November has been and gone and the year draws to a close – where the hell did 2024 go?
The first game of the month was the firm favourite, Successors, on this occasion Alexandrian Imperial under Perdiccas facing off to the Antipatrids under the old soldier himself.
Antipater’s army was strong in Phalangites (of varying quality) and mercenary Hoplites well screened by skirmishers deployed with their right against the stream while all the cavalry were deployed out on the left.
Perdiccas had the larger army and a varied one in terms of troop types and quality. The centre comprised the pike screened by skirmishers and the elephants, the right featured the Thracian mercenaries screened by Persian skirmishers and the left was the strike cavalry screened by skirmishers and supported by the Hypaspists.
Predictably it was the cavalry who got the ball rolling with both wings advancing. Antipater’s strike cavalry headed for the Thracians with the intention of turning the Perdiccan right. The cavalry of Perdiccas were on the wrong side of the stream so had a more difficult journey to make.
The initial clash between Thracians and Antipatrid cavalry saw the cavalry pause due to javelin volley casualties.
However, after a bruising melee the Antipatrid cavalry broke the Thracians and the wing was shattered – Alcetas bravely threw himself into the combat to try and stabilise the line but to no avail and he fled along with the hill tribesmen.
Due to the manner of deployment the centre infantry blocks weren’t directly facing each other which meant that, A) they were going to be slow to contact and B) the Perdiccan cavalry were going to have to attack the pikes – oh dear 😥
The initial action in the centre featured the skirmishers and the elephants which generally favoured the Antipatrids.
We did have the fun bits with the elephants though…
This going to end well 🤔
Yep 😂🤣
The Hypaspists did get into action and were doing well until a second pike unit joined the fray and then it didn’t matter how good they were…..
The Perdiccan cavalry just couldn’t make any headway and either broke or retreated, either from missile casualties in the case of the skirmishers or forlorn charges on pike blocks.
As we rolled into the final turns the Thessalian cavalry from Antipater’s left were busy looting the Perdiccan camp thus preventing the last chance of rallying broken troops.
Unfortunately we had to call time before the centres were fully committed which was a shame although we had a great game. Quite why this was I couldn’t work out, part of it might be to do with players having a C19th mindset where everything has to be spread out, the other is perhaps the slowness that comes with age 😂, or maybe the rate of movement is too slow? My take is that players don’t relate to the actions of the historical prototypes, concentrate in the centre and the peripherals will take care of themselves.
As sure as day follows night our next game was Iran v Iraq – mainly because the cloth is the same for Successors and modern desert 😉
The Iranians were on the defensive with the objective of retaining control of the tactically important high ground.
The Iraqis are the more challenging side to play having inferior armour on an historically open terrain so line of site favours the better Iranian armour. However in this scenario they did have the option for a flank march and took it with a mechanised infantry battalion.
Early success for the BMP1’s against the vulnerable M109’s.
Despite having deployed with the better tanks of the 10th Armoured (T72’s) the Iraqi’s still suffered from long range shots from Iranian Chieftains.
There was some relief for the Iraqis though when an Iranian air strike hit the wrong target 🤣
As the battle progressed the Iranian tank line held firm although by this point most of the M109’s were toast.
The T72’s continued their advance so as to get into range but losses mounted.
The Iraqi flank attack ground to a halt with significant losses – rule number one, always get out of the vehicles before somebody shoots it up 😮
Ultimately however the Iranians reached their morale break point (we were using Cold War Commander) and failed the test thus giving the Iraqis a minor victory. It was really close and thoroughly enjoyable.
Next up was an away game with the Cold War Commanders Facebook group in a very cold Stone in Staffordshire.
The premise of the game was a Warsaw Pact breakthrough being opposed by NATO at the second line of defence. The table was 16 foot by 6 foot with some lovely terrain which we duly took note off for our own burgeoning efforts. The scale was 6mm and this time I was able to take my own troops – Bundeswehr Panzer battalion and Gerard was able to bring his Soviet tank regiment with all the added extras.
It was always going to be an uphill struggle for the NATO players faced with the (historically) larger number of Warsaw Pact units but initially it went well – I was particularly proud of my Leopard II’s destroying a Soviet tank battalion which strayed into the open ground – line of site is really important.
The great thing about these larger (and longer) games is the opportunity to get more toys on the table – we had attack helicopters on both sides firing away with ATGM’s, multiple air strikes from various aircraft models and off table artillery barrages. Fantastic.
There was quite a lot of debate about how effective (or not) air strikes are in the rules – usually when somebody had completely crapped out 😂🤣 which was a bit of a distraction. For me I’m not overly bothered, the game is about units on the ground, not in the air, and if a group is not completely satisfied then come up with a local amendment, the rules police wont arrest you 😏
There was some hard fighting in and around an industrial centre – doesn’t it look lovely? And it was good to see infantry actually doing something – we haven’t quite mastered the infantry thing yet.
Come the second day the NATO left (me) had been turned which in turn exposed the Austrian centre who were holding on desperately against superior numbers.
NATO Starfighters roll in to stem the tide.
Ultimately time was called and a narrow Warsaw Pact victory declared (I think). Two days well spent, we learnt a bit more about the rules and managed to pass on some things we’d learned, got some hints about terrain and came away fired up for more. Success!
Back to the home front and it was a 15mm Napoleonic game for the first time re-fighting Austerlitz using Command & Colours.
Not being a Napoleonic’s guy I’ve no idea if this was representative or not. It certainly looked impressive with one base representing a brigade, so very much at a macro level, which takes some getting used to if you are used to playing at a battalion/regiment level.
The rules are fairly straight forward – they would have to be given the level you are fighting at, and the results from firing and fighting didn’t throw up anything glaringly ‘off’. That said I did find it somewhat abstract and lacking in flow.
In terms of the narrative, the French right made a mess of the Russian left but didn’t advance beyond the river, the Russians obligingly came to them, on the French left a slow advance chewed up the Austrians but it was in the centre that the French did the best to the extent that when we called time the French had won convincingly on points.
For a so called ‘simple game’ it took an inordinately long time to play, part of that was obviously unfamiliarity with the rules and another part was the inability to make a decision by some players which was frustrating when all you had to do was play a couple of cards. It was the longest game we have played so far and by the end I was done in but not with the high that can come from a long intense game. Most of the group are current or ex Napoleonic players so we will obviously play again we just need to think carefully about how much dilly dallying we allow.
The next effort was another round of the El Cid project and I think we might be getting there now.
In this fight we had Spanish Christians and allied Andalusians against other Andalusians with an Almoravid contingent.
This is a cavalry heavy period so we had several swirling cavalry melee’s which resolved themselves pleasingly both in terms of game play and as a perception of warfare in the historical period.
Despite some sterling work by the Knights of Navarre the Christian cause was ultimately lost and a general retreat sounded, the Almoravids did nothing other than look fierce 🤨
Our next game game was an eastern renaissance game using our Husaria rules, Muscovite v Cossack.
The main feature of the Cossack army was their tabor which they deployed in completely the wrong place but still managed to win 🤣😂
This was a missile cavalry game; both sides had infantry, all harquebus armed, but no real shock troops, the real action was going to be with the cavalry, all bow armed and some lance armed, the Muscovite advantage was that they were better armoured but the Cossacks had more lance armed. It was going to be a challenge for sides of players.
The Muscovites advanced all along their line (well apart from two units that just simply refused to move for most of the game!) in the hope of out shooting their opponents.
The Cossacks sent their boyars forward to try and bust the Muscovite centre but they were sent packing under a barrage of bow fire.
The Muscovites pressed their initial advantage to try and overwhelm the Cossack centre.
Out on the Cossack left the veteran retainers were having a more positive experience. There is no need to talk about the Cossack right because that was where the tabor was sitting doing nothing other than taking a few long range pot shots at the Muscovite centre.
The centre was where the action was and that was where being solely bow armed (the Mongol conquest influence) was starting to become a disadvantage for the Muscovites.
Now it really was starting to hot up in the centre as the Kazak lights tried to turn the Cossack right – out of shot is the tabor doing its one useful thing of shooting into the rear of the Kazaks who didn’t like that very much 😥
The make or break moment for the Muscovites was the Dvoriane charging home on the Zaporizhians – the Zaporizhians held firm.
The Kazaks gave up the fight and the tide was starting to turn.
A series of unfortunate morale checks and the Muscovites started to unravel. Time was called on a Cossack victory – despite the Cossack player being convinced he was going to lose 😁
The final effort was an away game of sci fi skirmish, Three teams of sundry adventurers arrive planet side looking for illegal fuel cells, can they barter their way through the market before the authorities realise what they’re up to?
In short, two teams went through the whole game without firing a shot, got what they came for and left the planet.
The third team got frustrated with being asked too many questions and so opened fire in a crowded market place. The cops came. The end.
Although I appreciate the amount of work that goes into creating the backdrops for these scenarios I think I’ve come to the conclusion that they’re not for me and I need to find a way of politely avoiding such in the new year.
In other news a battalion of 2S1 Gvozdika for the Iraqis.
Iraqi HQ element
That’s it for this month. Thank you for reading, see you in December.
Westbury Wargamers 