Tag: wargaming

November 2025 Report

westburywargaming2 Comments

Winter is coming. The games however are undeterred.

First game of the month was from our GNW collection – “Action at Sychevka” a narrative game.

In this fictional encounter both sides – Russians and Swedes were heading for the village of Sychevka, the Swedes thinking there are supplies there, the Russians because they have heard that’s where the Swedes are going. Both sides had separate columns heading towards the village; the Swedes had a cavalry vanguard under Horn (above) out in front but they got lost and have turned up on the far right of the Swedish advance and are awaiting orders, in the centre a 3 brigade infantry column under Count Lewenhaupt is advancing on the village and out on the left a 2 brigade cavalry column under Major General Creutz is emerging from a defile somewhat surprised to find Horn in the wrong place! The Russians had a 2 brigade cavalry column under Major General Bauer marching on, the centre and left was under the overall command of Field Marshal Sheremetiev comprising a cavalry & infantry force out on the left – 1 x cavalry & 2 x infantry brigades and a similar cavalry & infantry force in the centre with a cavalry brigade leading and 2 infantry brigades following.

Both sides had general orders of “advance to the village of Sychevka” (except Horn who was sitting around wondering what to do) and so senior commanders were having to issue orders as the enemy became visible and as brigades marched on. In the initial stages this rather favoured the Russians whose centre dragoon brigade under Tiernischov duly advanced on the village and got off their horses.

The opening action therefore centred around the dragoons holding the village which they did remarkably well – partly due to a rules cock up by the umpire (me!) and partly due to the normally aggressive Swedes being over cautious.

While the infantry struggle for the village developed the first cavalry action commenced on the Russian right as Kroptov and Golitsyn committed their brigades against Hard and Armfeldt.

This rolling cavalry melee occupied most of the game with Swedish regiments, Taube, Ducker, Smaland and Ostgota taking serious losses – Taube was in fact lost from the battle, while Kroptov’s horse grenadiers, and regiments, Archangelski, St Petersburgski, Tverski and Narvski took equally heavy losses. Both sides saw their brigades fail morale but the difference that decided the day was the better ability of the Swedes to rally.

Back at the village the Swedes had sorted themselves out and orders had been given. Stackelberg’s brigade (seen above) stormed the village driving out the dragoons and entering a firefight with Pfennigbeir’s brigade which ultimately they lost – both Jonkoping battalions were seriously shot up and the brigade retired hurt.

However the other two brigades of Lewenhaupt’s command, Sparre and von Liewen flanked either side of the village and took on Sheremetiev’s remaining 3 brigades – Sparre in fact took on two, Hallart and Golovin and smashed them both up.

Out on the Swedish right Horn didn’t have the best of days. When he received his orders to advance on the Russian left the dragoons he should have attacked had already dismounted amongst some burnt out buildings and proceeded to shoot him up supported by Hallart’s infantry (before Sparre arrived), forcing him to retire – Ostgota in fact left the table badly depleted. However, in an inexplicable turn of events the Russians got a bit cocky, remounted and came after the Swedes who rallied and gave the Russians a bit of a drubbing (seen above), this did however see Horn and his brigade leave the table giving chase to Repnin’s brigade.

We were now getting to the end of things, Sparre was getting stuck in – none of this shooting nonsense for him!

Bauer’s command was in it’s death throws.

The village was surrounded – buildings removed for ease of play.

It was over. A bloody day for both sides but by the end all the Russian brigades were on the run. Great game.

Next up a return to the Pacific with Victory at Sea. A simple equal points game this time with each side given free choice within the 1943 time frame and both sides having a “free” carrier and aircraft either on table or off. As a bit of a “can I do it?” the Japanese player chose to just have the Yamato battleship and the aircraft carrier off table – meant the air cover was slightly delayed in arriving, the Americans chose a mixed force from destroyers up to their own older battleship.

The game was essentially one of the Yamato keeping enough distance between itself and the Americans and preventing them concentrating fire. It nearly worked!

The main worry for the Yamato was the American planes and if the American player had handled them better it would have been a very short game!

However, the American chose to attack piecemeal and this allowed the Japanese player to “zero in” – see what I did there 😂and take out a lot of the American air strength.

They even got a chance to attack the American carrier.

And damage the Chicago and Houston.

The duel of the “big boys” saw the sinking of the New Mexico.

But you can’t fight against multiple ships and not take damage and the Yamato took some unlucky hits which slowed her and the sharks (aka American destroyers) began to circle.

Multiple torpedo hits and it was the end for the Yamato 😢

Our next game was a return to long neglected ‘modern’ skirmish, this time in our Syrian Civil War ruins set up.

Our basic scenario was Hezbollah and Islamic Front units clashing in the ruins of Aleppo. Both sides had a couple of squads plus a tank – the Hezbollah squads were smaller but better trained and they had a T72, Islamic Front were bigger squads but their tank was a T55, although they did have a truck mounted ZSU.

Both sides advanced cautiously, partly because it was the right thing to do and partly because we were a bit rusty with the rules – it had been over a year since our last game.

Both sides worked their way around the central hospital building utilising the cover as best they could.

One of the Islamic Front squads detoured into one of the wrecked buildings, a bad decision which effectively kept that unit out of the majority of the game as it picked it’s way through the wreckage to no advantage.

The “oh shit!” moment that can only happen in a wargame 😂

Fortune favoured the T72. Scratch one T55.

The bad luck streak continued for Islamic Front continued when their ZSU gunner was cut down before ever firing a shot.

Islamic Front fighters press on.

“man the barricades!”

Oh dear.

Both sides took losses but ultimately the losses were more severe for Islamic Front and they withdrew, ceding this piece of war ravaged ground.

Our next effort was a roll out of the Timurid project. This has been a long running saga of me rebasing (twice!) and reconfiguring all my old Mongol, Ilkhanid, Russian, Persian and Mameluke figures into a representation of the armies of Timur, Tokhtamish and sundry others of the C14th. There are far better and more accurate figures out there nowadays but the sheer expense alone was enough to kick that idea into the bin and frankly in a lot of instances the differences are marginal and the set up is for home consumption only. The rules are a version of the proven Successors rules and as a first run out I was really pleased.

Our armies were a Timurid force in two divisions both containing formed & skirmish cavalry plus an elephant and an allied division of White Sheep Turcoman. Facing them was a Golden Horde Mongol force in two divisions containing formed & skirmish cavalry, a Guards division of elite formed cavalry and skirmish cavalry and a division of Russian allies containing boyars and Polk.

Both sides advanced steadily and the skirmishers went into the wargames representation of cantabrian circle.

Once players got the hang of the idea that is was a game about shooting – nearly everyone has a bow, the arrows started to fly.

However, the stars of the show were the boyars who hurtled across the table, shook off casualties from bow fire and smashed a hole in the centre of the Timurid line – well that was unexpected!

Elsewhere it was all about the shooting and the person who managed to concentrate the most fire at a critical point had the advantage – in this particular run it was the Golden Horde who grasped the concept quicker than their Timurid opponent.

The collapse of the Timurid centre had enough of a ripple effect for the Timurid player to concede and we had quite a chat about the rules and the game – all positive and some good suggestions to go forward with, next task, rebase all the Russians to take on the Golden Horde.

Next up was a ‘reconquista’ game featuring a Norman excursion into Andalusia where they are met by a united front. The sides were pre set out so it was just a question of writing any orders and having at it.

The Normans were deployed in three divisions, strong right wing of knights, centre of spearmen covered by skirmishers and a left of allied light troops. Naturally it was the knights that started the action and all seemed to be going well.

Into contact, encouraged by their General and still going well. This is going to be easy…..

Meanwhile the Andalusian right gets into action and as the allied light horse fell away the General leads in his nobles to stabilise the situation. You know where this is going…..

“kill!”

And then there were two dead generals and it was all over. Oh dear 😭

Final game was a ‘back of beyond’ away game where the British were landing once again to plant the union jack where it had no reason to be opposed by two afghan hill tribes allied to Red and White Russians – history was a distant second here.

Each side had it’s own set of objectives, some easily achieved, some downright impossible, but the scenery and figures did look very nice.

Hill tribesmen ready for the conflict – they didn’t fire a shot 😂

White Russian Cossacks attacking an armoured car.

And destroying it.

I’m really not sure who won the game, it was more of a case who didn’t. The White Russians and allied hill tribe definitely failed, The Reds obliterated one British force but I’m not sure that was their objective 🤔, the other hill tribe didn’t appear until the end but the second British force disembarked and captured the railway station with minimal casualties so I guess they won. In these kind of games it doesn’t really matter, they are played for a laugh and plenty of laughs were had.

Some painting and modelling was done. Here a mosque for the 10mm set up.

Bridging units.

AA fire support.

Thureophoroi for the Successors.

This months reading. The McNab was an ok generalist assessment of the Roman Army, I wasn’t completely convinced by some of his takes. The Tom Clancy I read because of our interest in Cold War gaming and all I can say is, no wonder we were all paranoid in the 80’s! Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia is very much of it’s time and obviously not a Beevor mighty tome but in a slim volume it tells you a lot about the war in the snapshot of time that Orwell was in that particular front, still worth a read.

Well that’s it for November, Christmas is coming but there are still games to play before we drink and eat ourselves into oblivion so keep well and play nice.

October 2025 Report

westburywargamingLeave a comment

Coughs and colds have meant a bit of a lean month but we did have ‘The Other Partizan’

Our first game of the month was a 1980’s cold war attack defend scenario with the Soviets having to push on through after an initial breakthrough. The rules were Cold War Commander.

Outnumbered but not outgunned the Bundeswehr opted for taking the battle to the Soviets – big mistake!

The Soviets deployed a full tank regiment (3 x tank battalions & 1 x motorised infantry) plus air and artillery assets with the option to flank march (which they did) against 2 combined arms Leopard & Marder battalions and a small reserve Leopard battalion. The Soviets had to take the battle to the Germans and had 8 moves to do it in.

The Bundeswehr command decisions were not good and each mistake compounded another. The first was bunching one battalion up behind a fence line like a Napoleonic grand battery and never moving – originally this had some merit as the battalion was back from the fence line and so out of LOS but once up they were fair game to the HINDs and FAO/FAC call downs plus the added problem of this being the flank that the soviet flank march arrived on 😒

The second miss step was swinging the right flank tank battalion out of a perfectly good defensive spot and roar across the open countryside to try and turn the flank of the Soviets. This did have some merit as the Soviets had deployed en masse to their right (opposing the German left) but open ground in the rules (and in real life) is deadly. The better option was to utilise the cover to swing behind his own lines and reinforce the centre and left.

The Soviets made better use of the cover on their deployment frontage dumping off the infantry in a wood and using the BMPs to fire their ATGWs out from the edge.

As in all games there were some comedy moments, like the flank march that took FOREVER to arrive much to the frustration of the commander and the fact that the Napoleonic grand battery just plain refused to acknowledge it was there 😮.

Under the cover of their air and artillery (which didn’t eliminate anything much but did keep German heads down) the Soviets moved onto the high ground dominating the grand battery and with the help of the finally arriving flank march pounded the Leopards into dust – at odds of over 2:1 even inferior Soviet armour is going to mess up the opposition especially as the flank march was literally getting flank shots in.

By the end of turn 5 it was all over, the Germans were on the run and the Soviets pushed on through. Lesson to learn? If you are defending then defend, the longer range Leopard guns in cover will always have the advantage, as the Soviet player pointed out the German players just can’t resist roaring about the table 🤣.

Before our next game we had a group outing to ‘The Other Partizan’. This was our 2nd time of not putting a game on and the plan was to have one of the table sale spots to get rid of some of our excess stuff but someone screwed up the booking 😖😞😤. That said we were kind of glad the plan failed because the set up for those folk who were selling was poor. A gazebo/tent in the open in the generally better weather of May is fine but on a cold foggy day in October not so good especially as one side of the tent was open to the elements – thank god it didn’t rain. If the organisers are going to copy the idea of Hammerhead then bring it inside like they do and have the admissions & merchandising outside in the tented area, lets face it by lunch time the bulk of admissions are done anyway.

Now before I say anything else I need to be clear, I think Richard and Laurence do a fantastic job of organising the show – quite what will happen when they pack it in will be interesting, but it is billed as the premier show for quality games and I’m not sure that is so. In my view, and that’s all it is, quantity has taken over from quality, the number of games on display simply cannot all be premier league standard. The quantity also made it quite difficult to get around and view some of the games and I felt the games in the centre perhaps didn’t get a fair shake, again just my take, there are plenty of podcast reports out there lavishing high praise so I’m probably in a very small minority.

Next up was a refight of part of the 2nd day at Wagram using 15mm Volley & Bayonet.

Our chosen piece of history was the attack of Massena’s IV Corps alongside the Danube towards Klenau’s VI Corps while the main battle raged off to his right. The villages of Aspern, Essling and Breitenlee were his objectives.

The initial French moves were more of a stumble than a confident advance and the Austrians scored some early jabs in the developing contest overrunning some guns and seeing off an assault on Essling.

Not to be left out in the ‘how not to do it’ stakes the Austrians then obligingly sent Vincent’s hussars in against the cuirassier of St Sulpice and not surprisingly paid a heavy price.

The French still hadn’t quite got their act together and some piecemeal attacks got beaten back.

Aspern came under a far better co-ordinated attack and duly fell, the French were getting into their stride now.

The French continued to press and the Austrians started to fall back.

Breitenlee was stormed and the right and left anchors of the Austrian position were gone.

The field belongs to the French who despite a stuttering start did better than Massena on the day and completely destroyed Klenau’s command.

Next up was a weekend away in Stone for a cold war game with the Cold War Commanders group, my 3rd, Gerard’s 2nd, organised and loosely umpired by Richard Phillips. This years scenario was Denmark; a couple of divisions worth of Warsaw Pact elements were pushing north up the Jutland peninsula while a naval/VDV force assaulted the island of Fyn to secure the eastern flank of the advance. NATO was represented by the Danes occupying the island and the mainland shore over a bridge and West German, British and US forces defending the vital E20 highway. All told we had 13 players, a significant band of gamers in one space!

In such a large game it’s difficult to capture what is going on over the whole table so this will be what I managed to pick up from conversations and the occasional trawl up the table. What I do know is that as Warsaw Pact we had to seize the island and eliminate the HAWK batteries stationed there and size the town of Odense, then working our way down there were the towns of Middlefart, Kolding and the airport.

The first day was largely taken up with manoeuvring and initial contacts. The more serious fighting was on Fyn where the Danes were giving a good account of themselves and at Kolding where Soviet armour surged forward. Further down the table there was a lot of command fumbling as the East German brigade (me) stuttered forward and the Guards tank brigade (Gerard) hunkered down in woods opposite the the airfield not wanting to risk the open ground.

Second day was more intense as serious fighting erupted all along the front. First to go were the HAWK batteries, falling to VDV forces as the Danes were pushed back into Odense, the fighting for Kolding was brutal but it finally fell to the Soviets.

Down the E20 the East Germans had a bit of a scare when the the US airborne defending the road line launched a do or die assault on the hills overlooking their position where the FAO’s were sited but for once the artillery responded with little drift and the infantry battalion and supporting tank company were vaporised leaving the way clear for a push to the E20. Apologies for the tanks sitting on top of the trees, with so many players it just becomes impossible to have the time to make it look pretty.

At the airfield the USMC held on despite some serious shelling from the Guards armour – for some strange reason I don’t have a photo of this.

Time called, the East Germans had breached the E20 and were circling behind what was left of the US airborne brigade, further up the highway the Soviets had breached it in two more places. A clear Warsaw Pact victory.

This was quite exhausting and fair play to Richard for keeping us on track especially when players had several different interpretations of the same rules 🤣😂. Like all these big game events the actual playing area you are involved in is not much bigger than a large table at home and without a proper briefing session on something like the Friday night – something the WHC used to do very well, there will always be the tendency to fragment and become isolated in your approach to the game, this in turn can result in some players having nothing very much to do – the USMC player literally could do nothing unless Gerard attacked and there was nothing to force him to do so. I find it difficult enough to co-ordinate 4-6 players so 13 is way out there!

Back home and old reliable, Successors! Late period Seleucid and Ptolemaics took to the field in a curious battle.

The Seleucids went full on ‘super weapons’, 4 squadrons of chariots, 4 of elephants and 2 regiments of cataphracts, leaving a couple of pike battalions protected by Thureophoroi and Thracians. The Ptolemaics were far more sensible, deploying settler pike and cavalry, plus Galatian warbands and assorted other heavy cavalry. Because of their limited numbers the Seleucids opted for a compact deployment, elephants out on the flanks to dissuade any cavalry attacks and the chariots in the centre backed by either the cataphracts or the pikes with soft sand splitting the centre. The Ptolemaics spread out, settler cavalry on the left others on the right, pikes spread across the centre interspersed with their own elephants Galatians on the left of the pike and nothing on the right as there was a village to anchor on.

The battle opened with the chariots surging forward and making a mess.

Followed closely by the elephants who really did make a mess of the settler cavalry.

The spreading out of the Ptolemaics rather favoured the compact Seleucid deployment which if it got outflanked would have been in trouble but the elephants on the left put paid to the settler cavalry and the Ptolemaic left cavalry (above)were so far out that it took a lot of time to swing in and by then the centre was resolving itself.

The Galatians tried to turn it for the Ptolemaics (well the pikes were doing nothing 🙄) and clearing their way through bits of destroyed chariots (they only stand for the first contact and then are destroyed) but missile fire whittled them down.

In went the cataphracts and didn’t really do much.

Thureophoroi did no better and were seen off by the already badly mauled Galatians.

However as we called time the Ptolemaics were done. Both cavalry wings neutralised and their fighting Galatians about to be seriously duffed up. Seleucid victory.

A really odd but fun game. The pikes didn’t get a look in which from a Ptolemaic perspective was a real problem. The exotics on both sides were all over the show, we had chariots hitting elephants, elephants rampaging, dead elephants and destroyed chariots creating obstacles and the allies doing all the fighting!

Our final game was an away day fighting ACW using Rebels and Patriots, not my favourite set of rules but a pleasant enough game.

Four commands, four points of entry; Union from the north west & north east, Confederate from the south east & south west. Objectives? I don’t think there was one 🤔

None the less we all ended up near a creek and began blasting away.

The Union got over the creek and onto the high ground making heavy weather of some enemy skirmishers.

Confederates seize a different hill.

All fought out. Union on one side of the creek, Confederates on the other.

Well that was the games but in other news I did manage to get some Pendraken emplacements done to use as tank berms for our Iran Iraq set up.

And some Iranian bridge layers.

And an Iranian armoured cavalry battalion.

Plus some engineers.

And rebasing my myriad collection of Mongols, Russians, Mamluks, etc to become Timurids and friends/enemies. This is going to be a bit of a journey, the Timurids and Golden Horde are essentially done, Russians, Jalayarids, Mamluks next. Rules done enough for a first draft run through. Looking forward to it.

And I thought I’d start sharing what I’d read during the month, can’t share Audible listens very easily though.

Anyway, thanks for reading, comments always welcome. In the meantime, enjoy your gaming, respect your opponents.

July 2025 Report

westburywargaming4 Comments

Two shows and five games, a pretty reasonable month.

Our first game was WWII desert skirmish using our own tried and tested rules set. On this occasion a daring rescue attempt by SAS squads of two captured officers held at an Axis camp before transfer to the Gestapo for questioning.

The bulk of the Axis forces were asleep in their barracks while Askari patrolled the perimeter. The British were divided into 3 squads supported by an armoured car each, approaching from the cover beyond the main gate. Various scenario rules were in place for noise and and whether the guards would be alerted and how long it would take for sleeping soldiers to tumble out of bed.

The British de-bussed at a safe distance and advanced on foot with the armoured cars rolling on behind.

Impatience got the better of the British and before everyone was set the Rolls Royce opened up on the guard house eliminating the Askari inside. Now it was time to get a move on.

With the hornets nest duly disturbed the Axis troops began to tumble out into the square with the Italian tank crews leading the way into their fearsome tankettes 🤣

Unfortunately the lead tankette quickly went up in smoke and the Italians became a little more circumspect.

It wasn’t all wine and roses for the British however when the one tankette with an actual gun dropped a shell into one of the squads and downed two. Things were getting serious now!

As the British advanced into the compound the armoured cars gave very effective support fire.

It was starting to look like bullying now 😂

It was not all British hoorah though as once the Afrika Corps troops managed to push the Italians out of the way some serious fight back started to take place.

However it was all a bit too late by the Axis and with all the armour destroyed and most of the Italians & Askari dead or wounded the Germans had no choice but to surrender themselves and the prisoners.

Next was an interesting Successors game whereby Antigonus and his mighty host took on the western satrap Alcetas with both sides obscured by a belt of woods.

The Antigonids were pike heavy with 5 battalions ranging from Veteran to Levy supported by hoplite mercenaries. They were also heavy in horse with 6 units of formed cavalry. Where they were weak was in light troops, fielding only 1 unit of light horse and 3 of foot, but they did of course have elephants.

Alcetas on the other hand was falling over himself with light troops and that dictated his style of play. His heavy troops were 2 pike battalions and 2 hoplite battalions which he positioned opposite one of the breaks in the woods heavily screened by psiloi while his left was protected by 3 units of Psidian peltasts planning to take advantage of the woods opposite and his by some Thracians and more psiloi. The satrapal heavy & light horse was held back on the left to await orders to be committed to plug any holes that appeared.

The battle opened with a strong advance all along the Antigonid line but a far more cautious one from Alcetas – jibes about dragging his feet had no effect whatsoever 😂

The first serious action was the psiloi annoying the elephants which thy did very well and in due course we had panicking elephants and then dead elephants.

The early cavalry action was on the Antigonid right where Demetrious and half of the cavalry were massively outnumbered by the opposition and were ground down and eventually surrounded – lesson, don’t’ split your cavalry.

The other half of the Antigonid cavalry had a far better time beating up the Psidians.

And disappeared in a wild chase from which they never rallied.

At the two thirds point the game very much looked like it was going the way of the Antigonids. Demetrious was still holding his own on the right and the Median horse on the centre right under Peithon were making headway. Alcetas admitted he was worried.

The woods however were starting to become a bit of a pain in the arse – not least in trying to make sure weapons didn’t break off!

Eventually the heavy stuff got into contact with both sides mercenary hoplites slogging it out and both Antigonus and Menander (commanding for Alcetas) joining their troops to keep the combat going.

Then in a startling development the two Pantodapoi pike battalions, who had previously been protected by the Median horse, found themselves on their own, outflanked and showered with javelins and broke leaving a great big hole in the Antigonid centre.

Some consolation was gained when Antigonus’ veterans punched their way through but that just left them in a sea of enemy troops.

At game end Alcetas had the numbers and we called it a victory to him by a narrow margin.

Our next encounter was the final one of our Napoleonic north Italian odyssey, the battle of the Raab, 1809.

A much bigger game than our previous engagements (well for the French anyway 😉) the result was never really in any doubt, despite some early French efforts to completely cock it up, and it was all about how well the Austrians could do in defeat.

In an early effort to cock things up the French cavalry commander threw Guedin’s dragoon division across the Pancza stream and promptly lost it! Off to a great start.

A more circumspect approach was then adopted by the French and Laureston, supported by Sahuc, scored an early success on the French left.

This then led to a rapidly developing and fiercely fought contest on the Austrian right.

Meanwhile in the centre the French attack had gradually built and holes started to appear in the Austrian line.

Austrian grenadiers were desperately thrown in to plug the gaps but it was all a bit piecemeal.

French mass assaults turn the day.

Total Austrian collapse – every division is exhausted (Volley & Bayonet parlance). History does indeed repeat itself although our French paid a higher price.

Our final game was a GNW piece that stretched into two days. For this battle we had the table split by a major river, only crossable by a bridge leading into a town. A Russo Danish allied army was advancing up either bank of the river to contact a Swedish force reported as coming their way. The Russians and Danes had to deploy either side of the river although who took which side didn’t matter, the Swedes could deploy on either side or split to deploy on both sides and the split didn’t need to be even.

In the event the Russians took the right hand side with two brigades of foot, one of horse grenadiers and one of dragoons and the Danes the left with one brigade of horse and two brigades of foot. The Danes had the advantage of being on the side where the town was and maybe could beat the Swedes to it.

The Swedes opted to split their forces placing two brigades of horse and two of foot on the side facing the town and one each of horse and foot on the other bank facing the Russians.

In the opening moves the Danes won the race for the town (just) and this would prove to be a crucial event giving the Danes the advantage of receiving the forthcoming Swedish attacks at the halt.

Over on the Russian bank their horse (Kroptov and Tiernishov) splashed across the tributary stream to take the fight to the Swedes who lumbering forward.

The Swedes responded with their horse under Torstensson

The Russians were stopped but not overwhelmed and the Swedes fell back to regroup and the Russians realised they had got off lightly mixing it mounted so dismounted and started peppering away with muskets to keep the Swedes busy while their infantry hurried up.

Over on the other side of the river the Swedes threw in their first wave of cavalry under Hard but found that Danes weren’t quite so brittle as the Russians they were used to and so bounced off. No problem there’s another brigade to throw in.

In came the 2nd wave under Armfeldt and still the Danes held. Phew! The Swedes are now carrying some significant losses.

Back over the river the Russians are making a good show of it.

The Swedes have made a hole. Can they exploit it?

The Russian realise that they have more than enough troops to contain two Swedish brigades and so release Golovin’s brigade to march over the bridge to support the Danes – this will prove crucial.

In the town the Swedes and Danes slug it out. First with volleys and then with the Swedes trying to carry it with the pike & bayonet. Ultimately this is a failure and the Swedish brigade breaks with heavy casualties, ultimately rallying back at the table edge but spends the rest of the battle recouping its losses. The Danes now have the town and the Russians the bridge, its going to need a major Swedish effort to turn this around.

The Torstensson’s brigade breaks from accumulated casualties. It will rally but will need to recover losses.

The Swedes facing the Danes are now starting to gain ground so the Danes throw in their cavalry to stem the tide (see top corner). Sparre’s foot brigade is coming up behind the horse.

This is not good! The losses on Hard’s brigade reached critical mass and it only took one morale test for the brigade to crumble, The Danes breathed a sigh of relief.

The Danish line is finally breached by Sparre’s infantry but it has been an effort and they are not in a cohesive formation.

With the absence of Torstensson the infantry under von Liewen are being surrounded.

And breaks.

Golovin has shook out into line with 5 battalions of fresh troops and his right resting on the securely held town. His left is slightly in the air but about half of the Danish brigade has rallied and they are filtering in. The infantry under Sparre are too scattered to do anything in concert, Hard and Armfeldt are still recovering and Torstensson and von Liewen are lost. Emphatic Russo Danish victory.

In other news shows were attended! I’ve already spoken about Joy of Six but I also went to Attack! in Devizes.

The last time I went to Devizes I said I wouldn’t go again. Not because of the show but the distance, it is way too long a journey from Coventry in one day for what is an OK show, but circumstances meant I had to go so there I was.

My take on the show is that it is very old school and that has some charm but my impression was that numbers were low and two days is a stretch.

I did however manage to get some stuff done. This church and rectory for 6mm Cold War.

A power station for the 6mm.

A cypress grove for the 10mm Iran Iraq.

A copse for the Iran Iraq.

Acquired some pylons for the 6mm. Need a dark wash I think.

Another hill – because I haven’t got any of course 🙄

East Germans ready for action.

And I’ve chucked 3 years of work on a set of rules for my existing Timurid collection in the bin and been energised into doing something based on existing lines but different enough, hopefully!

And that’s it. Long may the summer continue. Be good and enjoy your gaming for as long as you can.

June 2025 Report

westburywargamingLeave a comment

Wow! It’s been a hot one but we have ‘soldiered on’ undeterred by the heat 😎

Our first game of the month was a re-fight of the battle of Oriamendi, 16th March 1837, in the First Carlist War.

In the actual battle the Carlists under Sebastian de Borbon attacked the Liberal Government forces the Liberal Government forces under General de Lacy Evans and routed them, including the sizeable British Legion who occupied the strategic hill of Ormiamendi.

Details are sketchy but we managed to scrape together enough information to put up a reasonable representation. The Government left was held by the British Legion supported by mountain guns and rockets and the right by the main government army. The Carlists had three commands, a force marching on from their right, an infantry centre in front of the town of Hernani and a strong left wing of mixed horse & foot on rising ground.

The main Government attack started on the right and in fact finished on the right. Throughout the game this mixed body of horse and foot slogged away against the Carlist left in what at times seemed like a doomed venture. Battalions routed and rallied but with the help of some well placed artillery shots they eventually stormed the high ground and turned in on the outskirts of Hernani.

On the hill of Oriamendi the British were in pretty good shape at the start of the battle and fired away unhindered.

But as the Carlist flanking force got itself into action that hill didn’t seem quite the greatest place to be.

The guns were in a pretty precarious position at one point but counterattacks saved the position enough for the Legion to hang on while the main army did the heavy lifting.

Our next effort was the first in a hoped for series of naval battles representing the Guadalcanal campaign, first up the battle of Savo Island.

We represented Mikawa’s force ship for ship and the Allied Southern Group and Northern Group ship for ship including the ill fated Canberra.

Our resident expert, Gerard, put in place rules adaptations and constrictions to represent the fact of fighting at night and the lack of co-ordination between the two allied fleets.

It was just as confused as the real battle and the Canberra went to the bottom in a re-run of history along with the Chicago.

The rest however was a bit of a divergence from history; the Japanese lost the Furutaka and the Americans came away with more of their ships intact than their historical forbearers. Looking forward to the next one.

Next up was a big one! We planned a 2 day Cold War gone hot game, an encounter battle between a Bundeswehr Panzer brigade and a Soviet Tank Regiment somewhere in Germany.

We planned a 10,000 point per side game using the Cold War Commander rules with 5,000 points coming on table on the first day, but without air or artillery support, and the other 5,000 on the second day.

I wont say it wasn’t hard work, we fought both games during the intense heat, which I think affected our ability to think properly on occasion and it was a lot of stuff to keep track of.

Conditions not withstanding we had a fine game. The Soviets arrived a broad front on the first day with three tank battalions, the elite T80 battalion entered the town at the northern end of the board and remained there for the bulk of the first day. The two T62 battalions entered in the centre and toward the southern end of the board, the centre battalion advanced as far as the main autobahn (on a raised embankment) and the southern advanced on a hill with a church on top for a splendid view.

The Bundeswehr had formed into four combined arms groups, copying cold war doctrine, and on day 1 deployed two of these, one to the south and one to the north. Each group comprised two company’s of Leopard 2’s, one company of troop carrying Marders and a Gepard platoon.

Day 1 was a day of jockeying for position. In the north the centre T62 battalion took on the northern combat group, who had coalesced around a wooded area, and came off worse, retreating out of line of fire. The combat group then got themselves into a shooting exchange with the T80’s in the town which then came off badly in.

At the southern end of the battlefield the other T62 battalion got itself onto the hill and the as the day drew on on exchanged shots with the Bundeswehr below them who were slow to advance – reflecting afterwards the Bundeswehr player saw this as his major error in not pressing the attack (he would pay on Day 2).

Day 2 dawned with the arrival (or not due to the vagaries of the dice) of both sides reinforcements heralded by the dreaded HINDs.

The Soviets came with a motorised infantry battalion who headed straight into the already busy town – everyone getting in some duty free shopping 😂. The rest was off table artillery – mortars and rocket launchers, some self propelled on table guns and air cover in the guise of the HINDs plus Frogfoot and Fitter ground attack aircraft.

The Bundeswehr came with two more combat groups and some M109’s being directed off table. One of the combat groups came on to the south to beef up the push for the hill and a planned sweep up the flank of the Soviet positions and the other came on in the centre planning to push through and link up with the flanking move – it didn’t work out 😒

Although not battle winners in and of themselves the HINDs and air were a substantial threat. The Bundeswehr centre thrust got caught and slowed enough to prevent it making the progress needed to split the Soviet positions. A consolation was shooting down a HIND and forcing it out of the battle area.

The additional southern combat group did turn the tide on the hill and even overran the Soviet command post but it shouldn’t have needed 16 Leopards to take out 9 T62s. In reality this was a bit of a hollow victory because the Germans were now exposed to ATGWs being slung at them from the T80s in the town.

As we progressed it was increasingly obvious the Bundeswehr were on a bit of a hiding to nothing and when we looked at the mandated rules breakpoint check the Germans were well over it and so we called it as a Soviet victory.

A good game but hard work in the heat, The perennial problem for the Bundeswehr player is whether to follow doctrine and counterattack whenever possible or be a sensible wargamer and sit back in cover with better armour and better guns – tough choice.

Our final game was a Wars of Religion game, Spanish v Dutch.

The deployments were pre planned, players just needed to dice for sides.

Both sides had a single massed cavalry wing conveniently placed opposite each other 😁

Elsewhere across the table the Dutch had a strong right wing of English allies/mercenaries and Sea Beggars under Sir Francis de Vere facing off to the lesser Tercio’s – Brabant and Walloons while in the centre the ‘good’ Tercios faced the Dutch centre holding a village and hill.

Not surprisingly the bulk of the action was taken up by the cavalry. The massed regiments came at each other in a rush (mainly 🤣) and then settled into grinding melee, retreat, reform and come again for the whole of the battle.

Initially the Spanish had the edge and saw off a cuirassier regiment and a Reiter regiment but the commitment of the Dutch lancers stabilised the line and the conflict swung in favour of the Dutch ultimately leaving them the battered victors.

In the infantry engagements the Dutch had an early stroke of luck when the colonel of the Brabant tercio was killed and the regiment had a catastrophic reaction, routing back to the camp. Their fellow infantry didn’t really care but the lack of numbers told when they got into harquebus range of de Vere’s command and the shooting started, they simply didn’t have the firepower to sustain the fight.

In the centre the Tercios rumbled forward supported by artillery fire but it was a long journey and the Dutch were in no hurry to come and meet them!

Ultimately the Lombardy tercio got into contact sweeping aside it’s first opponent but held by Zealand, mainly due to the slow attrition faced by Lombardy as it advanced and Zealand being fresh as a daisy.

With night drawing on and 10 colonels dead on the field we called it. From the Dutch perspective they had regained the initiative in the cavalry maul and nothing was going to change that now, on their right de Vere was wearing down the Walloons and the Germans with little loss to himself and in the centre the tercios were being held. A good day to be Dutch.

Holidays and the heat have meant that not much has been achieved on the painting table although I have got some more Iran Iraq command stands done. What time has been available has been spent on my renewed effort at sorting rules for the Timurid collection so stay tuned. In the meantime, enjoy the sun and enjoy your gaming.

May 2025 Report

westburywargaming1 Comment

Two refights, two conventions and a campaign game, it’s all happening in May!

Our first game of the month was the first on table clash in our Iran Iraq campaign.

In order to facilitate some battles that weren’t of the equal points variety I set up a campaign based around ‘Operation Howeizeh’ the Iranian counter attack of January 1981. Although we have a goodly amount of kit for a small group a certain amount of ‘creative accounting’ had to be done to make what we had fit the general historical setting – frankly this wasn’t a problem, the idea was to create a different way of getting models on the table and have some off table decisions to make. The excellent Helion soft backs on the conflict were invaluable for maps and forces involved.

The initial manoeuvring gave us our first big battle when the Iranian 92nd Armoured Brigade approached the town of Dub-E-Said defended by the Iraqi 15th Mechanised Brigade. The 92nd were constrained by a single highway approach between a large marsh but confidence was high with 2 battalions of Chieftains leading the way.

As we were using our rules of choice, Cold War Commander, we decided to use the optional weather rules and the optional air superiority rules and boy what a difference it made!

First off the air superiority roll was decidedly in favour of the Iranians which resulted in the Iraqi’s struggling to get any of their air assets off the ground – I liked this as a rule mechanism and will use it for all our games going forward.

The weather rules were wild! Basically we had a raging storm throughout the battle and despite many umpire rolls it never abated. In game terms this reduced visibility and negatively affected individual command rolls which for this particular battle favoured the Iraqi’s as in a straight fight they were going to be hard pushed to do much against the Chieftains.

The game turned into quite the slog with the Iranians never getting off the end of the highway by the time night fell and they fell back with zero casualties having inflicted some losses on the Iraqis. Full marks go to both the commanders for playing the game through with all the disadvantages rather than saying ‘screw it, we’ll delay the attack for the next day’. Personally I really enjoyed it, the game was completely different and the tactical problems posed a real challenge. What will happen next remains to be seen, it sure as hell can’t be stormy two days in a row 🤔

Next was our first refight of the month and our first convention when we refought the battle of Sagrajas1086 at Partizan.

The battle was a decisive in stopping what had been a steady advance by the northern Christian forces of Alfonso VI down Al-Andalus picking off the disorganised Muslim emirates one by one. It ushered in a century of Muslim recovery spearheaded by the Almoravid dynasty of Morocco.

We set our game up with both sides advancing from their camps heading towards the slight rise in the ground between both forces.

The Almoravid ace in the hole was their Black Guard infantry which were held back as a reserve should the Christians break through.

Our refight was a tale of two wings. On the Christian left the Andalusian cavalry facing the Christian knights fled after a brief melee and their fear spread even to the Black Guard who halted in camp. On the Christian right however the reverse result appertained and the victorious Muslim cavalry started turning into the centre to cut up exposed crossbowmen and archers as the Christian cavalry fled to their camp with tales of disaster.

You never get to finish a game at a show and this was no exception but all the kind words and conversations that halted proceedings were gratefully received and we thank everyone who made the effort to stop by.

As to the show itself their were some fine efforts on display, my personal favourite was the 6mm Wagram game – and I don’t even like Napoleonic’s 😂

There were some not so fine games (in my opinion) so I didn’t take any photos of them and perhaps too many which were essentially a static display which for me is not what wargaming is all about and doesn’t do much to promote the hobby. Of course this is just an opinion and has no more validity than the next persons.

Many thanks to Lawrence and Richard for organising and we look forward to a return visit – we might even get our Minden effort on the table!

Next was our second refight and the second in our 1809 north Italian campaign refights. This time the battle of the Piave whereby Eugene raced to cross the river Piave before flood waters swept away his crossing points and his opponent Archduke John could consolidate his defence.

Our rules of choice for Napoleonic’s have become Volley and Bayonet and we followed the layout for the battle contained in the scenario book. In the actual battle Austrian losses were between 3,600 and 3,896 and the French between 2,000 and 3,000 – remember these figures for later.

A lot of the early moves were spent by the French in traffic management (and as it turned out managing the wrong traffic 🙄) which meant the Austrians were able to get up to the edge of the dike and stream further in from the main river.

First across were Grouchy’s cavalry who should have spurred on to threaten the Austrian centre as the French infantry attacked. Instead they went off on a magical mystery tour on the extreme right flank and were of no use for several moves. When they did get into action they redeemed themselves against the Austrian cavalry but it was too late an effort.

On the French left and centre it was hard going and it was late in the game before holes began to appear in the Austrian front.

Eventually the sightseeing French cavalry made a difference and the French crossed the stream in a couple of places where Austrian numbers were weaker.

Ultimately the Austrians gave way before their entire force was surrounded but the butchers bill was high; French losses equated to 12,750 and Austrian losses to 8,750.

Our penultimate game was Republican Roman v Later Seleucid as I trialled some more amendments to the core rules. This game, just like the previous one featuring Romans, served to confirm my view that representing the intricacies of the early Republican formations is dammed difficult and I was right to cut off the rules prior to serious Roman/Macedonian interaction.

Be that as it may, we’ve got some nicely painted Romans so we will persevere until we get something that works well enough.

The Romans significantly out scouted the Seleucids and so got the pick of the terrain but unfortunately didn’t make the best use of it.

The Seleucids opted for a ‘different’ strategy. On the left they deployed their 4 pike battalions fronted by skirmishers and gave the whole division orders to hold. The elephants & Tarentines deployed in the centre aimed between two vineyards with their right covered by 2 regiments of line cataphracts while out on the far right the Agema cataphracts and the royal hetairoi deployed.

The Romans had 3 legions, 2 Italian and 1 Roman. One Italian legion and the Italian cavalry were deployed out on the left behind a ravine which ran from a hill back to the baseline effectively cutting off this third of the battlefield, the only way out was over the hill – after the battle the Roman overall commander couldn’t offer a good reason for this deployment other than ‘it was there’. The other Italian legion and the Roman legion held the centre and the Numidians and Roman cavalry the right.

The first serious action was on the Roman left where the Italian cavalry took on the Hetairoi and the Agema, predictably they lost and lost badly, both units being destroyed.

In the centre the elephants and Tarentines clashed with a unit of Cretans who did remarkably well given the disparity in strength but eventually the Cretans fled and what was left of them died in in the ravine. Out on the Roman right the cavalry realised there was nothing to fear from the pikes for a while and so joined in the developing action in the centre.

Returning to the Roman left the Seleucids played to their strength (high morale) and threw themselves against the legion. Actually it was the Hetairoi who did the heavy lifting as the Agema spent 5 turns trying to rally from being Shaken (and therefore unable to charge) – Gerard worked out that the chance of failing that particular test 5 times in a row was 1 in 1024! Oh how we laughed 😂

Ultimately the Hetairoi were successful, the Hastatai routed, the legion commander was killed and the legion was paralysed. The action had no bearing on the rest of the battle and was almost pointless but it did allow us to play out the rule amendments which facilitated the legion rotating troops in and out of the fighting line which worked fairly well.

Back in the centre the elephants made their habitual mess, one panicked and ran into the back of the Italian legion, all 3 eventually died.

The Italian legion saw off attacks by the line cataphracts and by the end was battered on top of a hill.

The Roman legion so nearly broke the pike battalion it eventually ended up facing off to, it just didn’t quite get the full effect of it’s pilum volley thanks to some clumsy positioning. What we saw of the mechanism changes seemed to point in the right direction, a one on one across less restricting terrain will be the real test.

In other news the Roman cavalry sacked the Seleucid camp.

The second convention was the annual visit to Games Expo, this time spread across 4 halls at the NEC. This event is huge and is a fantastic look into the wider gaming world.

This was my 6th visit and I did teeter on the edge of not bothering but I’m glad I did, the vitality of gaming in the wider sense gives a real buzz and lets you know just how many people are into gaming in all its forms.

For me the fun of a visit is the taking part in the myriad of 20 minute to half an hour pick up games demonstrating new products, forthcoming kick-starters or just pushing an established game. I’ve learnt now to stay in my lane when it comes to being tempted to purchase something I’ve just played, I’ve got enough distractions on the figure front never mind card games, board games, horror skirmish games, etc, etc.

If you want to have a look at what do all those other types who we call fellow gamers do the take a visit next year.

Final game was an away day with some once every now and then local gamers, this time a mass modern skirmish somewhere in a fictional African state.

The rules were Wars of Insurgency. Simple and effective, these aren’t designed for detailed play or catering for weapon differences and for the scale of game we were doing worked perfectly ok.

The game essentially revolved around stopping or assisting the President getting to the airport and/or killing him. He survived despite the best efforts of 6 different factions. Dice were rolled, beer was drunk, sometimes that’s all you want 😀

So another month draws to a close, Holidays next month so the volume of games might be down a bit but a report will follow as always. Thanks for reading and have a good June.

April 2025 Report

westburywargaming2 Comments

A third of the year gone but still we keep playing 😊

We opened the month with my personal favourite, Successors. For this one we had, Imperial Seleucid under Seleucus III facing down Ptolemaics under Ptolemy II Philadelphus around the time of the Syrian Wars.

The Seleucids were light on pikes having just the Silver Shields and one other but had the full range of exotics – scythed chariots & elephants, some decent cavalry and those wild Galatians (foot and horse), plus of course sundry skirmish types. The pike deployed in the centre screened by skirmishers, the good horse deployed on the right and the elephants, chariots and Galatians out on the left.

The Ptolemaics were heavy on pikes, four settler units and the Agema, far more cavalry but more variable in quality and a lot of skirmishers. When deployed all the cavalry were on the right, the settler pike took the centre with their sole elephant squadron out front along with some skirmishers while the left was curiously held by the Agema pike and a unit of Thureophoroi screened by more skirmishers.

We opted to use the terrain and scouting sections from the rules rather than just bang the armies down on the plain and this should have favoured the Ptolemaics with their superior scouting strength but they fumbled and ended up with a terrain board that helped rather than hindered the Seleucids.

Being inferior in numbers the Seleucids opted to hold back their pikes and rely on the exotics to make a mess of the massed Ptolemaic cavalry wing while their own cavalry swung round a convenient ravine to menace the centre. Some of this worked 🤨

The Seleucid elephants managed to get themselves between two woods which had the effect of drawing the Ptolemaic cavalry into a funnel of disorder while out on the extreme edge of the wing the chariots did exactly what they were supposed to do, charge in, crash, cause casualties and become inconvenient wreckage.

Sticking with the Ptolemaic right, the chariots soon shot their bolt (as expected) but the Greek and Thessalian cavalry took losses and more importantly were slowed down.

The Seleucid elephants had a good game, they frightened the children (oh no, sorry, the horses), had their mahouts killed and went into panic, rampaging about randomly – exactly what you want to see 😂

Ultimately the elephants died but their nuisance value had allowed the Galatian warbands to get up and get stuck in. The Galatians in fact had their best game so far, they duffed up a settler pike battalion and routed it, they saw off charges by both the Agema and the veteran Thessalian cavalry and killed the leader of the cavalry wing which paralysed it for the rest of the game. Result!

In the centre the Ptolemaic pike mass moved confidently forward but slowly (fairly obviously) and given the decision by the Seleucid general to hang back their only bright spot was the success of their Rhodian and Cretan mercenaries in driving off the opposition skirmishers.

Out on the Seleucid right the cavalry didn’t have the battle they hoped for, the rather odd deployment of Thureophoroi, pike and elephant initially worked and both Seleucid Xystophoroi regiments were seen off, one by the Thureophoroi and one by a combination of pikes and elephant. Unfortunately the Seleucid Hetairoi regiment sneaked through and opportunistically charged a shaken and disordered settler pike battalion and routed it – the stars really did align for that combat.

As we approached the end the Silver Shields were unleashed and……..failed to charge! What an embarrassment 🤣

The embarrassment of the Silver Shields not withstanding it was clearly a Seleucid victory, the Ptolemaic cavalry were paralysed and the settler pike were not having a good day.

Could it have gone differently? I think yes. The terrain decisions by the Ptolemaic general were definitely a factor effectively limiting the ability of the big cavalry wing to do anything and having all the cavalry eggs in one basket as it were definitely was a tactical limitation for the Ptolemaics. But so what, we had a fun game and that is what matters.

Next up was another Victory at Sea game but not the war in the Pacific this time instead we fought the Battle of the Denmark Straits. Yes two ships per side and that’s it 😲

Gerard came up with an intriguing little scenario for us and it really worked. First off we didn’t know what action we were doing until we were allocated sides and then we had restrictions on what we could see, what we knew and what we could do, all reflecting the original action.

Fairly obviously this wasn’t going to last us all day so we had one game in the morning, broke for lunch and then swopped sides for the afternoon session, sometimes it pays to go small.

In the first session the Hood was sunk quite early on in a repeat of history and Prince of Wales had its rudder jammed so was reduced to steaming in circles as the Bismarck sailed away with minimal damage leaving behind Prince Eugen at the bottom of the straits.

In our second game the British co-ordinated their efforts a lot better and zeroed in on the Bismarck ultimately crippling it to such an extent that all it could do was sail back up the straits into the arms of patrolling destroyers. The Prince Eugen was ultimately sunk.

This second game was a far more hard fought fight and at the end both Hood and Prince of Wales had serious damage but were still in the fight. A really good game and different.

Our third game of the month was a welcome return to the skirmish genre, this time we dusted off the Soviet Afghan collection and put together a mujahedeen attack on police and army units on the edge of a town.

The police started the game on duty outside the station, across the road was a government official and his bodyguards, inside the police station an army unit was resting prior to going out on patrol. The mujahedeen started at randomly generated points around the table edges.

One squad of Mujahedeen advance through an orchard.

A second squad nears the edge of the police station, local boy offers water fresh from the well. Have they been spotted?

Shots fired!

No need for cover now.

The army opens up from the police station – this is getting serious now!

This guy tried to three times to blow open the doors to the government building. Literally couldn’t hit a barn door 😂🤣

OK this isn’t looking too good. Time to change sides?

Government official makes a quick exit.

“He got away!” Mujahedeen withdraw with no casualties. Afghan police 3 x KIA, 1 captured. Afghan army 1 x KIA. It was nice to get one of the many skirmish collections out but truth is some of them need to be sold on now, just taking up too much space.

Next was another in our relatively new 6mm Cold War project this time giving the newly painted BAOR their first outing.

Like our March game this was another riff on the narrative in Jim Storr’s, ‘Battlegroup’. This time the 7th Armoured Brigade has been rushed forward from the divisional reserve to stop the Soviet 7th Guards Tank Division crossing the river Innerste.

The game was essentially an encounter game with battalions deploying to the table based on successful command rolls. The BAOR deployed one Chieftain brigade and one Challenger brigade along with a mechanised infantry brigade and some SP artillery. The Soviets deployed three tank battalions, one T80 and two T62, one of which was under strength, plus a trio of HINDs. Both sides had off table artillery.

The HINDs deployed early and, as usual, caused some heart stopping moments for the Brits – these damm things really are difficult to deal with.

As the Brits obligingly sat back the Soviets made a dash for the main suspension bridge.

Some decent shooting from infantry LAWs stops the Soviets on the bridge.

British infantry occupy villages on their side of the river.

Soviet advance continues.

The second bridge, ripe and ready for the taking.

Ultimately the Soviets seized both bridges and the British failed their breakpoint morale role so it was on to the Wesser for the Soviets.

On reflection this wasn’t one of our better games. The British overall commander was getting to know his army and so played an overly cautious game which manifested itself in some curious deployment decisions.

What turned out to be our final game of the month was a War of the Austrian Succession game set in northern Italy with a French army on one side and and an Austro Piedmontese army on the other approaching a town where there is thought to be a supply of shoes – sound familiar?

It wasn’t planned this way but this turned into a two day affair and it’s probably worth talking about that.

This was a lot of troops; the French fielded 6 brigades, the Austrians 5 and the Piedmontese 4, all marching to the table and in some cases getting each others way (that was the intention). What this meant was that by the end of the original day the battle had only really just got going and we were stuck with falling back on that old staple of “well I think this brigade would probably do this and that brigade would fall back…..” Then in a kind of epiphany moment, which we really shouldn’t have had to have, we realised that we could just leave the game up (because that’s what a permanent wargames room is all about 🤔) and because we’re retired we can game whenever we damm well please! And there was me thinking we were all pretty bright blokes 😂🤣

Anyway. The two brigade strong Austrian cavalry brigade marched up the right hand road aiming to pass through some walled gardens and smash some French cavalry seen deploying near some woods. On the opposite flank the Piedmontese single cavalry brigade was repeating the same scenario. In the centre all roads led to the town; the French foot had a only a single road to march down so were more strung out but there was less of them, the Austrians and Piedmontese had a road each but it met at a fork outside of the town and a road block was inevitable – the columns had to come down the road to enter the gaming area.

The first action of the game was the clash of the French and Austrian cavalry at the walled gardens. The French caught the lead Austrian dragoons as they shook out of column but failed to bounce them back and fell back themselves, a potential disaster which was rescued by the second French unit that charged in to stabilise the line and send the Austrians themselves packing. This set the tone for the whole game, the Austrians were stymied by the walls and gardens and just could not make enough headway against smaller and weaker opposition.

Out on the other wing the Piedmontese and French cavalry had a more even contest which ultimately saw the Piedmontese bounced back behind their gradually developing infantry lines which later in the game would save them.

In the centre the fight for the town was developing. The town consisted of two built up areas at the sides and one central walled garden area into which the French were establishing themselves just ahead of the Austro-Piedmontese who had been held up by the now infamous fork in the road.

The Austrians just keep on coming! Numbers are beginning to tell at this stage and the French have already recognised they don’t have enough to occupy all the built up areas.

It’s about what would be seen as the mid point of the game. The French hold the central gardens and the whole of the right built up area, the left is contested with the Austrians. The cavalry on both flanks are holding their own. This is the high water mark of the French effort.

Emboldened by their success the French cavalry right spurs its horses forward scenting victory. An infantry brigade is supporting to the rear. What could possibly go wrong?

In a bizarre turn of events the French left cavalry received orders to pull back to their original starting point allowing the Austrians the opportunity to sort themselves out and exit the gardens. The reasoning of the French CinC was that he thought the cavalry would be overwhelmed in due course but what this order did was to allow the Austrians to fight with the advantage of their numbers and it also exposed the left flank of the infantry brigade trying to stop the Austrian juggernaut coming round that side of the town.

The right hand side of the town (as seen from the French side)has fallen to the Piedmontese assault. Frankly they made hard work of this, this part of the town was only held by two skirmish regiments as the French didn’t have the numbers, none the less the French in the central gardens were now under serious threat.

The situation worsens in the town. The left hand side built up area has been given up to the Austrians and the weight of Austrian fire on the centre (look at all those battalions!) has driven the French out allowing the Piedmontese to begin occupying the ground.

Out on the Austrian right, their cavalry prepare to seize their moment, now it is their time!

“Onward to victory!”

Oh dear 🤣😂 In a stunning turn about the Austrians lost their bottle and retired without even crossing swords!

And it got worse. It just wasn’t the Austrians day. The French breathed a sigh of relief.

However out on the French right the cavalry brigade has all but been destroyed by Piedmontese musket fire and the supporting infantry brigade has also collapsed. Yes the Piedmontese have suffered losses but the French are in no position to do anything about it.

With night falling the French are finished. Despite the unlooked for success on the right the rest of the army is spent and retreat is the only option covered by the very lucky right flank cavalry.

I for one was really glad we carried this on to a second day. There was plenty of fight left in the game, in fact the bulk of the fight was in the second day. We had some knife edge moments, some lucky moments and some disastrous moments, in fact everything you could want in a good game. Well done all!

In theory that should have been it for the month but not for me because I went down to Basingstoke for a refight of the battle of Malplaquet hosted by Mark Freeth at the Wargames Holiday Centre. I say ‘at the Wargames Holiday Centre’ when in fact the WHC comes to you, because these days Mark sets up the 27 foot long playing area in an extended conference room at the local Holiday Inn, so you stay, eat and drink in the hotel and game in the conference room all very convenient.

I’d love to give a detailed account of the ebb and flow of the grand battle but I can’t. The one disadvantage (oh the trauma of it all!) of playing on such a large table is that you only really know what’s going on in your six foot square of action.

I can say that on the Friday night and all day Saturday we played a series of games that were a loose simulation of contacts leading up to the battle but were in reality a means to get people used to the rules – Kampfe In Reihen by Steve Thompson. Personally I think this this was a bit too long and it kind of took you out of the moment, maybe Friday night and Saturday morning would have been enough.

Sunday was the main event and as best as I could tell it went something like this. The French left cavalry (me) fought a long and bloody battle against superior numbers of allied cavalry but finally gave up the struggle. Way down on the French right a mixed force of horse and foot made little headway against inferior opposition. In the centre sheer weight of numbers drove in the French centre.

I’m, glad I went, it was an itch that I had wanted to scratch for years. I had been to the WHC in the very early years under Pete Gilder when I was a callow youth and then continued with it when Mike Ingham took over from Pete and amongst other things instigated the Marlburian period as a staple on the menu but despite meeting Mark at the centre under Mike and forming a friendship I had never been able to attend under his stewardship so that’s done now.

This kind of mass gaming can be seen as a bit of a relic of a different time in wargaming and I get that, certainly it’s not for everyone and it does have a cost attached to it. I’m glad I have finally got to play in it’s third iteration, whether I will again remains to be seen, but it was a nice note to end the month on.

March 2025 Report

westburywargaming2 Comments

Wait! What? A quarter of the year is over! I’ve still got projects to finish 🤣

Well the month opened nicely with a trip to Hammerhead from which I seem to have lost the photo’s of some of the games 😥 To be honest I was a bit underwhelmed, it was certainly busy and that is a good thing for the organisers but I felt the range and quality of the games was a bit sub par. There were some stand out games (the photo’s I’ve lost) but for me it was perhaps a case of more means less and given that the idea is participation I wasn’t feeling the “come and play” vibe that has existed at past shows. Obviously a very personal view and one not necessarily shared by others.

All that said I did manage to pick up painting commissions that hade been ongoing for a while so plenty of basing to do when I got home 😀

Our first game of the month was another in our “reconquista” project. For this one we had Almoravids led by Yusuf ibn Tashfin facing off to the Christian Spanish under King Alfonso VI who had the redoubtable Rodrigo Diaz commanding his cavalry.

The Christians gambled on a strong cavalry wing overwhelming their opponents and sweeping around the rear of the Moslem centre while their own spearmen and missile supports held the centre. A mixed infantry & cavalry contingent of Andalusians acted semi independently on the other wing.

The numerically stronger Moslems relied on their Black Guard to dominate the centre while the rest of the Berber contingent advanced on the right, spears adjacent to the Guard and cavalry out on the wing. Like the Christians they also had an Andalusian contingent, a mix of spears and skirmish cavalry out on the left.

The initial action featured the Berber camelry menacing the Andalusians but some well placed bow shots from the rear archers contained the smelly animals.

The first proper action was the Andalusian cavalry from the Christian side sending the Almoravid jinettes scampering off with a bloody nose and then mixing it up with the following Berber cavalry, managing to rout one unit and kill a leader before finally being routed themselves by a second Berber cavalry unit. This took the majority of the game to evolve and the lone Andalusian unit had a fine old time 😀

In the centre the Black Guard and their Berber supports got stuck in with the Christian spearmen and a prolonged slog saw the melees swing one way and then the other. One of the Guard was particularly successful, routing its opponent and cutting them down to the last man in the pursuit, but then found itself stranded and surrounded by skirmishers who potted away and wore it down. Generally though the centre infantry slog was inconclusive.

Out on the Christian right El Cid threw in his Caballeros presuming an easy victory over the Andalusian spearmen and a victory he did get but only after a bitter struggle which delayed the grand sweep originally planned for.

This was the key moment, El Cid led his cavalry into the flank of the remaining Black Guard and victory was assured.

Our next game was a first for the group, Samurai, 1590’s, curtesy of group member Gerard who has spent considerable time putting together this pet project. The rules were ‘Battles in the Age of War’ with some amendments for the style of fighting in this period – small numbers of actual Samurai, plenty of Ashigaru formed into a single unit. The armies were Tokugawa v Ishida.

Essentially it was solid lines moving forward to fire and then melee, the key tactical decision being when to withdraw your shooters and commit your fighters. As a game it had a very Marlburian look to it albeit with different tactical nuances.

As a first outing I thought it played well – probably influenced by the fact that as Tokugawa I crushed the Ishida right wing and was declared the victor 😉

This has definitely got legs and I look forward to our next game.

Next up was a return to the Dark Ages (Early Medieval) using our post Roman Britain collection which we reckoned hadn’t seen the light of day in 18 months. The opposing forces were Ambrosius Aurelianus with a small force (mostly hidden in this photo) facing off to invading Jutes under Aesc.

Ambrosius deployed his better quality Limitanei behind a hill on his left screened by skirmishers with orders to hold and his inferior Milites similarly deployed behind the right hill; a collection of other skirmishers waited in ambush in the central wood. His lone cavalry unit strike force he deployed well back under Artorius so he could survey the land before committing.

Aesc hampered by a stream he had to cross placed his seasoned Duguth on the left under Ebissa while he took the wild Geoguth on the right, the allied Britons were placed under Oslac but little was expected from them.

While the Jutes got their feet wet crossing the stream the Britons deployed themselves safely on the hills and sent the skirmishers forward.

Gambling that wet Jutes were not quite as effective as nice dry Jutes Artorius led his Equites into the leading Geguth unit. In truth this really was a gamble, the Jutes were pretty effective in the first round of combat and there was more of them, fortunately the Christian god smiled on Artorius and despite a glancing blow to his helmet the Jutes retreated and in the follow up the cavalry slew the heathens in their droves – or so the sagas say 😁

It wasn’t all about Artorius though as the Jutes were approaching the hills ready to do battle – notice how the skirmishers are nowhere to be seen 😂

The Jutes charged all along the line, they were fiercer but the Britons had the ground.

On the right-hand hill the Milites just couldn’t cut it and after a short struggle they headed for home.

On the left hill the Limitanei fared better and pushed their opponents off as they prepared to commit both units.

Ultimately the Britons yielded the ground, the Jutes were over the stream and onto the hills, there would always be another day.

Our next endeavour was another first and an historical refight. The first was using Volley and Bayonet for a 15mm Napoleonic scrap and the historical refight was the battle of Sacile in northern Italy 1809, the first of three fought by Eugene in that campaign.

What a confusing battle, three points of entry for the opposing sides, different times of arrival, difficult terrain; a wealth of tactical decisions to make though.

A brief description of the game would see two French divisions (Severoli & Seras) attack the town of Porcia through very uninviting terrain, ultimately taking the town and destroying Frimont’s division.

In the valley below the real action took place. Initially the French had the upper hand as the divisions of, Broussier, Grenier, Barbou & Sahuc, arrived bit by bit and force marched forward – I thought the rules recreated this really well. Early success however faded as the Austrian VIII & IX corps pushed more and more divisions into the valley outgunning the French and vastly outnumbering Sahuc’s cavalry who were duly destroyed.

The French initial attack was quite a success and confidence was high.

But the Austrian counter attack was successful

And then they really piled it on and the French had nothing left, Barbou’s division collapsed and both Broussier and Grenier were severely mauled, a definite Austrian victory.

Curiously, when we totalled the scaled losses, they were very close, Austrians 7000, French 6000.

I’ve never made any secret of my ambivalence to Napoleonic’s and the one big base equals a brigade concept is still a challenge reminding me of a board game BUT, unlike Command and Colours which at it’s core is a board game, this did give a real flavour of operating at a macro level and one which I would gladly play again.

We closed out the month as we started with a “reconquista” game, this time Christian Spanish against Muslim Andalusians, or Andalusian civil war 🤨

For this encounter the Muslim force deployed a long thin infantry line of alternately spear and bow units screened by skirmishers with two equal cavalry bodies on the wings. The Christians deployed with a strong central body of spearmen flanked by crossbows screened by skirmishers also with two equal bodies of cavalry on the wings.

Not surprisingly the initial clashes took place on the cavalry wings where the Andalusians had the better of it on both wings. The difference was the presence of skirmish cavalry on the Andalusian side who managed to weaken the Christians before their clash with their opposite numbers.

In the centre the Andalusians inflicted a steady flow of casualties on the advancing Christians.

Eventually the Christians stormed the hill and the tide looked like it was turning.

The Andalusian spearmen clung on desperately.

But the break up of the cavalry wings meant morale checks and that didn’t go so well especially as the camp was being looted. A clear Muslim victory.

And that was March. Best stop typing I’ve got the April game to organise 😁

January 2025 Report

westburywargaming8 Comments

Bloody hell January has gone! A better month than I thought it would be what with post Christmas & New Year activities to deal with so here are our efforts for the month.

First up was a game from our Reconquista/El Cid project which is progressing rather well.

In this one we had Christian Spanish v Moslem Andalusians, an ‘equal points’ game rather than a scenario driven game – it’s easy to deride ‘points games’ but if you are trying to formulate a set of rule mechanisms that work then this does give a level playing field to work from.

Our terrain was a line of ridges with a stream just behind running east to west, emerging from the hills and ending at one table edge, the ground opposite was fairly open.

As it was the beginning of the month our numbers were low so we actually played the game twice with different players. Strangely both sets of players chose almost exactly the same set up with no knowledge of the previous player choices.

The Moslem forces chose the ground behind the stream & ridge line and in the first game deployed their spearmen covered by skirmishers out of sight behind the hills, in the second they deployed the infantry on the left hoping to move to the stream and deny a crossing to the Christians. With their cavalry; in the first game they deployed their jinettes and two units of retainers on the left and their nobles and two other units on the right, in the second game the jinettes were behind the ridge line and all the cavalry on the right.

In both games the Christians deployed their infantry in the centre – militia spear and militia crossbows screened by skirmishing slingers and bowmen while on the right their caballeros (retainer cavalry) were deployed and on the left the military orders and noble cavalry.

In the first game it was all about the cavalry. On the Christian left the nobles and military orders swept away the opposing nobles and retainers and on their right fought a tougher but ultimately successful series of melees which saw that Moslem flank also collapse. In the centre the Moslem infantry gained the ridgeline and held off the Christian centre but with both flanks swept away it was a clear Christian victory.

In the second game it was a much more even handed contest. The attack of the caballeros at the stream was met by the spearmen who defended the stream with tenacity and despite the the caballeros forcing their way over at one point their losses were too much and they fell back. On the Christian left the veterans and military orders were met by more numerous opposition and a couple of decent class noble units which ultimately proved decisive and the Christians fled with severe losses. In the centre the Christian infantry gained the ridgeline with little hindrance but so what? and in fact the overspill of Moslem cavalry from the Andalusian right started to cause problems for the crossbowmen, one unit of which was ridden down. So with the stream held and the best Christian units seen off an Andalusian victory was declared.

Although two games of the same scenario is not really our thing this did in fact prove very useful in that we were able to prove out the last rules mods and now have something that will see us through some consistent play. The particularly positive outcome was that we now feel confident enough to do the game at the next Partizan so come and have a look if you are there.

Our next effort was a step back in time and a re-fight – the battle of Panium, 201BC.

I knew nothing of this battle until one of the guys pointed out the recent article in Wargames Soldiers & Strategy by Mark Backhouse. As it featured later Successors (Ptolemaics & Seleucids) it talked to one of our loves and as we had just finished up some more cataphracts it seemed very serendipitous!

If you want a detailed read then turn to Mark’s article or if you fancy yourself as a scholar dig out Polybius Book 16 but I warn you it is just as confusing as Mark says! A precis of the battle is as follows; the Seleucids deployed with their cataphracts on the right stationed on Mount Hermon, the centre was the usual array of pikes covered by skirmishing infantry & cavalry plus elephants and the left was a smaller cavalry force; the Ptolemaics were weak in cavalry and so deployed limited numbers on both flanks but had a strong infantry centre of pike & Thracians screened by numerous skirmishers. The Seleucids opened the battle with a furious charge of the cataphracts off the hill which swept away the opposition, seeing this the Ptolemaics pressed the attack in the centre and seemed to have gained the upper hand but the victorious cataphracts returned and enveloped the Ptolemaic left at the same time as the Seleucid left turned in on the Ptolemaic right and the game was up.

Our refight used the order of battle presented by Mark, translated into our rules and lists which came out as follows: On the Seleucid right, 3 x cataphracts under Antiochus the Younger, in the centre, under Antiochus the Great, 4 x pike (including the elite silver shields) screened by a unit of Cretan bow and a unit of Tarentine light horse with 5 x elephants placed at intervals between the pike, on the left a single unit of Agema heavy cavalry and a unit of local formed cavalry under Nicarchus (conjectural). On the Ptolemaic left was 2 x formed cavalry under Ptolemy, in the centre 6 x pike, and a unit of Thracians screened by 4 units of skirmishers of varying quality and out on the right the overall commander, Scopas, with a single unit of Agema cavalry.

Our refight was a classic example of how wargamers can break the historical narrative and the reason why we play.

As is always the case with these kind of games it’s all about the cavalry to start with. On the Seleucid right the cataphracts lumbered off the hill (hardly a furious charge 😂) but the Ptolemaics got the initiative when it came to contact and got in first precipitating a drawn out melee which ultimately saw the one unit of cataphracts fleeing. Fast forwarding, this flank then devolved into the other Ptolemaic unit being routed by it’s opposing cataphracts and the the third cataphract unit advancing to the Ptolemaic camp and begin looting. On the other cavalry flank the clash of the Agema resulted in the destruction of the Seleucid version and their supporting cavalry was shot down by Ptolemaic skirmishers, the Ptolemaic Agema however was in no state do do anything further.

In the centre we got to do the thing we love, shove long pointy sticks at each other 🤣

Both sides advanced steadily and in the initial missile exchanges the Seleucid Tarentines were quickly eliminated. The Ptolemaic levy skirmishers who made up half the total performed surprisingly well which demonstrated that crap troops can do well enough if not overly threatened. The Seleucid elephants had a good start when being used as a shooting platform and assisted in the destruction of the enemy Aetolian javelin men.

Once troops started to close then it became more hard core. The elephants had to start earning their keep and that was a bit of mixed bag. Two elephants (well squadrons) got stuck in with the veteran Ptolemaic pike and paid the ultimate price although it did slow those units down and broke up the nice neat lines. Unusually only one unit panicked and of course that ran into it’s own pike effectively pinning that unit, the other two essentially hung around never quite getting the courage up to get stuck in – well who would!

The battle of the pike battalions went pleasingly well from a game point of view but the Seleucids were having a far harder time of it than their historical prototypes. The Silver Shields destroyed the Thracians, great for them but probably a poor use of an elite unit. Further Seleucid success saw the rout of one levied pike and one mercenary pike on the Ptolemaic side with the loss of only one mercenary pike on the Seleucid side.

As we reached the prescribed number of turns assigned for the game it was clear a Seleucid victory had been obtained. The Ptolemaic camp was looted and so the focal point for rallying was lost and they had more units in the wind. Not the decisive victory of history but a dammed good game.

A bit of a sidebar note, I did speak to Mark about doing a write up of the game as a follow on from his article to offer a bit of a different perspective from his own rules but he advised that WS&S policy wasn’t to publish battle reports. Their loss your gain 😉

Up next was another Cold War Commander this time with our growing 6mm collection, both in terms of hardware but also the terrain, I think we have made some serious progress 🙂

We opted for the ‘Battle of Attrition’ scenario from the rules which is exactly that, kill more of the opposition than they kill of you within a fixed number of game turns.

Given that both sides start in fixed positions, somewhat randomised by the roll of the dice, this is a bit of a cat and mouse game and on reflection I’m not convinced of its historical veracity.

Regardless, both sides manoeuvred to try and get the advantage, the Soviets to use their superior numbers and the potentially devastating Hinds with their onboard ATGW arsenal, the Bundeswehr to get the best out of the superior range and superior armour of the Leopard 2’s.

The vulnerability of the Soviet armour was demonstrated several times although in fairness presenting your flank to enemy fire does tend to result in disaster 🤣😂

Ultimately the game was a NATO (Bundeswehr) victory but probably not one of our more satisfying games. The rules, like any set of rules, have bits where you go “really?” but I think it was the scenario that was a bit self defeating, more of a narrative game next time I think.

By way of a complete change our next effort was a Viking skirmish, two roving/allied bands out to loot a rival settlement getting ready for winter.

The raiding bands had the rather obvious objective of obtaining loot, ranging from livestock to hidden wealth, the settled Vikings the objective of seeing off the raiders and killing enough for them not to try again. Forces were positioned randomly on the board.

The raiders approached from the north and the east under Eanmund and Halfdane respectively. Eanmund headed for the isolated smithy to start while Halfdane skulked around the vegetable patches.

The village guard dogs were completely useless and it was complete luck that one of Hygellac’s crew saw Eanmund’s band at the smithy. Horns were sounded, to battle!

The game quickly became the battle for the smithy – not quite Beowulf level but hey ho 😆

The ‘battle’ eventually sucked in Hrothgar’s band from within the village and a lopsided fight saw Eanmund fleeing the scene bleeding from his wounds, his armour rent and his sword notched.

But what of Halfdane and his band I hear you ask? Well, with the guard dogs having wandered off and Hrothgar having heeded the call of the horn it was time for some easy looting.

In fact Halfdane was the clear winner, livestock taken and some of the lesser valuables looted, a fine day out 😄

Next up, Italian Wars, Florentine and Venetians squabbling about real estate in Mantua.

Both sides fielded pretty large forces. The Florentines were strong in militia crossbows & pike supported by mercenary condottierre and mounted crossbows. The Venetians slightly outmatched the Florentines in cavalry and did have the better quality Lanze Spezzate while their infantry was a more eclectic mix of professional crossbowmen and mercenary pike & crossbows. Both sides had a smattering of skirmish horse.

Both sides deployed their battle cavalry on the right flank, the Venetians screened by a wood and the Florentines planning to use the town to anchor their flank. Given the number of crossbows in their army the Florentines strung them out in one long line hoping to get the best out of their firepower, the pikes they deployed on the right centre. The Venetians had deployed their Provisionati (professional crossbow) opposite the Florentine condottiere so their plan automatically became shoot the heavy guys before they ride you down, the mercenary pike and crossbows were deployed in the centre. Both sides had formed units of crossbow cavalry, so not skirmishers, which they deployed on the flanks – history tells us there were thousands of these guys and generally ineffective they were too.

The initial aggression was shown by the Florentines who got their condottierre moving (after a bit of persuasion) in the direction of the Provisionati.

To fast forward a bit the Florentine condottiere weathered the storm of crossbow bolts that met them and ultimately swept away the Provisionati which ended the participation of both combatants for the game.

In the centre we had general disappointment, despite some fairly effective skirmishing neither side could get their pikemen to get stuck in. A mix of poor dice rolling and low rated captains meant that all they did was stand and stare – we did have a discussion about this and although not completely satisfying from a gaming perspective we had to acknowledge that historically these units weren’t that effective in the field.

The game was lost on the Venetian right. The cavalry block advanced late from behind the wood and ran into crossbow fire from the Florentine crossbows on this flank but it wasn’t the casualties that stopped them it was the death of two captains that stymied the advance and led to more casualties and ultimately morale failure.

With the centre deadlocked but the Venetian right stuck and the left lost we gave the victory to the Florentines.

Our final effort of the month was a refight of the battle of Vimeiro 1808 using Command and Colours in 15mm.

My understanding of Vimeiro is that Wellesley, with slightly superior numbers, defended his position at Vimeiro and the adjacent ridge against several uncoordinated attacks by the French under Junot and drove them off with significant losses and ended the French intervention in Portugal.

For our refight the troops were set out as per the historical prototype using the map supplied with the rules.

Being coordinated or otherwise is rather at the discretion of the cards drawn and the playing of them.

In the centre and right the British attempted to get as many units in and around the village of Vimeiro as the cards would allow as well as trying to wear down the French attackers.

On the British/Portuguese left there were a series of moves and counter moves with the French as each tried to seize a village I’ve forgotten the name of and was in fact completely unimportant.

The game was won in the centre where the British just couldn’t get enough troops around Vimeiro to defend it and the French didn’t obligingly launch piecemeal attacks. Conclusive French victory.

I’ll freely admit the rules don’t really do it for me, the card thing is just too abstract and the use of a unique dice mechanism too random. That said though the rest of the group are all Napoleonic fans and there are plenty of battles to fight so we will continue to feature these in our play.

Well that’s it I reckon, not much done on the painting scene although this Iranian armoured recon battalion did get finished along with some road sections, most of the month has been spent on terrain items for the 6mm. So, signing off, please feel free to comment and look forward to posting in a months time.

Dreams For 2025

westburywargaming4 Comments

January is usually a bit of a slow month to get going so with time on my hands I thought I’d reflect on what the group could tackle going forward.

Historical re-fights. Once the life blood of the hobby but not so much so these days. This year we have made a bit of an effort to stage some of these but it has to be admitted they take more organisation than a pick up game or even a narrative game and the reward v effort has to be weighed carefully.

Some of the periods of history in the collections lend themselves fairly well to a re-fight. Our Successors have achieved some good results as have the GNW, Sikh Wars, Wars of Religion and Carlist Wars and there is still more we can probably do with these – fight them through chronologically for example? Other periods suffer from the shear size compared to the scale we happen to have chosen to collect in, others from the dearth of information available, but maybe we just aren’t trying hard enough?

Going forward it would be nice to fight some Thirty Years War battles using Gerard’s 15mm collection under Tilly’s Very Bad Day. The re-vamped War of Austrian Succession in Italy might also be a possible choice, although this may need some additions. On a tricorne theme my French have been waiting patiently for Dave to complete his British for about 5 years now 😂and there are plenty of battles in Savory’s seminal work, maybe 2025 will be their year?

The Victory at Sea collection is most definitely big but the real thing is massive! No way can we fight any of these. Maybe this would lend itself to a mini campaign? Worth think about 🤔

Having conveniently mentioned campaigns above this is one of those things we haven’t tried at all. Certainly they can be a curse for any group/club no matter how big the group or how tight the players – certainly the experience of two of us in a medieval campaign away from home in 2023 was not positive despite the tremendous efforts of the umpire.

Despite the risks I’d like the group to to consider it but choosing the period/campaign will be tricky and the density of the campaign rules would need to be considered carefully. A limited theatre game using our modern collections might work – 10mm Iran/Iraq or 6mm 80’s Cold War or a more formal C18th game.

Weekend game. Or just a longer game. Currently we meet at 10.30am, chat a bit, play until lunch time, break for about 40 minutes for lunch and then crack on until tea time – anywhere between 4.30pm and 6.30pm. Usually perfectly adequate and luxury compared to those who have 3 hours max at a local school/community centre etc and we are well aware of how lucky we are. But occasionally we are left thinking, ‘if only’, a common wargamers complaint and usually when you have bitten off more than you can chew in the choice of the game or you have chatted on too much prior to the game starting – definitely guilty on both counts 😁.

The weekend game is definitely a wargamers holy grail and hiring a hall for a weekend wouldn’t be beyond us financially but would require some organisation by someone. What might be a consideration would be to play in the knowledge that the game is staying up until the next time – next day, next week, whatever. This might allow us to do a narrative where the first day (or part of it) was the initial probe – reinforced recce elements in a modern game, advance guards from C18th & C19th forces, etc.

As I’m typing away I’m thinking maybe this would be a way to ease us into a mini campaign, limited theatre, say the Shenandoah Valley campaign, some map movement, forces collide, games ensue, lasts two or three meet ups. Maybe it would work for the Victory at Sea idea of re-creating an historical engagement?

Skirmish games. In a previous incarnation skirmish games were a staple of the group mainly because we were constrained by the 3 hours and you’re done format. Over the last couple of years however the vibe has changed, we are no longer constrained by the 3 hour set up and around half of the group nowadays is pretty anti the whole skirmish thing.

This does present a bit of a problem. As the original creators of the group Dave and I have a ton of skirmish stuff which represents an obvious investment issue and because skirmish gaming is terrain heavy also gives a storage conundrum. The other week we had the hard conversation about what we could get rid of (along with the stuff we just aren’t using anyway) but each period has a level of emotional attachment which is difficult to break.

The alternative is of course to effectively recreate the 3 hour game by playing separately one afternoon or morning with those who fancy a bit of a gunfight or Viking raiding. Discussion to be had.

Joint projects. We have never discussed this in the group as it now stands but I think it could be worth the trip. There is always the risk that someone can’t/won’t commit but a couple of units in a wider project shouldn’t be too much of a stretch especially if we go for the mini campaign idea or if someone says “I’m thinking of doing……” and everyone else says, “I’ll do a couple of units”. The lead would have the task of basing other peoples troops to ensure a level of conformity but no big deal I reckon.

Sharing the burden. The simple fact of life is that 75% of games are played in my games room and therefor I organise the bulk of the games which can lead to creative staleness on my part. Some steps were made last year to remedy this and maybe if we do some of the things discussed above the staleness might go. Alternatively I just need to say, “guys, somebody else needs to organise”

I think I’ve waffled on long enough now and I’ve got NFL highlights to watch. Certainly given myself things to think about and ideas to float with the group, but not all at once 😀. So until the January round up, farewell and have a good new year.

December 2024 Report

westburywargaming1 Comment

Well the year is drawing to a close and the last game has been played; we managed 56 games as a group this year so we’re feeling pretty dammed pleased with ourselves, hopefully more of the same next year.

First game in December was another of our Successors encounters, this time Royal Ptolemaic v Late Imperial Seleucid, basically around the time of the 5th Syrian War. The Seleucids had a bit of everything, elephants, chariots, cataphracts, Bedouin camelry and of course a core of phalangites & psiloi. The Ptolemaics were also varied but in a different way, yes they had a core of phalangites but lacked significant numbers of psiloi so instead had Galatians & Thracians to supplement their numbers, on the horse front they outnumbered the Seleucids but lacked armour.

The Seleucids deployed their elephants in the centre astride the road that ran between the two armies. On the left was the cavalry wing comprising the line cataphracts, the Agema, the chariots, the Bedouin and the Tarentine skirmishers. On the right was the 4 pike blocks angled diagonally away from the centre with a unit of Thureophoroi anchoring the end of the line against some hills, levy psiloi screened the front. The Ptolemaics deployed their phalangites in the centre astride the road screened by their psiloi flanked to the left by the Thracians and to the right by the Galatians. In a curious move a single phalangite block was deployed to the right of the Galatians and to the right of that the allied and mercenary cavalry, Greeks, Thessalians, Galatians & Tarentines. The Kleruchoi (settler) cavalry were deployed to the left of the Thracians.

As is nearly always the case the game began with the cavalry. The mighty cataphracts trotted forward on the Seleucid left making sure to give the chariots plenty of room 😁. The Ptolemaic cavalry advanced on both wings, the Kleruchoi engaging in a wide sweep to come round the hills and roll up the Seleucid flank, the allies & mercenaries gulped and rode toward the men in tin cans and the idiots in chariots.

For once the chariots did what they were meant to do and blew up the enemy cavalry line. One routed the veteran Thessalians and the other was just a nuisance as the other cavalry tried to avoid it until the single phalangite block trampled over it – oh that’s what it was there for 🤔

The action on the Ptolemaic right continued to be disadvantageous as the cataphracts duffed up the Greek & Galatian heavy cavalry and pursued them towards the camp.

The elephants were fun as always. I completely get the attraction of these lumbering beasts for ancient generals despite their general lack of success, you just weren’t one of the cool kids if you didn’t have some 😂

Our elephants did manage to do everything we wanted in this game, they were a bloody nuisance, they panicked, they fought and they died. Perfect!

In actual game terms 2 of the elephant squadrons died in combat, both against the Galatians, the other panicked across the battlefield.

Still with cavalry stories, the Kleruchoi horse really didn’t fare very well. One got mixed up with the Thureophoroi and that didn’t go well and the other two got distracted chasing psiloi defending the low hills. The grand sweep around the flank was a bust.

As the cavalry side shows wound down the main attraction took place and the clash of the titans began.

The decision to place a pike block out on the wing was now felt by the Ptolemaics, their 3 faced 4, so a plucky Thracian unit took on the extra pike……and died. In the ‘push of pike’ the sides were equally matched so it was all down to the dice.

Ultimately the Seleucids prevailed and two out of the three Ptolemaic blocks broke.

Although it could be argued (by Ptolemy!) that all was not lost it kind of was. The left wing cavalry was dispersed and doing nothing of any tactical value, the Thracians were finished, the centre was broken and the right wing cavalry were either dead or on the run and their commander was dead. A decisive Seleucid victory was declared.

Next up was another from our Iran Iraq collection. This was a narrative driven scenario with an Iraqi commando battalion supported by an armoured artillery battalion holding an Iranian town and it’s highway & rail links; help is on the way in the form of an armoured brigade. The Iranians are approaching from several possible routes and comprised an armoured brigade of two tank battalions and a mechanised infantry brigade plus a motorised pasdaran battalion.

The Iran tank battalions, both of Chieftains, deployed with one aiming direct for the town and the other swinging off to where Iraqi reinforcements were thought to be coming – good guess.

In the early exchanges the Iraqi armoured artillery fared badly, poor armour made them easy pickings for the Chieftains once they got in range.

The Iraqi’s did however have a ace up their sleeve with a flight of SU-22’s on standby.

The aircraft didn’t arrive every turn and weren’t always that effective but they did look so cool on the table 😃

With the arrival of the Iraqi reinforcements the Iranian blocking force got into action and the superior range and shooting power of the Chieftains took a toll on the Iraqi Soviet kit.

The one sided nature of the tank duel compelled the Iraqis to re-evaluate and so they diverted 2 battalions toward the town and left one to soak up the pressure – this worked way better than they thought as the Iranian commander was having such a great time blowing up Soviet armour he forgot about the objective 🤣

Tanks weren’t going to take a town so the Pasdaran dismounted.

And began assaulting the outskirts of the town.

Napalm strike from an SU22 run.

The Iraqi armour now started to reinforce the town.

Mechanised infantry moved up to support the decimated Pasdaran as the fight for the town intensified.

The Iraqi’s held firm whittling away the Iranian attack.

Ultimately the Iranians reached their break point (we use Cold War Commander) before the Iraqis (just) and failed their test. The Iraqis held onto the town and gave thanks to the brave SU-22 pilots.

Our next effort was a French Indian War skirmish – we haven’t done a skirmish game for ages!

In this scenario two bands of trappers decide to wipe out the opposition ie the peaceful village by the banks of the river.

The Indians also had two groups, one in the village and one randomly placed in the woods hunting. The trappers could deploy at the ford (as seen above) and follow the stream down to the village or dice for random deployment, they went for random.

The deployment for one group of trappers saw them just outside the village in the cover of the woods. Without a moments hesitation they stormed forward with muskets held high as clubs and got stuck in – the rational here being that shots would alert the other Indians.

This attack went reasonably well except for the pesky Indian leader who thought meleeing with a perfectly good musket was a silly idea and so extricated himself from the melee and shot one of the trappers dead. Everyone was alert now.

The other group of trappers had wound up some distance away from the village and by the time they got close everyone was alert and the hunting party had returned. None the less they opened fire before anybody could spot them and downed a couple of Indians but then were marked and the the shots started coming back.

The fight continued and both the trappers and the hunting party lost their leader; both failed their morale test and ran; the Indians rallied, the trappers didn’t.

With one enemy gone it was time to settle with the others. Oblivious until an arrow dropped one of their number the other trappers cut and run. The village was defended but not without loss.

Next was a return to Victory at Sea, US v Japan as always, a points game chosen from the rules, so same points but different objectives.

I’ll admit some of the optics don’t fully work for me but if you want to do WWII naval and have ships you can actually see then this is a pretty good rendition.

The Japanese were outnumbered and definitely deficient in aircraft but for a while managed to fight just one half of the US battle fleet with some success.

However once the US air superiority kicked in then large ships like the Kirishima were vulnerable and went to the bottom of the sea.

Once part of the Japanese air cover arrived – it never all arrived, we did manage to have the fun of a dogfight.

Quite a few ships were sunk on both sides but at the end point the Japanese had completely failed in their objective and the US achieved a major victory.

Our final game was another in our ongoing development of an El Cid era set up using Dave’s superbly painted figures.

For this one we had an Almoravid host under Bin Yusuf against a Christian force under El Cid.

Once deployment was done it was obvious that the main game would be EL Cid and all the Christian cavalry attempting a flank march over a stream only to find that this was where Bin Yusuf had deployed his Black Guard and allies!

After two refusals to charge which meant they were sitting ducks for missile fire the Christians cavalry finally got stuck in. Unfortunately the Cid died and some minor successes elsewhere weren’t good enough to offset this disaster. A victory for Islam.

I reckon we’re nearly there with the rules now. A couple more games and we should be able to put on a demonstration game at a show in 2025.

Well that’s it for the year I reckon and a pretty good one it’s been. The Iran Iraq and Successors is done, anything else is just gravy. Our quick dip into 6mm Cold War has seen us table two decent sized battle groups and 2025 should see East Germans, British and maybe Belgians on the table. Dave’s El Cid is going well and Gerard’s Samurai is coming along nicely, hopefully both will see some action in 2025. Plans? There are always plans but let’s just see how the year rolls out. In the meantime a very happy new year to one and all.