for some looting.

With both sides having a flank uncovered and their battle winning troops to far away from each other to connect in the time remaining we called it and reviewed the mess. In one way it was one of our least successful games in that the push of pike just didn’t happen but it also illustrated that the real life prototypes deployed in a certain way for a reason and that sticking slow moving troops out on the wings or behind terrain you are not actively going to use is not a recipe for success.

Our next outing was an away game of French Indian War using rebels and Patriots. A French column marching through the wilderness to the relief of homesteaders while those pesky redskins lurked in the woods.

I can’t say I’m a huge fan of the rules but we did get a fast moving fun game completed despite some quite bizarre shooting and melee results.

The best fun was had ambushing the French column who obligingly split up to go scampering about in the woods – many scalps were taken 😁

Upshot was that the hamlet was burned to the ground and the citizens massacred; the column never got through.

Our next escapade was a massive WWII skirmish organised and presented by Dave. Somewhere in Germany post D Day British, Polish and Americans are advancing on the next town in the way of the relentless Allied advance.

We used our home grown platoon level WWII skirmish rules which have served us well over many years, but in this game we nearly broke them and ourselves 😮

The game looked bloody brilliant but we were playing on a ten foot by six foot layout with probably a company worth of troops all told on each side. The airborne element fighting across the table towards the town was a US platoon supported by a weak Polish platoon while coming up the table was a platoon of British infantry (later reinforced by a Royal Marines platoon) supported by armour, carriers and field artillery. The Germans, dug in and around the town, were a platoon of panzer grenadiers and a platoon of paras plus dug in assault guns, artillery and mortars; a tough nut to crack.

The game took us two days to play and by the end we were knackered 😂 With that many single based figures to move and shoot it took some time to complete a full turn but given the random choice of which squad will activate next (a bit like Bolt Action) no one was really sitting around for long.

In terms of the game it was a hard slog for the allies (much like the real thing I guess). After several hours of fighting (two days) the US airborne reached the outskirts of the town having suffered significant casualties and only got that far when a troop of Sherman’s arrived (day two) to blast a way in; the Polish on the GI’s left did better, driving off their opponents in the woods outside the town and then entering.

The British, who were hampered by the fact of approaching across a river on two hedge lined roads and heading up table into the unknown. Visibility was restricted on the roads but off road were large patches of open ground which were killing grounds for the infantry and their carriers.

It wasn’t until the arrival of the Royal Marines (on day two) who drove the German paras out of the orchard and pushed their way into the town that German resistance started to crumble.

In fact for the Allied players it wasn’t until the Marines and the supporting armour broke in that the size of the resistance and the number of them who had been killed became apparent.

We certainly had an intense two days and the game looked cracking so a big well done to Dave but I wouldn’t like to do it again in a hurry 🤣

Next was the away game with Gareth Lane already reported.

The next home game was a refight of the battle of Lesnaya, 29th September 1708, being part of the Great Northern War.

This came about from me reflecting on what we are all about. Many (many!) years back when we first set up our raisin d’etre was historical gaming and refighting historical encounters. For a variety of reasons that has slipped a bit over the years and although our Partizan appearances are always a refight it hasn’t been so much the case at home. We kicked off with Sedgemoor last month so maybe a game a month as an historical refight might be possible.

With all that said I couldn’t have chosen a more challenging example 😄 The Swedes have their back to a river and are encumbered by a supply train as the pursuing Russians close in. To make matters worse they have sent the bulk of their cavalry off on a scouting mission upriver – why does it need 3,000 cavalry to scout for a river crossing when you are sitting on one? The Russians arrive to find the only open ground occupied by a Swedish cavalry brigade and the only way forward is through dense woods and most of their force are dragoons!

We deployed as close to the historical prototypes as we could using the Angus Konstam Osprey book and fought our way through the day.

In most ways our refight mirrored the actual event. The Swedish cavalry brigade saw off the initial two brigade Russian dragoon attack in the open space in front of the village of Lesnaya but by the end were significantly weakened. Fighting through a wood is really difficult and our Swedes held on longer than the historical prototype despite facing Guards.

What also came up was the Why? of a battle. The map shows large areas of open ground to the right of the woods (from the Russian perspective) where the fighting took place so why didn’t Tsar Peter send off the cavalry that were with him on a flanking move? That’s exactly what our Peter player did and once he made his way round he proceeded to burn the supply train and then position himself in the rear of the Swedes.

The arrival of both sides reinforcements – the Swedes earlier than historically, signalled the end of the game and we judged the Swedes would be able to cross the river minus their artillery and obviously without the supply train. Worth the effort and glad we did it.

Our final game was a Back of Beyond away game, itself a follow on on from a previous game back in February. The rules were the Fistful of Lead Bigger Battles set.

In this adventure a British column was advancing to “convince” a local warlord of the folly of accepting Russian and Chinese advisors into his stronghold, the Russians and Chinese of course were keen to impress him with their cunning ways!

In a game punctuated by the breakdown of virtually every vehicle on the table and some really quite wild shooting and melee roles the British were soundly thrashed and sent packing. The East is still ablaze 😂