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.
Westbury Wargamers 