A bit of a thin month, holidays and shift patterns rather curtailing our activities, but hey, there are plenty of people out there who dream of having idle time on their hands to indulge their hobbies 😟
Our first foray was the ever growing and ever popular 10mm Iran Iraq project. For this one we had an Iranian town seized by a heli borne Iraqi commando force and reinforcements on their way – all controlled by the Umpire. The players were commanders in the 37th Armoured brigade scrambling forces together to re-take the town so they were given a list of force & points values from which each could assemble his battlegroup to a capped points total – this was all CWC and each battlegroup was 2000 points.
The Iranians chose a tank battalion each (of course!) and then one added a mechanised infantry battalion and the other an armoured artillery battalion – M109’s. Both deployed on their table edge and we set too.
The game was fast and furious with the Iraqis throwing their reinforcements in as soon as they arrived which meant their mechanised infantry were taking on tanks!
In a game that featured SU22’s missing their target, Hinds brewing up tanks, BMP1’s being on the wrong side of a tank duel and an Iranian command element being eliminated – really, really lucky dice 🤣 we had an exciting see saw game that finally ended with the Iraqi command failing its break point roll and retiring from the table.
This went well and the idea of giving the players a limited roster to choose from gave them more of a sense of ownership, definitely going to try this idea again although of course I now need to paint more stuff to offer more choice 🤣
Our next outing was the equally popular Successors project, this time Royal Ptolemaic v Imperial Seleucid so scythed chariots, elephants, wild Galatians, Thracians, camels and of course pikes.
The armies were pre chosen and the terrain laid out – we actually had terrain! The Ptolemaic commander deployed all his foot on the left extending in an unbroken line up to the centre, his cavalry he split into two commands, one led by the army general in column on a road heading toward the Seleucid left via a ford with the intent of turning the Seleucid flank and the other, comprising the settler cavalry, deployed slightly back and facing forward which would join up with the infantry line as it advanced – none of this worked 😥 The Seleucids deployed more traditionally with the pikes in the centre flanked by the Thracians and Galatians and two cavalry commands on each far flank.
Early moves favoured the Ptolemaics, their advance to the ford went well, the infantry advance proceeded as planned. The Seleucids were caught on the hop a bit by the rush for the ford so had to redeploy their cavalry command to counter it but their other cavalry command sensed opportunity as the Ptolemaic infantry had no cavalry to protect the infantry line.
On the Seleucid right the commander launched his elephants and chariots into the attack dreaming of spoils and booty. However, just like history, the chariots were bloody useless 🤣 but they were certainly pretty and absolutely a pain in the arse when they crashed and created an obstacle. The elephants however fared better seeing off the opposing elephant and pinning one of the pike which effectively broke up the Ptolemaic line.
Back at the ford all kinds of fun was had as both sides threw troops into the fray “and the water ran red with the blood of the slain”. Eventually the Seleucids pushed the Ptolemaics back towards their camp but the victory would be decided elsewhere.
It was the centre infantry clash that decided the day. Despite being outnumbered in pikes the Seleucids gained a crushing victory; in part this was due to one of the Ptolemaic pike battalions getting distracted by elephants and in part due to the settler cavalry getting tangled up with the Thracians and so unable to help, but the real fun was the Galatians being able to charge just at the right moment onto already engaged pikes tumbling them into rout.
It really was a crushing Seleucid victory and a fine game.
Final effort was a WWII skirmish on our Dave Marshall cityscape which hasn’t seen the light of day for over a year.
American GI’s tasked with clearing the last vestiges of resistance from the next city on the way to Berlin.
Grenades were thrown, snipers open fire, lmg’s rattled from windows, resistance was tough.
Grit and determination saw the GI’s through and the allied advance continued.
The only painting completed was another battalion of Iranian infantry for the 10mm project – more choice for the next game 😉
A busy calendar this month, plenty of games and two shows – both reported on in earlier blogs, Partizan and GamesExpo, so without further ado….
First up was an away day set in 80’s Africa, Mercenaries v African state regulars using a set of home grown rules. All a bit Hollywood from a certain era (the 80’s!) and with plenty of decent modern rules sets around I was left thinking, why?
Next, the now regular appearance of the WWII Pacific fleets using Victory at Sea, this time we used the night fighting rules – interesting
Chief difference from the more normal daylight game was the need to be closer in to be able to shoot and radar became oh so important!
Next was our trial run of the Partizan demo, Gabene.
The game saw plenty of elephant on elephant action and both cavalry wings were fairly ineffective, unlike the history.
We did however get plenty of infantry action and gained some insights for amendments for the show which turned out right and gave us one of our best show games for quite some time. Time well spent 🙂
Next was a Sci Fi skirmish game using a slightly amended version of Black Ops.
The scenario worked well. Imperial troopers enter a desert outpost looking for something that is in fact a lure for a trap. Trap was duly sprung and all hell let loose 😁
The Imperials got what they came for (a droid containing secret plans – the old plots are the best 😄) and shot up an awful lot of revolutionaries but then had the disappointment of finding out it was useless. The revolutionaries completely failed their objectives.
This worked pretty well with the attendees and I might well run a continuing adventures game, a bit like the western gunfight games, in the future.
Following on from Partizan, Gerard bought along his TYW collection to trial ‘Tilly’s Very Bad Day’ and, spoiler alert, Tilly had a very, very bad day 😃
I’ll admit I’m not a huge fan of the take where one big base represents a large formation, in this case an infantry brigade, and an assigned number representing ‘cohesion’ is gradually worn down.
Criticisms apart, we did get a lot of stuff on the table in a way that looked like those C17th woodcuts of the battles and played through to a definite conclusion in a reasonable amount of time in what was our first time with the rules proper.
General consensus was that with a little local finessing and understanding of some of the finer points of the rules we’ve got something with which to do the likes of Breitenfeld and Lutzen in a day. Result.
Next was our second game in the search for the Cid, or, what rules will work for the period?
At the moment we’re still trialling Swordpoint, which has it’s positive points but suffers, like so many sets, from the curse lowest common denominator whereby the rules are trying to cater for all within a very wide age range and we want to make it more unique.
As a game it played ok and a result of sorts was obtained. More work required.
Next was a big and beautiful game set Italy during the War of the Austrian Succession in which an Austro Piedmontese army defended a bridge over the River Po which the attacking GalloSpan army needed to capture in tact.
The attacking GalloSpan army was commanded by two players each with their commands, one French, one Spanish, separated by the central road leading to the bridge. The Spanish, on the right, had a single cavalry brigade out on the wing facing off to some Austrian dragoons, while their two infantry brigades, one of native Spanish and one of Walloon Guards & Irish faced off to the Piedmontese lining the walls opposite. The French, on the left had a dragoon brigade out on the wing facing a Piedmontese cavalry brigade and then two strong foot brigades also facing the stone walls.
The opening moves saw the infantry steadily march forward under fire from Austrian heavy guns over the river inflicting minor casualties and more significant casualties from two Austrian medium batteries protecting the entrance to the bridge. Fun fact; for reasons that were never explained the Walloon Guards marched straight down the road in column, between the rows of poplar trees, in the face of the guns! As it turned out it kind of worked, their superior morale kept them going, they moved faster on the road and once clear of the poplars were still able to deploy into line and give a decent volley. Who knew?!
On the French left their dragoons tried to clear their opponents away and turn the flank – there was also vague talk about seeing if the cavalry could swim the river but this came to nothing. Initially the French were successful which surprised everyone! but as regiments routed, rallied and returned to the fray on both sides the combat merely exhausted both sides and achieved nothing.
In the centre(s) the GalloSpans finally got into range and volleys all along the line rang out and both sides settled in to regimental firefights. Ultimately the Peidmontese started to give way and gaps appeared in their lines as individual battalions withdrew. The hero’s of the day were the Guards & Irish who led the way and took the most **** but overran the Austrian batteries and saw off the supporting infantry.
As the battle raged and started to come apart for the Piedmontese they tried to blow the bridge – the Piedmontese player had been allowed to place engineers on the bridge and upon being personally ordered to by the commander, roll to blow the bridge. The funny part of this to the observer was that, a) at no time did the GalloSpan players query what the guys on the bridge were and b) never asked why the Piedmontese player was making random die rolls and grimacing disappointedly 😂
With the powder for the bridge clearly wet and his brigades starting to falter the Piedmontese commander called it a day and retreated from the other side of the river with his reserves leaving the main army to it’s fate.
Final game was another away game this time an ACW affair, a refight of 1st Manassas using the Bloody Big Battles rules.
A strange set of rules these. Quite a idiosyncratic play sequence which took some getting used to but once we were in the flow then it zipped along fairly well.
I don’t think it had any real affinity with the ACW being more a generic C19th set of rules but that said we got a game more or less done and with a bit more time could have got a proper result.
And that was the month done. Not much got done on the painting side, too much time spent organising games and chasing up on exploding elephants ☹ Until the next time, play fair, play well.
This weekend saw my 6th year of attending GamesExpo at the NEC and it was as much fun as it always is. Expensive yes, very crowded, but still fun.
For those who are not aware this is a huge 3 day gaming extravaganza featuring all aspects of gaming over 3 halls at the NEC, Birmingham plus competitions and additional events in the on site hotel. By gaming I mean every aspect of the wider gaming world, so board games, collectable card games, hybrid games – part board game part figure game, kids games, family games, traditional D&D, other adventure games, sci fi figure skirmish games, fantasy skirmish games. Then there are all the supporting traders selling all the previously mentioned themes plus others selling items to support those themes – clutter, dice (lots of dice!), dice bags, dice trays, game mats, terrain pieces, terrain ground cover, outfits, swords. You name it and it’s available. This isn’t the 10,000 that Salute might achieve, this is 50,000 plus.
Just to be clear this isn’t a pure figure wargaming event so if your hobby interests stop at the little men in uniforms then read no further 😁 if however your interests are broader then maybe this might be the event for you.
I guess the main difference between our traditional wargames shows and this is the dozens of games on offer that you can just step into and play. These are not like our traditional convention participation games where the game is controlled by an umpire/club, these are fully developed games that the publishers are inviting you to play alongside, or overseen by, staff familiar with the game with the obvious hope of you being so impressed you’ll buy the game – there is nearly always a new Star Wars game (figures or cards), but also (and this is the really fun bit) are games which are first run prototypes of somebody’s brilliant idea that is nearing it’s publication date (or might just have been released) and they want to drive up as much interest as possible by inviting you to play. This was the bit that kind of blew me away the first time I attended (and I still don’t know why I went 😕) but it’s really good fun, the people fronting the game are super enthusiastic, there is no financial pressure because the game isn’t out yet (even if it is there’s no hard sell) and you get to have a go at something that you’d probably never normally play and you’ll probably never play again.
This time around I played six different games; a traditional fantasy card game out of the Magic the Gathering genre, a co-operative fantasy board game, a really clever board game/console game hybrid using smart dice of the old PC game ‘Vampires the Masquerade’, a sci fi skirmish game called Zeo Genesis which had some serious potential and some nice minis which I’ll keep an eye out for, a Crusades board game of factions, a sci fi trading game. Actually I think there were a couple more but my brain shut down 🤣.
No show of course is complete without a purchase or two and so I did 😂 Nothing extravagant this year (I was very restrained) and stuff that I could have ordered on line or in some cases got at a traditional wargames show but the advantage here is that at such a large show traders bring all their stock and you get to see what it really looks like. Also, a company like Gamers Grass, for example, is usually sold by a third party at a wargames show and it is never all the range, so here I got to see the lot and found there was stuff that I didn’t even know they did.
The other very noticeable thing about the show is the inclusivity. Let’s face it, your average wargames show is mainly men of a certain age, generally white and middle class; not so at GamesExpo, the age range is particularly noticeable, young, teens, families, matures, the ethnic mix is a fair representation of the nation at large and who held hands with whom was equally mixed 😊
Now although I have painted this as not a wargames show there are none the less a number of familiar faces from the wargames scene. The redoubtable Annie of Bad Squiddo Games has been in attendance for several years, Black Scorpion and Rubicon are usually there, plus, ABC Brushes, Great Escape, Warlord, Irongate, Gale Force Nine, Warpaint, Deep-Cut, Osprey and Sarissa.
The other plus of the show is the ancillary stuff you can pick up that you wouldn’t see at a traditional wargames show just because the core market isn’t military. Just by browsing the stalls you can come across clutter for skirmish games that is a bit different, the various figures in the sci fi & fantasy ranges on offer can yield eye catching additions to your Viking warband or future wars game, buildings not seen before etc and this has multiplied exponentially with the arrival of 3D resin printing.
Final points. This isn’t cheap (18 quid for a day ticket) so going along isn’t a decision to be taken lightly and it’s the NEC so food and drink isn’t cheap. There is always a queue first thing (I queued for 40 minutes this year, my longest yet) but if you want to get your moneys worth then you kind of have to be there early. It does get busy so if crowds aren’t your thing then that might be a consideration although that said I never got barged into or experienced inconsiderate behaviour. All that said, if your hobby is a broad church then this is well worth the trip, even if only for a one off, I’ll certainly be going back, so maybe see you next year 😀
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!
Hospital visits, surgery and recovery slowed performance a bit this month but the front and back end were bracketed by two conventions so I’ll talk about them first.
First up was Hammerehead (photo isn’t from the show, somehow I lost the pics I took 🙄). In theory this is smaller than it used to be as it now just uses the one hall at the Newark Showground but in fact is as big as it ever was pre Covid and you could argue a little overcrowded. The two main attractions are the many participation games and the table top sale rental in the middle of the hall both of which, in my opinion, are ill served by everything being packed into one hall. The table top sale space needs to be bigger to enable more sellers and alleviate the rugby scrum effect – I could have doubled the space with the number of guys I chatted with who couldn’t get a table this year, and maybe the organisers need to look at the people who are clearly traders in one form or another. The games this year were a bit meh, plenty of choice but no choice really and many just didn’t seem to have anyone playing. The second show was Overlord down in Abingdon but I’ve already posted about that on here so I won’t repeat myself.
Our first game was a Wars of Religion affair, Dutch v Spanish at the Bunker.
Both sides were pre deployed and consisted of an infantry wing facing each other and a cavalry wing facing each other. The cavalry battle got underway first and took up most of the day as each side threw in reserves. Ultimately the Spanish prevailed and stood bloodied but victorious on the field.
The infantry wing was a lot slower coming to grips so the bulk of that play was enfants perdus and carabins skirmishing and being a nuisance. Ultimately the Tercio’s got to grips with the waiting Dutch and saw the first line off but the day was done before we could really get a definitive result.
On reflection the battle suffered from being staged as an encounter game but there was no incentive for the Dutch infantry to advance and risk getting stomped on by fully intact Tercio’s so they stood back, lined some hedgerows and blazed away which made it a pretty boring game. The need for a scenario with clear objectives that could be measured at game’s end was obvious but we just didn’t follow the lessons we’ve already learnt from so many games 🙄.
After a medical interlude our next game was another of our much loved Successors clashes – although there wasn’t much love when the pikes on two blocks were broken one after another 😒
The setting for our clash was the Imperial army immediately post Alexanders death marching to chastise a recalcitrant Antipater. The Imperial army had all the good stuff; multiple squadrons of Hetairoi, Hypaspists, Pezhetairoi, Argyraspides, Elephants, Rhodians, Cretans and a smattering of average and not so good stuff. Antipater had his own Pezhetairoi, Cretans and Rhodians plus a single body of Hetairoi, his infantry was built around a couple of blocks of pikes and a host of mercenary hoplites while his cavalry relied upon Greek and Thessalian horse.
Antipater deployed all his cavalry on his left wing, the flank protected by a stream, in a twist away from tradition, and found himself facing the Imperial Hetairoi across the sands. Not surprisingly this became the predominant clash in the early rounds of fighting.
In the centre the inevitable infantry clash took shape. Antipater’s 2 blocks of phalangites (seen here) were facing out toward the Imperial Pezhetairoi and Argyraspides and their flanks were uncovered by the hoplites being spread further out to cover the plain of battle.
In the cavalry clash the Imperial Hetairoi ultimately prevailed (but not without loss) and pursued the enemy to their camp where they failed to rally and were lost leaving the Hetairoi free to indulge in a little looting.
Out on the Imperial left flank the elephants, screened by Asiatic and Scythian horse held up the Antipatrid hoplites nicely and became the first elephants in all our games so far not to, panic or die 😂🤣
The centre smash ’em up took it’s time a coming but was worth it. Lots of back and forth, command figures jumping in to steady the line (Casander died 😢), units breaking; just what we play for 😉
Ultimately class won out and Antipater was forced to cede the field, his cavalry were gone, his son dead and half his infantry in rout. A good day.
Our final game became the game of two halves as we ended up playing it twice but with different players.
Obviously an Iran Iraq game and another with a written scenario. This one was set in 1984 and notionally an action from Operation Khyber where the Iranians are trying to take back previously lost territory. The Iranians comprised the 37th Armoured Brigade comprising the 231st & 233rd Armoured and the 145th Mechanised tasked with taking the towns of Qurnah and Nashwah to the west of the playing area and they could advance from more or less anywhere along the eastern edge. The Iraqi’s were the 15th Mechanised Brigade deployed anywhere in the west up the main highway and featured the 1st & 2nd Mechanised and the 9th Armoured plus an air wing of SU22M’s on call.
In the first game the Iraqi’s took the game to the Iranians, well the tank commander did at least, because ignoring all previous game evidence about how bad T54’s & T55’s were against anything Iranian he rolled out from Nashwah shouting the Iraqi equivalent of “come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough!”
To the north the sensible Iraqi player decided to see how aircraft performed (this was a first for all of us) and this was, well, variable 😀 The calling in of the air went well but performance over target was abysmal to start – I was worried we’d got the mechanisms wrong but in fact we hadn’t; having the FAO a long way from the target is a problem.
Later the air power became deadly. The Iraqi player decided to persevere and so called for air on every turn he could and his luck in rolling to arrive continued, well outside the laws of average, and in the turn he dropped napalm the deviation was low and the hits were horrendous. Suffice to say the 145th Mechanised was destroyed 😨
The sheer enormity of the loss did cause a bit of a debate (not an argument) and in the calmness of a reflective moment I did realise we (well me!) had got a couple of things wrong the most serious of which was forgetting that the command elements have in built AA stats which meant that for every run the planes would have received AA fire which could drive off or down an aircraft. Oh well, lesson learnt 🙂
Elsewhere the tank shoot out favoured the Iranians but the Iraqis knocked out enough Iranian tanks to tip the whole force into a Breakpoint test which they duly failed and retired – fortune does sometimes favour the bold.
Because another group of players were coming round in only a couple of days time and I wasn’t completely happy with how I’d played the rules, I reset the table for exactly the same game.
Spookily the Iranians deployed the same battalions at the same jump off points but their advance was a lot more cautious, which ultimately cost them the game. The Iraqis were equally cautious in that they kept their armour hidden behind Nashwah for as long as they could. In terms of the air though the Iraqis went for it early on but it was such a different result. First off they just couldn’t roll the dice to get the planes over the target and when they did the AA fire was effective enough to down one plane and abort another attack, the couple of attacks that did hit were significantly off target and inflicted minimal losses.
Pleasingly this game was a bit more nuanced and the Iranians deployed their infantry to assault the town of Qurnah which we found is nigh on impossible, but in the after game discussion we realised it can be done with the right use of firepower and not wasting units in unsupported assaults.
Hiding the T54/55’s back worked well for the Iraqi’s and when they had to be revealed the Iranians were within range and being fired on by RPG’s from Nashwah so it was a bit more of an equal contest. It didn’t stop the tanks from brewing up but it was a proper lesson of war.
Ultimately we had to call it, neither side had reached their Breakpoint but the Iranians were nowhere near achieving their objective. Iraqi victory.
In other 10mm news my mate banged me out some more 3D prints so that’s me occupied for a while!
In terms of finished hobby stuff, nothing completed at the moment but plenty of things ongoing 🤣 So until the next time, be good, be fair.
Our first game of the month was a return to our loosely connected cartel campaign. In this game two cartel syndicates met at a deserted jungle airstrip to exchange dollars for white powder.
Unbeknown to the syndicates the airstrip isn’t quite so deserted as they thought and US DEA agents have convinced local police and army units to form a joint task force to stop the transaction.
All was going well, truck was reversing to pick up the powder, money was being counted, when the look out spotted the Federales emerging from the jungle down the airstrip aways and the firing started.
The first casualty was one of the soldados, which was rather fortunate because he had the underslung grenade launcher 😮
It then became a firefight of two halves, the Federales and one gang shooting it out at long range on one side of the airstrip and the other gang up close and personal with the army near the barn.
During the shooting the plane was damaged beyond repair so no taking to the sky’s for the bad guys.
The life of a DEA agent can be a dangerous one and Kate Macer fell in the line of duty.
As the fight went on the soldados realised that concentration of fire was the key and managed to drive the army unit back into the jungle although the RPG guy featured above literally couldn’t hit a barn door 😂
The Federales didn’t fare much better losing agent Matt Weston and two officers including the sergeant which rather screwed their morale throws.
The cartel weren’t without their losses but they didn’t lose the contraband or the money so time to say adios to the jungle rendezvous.
Our next game was eastern renaissance, Ottoman Turk v Poles; lots of Sipahi’s and Winged Hussars.
Essentially an encounter game the Hussars had a good run to start with.
This unit had a fine old time bursting through a unit of Azabs (of course), then a unit of Voyniks (a bit more impressive) and then riding down the guns.
The Sipahis had an equally fine time killing Haiduks.
The Hussars were however being worn down.
Ultimately it was the Ottoman Tartars that tipped the game, roaming free they were able to gradually wear down the Hussars and the Ottomans hadn’t even committed their Janissaries.
Next was a return to the WAS in Italy a place we hadn’t visited for some time.
We made a conscious effort to get away from ‘let’s have at it’ with this one. Both sides had a written scenario detailing where commands could be deployed but not how, cavalry brigades arriving by road and needing orders, possibilities for flank marches, clues about where roads might go if they investigated; so some decisions to be made.
The GalloSpan army (French & Spanish) had two brigades of horse marching on (and basically that’s all they really did 😏), the rest of their forces they deployed by nationality; the Spanish foot deployed to the right of a T junction, national foot to the front and a brigade of Walloon Guards & Irish in support to the rear, the French foot deployed to the left of the junction and the brigade of French horse deployed astride a road out on the left flank beyond a stream leading to who knows where – they had the option to scout up the road in force which could have been fun but they didn’t.
The Austro Piedmontese had the option for a flank march on their right with Romer’s cavalry and took it (more of this later), elsewhere they deployed their Austrian foot brigade out on the right beyond the stream leaving the ground to their left on the other side of the stream clear for the arriving Piedmontese cavalry; the three brigades of Piedmontese infantry lined the road to the left of the arriving cavalry partly obscured by a line of Poplars.
The first action was on the Piedmontese left where two of their brigades advance rather awkwardly against the solid Spanish line coming toward them – by awkward I mean the Piedmontese deployed their battalions two by two and one brigade behind the other which although fine for depth did mean that the solid Spanish line (all very historical) inevitably overlapped the end of the Piedmontese and at some point was bringing more muskets to bare.
Further up the road the Piedmontese took on the 2nd Spanish line brigade in a fire fight which lasted most of the battle and left both brigades shattered.
The arrival of Romer’s cavalry was a bit of a high point for the Austro Piedmontese although on reflection the player had planned for it a bit late in the day – design note; if the French player had sent his cavalry off down the road then both brigades would have been lost fighting off table somewhere, if there had been no opposition then the French would have arrived in the enemy rear but late in the day.
Although the French were in the right place for the flank march they didn’t know one was coming and so were still caught on the hop and ultimately lost the fight although a desperate charge by their brigadier commanding a lone regiment did delay things slightly.
Back on the Piedmontese left the Italians finally forced their way through the Spanish line and advanced on the Spanish reserves who received orders to advance and although it looks pretty above the tired Italians were no match for the Walloons & Irish and the attack came to a grinding halt.
Following their long march and a delay in reading their orders the Spanish cavalry hooked up with a supporting French brigade and advanced against the Piedmontese cavalry who despite some heroic charges were hopelessly outnumbered and yielded the field.
Romer was by now in the rear of the GalloSpan line and the one uncommitted French brigade scrambled to redeploy to face his admittedly damaged brigade.
Unfortunately we ran out of time in what had been a hard fought battle. Summing up, the GalloSpan right was secure and the Walloons & Irish were poised to crush the weakened Italians, further along the opposing Piedmontes and Spanish had fought each other to a stand still, the right centre of the Piedmontese line was desperately vulnerable, the cavalry were done and even a battery of guns wasn’t going to stop two brigades of horse and a brigade of infantry.
Over on the Piedmontese far right the Austrian foot brigade was advancing in a disorderly manner but had achieved nothing of any note and although their horse had turned the GalloSpan flank it’s ability to exploit the opportunity was in question. The players were still arguing (good naturedly) about who won when they left 😂.
Next up was an away game of ACW using ‘Rebels and Patriots’
Rebels hold a small town against attacking Union brigades.
The opening moves favoured the Rebels, they held the town and a walled field outside of it which served them well and it took time for superior Union numbers to tell in the firefights and in the cold steel encounters within the town.
I’m not a fan of the Osprey blue book rules, the extreme randomness, bizarre shooting angles and event tables just aren’t my thing but that said we had a fun time, so silver linings.
Final game of the month was good old Carlist wars.
British Legion hold a town and outlying defensive works and await relief as numerically superior Carlists close in.
As is almost inevitable in these kind of games the the play split into two different games within a game, one was the assault on the town and one the fight to delay the column.
Frankly the fight for the town was the more fun game (so glad I was playing it 😀). Two brigades of Carlist troops threw themselves against the walls and despite losses and a tremendous stand by the British Marines finally broke in and took the town.
The commander of the relief force was on a hiding to nothing; there was only one road over one bridge of an unfordable river, roving Carlist cavalry were randomly appearing on both sides of the river (how is a very good question) and a strong brigade of Carlist infantry were easily able to march from the baseline to their end of the river because there was no discernible opposition.
Don’t get me wrong the game was full of action; fighting in the streets, rockets, cavalry charges on hastily deploying infantry lines, assault columns trying to burst through defences. All great stuff but the result was inevitable.
We discussed the game at length once the town had finally fallen and the column was stuck and agreed the basic game was fine but only one bridge over an impassable river was an impossible ask. Better to have two bridges, one upstream and one downstream or no bridges and just a water barrier with the usual slowness and disorder. Sometimes the obvious isn’t obvious when setting a game up.
Away from the fighting a few things got finished, some more built up areas for the 10mm Iran Iraq.
Palm trees done.
Wars of Religion stradiots
Wars of Religion Spanish lancers
Italian Wars Escopeteros
Well that’s it for the month. Hammerhead coming up so maybe some bargains to be had there! Until next month, play nice 😀
The first month of a new year, which will probably be much like the last year and that’s fine by me! No New Year Resolutions or anything like that but I have promised myself a revamp of the games room and with that the clearing out of figures, terrain, books, magazines and rule sets which just aren’t being used, I think the Scandinavians call it ‘death cleaning’ 😄 Anyway, without further ado, on with this month’s events.
First out of the gate was a group favourite, Successors. This time we staged a Western Satrap army under Asander against the might of the Imperial army under Perdiccas. For a bit of a change we had a crossable stream snaking across part of the battlefield with a temple on one of it’s banks.
The Imperial army had all the good stuff; 3 units of Hetairoi, the Hypaspists, Pezhatairoi, 3 units of phalangites, Cretans, Agrianians, elephants and some lesser skirmishers, they also had a unit of Pantodapoi but the General sensibly relegated them to guarding the camp right out on a flank beyond the stream.
The Satrap army was a more numerous but more varied in quality; the cavalry featured 3 units of Satrap formed cavalry screened by units of light horse and a lone Xystophoroi unit, the foot had two units of phalangites supported by 2 units of Thracians, 2 blocks of Hoplites and 3 units of Pisidian peltasts all screened by variously armed psiloi.
Deployment revealed that Perdiccas had cunningly positioned all his pike on his right flank with it’s left anchored on the stream which meant that the more traditionally deployed Satrap cavalry were staring straight into a mass of pikes 😮. The Imperial cavalry, supported by the elephants, were deployed in the centre, more or less lined up facing the opposing peltasts. The Satrap players curiously placed their hoplites off to the right, behind the stream facing the temple, which rather rendered them useless for the course of the game.
The Imperial plan was simple; power across the battlefield with the elite cavalry and sweep away the peltasts and Thracians while the massed pikes trundled forward and crushed anything in its way. The Satrap players had gone for a thin linear deployment which did not help their cause in the long run and kind of boxed themselves in to a purely response tactic.
As the game got under way it was the Imperial centre which saw the first action and it didn’t really go according to plan because the sheer weight of missile fire from the opposition (everyone had a javelin 😏) saw both the elephants lose their mahouts and panic across the front and then ultimately die while one of the Hetairoi was destroyed and the other two ran off and had to be rallied further back – so much for the soft centre 😂.
On the Satrap left the cavalry went full on suicide run and got duly duffed up by the pike juggernaut and their tattered remnants fled, never to be rallied.
The Xystophoroi tried to rescue the Satrap left but the Hypaspists ate them for breakfast. The Satrapal left no longer existed and the pikes headed for the Thracians.
As can be seen the Thracians didn’t last long either and then one of the Satrap commanders inconveniently dropped dead and his division was paralysed.
It was all bad news now for the Satrap army, routs are contagious and the big bad pikes were now swinging in, time to call it a day and leave Perdicass in charge 😀.
Our next foray was the new kid on the block, and my personal favourite currently, the 10mm Iran Iraq project; this time on our brand new Tiny Wargames desert mat.
Trying to have a bit of a narrative rather than just going bang bang we had elements of the Iranian 165th Mechanised Infantry scattered along a thinly held front trying to protect the M6 highway from advancing Iraqi armour while awaiting the arrival of the 232nd tank battalion to bolster their lines. The Iraqi 26th armoured battalion and the 7th armoured battalion could enter the battle area from anywhere along their tactical edge and had only one objective, secure the highway. Both sides had off table artillery, the Iranians had the slight advantage that their FAO was already on elevated ground overlooking the highway.
Well aware of the weakness of their T54/T55’s the Iraqis fanned out and tried to get up close before the dreaded Iranian Chieftains could arrive. PS. this failed 😂.
The T62’s of the 7th armoured opted to roar up the metalled road that joined the highway, maybe this would work?
Well in the time honoured tradition the Chieftains shot the T55’s to pieces with no loss to themselves although this was made slightly easier by the Iraqi player inexplicably leaving one company of tanks lingering at the back – “well at least it didn’t get destroyed” was the response when asked why.
Not surprisingly the Iranians prevented the highway from falling into enemy hands but this was rather helped by the holding back of one tank company and the T62 column just roaring up the road and then just stopping to shell a village with the lead tank. What was noteworthy was the utter uselessness of both sides artillery targeting, they literally couldn’t hit a barn door between them 🤣😂.
Our next game was from our GNW collection, this time a Swedish attack on a Danish force.
This was a pretty bloody affair – mainly Danish blood I’m afraid.
Both sides deployed fairly traditionally, two cavalry wing and an infantry centre each, the Danes had the slight advantage of a farm enclosure they could defend.
The early moves were all about the cavalry and featured the Swedes charging into the Danes with their traditional gusto and the Danes repulsing the first wave but the Swedes could better absorb casualties and so when the second wave went in the Danish wings collapsed.
The Swedish infantry attack on the farm was held and settled into a long running musketry duel which the Swedes would ultimately win but it would be a long time coming.
The shocking event and the one that sealed the game was the charge of two brigades of Swedish cavalry on the large Danish Guards brigade. The Guards barely put up and fight and collapsed almost immediately, it really shouldn’t have happened but a couple of minor tactical errors and some appalling dice throwing ended the game in shocked silence.
Next was good old Italian Wars, a period we have gamed for some 30 years now 😮.
For this one we had a Spanish Imperial army attacking a road between two walled towns which is defended by a Venetian force,
Despite the presence of cavalry on both sides this was much more of an infantry fight and so it took longer for the armies to close which rather favoured the Venetians who could slowly wear down the Spanish with long range crossbow fire.
The one bit of cavalry action that there was saw the Burgundian men at arms in the Spanish army drive some Mantuan mercenaries from a breached wall and then mix it up with the largely supine Venetian cavalry beyond the wall.
Unfortunately for the Burgundians the pathetic Venetian cavalry response did hold them up long enough for the Romagnol pike to redeploy and attack the cavalry in the flank and eventually cut them down.
The real action however was the attack of the Spanish pike colunella who swept the opposition from one part of the wall and broke through but further down the wall the colunella there stopped after its captain was slain and would proceed no further.
The attack of the colunella was the keystone of the Spanish attack plan and the faltering of the one meant that despite the success elsewhere it was not enough and the Venetians rightly claimed victory.
Our next game was a Napoleonic skirmish away game with one English and one Scottish company attempting to get to a bridge before it was blown by the French, the only thing in their way was a thin force of Irish in French service.
Quite frankly there was no way the British were going to get to the bridge in time (the French increased their percentage chance of blowing the bridge by 10% per turn played and the British were more than 10 turns away.
The bridge duly blew but plenty of fun was had 😀.
Our final game of the month was another Victory at Sea encounter set once again in the Pacific. This time we had a pair of enlarged fleets (Gerard was busy painting over the Christmas break) both featuring an aircraft carrier and the name of the game was don’t let your carrier get sunk.
For the first time we used the aircraft rules, which are simple but effective, and they certainly added a different tactical nuance to the game.
Ships on both sides were sunk with all hands but both players managed to protect the ‘mother ship’ – more by luck than judgement, with only the US player getting any hits in at all.
A points tally at the end gave a marginal victory to the US player but the practical reality was a draw.
In other news we had the incredibly exploding elephant! As you can see, uncured resin forced its way out and split the model catastrophically 😭 which was bloody annoying.
On the down side, we bought 6 of these models from the manufacturer before he realised the problem (no vent hole) and 2 have gone so far which means replacing them and re-painting – Dave cried. On the plus side, said manufacturer acknowledged responsibility and has replaced the 2 dead elephants and will replace the others when they burst (if they do I guess?).
Painted some more 10mm for the collection, this time M109’s for Iran. Pretty sure I’ve done more than is needed but I’m having such fun doing them.
Nothing much else to report, the last few days have been spent starting the games room clear-out and the first week of February will probably be a bust in terms of gaming but hopefully back on track after that. In the meantime, play nice and I’ll see you in February.
Wow! Another year draws to a close and I’ve no idea what happened to it 😃 Not surprisingly December was a lean month for gaming but none the less we got some decent sessions in before closing for Christmas.
First up was an ‘Arthurian’ battle using our home grown rules. On this occasion we had Jutes attempting to breach one of the defensive dykes held by scratch force of Britons desperately hoping the Comes Britaanniae would arrive in time.
Early moves saw the Jutes gain a toehold at the foot of the dyke and try and shoot the defenders from the wall while scrambling up.
Thankfully Arturios arrived but would he be able to save the day?
Undeterred by some fancy git on a horse the Jutes pressed on and breached the dyke in two places, clambering over and taking on the Milites beyond the dyke which generally went badly for the Britons.
Artorius and his cavalry threw themselves on the Jutes outside the dyke in a desperate attempt to drive off the invaders but they were just not enough and their supporting infantry were some way behind.
The deciding factor was when the mercenary Franks forced the gate, cutting down the defending Britons, now they could man the dyke and defy the relief force, who despite some victories over those Jutes who had turned to fight, could not regain the lost lands.
Next up was an Italian Wars game, Florentine v Venetian, again using our own rules.
The terrain was fairly open, bisected by roads and with two hamlets to break up line of sight and provide cover/distraction.
Both sides suffered from command & control problems and so launched piecemeal attacks which saw mini battles within the overall battle.
The Florentines became particularly fixated on one of the hamlets and ultimately committed five bodies of crossbow infantry to it’s capture and retention in the face of Venetian indifference 🤣
The Venetians were much more interested in using their better cavalry to duff up their Florentine opposite numbers, which they duly did.
Where the Florentines did manage to gain some traction in the centre the Romagnol pike stepped into the breach and restored order, game set and match to the Venetians.
Our final game was a return to the Pacific with Victory at sea, this time with some islands to break up the open water, some different ships and both sides having specific objectives; the Japanese to get their transport convoy to the islands and the US to sink the transports.
With the addition of an objective the game was a lot more tactical – as much as our incompetence allowed 🤣 and just banging away with guns and launching torpedoes wasn’t necessarily the answer.
The Japanese were the first to lose a capital ship when the US Idaho pounded the Amagi to pieces in one turn of firing – three successful critical hits sank the Anagi with all hands 😢
For most of the game the Japanese were on the back foot, desperately trying to manoeuvre long enough for the very slow transports to reach the islands.
The Japanese did have some success, crippling the Chicago and Indianapolis with torpedoes when the player finally realised how best to use them 🙄
Ultimately however the plucky transports didn’t make it – seen here just before they were blasted out of the water by concentrated gunfire.
As a game system it does take a little bit of getting used to and I certainly haven’t got anywhere near understanding it properly but it does provide a somewhat different take on gaming to what we’re used to which is a good thing.
That’s it from a playing point of view the rest of the month has been starting the clearing of stuff that just doesn’t get used and never will, first up dozens of sets of rules and some terrain items. This is going to be a long haul into the New Year but it’s got to be done.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed your Christmas and have a Happy New Year!
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!
On one of the hottest days of the year I motored down to Newbury racecourse for Colours 2023 and sweltered amongst the crowds – do they have air conditioning or was it just a cunning plan to get more of us to the bar?
The ground floor was the usual array of traders so I got through that as quickly as possible – the benefit of actually pre-ordering was worth it this time. Some very nice display games on the 1st & 2nd floors and access to the outside for some air and shade 😀. All told a good day and a well done to the organisers.
First game of the month was a Soviet Afghan game using Spectre Operations V2 with the mujahedeen attacking a Soviet outpost.
The game played well. One mujahedeen group decided ‘to hell with cover’ and went full on martyr, attacking over open ground, not surprisingly they died.
The second group went all tactical and used a dried up river bed to sneak up on the Soviets, they had far more success 🤣
Next up was a Successors game, Antipater v Perdiccas, using our new elephants amongst other things. After the ill tempered last outing this was played in a far better spirit and much fun was had with stampeding elephants, dying elephants and pushes of pike.
In terms of losses the Perdiccans most definitely lost the most troops, including all their elephants, however, amongst the Antipatrid losses were two commanders, effectively paralysing the army.
In the middle of the month I took a drive up to Stone in Staffordshire to participate in a 6mm Cold War game organised by the Cold War Commanders Facebook group.
This was a bit of a leap of faith as I hadn’t met any of these guys before and had never played 6mm before but the Cold War Commander rule set is the one I’ve gone for to do my Iran Iraq project so best to learn from those who know what they are doing I thought 🤨
First off I had a fine time with some friendly guys and got a weekend of gaming in, which I haven’t done for a long time, and secondly I learnt a good deal more about the rules so win, win 😊
Back home and the group played out a TYW scenario, refighting Lutzen.
This was a gruelling fight (in a good way) which saw the Swedes take considerable losses (much like the real thing) but were unable to force the Imperialists out of their positions.
On a positive note, Gustavus survived 😁
Our final game of the month was an Italian wars affair, Milanese v French.
The Milanese largely stood firm behind a stream and let the French come on, hoping to wear them down with crossbow fire – actually the Milanese player couldn’t get his troops to move anyway! 🤣😂
It took some time and the loss of a great number of French nobles but eventually the French forced the stream and when the ponderous Swiss smashed through the Milanese left it was over for the Duchy 😥
Game wise that was it for the month, a respectable few games and the ‘new normal’ for us now, gone are the days of two games a week, but hey, at least we’re still gaming.
On the project front the Iran Iraq 10mm continues with another Chieftain tank battalion done (above) and a T72 battalion done (below)
Well that’s it I guess, more to follow next week after a holiday break, so adios until then. 🙂
Westbury Wargamers 