Herring Wars

Tim and Jerry have been participating in a PBEM campaign covering a hypothetical Norwegian-Danish War at the turn of the century. The various map based manouverings led to a naval encounter, which we resolved at the club using Tims 1/1200th toys. Tim had also put together a special set of rules to go with them, using his matchstick firing cannon to resolve combat, but I managed to avoid taking any photos of that bit!  

 

 The mighty Norwegian fleet, a torpedo boat, a coastal defence battleship bearing a distinct resemblance to the Schleswig Holstein and three, err, merchant ships. Two of them were serving as AMCs and one was loaded to top with explosives! We put that one at the back. Wicked Danes in the distance with three torpedo boats, a cruiser and a battleship. 

 

First blood to us. Our torpedo boat tore into the heart of the enemy fleet as the formed line of battle and torpedoed the enemy battleship, which promptly rolled over and sank. Well, these aren't dreadnoughts.

 

 

Night fell shortly thereafter and sadly our brave torpedo boat was overwhelmed by enemy gunfire, the crew taking to the lifeboats. Meanwhile the large ships broke out their searchlights (only our elderly battleship actually had any).

 Much to our amazement we succeeded in despatching most of the enemy fleet, Danish torpedos proving considerably less effective (or lucky) than ours. At the end of the action our fleet sailed majestically on, picking up the torpedo boat crew en route, while the one surviving Danish torpedo boat fled the scene carrying the dreadful news back to Copenhagen.

  

 

 

Latvia 1919

John has been working on some RCW rules which started life as a variant of 'Restless Revolutionaries' (which we rather played to death, back in the day) but was more inspired by our more recent outings with Neil Thomas.  Bases are companies/squadrons/batteries and units are battalions. The ground scale is a little mysterious, but rifle range is 12" and MGs 18", so similar to AK47.

For this particular outing, what used to be the Imperial German 8th Armee in the Baltic States has been sponsored by the Allies to halt the inevitable march of Socialism in Latvia. At this stage most of the actual Latvians are in the Red Army, while the 'free Latvian' forces are almost entirely Germans, including some Freikorps types. Lovely!

Tim G and Jerry took the wicked Bolsheviks, whilst myself and Tim C took the even more wicked Freikorps. Our mission being to push a regiment off the far table edge.

My own command was the army vanguard: a battalion of Stormtroops, a cavalry regiment, battery of machineguns and a platoon or Erhardt armoured cars on their very first tabletop outing. All toys are Johsn 15mm WW1 and RCW collection. Here are my chaps vanguarding away up the left flank.

Meanwhile the Red Army, commanded by these two sinister (and somewhat blurry) types, unimaginatively lined up their entire force from one side of the table to the other and marched slowly forwards. Comrade Commander Tims directives had to be agreed by Comrade Commissar Jerry.

The German Army adopted all sorts of exciting formations whilst the Red Army stuck to its lines. Keen eyed readers may notice an absence of German troops east of the railway line.

After a brief exchange of small arms fire (evidenced by the little white crosses) I decided to try out the close combat rules by conducting a frontal charge with my cavalry against an enemy infantry battalion. These proved to be extremely bloody, the infantry were wiped out and my cavalry took heavy losses.

Sadly the Reds had also noticed the absence of troops on our right flank and duly marched off the table clinching victory, despite the Erhardt and remains of my cavalry moving to intercept. Our utter defeat was even more embarrasing as the overall combat value of the German force was almost twice that of the Reds, and we just completely bungled it.

 This was great fun and the only real issues seemed to be the somewhat anomalous close combat results. The morale rules in particular worked very well and produce a nice ebb and flow. John has drafted some amendments to the close combat rules to fit in better with period experience, and I'll look forwards to trying them out.

Unusually the Erhardt survived its first battle unscathed, so a victory of sorts?

Club Games Day, December 30th 2015

As usual the Sheffield Wargames Club ran an extended games day during the Christmas break. I rolled up around 2.15 and was amazed to find the hall a hive of activity already. With my usual group of reprobates we managed to play a couple of toy soldier games and a couple of cards games, with a brief break for pie and mushy peas, topped off by Sarahs excellent sponge cake.

Command and Colours Ancients, this one put on by Tim and covering the Syrian revolt led by Cyrus teh Great against their Medean overloads.

Nick and Jerry take on the Medeans while Tim supervises.

Later on,wind forward a few hundred years to the Punic Wars, this one with my 20mm figures. The Battle of the Ticinus River. Jerry and Nick get to command Hannibal, Hasdrubal et al while Tim and John get Publius Scipio. 

An interesting engagement as it was fought almost exclusively between cavalry and light troops. Romans on the right, Velites out in front, support by cavalry. Carthaginians on the left, Cartho heavy cavalry flanked by swarms of Numidians.
 

 Another major activity going on was a huge game of Waterloo, being played using 'Blucher' (so brigade bases).

T

Napoleon confers with Jerome, while Ney fiddles with his toys.

The crisis of the battle, massive French attacks either side of La Haye Sainte as viewed from the Mont St Jean ridge.

Meanwhile the Prussians pour on from the flank.

A very enjoyable afternoon/evenings gaming and one of the highlights of the year.

Combat 330

Some years ago I played Ian Drury's 'Combat 300' at COW, that particular game being a brigade level western desert game, 'The Defence of the Knuston Box'. I was rather taken with the game system, and have variously tinkered with it over the years with a view to battalion/brigade level WW2 games. The original rather showed its heritage from the Minschlacht/Red Square/NBC/OP14 series of games with card activation for each element, and differing dice to differentiate quality. Some elements of those mechanisms can be bit cumbersome for larger games, and even for smaller club night games. Both Ian and I have, in parallel, been working on some streamlining of the systems, and although some of the mods are similar, in other cases we have gone in different directions, so I christened my version Combat 330, as 330 yards is roughly the same as the 300 metre hexes in Ians game.

I'd playtested it at home a few times, and for its first outing at the club I pulled out my old 'Castiglioni' scenario - a British battalion assault on a German blocking position on a road to Rome following the fall of Monte Cassino. Historically it was a US infantry battalion attacking,  but I don't have 15mm US troops. The players (John, Tim and Jerry) took the British and I ran the German defenders. Units are infantry companies or tank/artillery platoons/batteries, with various types of support platoon around. 330 yard hexes and 15 minute turns. Recce troop has reported the road ahead to be mined and covered with mortar fire, so the plucky South Essex have been sent to clear the way.

View from the German side. The wicked Germans have hidden themselves well. Minefield dimly visible on the road in the defile. This game was also the first outing of my hexon fields (made up on plastic templates) and the new stream sections I'd made.

Air recce buzzed the town and spotted signs of entrenchments, in particular what looked like a mortar position to the rear of the town, and possible AT guns amongst the buildings.

Two British rifle companies went left flanking to link up with carrier section from the recce troop, accompanied by a troop of Shermans. The stream did not prove to be much of an obstacle.

 

Later in the game, the town is fairly thoroughly enveloped from both sides. The British left flank has bogged down in a prolonged firefight, but on the right the German defences have been pulverised by a regimental 25pdr shoot.

The German left flank is overrun by a rifle company supported by the carrier platoon. On the German right the Allies gradually gained fire superiority.

The German defences collapse and the survivors stream to the rear. In the end about half the Germans got away, including their mortars and AT guns (which had pulled back earlier) and the many of the remainder surrendered. The British casualties were fairly light, although one company was rendered ineffective by losses.

All in all it was quite a successful playtest, got through 16 turns (four hours irl) in an hour and a half. Most of the mechanisms worked OK, but the game highlighted some areas where things creaked or were unclear or were too complex to remember so it still needs a few tweaks. Hopefully be back in the New Year as I have a mini-campaign in mind, but I think it needs another decent playtest first before embarking on that.

Reclaimed hoplites

This week I have mostly been recovering from last weekends shenanigans and sorting out the stuff for my forthcoming 100th Anniversary Loos game. I did however come across some photos of yet more figures recycled form other peoples collections.These are Hoplites from the collection of the late Robert Plumb. 

Metal figures, no idea of the manufacturers, and which required very little tarting up.

Assembled hoplites.

As usual, I put them on my 60x20 25mm DBx bases, and managed to assemble/repair enough of them for five elements. A few of the figures were in a sorry state with missing bits and needed a moderate amount of work.

Cloaked hoplites.

This batch all seemed to be identical castings, with small plumes and big cloaks.

Odds and sods.

These were more of a mixed bag, with various styles of figure which I had to mix up on the bases.

The lonely ones

This bunch were also similar and made up an element on their own, although a couple of the spears needed replacing.

Slingers, you can never have too many.

These venerable figures came via Mr Gow, and are I believe from the collection of his late friend JR.

The paintjobs on all these figures were pretty good, all I did was give them an ink wash and highlight some details after repairing the broken bits. I am sure they will give sterling service in the years to come, and I hope their original owners would have been glad to see them going on being used.

Finally....

Baa!

These goats have been in my painting box as long as I can remember. They are 20mm Irregular, and I think I originally got them to to a DBx camp element. As I was fixing up the hoplites and slingers, I took the opportunity to finish these off too and did them as single based so they can be scattered around in a scenic manner. Like the slingers and hoplites above, I am sure you can never have too many goats. There are a few other interesting things in my painting box, including a maxim gun mounted on a mule. Well, maybe one day....

Operation Iskra

This weekend I've been dressing up and wandering around the woods, as I do from time to time. This particular outing was a trip to the Siege of Leningrad in early 1943, which was played at the excellent Close Action site at Grafton Underwood (an ex USAAF airbase, now heavily overgrown). I helped organise and run it, but apart from laying out the props, the game largely ran itself and all we had to do was avoid getting lost and  keep the mission timings on track.

Milling around in the car park.

The Red Army moves out.

German infantry cautiously move up the tracks.

Enemy ahead, possibly.

Advancing across the cornfields. Well it is Russia...

Commanders relaxed before the next Russian onslaught.

The mighty 75mm infantry gun in action as a Soviet prisoner looks on.

Tired Germans slumping in the afternoon.

This was the third game organised by the 900 Days group. We aim to put at least one game on a year, and they are all set on the Eastern Front around Leningrad, so people who have invested in Russian kit get a chance to use it. If you fancy having a go just sign on the  WW2 Airsoft Forum, and we've got kit to lend out for people who haven;t got any Russian gear.There is also a Facebook group, imaginatively called The 900 days.

2mm ECW

A period I have been interested in, yet never taken the plunge, is the English Civil War. Mainly the same reasons as it took me 30 years to finally do WSS, I was never interested enough to do serious uniform research for larger scale figures. However, a chance purchase from Mr Gow of some 2mm pike blocks got me thinking. I already had a load of 2mm WSS foot and horse, and in this scale no-one could actually tell what uniforms the units are wearing, so coupled with a few more pike blocks.....

The resulting mayhem.

The elements I had were supplemented with a few/several/quite a few extra pike blocks from Irregular (and some more horse and guns, well you can never have too many can you?). Sorting out the proportions of various types was fairly easy as once more Neil Thomas had ridden to the rescue with an eminently approachable set of pike & shot rules, coupled with vast army lists. Just to be on the safe side I sorted out enough stuff to do not only the ECW, but also the Thirty Years War (also a long abiding interest) and the oft neglected Franco-Spanish War.

I based all the elements the same as my existing WSS figures, on 30x15mm bases with multiple strips of foot, horse or guns. Some elements (like Tercios and some very big pike blocks) I put on 30x30 to use as double size bases. As Neil Thomas's units have six bases (twelve for Tercios and TYW units), I also made up a load of magnetic movement trays in various denominations as the tiny elements are so fiddly to move otherwise.

For a scenario I chose Edgehill and took the terrain, OB and deployment from Richard Brook's excellent 'Battlefields of Britain'.

A some what blurry shot of Edgehill. The lower slopes are on the right, tributary of the river Dene at the top. Parliament on the left, the Kings Army on the right. Rupert is leading the Royalist horse forward at the very top, and at the bottom, Parlimentary horse have driven back their opposite numbers. The infantry centre is engaged in musketry.

Push of Pike in the centre. The Royalists have suffered brutally from the more effective Parliamentary musketry.

 The game was run at the Sheffield club, the overall battlefield was 80cm x 80cm (I reduced the suggested ground scale slightly as I use 30mm wide bases, not 40mm) and the armies broadly used the historical deployment although Parliament decided that their left flank was a lost cause against Rupert, so reinforced the horse on their right.

Deciding moment of the game, the weakened Parliamentary horse manages a spectacular saving throw!

The battle folowed the broadly historical course,much to my delight. The centre engaged in a dour slugging match, with parliament gaining the upper hand due to their superior equipment, however Rupert routed the Parlament left, and promptly left the battlefield to loot the baggage! This prompted half the Parliamentary centre to head for the hills, and suddenly things looked a bit brighter for the struggling Royalist pikemen. However over on the right, the parliamentary horse won a spectacular victory over their Royalist counterparts despite being completely outmatched, and in turn they overran the Royalist artillery and also headed for the baggage. The weakened Royalist centre broke, leaving both sides utterly exhausted and with an honourable draw.

I was really rather pleased with how it went. The toys were a bit fiddly, but the movement trays helped a great deal, and the rules (which looked a bit dubious at first) produced an exciting and fast moving game which was over by a thoroughly civilised 9pm. Neil Thomas triumphs again! I wish I had his rule writing skill. For the next outing I'd like to try the Thirty Years War, but although I studied it at school and University, my memory is hazy and I'll need to do a bit of reading. Which is lucky, as I've just bought 'Europes Tragedy' by Peter Wilson.