Dogger Bank 1915

British (Rich):
5 battlecruisers (3 fast new ones, 2 old), 3 DD flots, 3 light cruiser flots.

Germans (Jim):
3 battlecruisers, 1 Heavy Cruiser, 2 DD flots, 2 light cruiser flots.

The Germans turned for home on running into the British fleet.  The British used the extra speed of their better BCs to close in & the action started with Lion, Tiger & Princess Royal all picking on the Seydlitz, the rearmost German ship whle the Germans spread their fire, one on one (with the Blucher's 8" guns out of range).  The Brits got the range on the Seydlitz & blew the crap out of her.  The Germans dropped her out of the line behind a smoke screen by the LCs & sent their DDs in to disrupt the Brit's BCs.  (See pic - the ships with light blue bases are German).  The Brits turned into the torpedoes & escaped with just a bit of damage to Lion, but the evasive action threw off their fire & the German BCs continued to score hits.

The Germans continued to use smoke to protect the Seydlitz and to keep the Indominable & NZ out of the action while the Brits sent their DDs in.  The Germans chose to damn the torpedoes & kept on hammering at the big BCs.  It was big gamble & it didn't work real well - their secondary batteries shot badly & the CLs were busy laying smoke so a lot of DDs got to fire their torpedoes & all the BCs copped some significant damage, especial Moltke which was nearly sunk & then finished off by the BCs.  Nevertheles, the German's relentless fire did pay off when the Lion sunk & the Princess Royal blew up.

With only the Tiger left of the good Brit BCs, the Germans stopped the smoke & turned on the other two.  The Derflinger got in one tight salvo on the Indominable that nearly sunk her outright.  A second one put her down.  The Blucher hurt NZ, then when the Derflinger turned her guns onto her, she went down too.  But the Kiwis had a salvo in the air as they sank and the Derflinger suffered a flash from a turret & blew up (the Germans fixed this problem after Dogger Bank, the Brits didn't).  That was a critical incident.  Now both sides had just one capital ship left.  The Blucher was outclassed by the Tiger, but the Tiger was badly damaged & had half her turrets out of action, so the cruiser had a chance.  But she lucked out, the The Tiger got the range first & put her down.

This was as big a battle two guys can do in a  night with these rules - it was near midnight when we finished.  Both players were unrealistically gung ho of course - no real admirals would allow such MAD.  The Brits won with 1 BC & a few LCs & DDs left afloat.  The Germans lost all but a few DDs & LCs.  The scenario is in the Brits favour, but the German player was more experienced with the rules & tactics which made it a pretty fair fight.  It was rattling good fun & I can see ways to further refine the rules to make them work a bit better still.

Camp Cromwell 02/02/10

Renfrey's Australians
v.
Jim & Joe's Fucilieri
in a
1500 pts Cauldron on 6x4.
Renfrey spread right out with 2 rifles & HMGs dwn & 25pdrs in ambush.  This made the Itie deployment a bit cramped at the ends of the table, though they were lucky enough to get one in each corner & just managed to avoid an artillery magnet.  The Ities had 100 Hows & 25 pdrs up one end & 2 Fucilieri up the other.  Oz reserves were Matildas, bugs, another rifle & mortars.  Itie reserves were L6s, Lancias, Guastatori & mortars.

The Ities started off sitting back & blasting away with 2 batteries & their 47mms while the infnatry began sneaking forward.  The Ozzies attacked the artillery with one rifle  platoon while hunkering down on the other flank.  The Ities lost their 25 pdrs & half their 100s before te Gusastari arrived to save the remainder.

On the other flank the L6s came on in nice time to support the infantry attack.  With HMGs & 47s in support, the L6s & Fucilieri swarmed over the HMGs & 25 pdrs to take an objective.  The 1st Oz reo was too little too late.  An infnatry counterattack on the L6s was beaten off for an Itie victory.

Renfrey was very unlucky with his reserves - none until turn 6 & then just 1.  But the Ities have learned how to use the new Africa book organisation & played them well.

New Lists

All FOW lists have been rebuilt using a new template. Also added Hells highway, and some lists from Fortress Europe. The British in North Africa is a work in progress, and a particularly difficult list, so use it with caution. It currently lacks the Italian theater lists, Paratroops, and Commandos.

Thursday 28/01/10 at Camp Cromwell

Mark & Jim's Bersaliglieri
v.
Renfrey & Joe's Austalians

2000 pts Free For All

The Ozzies (on RHS in pic)n put their 3 Rifles, HMGs & Matildas on their right, 2x4 25pdrs in the centre & 2 pdrs & 3x3 bugs on the left.

The Ities put Bersaglieri in the scrub on their left, another Bersaglieri to the right of it with Semos & mortars behind. then M14s & artillery in the centre (75s in front, 100s behind).  The L6s were on their right.

The Ozzies advanced on their right - 1 rifle + HMGs & Matildas behind the hill & another rifle thru the scrub.   The 3rd rifles dug in on the objective.  The artillery went tank hunting & the bugs began moving to the right.

The Ities advanced their centre Bersaliglieri into the scrub & moved the Semos & M14s to their left behind the ridge.

The Matildas advanced over the hill to take on the Ities armour.  With the help of the artillery they got a couple of M14s, but were then swamped & bailed.  They were temporarily saved when the Bersaliglieri failed tank terror to assault & finish them off, but the semos got them next turn anyway.  The Rifles & Bersaglieri in the scrub then mutually destroyed each other while the Itie armour cleared the infantry off the ridge & the other Bersaliglieri advanced in support. 

On the other flank the  bugs moved towards the centre then charged forward towards the Itie artillery while the L6s charged down the flank around the hill & attacked the Brit artillery.  With support from mortar smoke the L6s started to wear down the artillery while the first platoon of bugs was destroyed by direct artillery & 47mm fire (left behind by the Bersaglieri).

But the battle was won on the other flank when 2 M14s, 5 Semos & the Bersaglieri made a combined assault on the rifles on the objective.  When Joe threw 3 1's with sticky bombs in the counterattack on the M14s it all fell apart for the Ozzies.  The Bersaliglieri took over the assault & finished them off.  The second pic shows the Ities massing for the attack on the objective.

It was a much better battle than Tuesday's.  We all had our moments of good & bad luck/moves.  The big Bersaliglieri battalions from the new NA book are fun beasts.

Nick in Launceston

A crowded club meet, with board games, 40K, warhammer fantasy, etc. Two historical games -- both FOW. Nick B vs Nick R -- SS Panzers vs US paratroops. The Panzers lived in fear of the paratroops bazookas. Eventually they managed to pin the paratroops and went in to assault. They won, but not by enough to push the paratroops of the objective. We called time, but the Panzers were on a downward spiral.

There was another game with Starn and Aggro. Starn won when Aggro failed to dig in on the objective when playing a breakthrough, and Starn's T-34 horde with tankodesantniki came on machine gunned him in to oblivion.

The were rumors of playing napoleonics -- something may happen soon!

Oz Day 26/01/10

Renfrey & Rich's Australian Inf
v.
Mark & Joe's Afrika Korps Armour

2000 pts HTL, Austalians defending.

The Australians put a rifle platoon on the exposed objective, double artillery in rear, rifles & 2pdrs in ambush.  In reserve they had Matildas, HMGs, Rifles & 3x3 bugs.
The Axis had 2MkIIIshorts HQ, 5 MkIIIshorts, 5 MkIVshorts, 105s, Panzer Grens & Bersaliglieri.

The Axis rushed the forward objective with their armour.  The Australians dropped the 2pdrs behind the objective & rifles on its flank, but they just didn't have enough firepower on the spot to stop the panzers.  The panzers drove the infantry off the objective wiht their turn 3 attack, though with high losses.  The surviving rifles failed to unpin to recontest.  The artillery & 2pdrs failed to hit the panzers to force anotehr morale test, the oz reserves were too late to help, so it was all over at the start of the Axis turn 4.

The game was lost on deployment - the Australians just did not defend the forward objective well enough.

Camp Cromwell Rules

Updated files:
The box.net files of the Camp Cromwell Rules (downloadable from the sidebar on the right) have been updated.  The update includes the lastest revisions, making the format more consistent, plus the files have been combined into single pdfs for each set.  Superseded files have been removed.

Marathon to Marne: 
Play testing has been continuing, resulting in some tweeks.  These are mostly to the Spear & Sword era & as thats' what we have been playing.  The changes are listed after the cover sheet.  More playtesting & refinement in later periods is on the agenda for this year.

Men o'War: 
We recently got these out of mothballs.  Although we enjoyed the game & the rules worked fine, after a long break some new ideas popped up.  A couple of tweeks have been made, as well as making the formating consistent with the other sets.

Dreadnoughts:
We have also played these again after a long break.  We found no reason to change them other than to update the format.

Modder Fokkers:
Minor changes to format such as adding a contents table.

Camp Cromwell 21/01/10

Napoleonic Naval - Camp Cromwell's Men o' War Rules

British: Jim: HMS Hannibal + Elephant. Renfrey: HMS Resolution & Cunninglingus (3rd rates, good crew).
v.
French: Mark: Couchon Noir + Fifi (2nd rates, average crew).
Spanish: Rich: Madonna + Santa Maria (2nd rates, poor crew).

We started with the 4 squadrons scattered deployed using a 2 dice coordinate system.  This put Renfrey between the 2 Allied squadrons at the windward end of the table with Jim's squadron way downwind of them.

Renfrey charged at the French & hit them pretty hard before the Spanish came up and put him under pressure.  Renfrey pulled off, one ship dropping downwind to join Jim's squadron still beating up the table & the other beating off the windward.

When Jim's squadron finally came up it charged into the Allied fleet while Renfrey's damaged ships sniped from a safe distance.   The Allies copped a lot more damage, but so did the smaller British ships.  With the Elephant minus her foremast & thus unable to go to windward, the Brits consider honour satisfed and were content to slip away.

The pic is early in the action - Mark & Renfrey hard at it with Jim's fleet left foreground & Rich's on the right.  Wind from the far right corner.

It's beena  while since we used these rules - they are dated 2003 - I don't know why because they provide a fun battle - we all had a good time even if it was indecisive.