Category: Monthly Report

August 2026 Report

westburywargaming6 Comments

The summer is spluttering to an end but it’s been a good month for gaming.

Our first outing of the month was a refight of the Battle of Liebertwolkwitz, 14th October 1813 using the 15mm Napoleonic collection.

For those interested in the history, this was a prelude to Leipzig two days later and is known to history as the largest cavalry battle of the wars. With all the manoeuvring post 1812 Napoleon was initially hoping to deal first with Blucher’s Army of Silesia, but decided to join Murat against Schwarzenberg’s Army of Bohemia. He ordered Murat to make a stand south of Leipzig, along the line Mark-Kleeberg – Wachau – Liebertwolkwitz, with the intention of holding off the Army of Bohemia until he could bring his reserves to bear. Under no circumstances was he to become over-engaged in heavy combat. But Murat being Murat he committed himself to the attack and both sides got sucked into an ever growing battle that should never have been. The combat swayed back and forth but by the late afternoon both sides were essentially back where they started but the French cavalry losses were something that could be ill afforded.

In our battle the French were deployed in their historical positions along the Mark-Kleeberg, Wachau, Liebertwolkwitz, Holzhausen, Zuckelhausen line we heavily borrowed from https://www.jemimafawr.co.uk/2026/02/07/the-leipzig-overture-the-cavalry-battle-of-liebertwolkwitz-14th-october-1813-a-scenario-for-napoleons-battles/ and the Allies with Pahlen’s light cavalry vanguard on table as well as the infantry divisions of Baumgarten and Mohr, everything else was marching on from turn 2 to 7 in a notionally 10 turn game.

Our battle opened with Pahlen throwing his hussars against the main French positions on the Galgenberg, not with any real hope of success but with the hope of pinning back any French advance. The lack of success certainly played out and Pahlen’s vanguard collapsed in pretty short order.

Much like the real thing the battle did develop a momentum of it’s own as the Allies arrived piecemeal and attacked piecemeal rather than developing a consolidated front. On the French side Murat behaved himself and concentrated on preserving his cavalry wherever he could.

The next big push was the infantry of Mohr and Baumgarten towards Liebertwolkwitz itself which equally came unstuck and collapsed ultimately engulfing the whole of Klenau’s Corps, Baumgarten’s division and the 1st, 2nd & 3rd Divisions virtually ceasing to exist.

Mohr certainly gave the French something to think about but not enough.

We did have a storming of Liebertwolkwitz and the heights and you’ll have to admit it does look dammed impressive.

And it was close.

The French even had to commit the Young Guard!

Time was called at the end of turn 8 – it was a big affair with a lot of troops and we were as tired as the miniature recreations 😂

Looked at dispassionately, the French had done what they needed to do and hadn’t wasted their cavalry. Well done Murat!

Our next effort was an away game set in the semi fictional world of the ‘Back of Beyond’ where Imperial Russians, British, Germans and Afghans fight and die gloriously for no particular reason.

In this particular scenario the focal point was the British Ambassador aboard a train progressing up the playing area and being closed upon by Russians & Germans – notionally allied, and Afghan tribesmen. Also in the mix was a British contingent heavily up gunned with a couple of armoured cars a contingent from the Army of Indian expecting support from the British – it didn’t happen 😂

There is no real coherence to these games although they are undoubtedly fun.

In short, the Russians were so close to grabbing the Ambassador (who in fact had been killed by stray bullets earlier 😮) but were sent packing by the Indian Army contingent, the Germans forgot they were allied to the Russians, the Afghans were shot to pieces and the British used their armour to sit tight and shoot anybody up who got in range.

These games have nothing to do with history which is reinforced by the ‘quirks’ of the Fistful of Lead for Bigger Battles rules but they do serve as a humorous social get together, a bit like going down the pub.

Our next game was Successors, this time a recreation of the first battle of the Lamian War 322BC between the Aetolian League and Antipatrid Macedon.

The sources are limited for this battle but what we do know is that the Macedonians were significantly outnumbered in cavalry while infantry numbers were roughly the same. As to the battle, the Macedonian cavalry were routed on both wings and the overall commander Leonnatus killed in the fighting; the Macedonian infantry refused to fight (probably because many were recent recruits) and fell back onto the hills behind them where they saw off the half hearted attacks of the League.

For our fight the League constituted a centre of 5 hoplite battalions (2 of which were unreliable allies) and 3 peltast, screened by psiloi, commanded by Antiphilus. The right wing veteran Thessalian cavalry were 2 bodies under Menon and the left 2 units of Greek horse under an unknown commander. The Macedonian infantry centre comprised 5 pike battalions (3 of which were levy) screened by psiloi and a single body of Hetairoi cavalry on each wing one under the command of Leonnatus.

As is almost invariably the case with these games (and history) the cavalry encounters were the first part of the game as the infantry trundled along. For the League the aim was to finish off the opposition quickly and then swing round behind the pikes, for the Macedonians it was delay the enemy long enough for the pikes to get stuck in.

The infantry lines closing. Looks impressive 😁

On the cavalry wings history repeated itself. Both Macedonian leaders were killed and their units destroyed or routed.

In the centre both sides readied for the big push although whether everyone would be brave enough to close was yet to be seen. It was at this point that the flaw in the League plan became apparent, by advancing to meet the Macedonians they hadn’t given their cavalry the time and space to get round behind. Would it matter?

Battle is joined, will the big long pointy sticks be the decider?

The hoplites on the right of the line take serious losses and rout.

The League centre goes down.

It’s over. Decisive Macedonian victory.

Next up was a return to our once loved 28mm WWII skirmish period. We dusted off our Dave Marshal TM Terrain German town and set a reinforced Soviet platoon to clearing the streets of a German rear-guard.

The Soviets proceeded cautiously.

A panzerfaust shoots from an upstairs window and the T34 is damaged but not critically.

The firer of the panzerfaust is gunned down in a hail of bullets.

Things are getting serious as a grenade from a window takes out two soldiers.

A roof top lmg opens up.

Every inch of ground is bought with blood.

The advance continues. Where the hell are those Nazis!

Off table mortars cripple the tank and the crew bail out.

Cornered like a rat in a trap.

Despite their losses the Soviets eventually cleared the houses and the German remnants fell back.

Next on the play list was a ‘what if’ from the Leyte Gulf battle, WWII Pacific. In this the Yamato and several heavy cruisers plus destroyers took on a slightly superior US naval force.

Quite a lot of manoeuvring in the opening moves as the Japanese tried to stay out of the way of the USN bigger guns and keep the Yamato afloat.

What soon became a feature of the Japanese play book was as soon as a ship had taken damage and was not likely to sustain another round of fire was to launch all it’s long lance torpedoes at extreme/long range with a slim chance of hitting but maybe get lucky. The Chester was the first victim of this attack style.

And the Houston.

And most rewardingly, the Washington.

However, it didn’t all go in Japans favour as the USN bought its bigger guns into range and the first to go was the Kirishima.

Then the Yahagi.

And the Suzuya.

As darkness fell the Japanese could claim a minor tactical victory as the Yamato had survived with minimal damage. Reality of course was very different.

Next was another neglected skirmish period, this time French Indian Wars.

In this scenario, ‘the action at Brookes Ford’ opposing scouting groups – Rogers Rangers for the British and assorted Coureur de Bois & Indians for the French are tasked with securing the ford for their respective main columns. The Brookes family have managed to avoid taking sides so far in the conflict.

As if to emphasize the oft quoted “no plan survives contact with the enemy” the careful placing of terrain and start points – a couple were next to canoes at either end of the river, others were in deep cover, the two start points at either end of the open road that ran through the table were where the players randomly diced to arrive at – the Rangers had one group of 7, the opposition had two groups, one of 5 on the road and another of 4 just off the road. Oh well, so much for plans 😂

Although the players could see the enemy the figures could only see shapes and would need to get closer to be able to spot and therefore fire.

At their end of the map the Rangers scared old man Brookes into running for the woods and his wife into scuttling into the cabin and bolting the door whilst they themselves headed for his large yard/corral.

The Coureur de Bois and Indians skirted young Brookes cabin wary of the wife and her threatening attitude and loaded musket.

Soon both sides were spotting each other and the musket balls started to fly with a Ranger being the first to fall.

The Coureur de Bois had secured the ford pretty easily but the Rangers were now ‘forted up’ in the coral and were giving a good account of themselves.

The musket balls were flying but apart from a couple of wounds it was a bit of a stalemate.

It was the Coureur de Bois who lost patience first and closed for hand to hand action. Unfortunately they lost both fights and one group fled after a morale check.

And then it just wouldn’t stop going wrong!

Calling time, the Rangers had lost fewer men and were in a good position, the Coureur de Bois however failed to rally the one group and so the other fell away. There will be another time…..

Our next effort was an approximation of the Battle of La Roche l’Abeille, 25th June 1569. I say approximation because in any source you go to there is about 4 lines of text and a woodcut. What we know is that after the battle of Jarnac (previously fought by ourselves) both sides continued to manoeuvre and the Huguenots received significant German reinforcements. They then ended up facing each other across a valley with the village of La Roche l’Abeille at the bottom. The Royalists had placed a ‘division’ of infantry in the valley under Philippe Strozzi who the Huguenots attacked en masse and destroyed, capturing Strozzi, while the rest of the army watched. Our refight was unlikely to be like that 😁

Our forces were based on what we knew had survived Jarnac, what reinforcements had been received and quite frankly what we had in the collection. The Royalists had the better infantry, the Royal Swiss, a unit of Landsknechts and 2 regiments of Spanish under Strozzi placed on the valley floor. The Huguenot infantry was more numerous, 2 ‘legions’ of shot and 4 of pike & shot with enfants perdus scattered across their front on the lower slopes. At this point in the wars both sides noble cavalry were gendarmerie and chevaux legers armed with lance, our Royalists featured 2 double sized gendarme companies and 2 normal sized gendarmes and 2 chevaux legers, plus a unit of Walloon lancers, our Huguenots featured 2 gendarmes and 2 chevaux legers plus 3 units of reiters.

Both sides ordered a general advance – rules note, not all troops could advance in a single turn, this relied on the skill level of the commander so players were faced with a tactical dilemma in each turn.

Naturally enough the cavalry of both sides were keen for battle.

First into contact was the double sized regiment of Nemours who misjudged their charge on the smaller of one of the Admiral Coligny’s horse. Would it matter? Well yes in the short term but once all their numbers were involved they broke through and onto the next target.

Which was Biron’s chevaux legers who held the line until their second regiment could join the fight.

Elsewhere on the field the risk of flying musket balls taking out a regimental colonel could be detrimental, here the Prince de Porcien is felled from his horse. In all we had 5 colonels and 1 general killed.

The Huguenot reiters were very slow to get involved – low aggression, mercenaries, poor colonels but once they had been galvanised into action they were worth their price. Here Gabriel de Montmorency commanding Montpensier’s gendarmes is shot dead and his regiment shot to pieces.

But the reiters didn’t have it all their own way as St Andre’s gendarmes chase them off here.

While the horse battle swirled out on the Huguenot left Strozzi and his now slightly battered regiments had reached the Huguenot slopes.

And a hole was duly punched as the Swiss now closed and the Duke d’Andelot tried to steady the second line.

The fall of d’Andelot.

The Admiral himself now rallies the Huguenot second line as both Royalist cavalry and infantry close.

It is desperate but as the light fades the Huguenots are still on the slopes and the Royalists are looking to their rear as the reiters close unhindered – the cavalry fight saw most of the Royalist horse scattered. A close run game, certainly closer than the real thing!

Next was another away game, this time a Rhodesian bush wars game using Xenos Rampant rules.

The scenario was simple enough (adapted from the rule book) both sides had to seize/rescue a Cuban asset (seen standing by the skip) and get off table.

The forces were created from the XR rules book so as to give a ‘balanced game’ and anyone who is familiar with the Dan Mersey school of rule writing will know the drill. Nominate a unit to do one action, dice against a skill level and off you go, one fail is a fail for the whole side and the initiative passes to the other side.

The game played perfectly well and a result was achieved. Was it a reflection of what we know about the 1970’s bush wars? I don’t think so and it had none of the granularity of early modern warfare or at least my perception of such. For me there are some real problems with this school of rules writing, a body of 10 men enters a back yard which has a gap in a fence of the width of one figure yet all 10 figures can fire. This is nonsense and there is no argument about time and space that can cover this.

The game looked great and the creator is to be applauded for such a splendid tableaux I just didn’t get any sense of being in the historical time and place.

Our final game was another from the vaults of neglect, our cartel set up.

In this scenario a cartel gang low on funds has come up with a half arse plan to raid the money drop at the local bank. Unknown to them the DEA and local Federales are onto them and have set a trap. Unknown to the agents however is that one of the two Federales teams is corrupt and might make it’s own play for the cash – percentage die roll modified by circumstances.

The early moves were quiet as gang members appeared randomly and made their way to the bank. Amazingly no one noticed the guy with the RPG 🤣

All traffic was controlled by random movement dice and before a shot was fired we had two road accidents, one of which occurred right in front of the police!

Soon however the day was shattered by gunfire. One of the Federales parked outside the bank spotted El Gato, a sub lieutenant, and opened fire, killing him stone dead. Game on!

The corrupt police were now forced to deal with an actual policing job and their percentage chance of going rogue dropped accordingly.

The gang boss (Guzman) spots a DEA agent (Matt Weston) in the park and draws a bead on him.

From inside their position looking out on the bank the other two DEA agents (Macer and Calabrese) realise that sprinting out onto the street might make them a bullet magnet so head for the back door. It’s locked! Time to shoot out the lock Miami Vice style.

Lead is flying in the streets.

Remember that RPG guy?

The two DEA agents burst out of the back door, straight into the gang leader who is waiting for them – the shooting of the lock kind of gave the game away.

Jumping forward several turns the gang boss proved he was a better streetfighter than the DEA and put both of them down.

Traffic situation dealt with the corrupt cops make their play and enter the bank shooting one of their own in the back.

The situation as we reached the end. Dead Federale outside the bank shot by his own, another wounded and cowering in shock inside the bank, gang members closing – this became another gunfight I forgot to photograph 😣

In the vault the security guards had secured the cash and were following protocol – don’t come out just because some copper said it’s all clear 😁😃

And we called it there. All 3 DEA dead, of the good Federales 3 were dead and 2 wounded and nobody really knew who had shot them, the money was safe and with 3 of their number down the gang gave up and drifted off. The corrupt Federales didn’t get a scratch and so their story was the one that got told, medals all round, no investigation, we’ll remember these guys for the next time 😏

On the reading front this was all I managed although it was quite a dense read. I got it on a whim in a Helion sale with minimal expectations but in fact well worth the effort. The politics of the Horn of Africa were clearly explained; Cold War, War on Terror, Al Shabab, etc – what a s##t show and it was great to read about a military venture in Africa being fought by Africans, not a white face insight. The book did suffer from some grammar problems and way too many anacronyms but from a gaming point of view a bit of a gold mine; low level counter insurgency operations to start with, in and out of buildings, street fights etc building up to larger operations on a broader front outside of Mogadishu. Very gameable at a one on one skirmish level and then at a platoon level.

On the painting front I finally finished a 2nd Pasdaran battalion plus supports for the 10mm Iran Iraq project, hopefully they will see the table top in September.

Also got a whole load more aircraft done for the 6mm Cold War project done. I’ve really enjoyed doing these, just got to be careful not to paint more than we can ever possibly use 😂

And that’s about it. Still trying to clear out stuff that isn’t and won’t be used – a slow process. In the meantime, love your hobby.

July 2026 Report

westburywargaming5 Comments

The summer heat is still with us and no one has died.

First game of the month was from our El Cid collection using our home grown rules. The forces this time were an Almoravid & Emirates army and a later Christian Spanish army.

The Christians deployed with a strong right wing of Norman crusaders and Caballeros Hidalgos screened by Jinettes and veteran Caballeros on the left. The centre was occupied by the infantry comprised of Andalusian bows and spears and a strong force of mercenary spears and crossbowmen.

The Moslem opposition formed up with their Emirate cavalry on the left and Berber cavalry on the right while the centre was occupied by Andalusian spearmen and bowmen on the centre left and Berber and Black Guard foot on the centre right.

The opening turns featured some pretty ineffective shooting from everyone while the cavalry manoeuvred for advantage.

First in were the Norman crusaders who not surprisingly duffed up their opposition and then rolled on to the next guys.

The Christians weren’t having it their own way however as the Almoravid retainers crashed into the Hidalgos and sent them packing. Fairly even game so far.

The infantry fight then started to gain some traction and some of the Andalusian foot said goodbye.

With so much cavalry available on both sides (9 Moslem and 8 Christian) the temptation to throw units in was taken by both sides resulting in ongoing cavalry melees on both sides of the battlefield.

In the infantry centre the Black Guard made their presence felt, first shooting to weaken the opposition and then charging to contact and crushing their opponents.

Not everything was going the way of the Almoravids and by late afternoon their cavalry right wing was collapsing under the relentless pressure of the Caballeros.

However the Christian right was having problems of it’s own. It was going to be down to the infantry.

The collapse, when it came, came quickly. The Black Guard had punched a serious hole in the Christian line and the rest of the Moslem infantry followed on unopposed. Time to go home.

Next up was an away game of American Civil War using Rebels & Patriots in an ongoing Shenandoah Valley campaign.

In this encounter a weak Union force of two brigades encountered three brigades of Confederates at the township of Woodstock.

Outnumbered as they were the Union tried to make best use of the terrain. Their left brigade attempted to seize the outskirts of the town and defend from their and the right brigade positioned itself on a hill overlooking the town whilst throwing it’s skirmishers over the river to the right to slow down the Confederate brigade approaching through the marshy ground extending out from the river.

The Confederates advanced boldly through the town bringing the weight of two brigades to bear against the left Union brigade. Artillery on both sides opened up and caused some casualties with the Union coming off worse being outnumbered in guns.

The action amongst the buildings was short and sharp with the Union coming off worse – a couple of disastrous morale rolls didn’t help! The Union on the hill sensed an opportunity to intervene as the Confederates were occupied to their front and advanced down the hill but again the superior Confederate artillery made it’s presence felt and the advance was halted.

Ultimately Confederate numbers began to tell and rather than have two brigades destroyed (it was a campaign after all) the Union commanders ceded the field in the hope of fighting another day.

Our next set to was another of our 80’s Gold War actions in 6mm using Modern Spearhead, this time an ‘equal points’ encounter game between a cut down Bundeswehr armoured brigade and a more or less full strength Soviet tank regiment. Both sides had air and artillery assets. The game was scheduled for 8 turns.

The Bundeswehr deployed on a broad front. Battalion 33 deployed on the far left with an advance planned to take them across the highway to their front, through the fields and on to the power plant, Battalion 34 deployed in the centre adjacent to the rail line with a plan to advance alongside the rail line, across the farmland and take up positions at the large farm complex opposite, Battalion 37 meanwhile, on the other side of the river was to advance along its banks and cross upstream.

The Soviets deployed two T-62 battalions on their right (opposite Battalion 33 as it turned out) with orders to advance up to the highway, the motor rifle battalion was deployed inside the wood outside the power plant just behind the aim point of Battalion 34 and the T-80 battalion was deployed to the left of the power plant with orders to sweep across the farmland and take up positions at the railway line.

Once troops could see each other it was the Bundeswehr who suffered early casualties as the T-80s opened fire on Battalion 34.

Both sides deployed their air power early. The SU-25s for the Soviets.

And the Starfighters for the Germans.

Once the T-62s and the Leopards from Battalion 33 got in sight of each other the Soviets took one hell of a beating and the German commander thought the day was going to be his……..

The arrival of the Hind flight started to turn things around for the Soviets. The limited AA assets the Germans had was sufficient and those ATGWs started to make a mess.

Burning Leopards.

German Phantoms role in.

Bundeswehr losses mounted and two battalions failed critical morale checks.

At the end of turn 6 we called it. One Bundeswehr battalion was completely wiped out, one was in retreat and one was on hold. The Soviets had the battered T-62s in retreat but the T-80s were most certainly still in the fight and the motor rifle battalion was untouched.

Our next game was a return to our long neglected modern skirmish collection – we reckon we haven’t played for at least a year, maybe 18 months. The scenario was set during the Iraqi insurgency 2012, two SAS teams, Blue & Red were deployed in country to rendezvous with a defecting insurgency leader and his fighters at an abandoned fort now on the outskirts of a town. The rules were Spectre Operations V2.

The SAS advanced cautiously down the dirt road into the town, one team in the Cougar and one in a Humvee. The advance went well and despite some hostile looks from the locals all was quiet – obviously its a wargame so its not going to be quiet for long!

Once at the market area two of Red team exited the Cougar and took up positions scanning the rooftops and ignoring civilians shouting abuse as they randomly crisscrossed the area. The Humvee gently nudged open the doors to the fort and two of the team escorted it in. Still quiet.

It’s probably worth mentioning that the civilians moved randomly based on a directional dice and how close they were to the soldiers. Once they were a couple of moves away they stopped moving, if they got up close we diced to see whether they got angry or whispered a word of warning. During this part of the game one of the British players did say about one of the randomly moving civilians, “I wonder what she’s got in that holdall?” This will be important later 🙄

Once the Humvee had entered the fort it all started to go a bit wrong. Sure enough their was the car they had been advised belonged to the leader but the two dead bodies alongside it weren’t part of the brief – they were in fact the insurgency leader and his driver. Then the team heard the ‘whoosh’ of an RPG and all hell broke loose!

Insurgency gunmen now started to appear out of the barracks and up on the battlements. The good news was that in a firefight (even a surprise) the SAS were going to give back better than they got and so they did in the initial exchange.

Then we had one of those wargames moments which captured reality in a horrible way. The woman with the holdall had randomly walked through the gates of the fort just before the shooting started and stopped. In the next turn two of Blue team came through the gates and ended their move right next to her. In her turn she pulled the pin. We diced. It was a successful detonation and two of Blue team were dead.

From then on it was all downhill for Blue team. The two remaining members were in a very lopsided gunfight with superior numbers and were essentially trapped. On the outside Red team were popping away at anyone they could see on the roofs but then two technicals full of insurgents swung into view from the rear of the fort – 10 activation points were in view at the start of the game from where two more insurgent teams might appear on a die roll, if the SAS moved over them at any point then no activation could occur there (a couple had already gone).

Inevitably Blue team ran out of luck and the comms went dead.

Faced with superior numbers and no assets on line Red team fell back.

Our final game was an eastern medieval battle between Golden Horde Mongols and Russian princes using our in development Timurid rules. The Russians had four divisions, two of Boyars and Lithuanian mercenaries, one of Polk infantry and one of allied Kazak skirmish cavalry. The Golden Horde had two divisions Mongol horse, mixed heavies and lights and one of Cuman allies plus a single regiment of Guard with the Khan.

In deployment the Russians placed the bulk of their army to the left of the stream that bisected the battlefield and stationed their Kazaks on the other side with orders to swing around the flank of the Mongols. The Mongols deployed on a broad front which happened to align with the Russians while their allies were out on the left where they ended up facing the Kazaks.

Russians ready for action.

There were a lot of bows in this game so both sides were keen to get a move on; the Mongols because literally everyone had a bow and the Russians because the Boyars didn’t have bows so wanted to get stuck in early.

The Russian plan was for their Lithuanians to lead the advance of both cavalry divisions and drive off the opposing Mongol lights. This worked to a limited extent; yes the lights were driven off but then the heavier Mongols drove off the Lithuanians and the Mongols were free to use their superior firepower.

After the initial arrow storm it was down to the serious hand to hand fighting.

The judicious commitment of the Guard swung a couple of melees.

In a bold effort to turn the fight the Russian player committed both of his divisional leaders to the fray; both died and with it Russian resistance.

In pretty short order the Russians were effectively destroyed, only ‘the poor bloody infantry’ were left 😟

As a game the battle whipped along, as a rules trial it was pretty pleasing and I don’t think there is much left to do, just some fine tuning of the command system. Yes the bows are pretty deadly but that is what I want and when both sides are all bows (Timurid v Golden Horde) it should be pretty interesting 😀

A mixed bag on the reading front. The soft back reprint of Mallenson’s account of the French in India was a fascinating read and revealed a plethora of engagements easily able to played on the tabletop – it’s not all about Plassey! Lloyd Clark’s book left me a bit dissatisfied; too much of the page count is spent on the machinations of pre war Nazi and Soviet internal politics and then the lead into the war, I found myself saying “for god’s sake get on with it!” and when he did it was all a bit anti climatic. The Rohmer book I picked up for a quid somewhere just out of interest and it was less interesting than it should have been; the author couldn’t seem to make up his mind whether he wanted to recount his own wartime experiences of flying photo reconnaissance, write a heliography about Patton or write the shortest ever history of the Normany invasion up to the escape of the Germans through the Falaise pocket.

On the painting and modelling front my collection of painted aircraft for the 6mm Cold War finally got based satisfactorily and some saw action in our game described earlier.

And that’s it really. The task of clearing out elements of the collection continues but man is it slow 😞

June 2026 Report

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A month of funerals and holidays but we managed a fairly productive month.

First game of the month was Successors, this time a refight of the battle of Gaza 312BC where Demetrius, son of Antigonus, took on Ptolemy I and lost.

We managed to recreate the forces of both sides from interpretations by modern authors and set up according to those sources.

The Antigonid set up gave us a strange deployment whereby Demetrius had a strong body of pike on his right centre flanked by a weak skirmish cavalry wing and a strong cavalry centre and centre left screened by elephants. Ptolemy had a more traditional deployment, a numerically inferior infantry centre composed mainly of Greek mercenaries and two wings of cavalry; the right wing was settler cavalry sitting behind Persian skirmishers who were themselves protected by caltrops, the left wing was skirmish cavalry and a single elephant squadron.

As is nearly always the case with these games the cavalry got the ball rolling. The Demetrian cavalry were first out of the gate; on the right the weak skirmish wing under Andronicus did better than history and saw off their opposite numbers but some cunning manoeuvring by Ptolemy saw the peltasts from his infantry line wheel in and shower them with javelins ultimately removing them from the battle. On the left Demetrius and his Xystophoroi headed out to the flank accompanied by the Tarentines while the elephant corps and their supporting cavalry headed for the easy target of the Persian skirmishers only to be brought to a grinding halt by the caltrops. The caltrops were hidden at the commencement of the game and not revealed until the elephants were one turn away – the Demetrian player knew the history but we had agreed to have orders that reflected the action of the day and only allow changes once contact was made.

In the centre the infantry advanced on each other stoutly – Ptolemy knew he was outmatched but planned on his more nimble peltasts swinging in to attack the flank of the pikes while the hoplites held. It didn’t work but in a different game it might well have.

No Successors game is complete without elephants!

The Demetrian elephants were well and truly stuck at the caltrop line and even rubbish Persian infantry could whittle them down.

And they died 😢

In the centre the Ptolemaic line started to crack as the weight of the Demetrian pike battalions prevailed.

Out on the left flank Demetrius personally led his cavalry into the melee and prevailed ultimately seeing off two out of the three settler cavalry units. The Ptolemaic right was now open and the Demetrian cavalry started to flow behind the Persians and towards the already collapsing infantry centre. A complete reversal of history 😀

Our next effort was an 8 turn encounter battle for our Iran Iraq collection using Cold War Commander (amended). The table consisted of a series of objectives allocated varying points values, most points gained by turn 8 is the winner unless the combat group fails morale.

Both sides had several brigades to choose from each with their own points values and then additional assets that could be chosen to make up a ceiling number. The Iranians chose the 1st Armoured of the 92nd Armoured Division which gave them two Chieftain battalions, a Mechanised Infantry battalion, an armoured cavalry battalion and an armoured artillery battalion; their only additional asset was an F14 Tomcat squadron. The Iraqis chose the 10th Armoured (forerunner of the Republican Guard) which gave them three T-72 battalions and a Mechanised Infantry battalion; their additional assets were a Mirage squadron, a Gazelle squadron with ATGW, a BRDM Sagger company and a couple of off table 2S1 self propelled gun batteries.

As it was an encounter game the battalions arrived randomly according to a die roll and the Iranians got on the table quickly.

The Iraqi T-72s started to get into position trying to avoid the better ranged Chieftains with their better penetrative power.

The Iranian armoured cavalry opted to come on behind the river in the corner, the plan being to use their amphibious ability to cross and seize the transmitter tower position while their M150s gave ATGW covering fire from the river bank.

The Iranians pushed their M109s forward to shoot in their tanks but this was a complete bust, the very vulnerable machines were soon on fire and the remainder of the battalion sought cover.

The Iraqis used the cover close to their deployment area early on so that the Chieftains couldn’t see them and it certainly kept one battalion intact for the bulk of the game.

The arrival of the Iraqi Gazelles meant 4 turns of playing hunter seeker with the Iranian armour.

The arrival of the Iranian Tomcats was quite a sight although their impact wasn’t as great as the paint job 😂

As the battle developed the other two T-72 battalions attempted to envelop the Iranian flanks. On the one flank they shot up the Armoured Cavalry battalion and on the other captured the oil storage depot and its rail link.

As we rolled into turn 8 the game was on a knife edge. In terms of the rules the Iraqis had achieved a minor victory for losses inflicted on the Iranians, the Iranians had however scored more objective points for seizing the transmitter station and the town. So I guess a draw 🙄

Next was a more traditional/commercial game when we gave Hail Caesar II a go using 15mm Romans in an AD69 civil war set to. The terrain was fairly randomised, several hills and a couple of woods.

Both sides were more or less the same, six or seven legions per side plus auxilia and some cavalry. Deployment however was different; on the one side a single shallow line covering most of the table, on the other a double ranked line aimed between two low hills, auxilia on one flank cavalry on the other.

As in most ancients wargames the cavalry were in first, this time fighting over a low hill. The guys who got the charge in didn’t gain any advantage for that and ultimately lost and retired. Nobody cares about cavalry anyway 😀

The infantry took forever to get close, mainly due to crap die rolling and the random nature of the movement.

Some auxilia bowmen got on a hill and then found out they couldn’t shoot off it. Huh?

Then we got into the infantry scrap and bloody hell this was brutal!

Depth definitely trumped line and in the blink of an eye 4 legions were gone.

The empty space where 7 legions were! Mainly due to the mechanism where a victorious unit can turn in on the next enemy in line and fight again (and again) with considerable advantages.

It was a brutal game and quite fun for one player but was it any kind of representation of warfare of the time period? I don’t think so. That said I can absolutely see why the rules are so popular; we had never played the rules before yet we smashed through a game easily with quite a lot of figures on the table. We play all day but with less figures I can see why a 3 hour club night game can easily be completed including set up and put away. Not a set for me in the long term but it has set us the task of finding a rules set that will enable us to get the forgotten 15mm ancients out every now and then.

Our last game was a return to our GNW collection but this time Swedes v Danes in a fairly balanced encounter game around a village and a river crossing.

The Swedes comprised 4 infantry brigades in two divisions, one tasked with seizing the village and the other tasked with destroying the infantry on the Danish right of the village. The cavalry were in two brigades, one deployed out on the left to attack the enemy infantry in advance of their own infantry and then break through to swing behind the Danish line, the other was to cross the river bridge in the centre and swing out to the right where a couple of Danish militia brigades looked like easy pickings.

The Danes had a wide range of troop types and sought to use them as effectively as they could. The two weak militia brigades were stuck right out on the left to guard a secondary bridge crossing and hopefully not get involved in any serious fighting – these were the guys singled out for some Swedish cavalry attention. The Lieb brigade and the Foot Guards brigade were deployed to advance and hold the village – they were slightly closer than their Swedish opposite numbers so should make it while on either flank two line brigades, stiffened by a combined grenadier battalion each, were to support. The sole cavalry brigade started the game at the back in reserve.

The Swedes were, as usual, full of themselves, and so the left wing cavalry galloped into action and smashed into the grenadiers of the opposing line infantry brigade. This didn’t go quite as planned and the cavalry were repulsed.

Undeterred a second cavalry regiment was thrown in, this time against a line battalion but to no avail. Things were not going according to plan!

Meanwhile at the village the Lieb and Foot Guards had indeed got there first so were more difficult to hit with musketry and when it came to bayonet work more difficult to winkle out. Just like Blenheim, this village sucked the Swedes into a day long struggle.

They don’t know anything but attack…..

And sometimes it ends in tears 😢 By the end of the game the left flank Swedish cavalry brigade was completely exhausted.

Sensing an opportunity the Foot Guards took on the weakened Swedish first infantry line.

And the results were pretty impressive…..

The Lieb brigade was finally ejected from the village but the Swedish victors were in no state to do anything more than occupy real estate.

A bad day for the Swedes. One cavalry brigade completely knackered the other making zero progress against the militia – one battalion did rout but the stupid Swedes who charged them took up pursuit and never returned leaving two cavalry regiments to face the firepower of five infantry regiments and the Danish horse brigade now closing on their flank.. On the infantry side the lead brigades of both divisions were done leaving the second line to take on the Danish Foot Guards and the two supporting line battalions. A clear Danish victory.

In other news, some additional 6mm buildings were acquired so an industrial park and an airfield are planned for the Cold War games.

Some more hoplites added to the Successors collection, we probably have enough now for an Achaean League.

Some additional 6mm built up areas for the Cold War games completed.

And finally, on a sombre note, we said goodbye to our gaming stalwart, Derek. Always available for a game and super enthusiastic about the group and the hobby, he will be missed.

April 2026 Report

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What the hell happened to April! A third of 2026 has gone but hey we are still alive and that is a good thing 😁

Our first game of the month was a 1980’s Cold War action using what seems to have become our go to set of rules, Modern Spearhead. The rules require a bit more work in terms of the pre game set up but overall the result is worth it.

This game was a bit of a hasty set up following last minute cancellations that scuppered the original planned game. As it turned out we had a fine time with our reduced numbers creating a follow on game from the end of march where both sides are racing for a strategic crossroads further along the front from the original battle. In this scenario a Bundeswehr armoured brigade was taking on two Warpac armoured regiments, one East German using T72s and one Soviet using T62s and T80s (yes we know they should all be the same tanks in a regiment but we only realised that after we’d painted them!).

The Bundeswehr advanced with their tank battalions on either side of the crossroads over the countryside with attached AA cover while the Marder’s carrying the combat teams sped up the road to seize the buildings around the crossroads.

The Warpac forces split the battlefield in two with the Soviets (above) advancing en masse on the right and the East Germans mirroring on the left.

The fight for the crossroads soon got going with the Marder combat teams having the slight advantage of having got there first.

This was our first go at the rules for fighting in built up areas and we’re not sure we got it quite right🤔 It certainly got a bit tense and ultimately the Soviet BMPs overwhelmed the Marders.

We made liberal use of air assets on both sides and the TOW armed Lynx (on loan from the RAF) proved pretty devastating.

And the Frogfoot were equally devastating for the Soviets – ouch!

The Hinds weren’t quite as effective as usual and the much maligned (by us anyway) AA cover did actually work.

Ultimately however the Bundeswehr had to concede the battle area, the crossroads was taken and the two main tank brigades were in retreat with losses being followed by the intact East Germans.

I still don’t thing we have got the balance quite right and whatever you may think about points value games they do give you that. The army lists for the rules are great but without a brake on what you can deploy there can be a tendency towards a miniatures arms race – ‘well the list says I can have 4 Harriers so I will’.

Our next foray was Eastern Renaissance with the Poles and Swedes being turned out along with support acts – Germans for the Poles and Danes for the Swedes.

Because the armies hadn’t seen the light of day for a while we kind of overdid it! Remember that Gary Oldman meme “Everyone!” well that was us 🤣

The fun aspect of the period is the maniacs known as the winged hussars. No set of rules depicting these guys should allow anything other than “charge!” and the Polish player duly obliged.

By a quirk of deployment the hussars, on the left of the Polish line, ended up facing the bulk of the Swedish pike, in this case the Scots Brigade.

But the hussars didn’t care and after a thrilling series of charges, melees and charges again the Swedish wing gave way. The hussars however were in no fit state to do anything about it.

Over on the other wing waves of German, Swedish, Danish and Finnish cavalry crashed into each other in a series of attacks going one way and then the next. Ultimately the Germans gained the upper hand and the Swedish wing collapsed. Victory to the Poles.

The game was way too big but it did look very pretty 😀

Next up was a return to Iran Iraq using Cold War Commander, this time with several amendments.

Our fight was an encounter action between the Iranian 92nd Armoured and the Iraqi 26th Armoured. The 92nd featured two battalions of the mighty Chieftains, a single mechanised infantry battalion and an armoured cavalry battalion. The Iraqis had three battalions of T62s and a mechanised infantry battalion. Both sides had air and artillery support.

As is typical of these kind of games the individual battalions arrived piecemeal, here the Iranian mechanised infantry race for the relative safety of the built up areas.

Unusually the airpower arrived when called, Tomcats set to make a mess of BTR60s.

The stars of the show for the Iranians were the M150s sitting on a convenient hill flinging TOWs across the table.

Iraqi infantry scrambling from their BTR60s and deploying their Gazelles to go hunting Chieftains.

Iraqi tanks piling in on the left,

The Iraqi advance stalled at the dried river bed – that open ground is deadly!

The Iraqis did manage to get their SU-22s into play and gave the Iranians a bit of a scare.

Ultimately however it was an Iranian victory, two of the Iraqi tank battalions were finished (mainly due to the TOWs) and the rest were pinned at the dried river bed.

In terms of the modifications we tried, generally they worked. The big one was leaving casualties on stands rather than removing at the end of the turn, this certainly meant that the Chieftains had to be a bit more circumspect (although still pretty deadly). The changes to the Recon rules seem to be going in the right direction as do the changes to the vulnerability of the infantry. Our next task will be the rules on cover.

Next was return to our Guadalcanal campaign, this time a fictional interlude before the final game to take account of how well the Americans have been doing.

As always the game is played to simulate night shooting and the Japanese objective is to bombard Henderson air field effectively before daylight comes.

Once the map movement was over the sea became very busy!

The game very quickly became who can sink the most opposition using torpedoes 🤣😂

Although gun fire did account for some.

Eventually dawn came and the airfield remained undamaged. One game left to go…..

Our final roll out was one from the ongoing development of the Timurid era rules, this time Mamluks v Timurids.

For this encounter the Timurids divided their forces into two Persian/Timurid cavalry divisions with elephant support, a large militia skirmish infantry force featuring bombards, naphtha throwers and hand gunners and an allied Turcoman division. The Mamluks had two divisions of Emirs Mamluks, one of Royal Mamluks, their own Turcomans and their own militia infantry.

The Mamluks deployed their Turcomans and Royal Mamluks on the right, the militia skirmish infantry sprawled across the centre and the Emirs mamluks on the left. The Timurids mirrored the enemy militia with their own but used this screen to cover their two Persian divisions while the Turcomans took the right flank; the Timurids therefore risked having their left turned on the gamble of overwhelming the Mamluk centre.

The initial turns were all about the shooting, after all virtually everyone had a bow!

Given how rubbish they all were, the skirmishers held up remarkably well but eventually decided that the rear was the best place to be.

Sooner or later you need to get stuck in if you are going to win a battle and both sides obliged.

On the Timurid right it all went their way and in due course one division of Emirs Mamluks was on the run.

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse 🤣

On the Timurid left however the story was as expected, the Turcomans filled the void and despite the best efforts of the left centre Persian division the Royal mamluks were able to break through.

Ultimately both left wings were finished and the centre had nothing going on – both militias were shot up so we had the classic wargamers draw.

Overall I was happy with how the rules played out despite having missed a couple of things – duh! Some more work to be done but nearly there I reckon.

On the reading front it was an eclectic month with the Ordnance Survey book being the star read – I didn’t even realise I had it in the collection!

On the painting and modelling front I finally applied myself to painting and basing a job lot of micro armour stuff I got off eBay recently.

I should have enough to field an independent Soviet tank regiment to bolster my East Germans.

Because I only had a vague idea of what I had painted I put up a load of photos on the Modern Spearhead Facebook page and two members were super generous with their time and expertise. Sometimes social media can work really well 😊

Well that’s it for the month. Spending this weekend working out the troop deployment for our Minden game at Partizan, hope to see you there. In the meantime, play well, play fair.

March 2026 Report

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Wading out of a very wet March into the emergence of Spring and some decent games behind us.

First out of the gate and a first for us as a group was a Western Desert game in 20mm using Rapid Fire Reloaded. We had discussed doing Western Desert for over a year maybe in 10mm using our existing desert terrain when Dave acquired a matched pair of Germans and Allies and so we were set.

The scenario was fictitious but using the orders of battle from the various publications put out by the rules publishers. In our scenario we had an Allied force holding out at the top end of the 8 x 6 table awaiting relief from Commonwealth forces arriving from either side of the long edges near the bottom of the table. About two thirds of the way up of the table Italian and German forces were arriving from either side of the long edges with the objective of preventing the relief. The Allied force holding out was purely representative, the game was the four commands.

Full disclosure, we got stuff wrong 😮 For instance it wasn’t until we were half way through we realised we were using the wrong quick reference sheet 🤣we were using the one for the rules as they were not the cut down version they now are. We also got the wrong stats for some of the vehicles but our enjoyment was undimmed.

The keynotes of the game were as follows.

The initial Allied advance saw some early success with the elimination of a Panzer III company.

And then the Marder IIIs went up in smoke. “great set of rules!”

Then the Axis started to get their act together with the Germans doing all the heavy lifting so far.

The Italians made an appearance 🤔

But the “tommies” didn’t have it all their own way.

And a level of revenge was extracted.

Quite how stuff got this close to each other we weren’t sure……

Definitely got something wrong 🙄

The Commonwealth forces didn’t break through and so we called it. Reflecting on the game afterward we all said we enjoyed it and would play again, just need to do a bit more reading up on the admitedly very simple (but elegant) rules and use the correct play sheet 😁😂

Next was my personal favourite, Successors. This time we had a ‘what if’ encounter between Demetrious Poliorcetes and Lysimachus set against the real campaign of 288BC where both general manoeuvred but never met in battle.

Neither side was flush with pikes. Demetrious had 2 battalions against the 3 of Lysimachus (one of which was Veteran), both sides had Hoplites, allied Athenians for Demetrious and the more traditional mercenaries for Lysimachus. Both sides had a mix of formed and skirmish cavalry, a single veteran Xystophoroi each and others of equal or lesser worth. Demetrious outnumbered Lysimachus on the elephant front 3:1 and both sides had a plethora of peltasts and psiloi.

The terrain was mainly an open plain with several low hills and light woods scattered about. Lysimachus deployed with all of his cavalry on the left wing under Phietaeros fronted by the single elephant squadron (1 model) while the infantry occupied the centre and right in a single line, Thracians on the left, pike under Prepelaus in the centre and the hoplites under Menas on the right, all fronted by psiloi. Demetrius also deployed his cavalry, under Pithon, in one wing but on the right so amazingly the cavalry were opposite each other – this had a positive effect on the game, his centre and left read from right to left, pikes, hoplites, peltasts, all fronted by psiloi.

Given the configuration of the armies the opening turns were all about the cavalry. As the infantry trudged forward the horse had at it which was great fun but much like the reality of the time fairly inconsequential to the real fight.

Demetrious had the advantage in elephants and Lysimachus the advantage in numbers and morale class of his cavalry.

The battle swung back and forth to no real advantage, the Xystophoroi of Lysimachus retreated off table being forced back by a combination of elephant and skirmish horse working together, two elephants panicked and created their usual mess but none died and the satrap horse of Demetrious both routed and later rallied at the camp.

The real deal was of course the infantry clash and this time we had a proper clash and a proper result.

Once the psiloi had done their thing, which largely favoured Demetrious, their was a marked reluctance to actually get stuck in – some pretty poor morale rolls across the line and a reluctance from the players to put their leaders into the units to beef up their chances.

Eventually the fires of courage were stoked and troops committed albeit a little on the uncoordinated side.

From the off it was going to be Lysimachus day, he gained the upper hand and never let go.

His hoplites routed their opposition hoplites and the Demetrian peltasts, his veteran pike routed their opposing pikes and one of his other pike battalions routed the 2nd opposition hoplites. The only consolation for Demetrius was his other pike battalion routing their opposite numbers but it was a decisive Lysimachid victory.

As a game this worked almost perfectly. The cavalry had their own little fight and that was that. The infantry lined up and went for it (eventually!) and a decisive decision was obtained, the final line up favoured Lysimachus in that one of his hoplites got to take on the weaker peltasts – javelins not being great against long pointy sticks and one of his pikes faced hoplites but that was just the luck of the draw. A good game and recreation of the time and the place.

Our next foray was the Carlist Wars and a refight of the battle of Ormaiztegui, January 1835, a modest and fairly indecisive battle which we reckoned could be easily fought to a conclusion, although this wasn’t helped by a power outage on the evening of the game. Gaming by candlelight, how quaint 😀

The Carlists began the game in control of the village of the battle name with portion of their force and the rest moving up, the Isabelinos were therefore on the attack all along the line.

The initial defence.

Battle being joined seriously all along the line with the Isabelinos struggling to maintain their offensive.

The fight for the village begins with a musketry duel. I’m not convinced by the teddy bear fur.

The Isabelinos launched a bayonet charge at the walls.

Despite the desperate fighting at the village the Isabelinos ran out of steam, their attack columns had stalled and two generals were down – desperately leading those attack columns, so they called it a day and we blew out the candles 🤣

Next, another refight, this time Dennewitz, 6th September 1813 using Volley & Bayonet.

One of those games where some troops are on and others are coming at various times, particularly noted for the great long column the bulk of the French army was in as it marched up from the south (off the table) which left Bertrand and his IV Corps to start the battle.

The Prussians opted for an aggressive policy to open the battle given their initial disparity in numbers demonstrated by von Oppen charging his Dragoons into the Chasseurs of Lorge which saw the eventual destruction of Lorge but left von Oppen unfit for anything else.

Continuing the theme, Thuemen attacked Morand in a fight which left both divisions exhausted.

The long French column of VII and XII Corps came marching on – the blank bases representing the strung out column of the brigade base. The French players really struggled with this concept during the game which affected their ability to deploy effectively – not a rules problem, a player problem.

Fontanelli’s division gave a good account of itself storming the Windmill Heights held by by von Lindenau but eventually fell back exhausted leaving the Prussians just about clinging on.

At Kaltenborn, where the French had gained a tenuous lodgement von Bullow’s cavalry restored the line and gave the strung out column a fright.

It took some time but Oudinot finally got his Corps into some kind of fighting shape.

And threw everything in to breakthrough.

Now the French were getting it together but would they breakthrough before the end of the assigned number of turns?

In short, no, but they did do better than their historical prototype so there is solace to be gained there.

A tough game and a real struggle for the French.

Next up, Wars of Religion, Early Spanish v Early Dutch. Another village to defend, this time by the Dutch and their English allies. The Spanish Tercios and Walloon loyalists are out of shot preparing their attack, both sides cavalry are out on the open ground.

Spanish lancers and pistoleers preparing to advance.

Dutch lancers and supporting cuirassier. “the ground’s a bit uneven m’lord”. I think I actively dislike the teddy bear fur.

First cavalry clash.

Initially the fighting favoured the Spanish but then in an amazing turn around (also known as bad dice) the Dutch gained the upper hand and scattered their opponents.

It soon went from bad to worse as the Spanish cavalry line dissolved and two unscathed Dutch cuirassier regiments were galloping free on the Spanish right.

Tercio preparing to storm the village. They will in fact be stopped.

The freewheeling cuirassier are about to overrun the Spanish guns. I don’t know if the ‘disordered’ marker is a battle condition or an accurate reflection of the effect of the teddy bear fur 😃

The game kind of petered out – sometimes games do that, the collapse of the Spanish cavalry right wing was compounded by the failure of the Walloons to do anything on the left which meant the Tercios were stalled and unsupported. Dutch victory.

Our final game was a second run at Modern Spearhead in an ambitious (maybe too ambitious) two day game. We had a written scenario with situation reports for both sides – Operation Gorky Park for Warpac and Operation Rapid Response for NATO and OBs for East Germans, Soviets, Belgians and BAOR. I’m not sure whether the effort that goes into this is worth it but it gives me a sense of time and place.

In brief, the scenario was an initial Soviet advance has pushed the Bundeswehr defenders back across the river Oker in full retreat but divisional reorganisation has stalled the Soviet advance briefly and now they are about to resume the advance with only one tank regiment but reinforced by an East German tank regiment. Objectives; secure the autobahn and bridge over the Oker, secure the town of Braunschweig and its adjacent power plant, seize the goods and passenger rail lines. Meanwhile, at Braunschweig, the Belgian 17th Armoured Brigade has been rushed forward to defend the town and its power plant, keep the rail lines open and maybe recapture the bridge over the Oker; a BAOR taskforce is promised to be coming up the autobahn at some point.

Getting troops on the table took some time but finally we got started.

The Warpac players opted for a two flank attack; the East Germans would advance on Braunschweig and the passenger rail station while the Soviets would secure the autobahn bridge and swing wide to seize the goods station and the power plant. The reality of this plan meant that the East Germans did the heavy lifting and the Soviets were too far away to help.

The East Germans crossed the Oker with two battalions, one via an old stone bridge and the other further up via a recently laid pontoon bridge.

One of the two Belgian Leopard battalions moved up to a walled lane on the right flank of the town.

The Soviets rolled forward en masse, it looked pretty impressive…

The second Leopard battalion moved up early on the bridge – this might not have been the best of moves 🤔

The Soviets called up one of their Fitters for an attack run, it didn’t achieve much but we learnt how the air rules worked.

The BAOR arrive early, great for the Belgians, not so great for the east Germans.

Some Lynxs arrived so we got to see how the helicopter rules played out.

A general note on the air rules as a whole. The mechanics are relatively simple but the detail is in the load outs and mission types which we kind of made up as we went along, to get the full value we are going to have to do some pre work before the next game.

Not to left out the Harriers joined in the air war 😁 Now they were pretty ineffective and have limited game time but the need for AA to be up with the battalions was clearly illustrated.

The Soviets crawl on.

The Lynxs are back….

….and we find that ATGW are pretty good at blocking bridges 🤣

Soviet motor rifle battalion racing for the rail bridge.

East Germans seriously engaged and it isn’t going well.

Nope, still not going well.

Some compensation for the East Germans.

Its all going terribly wrong for the East Germans as the attack on Braunschweig falls apart and what’s left of the battalions fall back across the Oker.

Safe and sound.

The game was planned as a 12 turn game but by the end of turn 10 it was essentially over. The East German brigade was well and truly screwed and in retreat while the sole Soviet gain was the main bridge over the Oker. Yes the Belgians finally had both Leopard battalions in retreat but the combat teams were firmly ensconced in the town and power plant – we didn’t get to see how close combat worked and the BAOR combat group was untouched – shells just bounce off the Chieftains 😂🤣Successful NATO defence.

Reflecting on the game afterward it was perhaps over ambitious for our second game but that said the rules played out perfectly ok despite us screwing up on some of the finer points. What the ratio of NATO to Warpac brigades needs to be for a more ‘balanced game’ – I hate the phrase, I don’t know. More work required. So far though the change to the rules has been an overall positive experience.

On the reading front, these two were finished. The Norwich book is late 80’s and shows its age in places but the author does know how to tell history in a readable way and that is to be welcomed. The Afghanistan book is one of the many produced at the time and generally along the theme of bad political decisions, unclear aims, brave soldiers etc, better and more honest efforts have been produced since.

Finally, went to my mate Marks funeral; Rammstein’s “Adieu” as the entrance music – epic 😀

And on that note, thank you for reading and goodbye until next moth.

February 2026 Report

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A short month but still keeping ourselves busy.

First up was the next in our Guadalcanal campaign, this one being what is known to history as ‘The First Battle of Guadalcanal’ A per our previous games the initial movements were plotted on gridded maps, adjudicated by the umpire, and once sightings had been made the task forces were deployed. Objectives were simple, the Japanese to get close enough to the opposite table edge to bombard Henderson Field and the Americans to stop them. The game was played at night so limited ranges and the rules, as usual, were Victory at Sea.

The Japanese were first on and sailed straight forward towards the deploying American fleet. Both sides had split into two task forces and these arrived at different times on the table.

The early exchanges favoured the Japanese with the Salt lake City going under due to gunfire from the Kongo and more devastatingly from destroyer fired torpedoes.

The USN got revenge on a measly destroyer 🙄

The second Japanese task force arrived and things were starting to look a bit grim for the Americans.

However the the Cushing unloaded every torpedo it had at the mighty Congo and down it went with a roar – loud shouts from the American player!

Ships were now starting to fill the playing space as both sides manoeuvred to get in close enough to fire and get the best angles. Many torpedoes were let loose.

The Atlanta was sunk by torpedoes, along with the Sterett, the Juneau and the Cushing; American losses were climbing.

The Americans did manage to sink the Nagara – a glorious event I failed to capture, and things looked grim but on turn 7 with dawn not far away 3 US heavy cruisers arrived and it was time for the Japanese to go or face massed aerial bombardment from the planes they had failed to destroy on Henderson Field.

Despite their losses the game was a win for the Americans mainly due to the fact that the Japanese lost sight of their objective and got distracted with sinking American ships and not bombarding the airfield. One game left to go in the series.

Next up was a very ambitious (maybe too ambitious) refight of the battle of the Battle of Hastenbeck 1757, the first serious engagement of the Seven Years War.

Our plan is to work our way through all the battles in Savory’s, His Britannic Majesty’s Army in Germany During the Seven Years War, a bit of a tall task that will keep us occupied for this year and probably the next.

At Hastenbeck an ‘Army of Observation’ comprising Hanoverians, Hessians and Brunswickers under William Duke of Cumberland stood on high ground behind the village of Hastenbeck facing a numerically stronger French army under the Marshal Charles d’Estrees.

Belying the popular image of French incompetence d’Estrees showed sound strategic abilities in crossing a major river at night and marching quickly to force Cumberland to fight or lose Hanover. As the armies deployed d’Estrees showed further initiative in sending a large flank force under Francois de Chevert to turn the Hanoverian left on the Obensburg, wooded high ground which Cumberland thought to be impenetrable.

The battle was a slog, as was our game – we were genuinely exhausted at the end. The attack by Chevert made good headway to start with driving in the weak opposition and signalling to the main army to begin their attack. Cumberland, realising his peril, ordered several grenadier battalions out of the line to restore the position on the Obensburg and sent frantic calls to the rear for whatever troops were available. The French centre advanced slowly across marshy ground at the foot of the hill and took serious casualties from the Hanoverian guns on the high ground but eventually overran the guns and Cumberland began to withdraw, a French victory in the making. However on the Obensburg the grenadiers had held up the French long enough for some late arriving reinforcements to turn the tide somewhat assisted by one of Cheverts brigades mistaking a Swiss brigade for Hanoverians and opening fire! d’Estrees now thought he was having his flank turned and so halted the attack. By the time both commanders realised they were still in with a chance of victory it was too late, Cumberland was retreating and d’Estrees had lost the momentum to pursue the allies.

We began our fight with Chevert already in place but after the allied players had taken their places – cries of WTF! were a joy to hear, nobody it seemed had actually read up on the battle 😂

All along the French front the battalions began their advance.

The early fighting was of course on the Obensburg and Cumberland the player sent messengers galloping off to the rear – he was told he had reserves, while he sent additional couriers to the grenadier battalions guarding his forward guns and to the brigade on the left of the line to turn to face. All of this of course took time even in wargaming terms and so he had to sweat it out and hope his jaegers and weak line held out.

And they did! The French were hampered by the terrain and their numbers meant they kind of got in each others way. The jaegers were eventually driven off along with their supporting line infantry but just as the disordered French were emerging from the woods the Hanoverians were turning to face, now it would be a different kind of a fight…..

Back in the centre the French line pressed slowly on braving the artillery bombardment from the hill.

In time, and it seemed like forever to the French, their troops began to pierce the Hessian line although all semblance of order was gone and so individual battalions made headway while others fell back to rally and come again.

The Hessian 2nd line moved steadied themselves as the first line drifted back spent.

On the right centre the French had high hopes that their better disciplined Swiss brigade would make a dent in the Hanoverian line but they were literally shot to pieces and the brigade collapsed.

Back on the Obensburg the reserves arrived and turned the tide, Cheverts attack ground to a halt.

Over on the far right of the allied position the Hanoverian horse received orders to advance against the French left, mainly comprised of the grenadiers de Roi who had collapsed the Hessian line. Not the best of choices especially as this was the signal for the opposing French horse to respond.

Chevert managed to rally enough of his command to threaten the Hanoverian line but not enough for a final push.

The high water mark of the French attack, left centre. The Hessian brigades have failed their morale checks, several battalions have virtually ceased to exist and their cavalry had been halted by musket fire, the best they could do now was cover a retreat. The French facing them are only slightly better off, the Grenadiers de Roi battalion are spent but the Grenadiers Royaux are in decent enough shape to occupy the crest and there are plenty of cavalry following on behind.

The high water mark of the French attack, right centre. The Hanoverians are in full retreat with several battalions virtually destroyed, the Brunswick centre however is virtually untouched and stands defiant. The opposing French are pretty much done, their first brigade was shot to pieces and virtually ceased to exist, the second and third line are at the crest but in no condition to go any further. On the right however the German brigade followed by an Austrian brigade is in good health having pushed through the shattered Swiss and advancing steadily.

And that was it. A costly French victory but a victory nonetheless. I don’t know about the little generals but I was knackered!

A complete change of pace next, 1980’s cold war Europe using a ‘new’ set of rules, Modern Spearhead. Yes I am well aware that Modern Spearhead is not new at all having been published in the late 80’s and perhaps has had it’s time in the sun. However one of our group has become a bit dissatisfied with our go to set, Cold War Commander, and so in the spirit of comradeship we agreed to give MSH a go, the scale is roughly the same and no rebasing was required so off we went with a simple scenario; an understrength Soviet tank division tasked with breaking through the NATO lines (ie get off the other side of the table) and a reinforced Bundeswehr tank brigade tasked with stopping them. We opted not to use the artillery or aircraft for this game so we could concentrate on the basic mechanics.

The rules require written orders (very perfunctory) but importantly a map on which you mark the exact route of advance for each brigade from which you cannot deviate without a higher level command. Personally, I loved this. We also used hidden movement via the maps which meant one of us had to be umpire which in a small group like ours is not ideal. For me this didn’t work and I’d rather we didn’t use it again, it was too much messing about and quite frankly whatever the player can see it doesn’t matter as the map route is king.

The Soviet player initially advanced on a broad front which we soon realised was a mistake as it meant that a single Soviet tank battalion would end up facing off to more powerful and flexible NATO battalion which in the battle of the armour would be death for the Soviets. In terms of shooting the rules are brutal!

The NATO player deployed out from his start lines to try and seize choice terrain and dominate the battle field. In this early encounter he certainly did and the Soviet player became a bit despondent.

As we played on the Soviet player got more of a hang of using the terrain but his commands were still strung out across the table.

Changing orders for NATO is easier than WARPAC and so the Bundeswehr were able to go on the attack and try and exploit a gap in the Soviet lines.

After a chat and a reset the Soviet player started to deploy to take advantages of open flanks – the smaller number of Bundeswehr can’t be everywhere.

And to deploy multiple battalions – kill one there is another to take it’s place.

The Bundeswehr traded space and fell back.

Ultimately the Bundeswehr gun line held and the Soviets failed to break through.

Overall I liked the rules and hope we can play them again with guns and planes. Are they better than CWC? The jury is out for me. They are certainly more nuanced, you have got to think about your plan a lot more carefully and some of the mechanisms are better, the orders and map I have already mentioned, target priorities means that you don’t have elements artificially shooting all over the table just to score easy points, the comparison of attack and defence is simple and the fact that elements only fire once in a turn should make the game quicker – ours wasn’t but it was our first go. The army lists have a feeling of being a bit of a work in progress and the lack of a points system makes creating a balanced game a bit of a challenge – I recognise that many gamers can’t stand the idea of army lists and points and I sympathise with those views but the relative worth of one unit against another does give you an insight into how the rules writer saw his game unfolding.

Next up was an away game of ACW using Rebels and Patriots upscaled for brigades. The game was the first in hopefully a series of campaign games set in the Shenandoah Valley. Two guys who live away are the divisional commanders who submit orders to the umpire who in turn comes up with a battle day, those of us lowly brigade commanders who can make it turn up with our brigades and play, those who can’t make it then their brigade has got ‘lost’ on the way to the fight.

Our first game then featured two Union brigades attacking across a field and a stream against three confederate brigades with superior artillery. Why? Because that’s what the orders from division said to do 🙄

To avoid the obvious problem of numbers the Union concentrated on one side of the field and attempted to overwhelm the two brigades facing them before the third one got into the action.

Initially the plan worked quite well, the artillery sited themselves on high ground and did some damage, the infantry advanced covered by some effective skirmisher fire and the cavalry regiment actually charged and saw off a rebel regiment.

Then it all went to pieces. The cavalry were stuck in the middle of the Confederate lines and got shot up badly, the advancing infantry were ambushed from woods and the third brigade dragged its big guns into range and eliminated the Union guns. The Union commanders then decided discretion was the better part of valour and retreated.

Our final game was a return to our Dark Age/Early Medieval set up which hasn’t seen the light of day for over a year!

For this one we did a semi historical set up in that we chose the period of the Tyrants in early 5th Century Gaul, specifically the encounter in 410AD between Constantine III and his former protégé Gerontius outside the walls of the city of Arles.

Constantine had the slightly larger but more cosmopolitan force; his son Constans commanded a body of Roman horse on the right wing supplemented by Hunnic mercenaries, working left along the line was a body of militia from Arles under Germanus, then a body of Roman foot under his other son Julian (actually dead by this time), and finally a body of Burgundian allies under Edobich next to the walls of Arles. Constantine himself deployed with Constans (historically he stayed inside Arles).

Deployed opposite was Gerontius. On the right, under the walls of Arles, was the man himself with a powerful all Roman cavalry contingent, next to him was Apollinaris and four regiments of Auxilium Palatinum and then out on the left a Visigoth allied contingent of horse and foot under Theudis.

A general advance by both sides occupied the first couple of turns and then first blood was tasted by one of the Equites Superior regiments under Gerontius who smashed into the lead Burgundian warband and sent it rolling back where it came from. An unexpected result that left a bit of a hole in the Constantine left flank – in fairness all the odds were with the cavalry and they rolled incredibly well.

Not to be outdone, Constantine trotted his cataphracts into the Visigoth cavalry who similarly fled pursued by the Romans…

Who then ran into the Visigoth foot who were made of stronger stuff and held on.

The fighting then locked in all along the line as general order was lost and each body fought its own little war.

Auxilium taking on ‘barbarians’

Constantine’s foot centre grinding forward against a the Visigoth cavalry now commanded directly by Theudis.

More of the infantry centre.

Gerontius and his cavalry have now seen off all of the Burgundian contingent and are turning in on the Constantine centre.

We just didn’t have the time to finish it ☹ The Burgundians were gone and most of the Visgoths but the cavalry of Gerontius were now in the rear of Constantine so we called it a victory for Gerontius. Slightly unsatisfying but not every game can be perfect.

In other news got some additions done for the Iran Iraq project.

Read this. A bit dry. A pure history book rather than a history book that informs my hobby.

Went to our first show of the year, Hammerhead. Visitors only. Well attended, decent mix of trade and games.

I got distracted playing in my mate Charlies Napoleonic Naval game, so no further photos. Out of the Lardy school, which as anyone who knows me isn’t my thing, but here we didn’t have any of the silly pun names and nonsense random events, just a game that played well and gave you a notion of Napoleonic naval warfare.

And finally it was goodbye to my mate of seven years Mark Woolley of M & C Painting who lost his three year battle with bowel cancer. I met Mark as a customer at the Reading show when it was still at the Leisure Centre and then became friends over the years. A big personality, always free with his advice on paints & painting, and a ‘unique’ sense of humour. I shall certainly miss him.

On that sombre note February is over, bring on March and the Spring.