Category: General Information

Not such a busy month what with holidays and a show to distract us but we did our best 😀

First up was an Italian Wars game, Venetian v Florence, so lots of crossbows and condottierre 😁

The focal point of the game was the monastery on the hill which the Florentines made a key part of their attack sending 4 units of militia crossbow to scale the walls and occupy it, the Venetians decided to ignore it and advance across the plain towards the waiting Florentine pike.

I’ll admit it was a painfully slow game; both commanders were overly cautious, trying to keep their troops aligned rather than striking out with a select few, a tactic that suited the Florentines and negated the Venetian strength in better cavalry.

Lots of crossbow shooting was the predominate feature of the game which blunted the Venetian piecemeal cavalry attack and made the Florentines almost impossible to dig out of the monastery. When time was called we ruled a narrow Florentine victory, not because they had done anything outstanding but because the Venetians hadn’t done anything at all 🤣

Next up was a clash from our Timurid collection, Muscovite v Golden Horde, lots of cavalry zooming about.

The Muscovites deployed all of their Boyar cavalry (6 units) on the right behind a hill with the intention of sweeping up and over it to turn the Golden Horde left. Their centre was weekly held by Polish spearmen and Prussian allies out on the left covered by a wood.

The Golden Horde deployed their Cuman allies to cover the hill (not realising an avalanche of steel was coming their way!) and deployed their own Mongol troops in the centre (light horse covering the heavy horse), leaving the right devoid of troops, reasoning that the woods would slow down whatever the Muscovites deployed there.

The main part of the battle was the fight for the hill where the Cumans did a fine job of holding up the Boyars with some deadly arrow storms which halted the lead units. This in turn negated the Boyar numerical superiority as they traffic jammed behind the lead units.

Eventually the Boyars were able to drive the Cumans from the field and swing inwards to attack the vulnerable Horde centre – or so they thought……

In the centre the sheer volume of arrows did serious damage to the spearmen and a couple of well timed charges from the heavier Horde cavalry sent them packing after a brief fight. In the time the Cumans had tied up the Boyars the Horde had swept away the Muscovite centre and left.

Undeterred the Boyars swept down the hill seeking glory and exposed flanks but the Horde now committed it’s as yet unbloodied Guard for the decisive encounter.

The Guard were the decisive factor, one charge, one round of melee and their opponents were galloping away pursued by the triumphant Mongols who then ran over another unit and Boyar morale collapsed. The battle was over and the Golden Horde was triumphant.

Next on the agenda was an away day sci fi game with friends in the Coventry & Warwickshire area.

I can’t say I really had any clue what was going on but fun was had.

Back at the ‘eagles nest’ we indulged ourselves with a big SYW game featuring our Prussian and Austrian collection.

In our scenario an advance guard of Prussian Frei Corps and other assorted light troops had seized a crossroads and nearby hill in anticipation of the advance of the main army. The Austrians had been alerted by their scouts and their main army was closing fast, hoping to crush the advance guard early and gain the initiative.

The game became a race against time as both sides tried to push troops piecemeal into the combat zone.

The big moment was the crash of two Austrian cavalry brigades into the lately arriving Prussian ones. The fight went back and forth and by the end of several turns the Austrians were triumphant.

Unfortunately for the Austrians however the Prussian infantry had formed a decent enough line to dissuade any further attacks and as the Austrian infantry had been fairly dilatory elsewhere the day was the Prussians and the road junction was held.

Our final game was a multiplayer FIW game with British regulars and Rogers Rangers trying to get to an abandoned fort before opposing French regulars and allied Hurons.

Entry points were randomly chosen – which rather favoured the British, and off we went for an enjoyable couple of hours of sneaky Hurons, volley firing British and dying Frenchmen.

Clear winners were the Hurons, who occupied the fort with the loss of only one brave although, as the British player pointed out, “what the hell are they going to do with it now they are in it?” 😂😂

March of course is also Hameerhead month and so we ambled along to Newark and met friends we hadn’t seen for a while, caught up with the Twitterati and even spent a bit of money. Some nice games on offer which we just didn’t get round to playing in and an eclectic collection of items available at the table top sale. A good day out and worth the trip.

In other news some more of the 10mm Iran Iraq project got finished, not far off doing an actual game soon I think 😉

Also some pack animals, Danish troops for the GNW collection and Austrian artillery. Slow and steady wins the race 🙄

We’ve also spent some time talking about slimming down the collections to a manageable size. The Prussians that featured in this blog are definitely going so if anyone is interested in a sizeable Prussian army (mainly Front Rank) please get in touch. The rest of the ACW collection is going to go as well plus some of the skirmish themes that just never went anywhere. Maybe I’ll do a separate blog post prior to banging stuff on eBay.

Anyway, that’s it for this month, see you next month 😃

Our first game of February was our first run through of the Battle of Paraetacene, originally slated for a visit by our good friend Gareth Lane but unforeseen circumstances prevented that so Dave and I hacked on anyway.

Dave took on the role of Antigonus and I shouldered the mantle of Eumenes.

Contrary to history, the Antigonids did well on both cavalry flanks, driving back the Eumenid forces and killing Peucestas on the Eumenid right.

In the centre however the Eumenids repeated history and drove in the Antigonid centre despite being numerically inferior. Three Antigonid foot units routed and Asander was killed in the fighting, the rest of the foot failed their morale and grudgingly ceded the field.

As a run out for Partizan in May it was a worthwhile exercise and gave us a couple pointers on massaging the deployment. Confidence is high for Partizan 😀

Next up was a WWII Eastern Front game; Partisans v Germans. A simple game featuring 2 squads of Partisans attacking an occupied village receiving supplies.

The game was fast and furious; so fast we had to add an extra Partisan squad after one was effectively wiped out 😏

End result was, the supply column was shot up as it tried to escape and the command bunker was overrun. A good morning of fun and fury 😄

Our next game was late war WWII Eastern Front with Sgt Steiner and his squad running short of fuel and needing to leg it for the last bridge into Germany.

In hot pursuit was a Soviet regular squad and a Radachevski squad whose entry points were randomly generated.

In a somewhat one sided game the Soviets were victorious and none of the Germans returned to the homeland.

Next up was a rerun of the ‘last bridge’ scenario this time with more players and revised forces. This time we had 2 under strength German squads and the pursuers were all motorised regular Soviet infantry – 2 squads and an HQ section. The randomising for the Soviets was more detailed this time featuring, time of arrival, place of arrival and method of arrival. The German players were in the same start point and had the same route home but unbeknown to them there was MMG & Mortar support on the far bank of the river that would be triggered once they had passed a certain point on the board.

This was a much better matched game and gave us a tense running firefight game with a nail biting finish.

The support fire did the trick and 3 Germans made it across the bridge, the rest were lost to the earth of Mother Russia.

Next was the refight of Paraetacene with Gareth which has been described in the previous blog post.

Our final game of the month was an away game set in WWI East Africa using The Men Who Would Be King rules.

We had a laugh and moved the figures over some very pretty terrain but I can’t say the rules did it for me but hey, we had a social.

On the getting stuff done front I managed to complete an Iranian tank battalion for Cold War Commander in 10mm – all a bit new to me but quite pleased 😊

A trio of messengers for the Successors project.

Iranian Scorpion recon tanks ready to roll.

Another month done. Thank you for reading and see you next time.

Wow, September has been and gone! Holidays and building work reduced our meeting schedule so only three games this month and precious little done on the painting/modelling front.

The month kicked off with a Carlist Wars game at the Bunker and for the first time in 3 years we had everyone present 😁

The game was fictional and involved a surprise attack by the Carlists on the Liberals camp unaware that more Liberal troops were on their way.

The encamped troops were the ‘good’ troops being the Foreign Legion and the British Legion. Light companies were deployed forward of the position and visibility was restricted in the opening moves to simulate the dawn breaking. Once the first shots were fired (basically the Carlists running into the light troops) each battalion would dice for how many turns until it marched out from the camps. The Liberal reinforcements were pre programmed to arrive on the road emerging from the woods on the right flank but nobody knew when.

The Carlists duly bumped into the lights and the game was on! The lights fell back and the Carlists pushed on as quick as they could but some good dice rolls saw the Government troops spilling out of their tents and forming up on the left flank and behind the blockhouse.

In short, the Carlist attack on their right faltered in the face of the speedy deployment and eventually ground to a halt facing the tents. In the centre the Carlists did much better, sweeping away the opposition, isolating the blockhouse (which did prove to be a nuisance) and cutting the road. The left made hard work of the terrain and light opposition which meant it wasn’t in quite the best position when the reinforcements arrived.

When the reinforcements arrived (which was essentially the main army) the game took on a new dimension as they struggled to get off the road as it exited the woods quick enough to be in the right shape to fight. Both sides used spoiler cavalry attacks to prevent troops deploying and the cavalry even got to fight each other! The really bloody fighting was when the attack columns of both sides got stuck in around the ever expanding Government bridgehead.

Ultimately the Government were able to push out from the woods, despite some serious losses – the Guards cavalry regiments were practically destroyed and move across the back of their lines.

By late afternoon (our time) we decided to call it through sheer exhaustion 🤣 and declared a Government victory – this was not without some debate, the Carlists rightly claimed they had split the Government forces in half by occupying the centre but as the game organiser pointed out the objective was to overrun the camps before the reinforcements properly deployed and, because of the failure on the right, they hadn’t, so victory to the Government.

Our next game was another from the Successor project, this time the Imperial army of Perdiccas (so all the good stuff 😀) against one of the western satraps, Attalus.

The Imperials deployed four blocks of pike split evenly by an elephant centre with each pair combining a veteran block with a levy block; the left of the line was anchored on the Hypaspists and the right wing comprised all the companion cavalry.

The Satrapal forces were more numerous so overlapped their opponents but were not of the same class; they deployed with their cavalry on the right with a very clear plan of riding round the slow enemy infantry and striking the rear and/or looting the camp while the infantry, comprising two pike blocks and two hoplite blocks alternating with units of peltasts screened by psiloi, advanced to pin the opposition.

Once the armies were deployed Perdiccas realised the enemy plan and set about sending his elite cavalry galloping across the rear lines in a race against time 🙄. Other than that both sides commenced their advance.

The early action all took place on the Satrapal right where their cunning plan came unstuck because the Hypaspists got out in front of the pikes and basically got in the way 😏. A couple of javelin volleys pinned the lead cavalry which road blocked the others and once that was sorted out the only way forward was through the Hypapists and that didn’t work out so well 😢.

Ultimately the action resolved itself with the Satrapal cavalry either destroyed or fleeing and Attalus dying leading his companions in an all or nothing charge against the lately arriving Imperial companions.

On the other flank of the Satrapal army events were more in their favour, the clash of pikes saw one of the Imperial levied pikes flee the field with their opponent in pursuit and while the Imperial veteran pikes crushed a peltast unit they soon found themselves being circled by the hoplites and remaining pike.

The centre was a bit of a non event with the other two Imperial pike units being harassed by Satrap light cavalry for most of the game and the elephants facing off to the peltasts. Ultimately the light horse retired, which did leave the Satrap camp vulnerable but at least the peltasts killed an elephant.

The death of Attalus rather sealed it for the Satrap forces and so we called it.

Our final game was a sweeping cavalry encounter featuring the C14th forces of Tamerlane and Tokhtamysh an encounter facilitated by the slow repurposing of some really old figures from our Mongol, Russian and Mamluk armies of yesteryear and slogging away at a stupid metal mountain that accumulated when we had more money than sense.

The field was mainly open with 2 low hills with a wooded valley between on one flank and a lone hill skirted by trees on the other. Both commanders occupied the hills in their deployment area with their guards. The numerically inferior but qualitifly superior Timurids deployed their allied White Sheep Turks on the right with orders to infiltrate through the wooded valley, unfortunately the Horde allied Cumans had the same order and so the battle for these commands was a disorganised exchange of arrows that finally saw the Cumans retreat.

The centre of the Timurid line was 2 commands of heavy cavalry screened by lights and supported by elephants, the left was a similarly formed command behind the stream. The Horde had 4 commands in the centre, one was purely skirmish horse , one was allied Russian cavalry and two were Mongol heavy cavalry – everyone except the Russians were bow armed and the Timurids were generally better armoured than the Horde.

Tamerlane realised as soon as deployment was complete that his centre was in danger of being overwhelmed so he committed the Guard early and that diverted the Russian Boyars in his direction. The bow fire dissuaded the lead Boyar unit and then the hand to hand favoured the Guard – better armoured and better morale, end result was the termination of the Russian command (with extreme prejudice 😂)

The more even centre fight then saw both sides shooting bows for all they were worth and then exchanging blows. The Horde did manage a break through and one unit galloped off in pursuit of it’s opponent but overall the fight favoured the Timurids and the arrival of the force from over the stream tipped the balance; victory to the Timurids.

In terms of stuff done, one of the guys painted up some striking pieces for the Successors project with a kind of Ptolemaic/Egyptian Pharaoh vibe. Could also be used in a fantasy setting?

Also another Italian Wars condottierre unit got done along with a couple of command stands, all from existing stuff that just hadn’t been got round to.

A few more random desert terrain clutter items got completed, suitable for any of our middle east modern skirmishes, or the Foreign Legion, desert WWII or even the Successors.

Well another month over and, given the amount of time we have, fairly lean pickings in terms of games done. We had a chat about it and can’t really put our finger on the why; age, lack of enthusiasm, other stuff getting in the way, too many periods; it could be any, all or none of these, certainly we have collections that are perhaps seeing the light of day once a year – the Timurids, the GNW, Dark Age, Sikh Wars, and some that haven’t been out all year – most of the modern skirmish, the ACW, the Byzantines, 3 Musketeers. Slimming down the collections has started but then the Successors is brand new so….

Anyway, that’s it for the month. Next month is Partizan so maybe we’ll see folks there.