Mech War in Normandy

A small Sunday school battle:  Jim's Yanks v. Chris' Germans
Germans: 2 Mech Inf platoons, medium mortars, 1 Tiger & 5 MkIVs.
Yanks: 2 mech inf platoons, off table 105's, 2 M10 & 5 Shermans.
The village, the bridge & the two prominent ridges.

The Yanks got first move & got infantry onto both the village and bridge objectives. They also got lucky with the 105's ranging in on the MkIV's first up & taking one out.  The US armour has advanced towards the hedgegrow but only hit one half track. 

On the right the US have dug in near the bridge while the Germans have advanced to the tree line.
In the centre the 105's have bagged another MkIV, but the Germans armour is winning the tank fight hands down.

On the right the Germans have dismounted in the trees & a fire fight had broken out.
In the centre the US armour has been destroyed, the MkIV's are below half strength & shaken, but the Tiger is now king of the jungle.
On the far flank the German infantry is preparing to attack the village.

After the German armour & mortars have decimated the defenders in the village their infantry charged the shaken remnants of the defenders.  The US didn't have many dice, but they were all 5+ and the German attack broke.
On the right flank, the US had got on top in the firefight & advanced hoping to take then enemy ouyt before the Tiger arrived.  But the Germans broke under another shower of 5+'s

It had been a wild ride for both sides in a battle of fluctuating fortunes, then in one turn, the game had lurched from looking like the Germans only had to mop up, to a US victory with the US holding 3 of 4 objectives & the Germans reduced to just mortars & 1 useful tank. 

 

English Civil War Again

 We used the same armies as last week, but changed the terrain and Jim took over from Steve joining Mark on the Royalist side. We found a few issues with the pike & shot rules last week & tried out some tweeks.

All pics from behind the Royalist right flank.
Both sides put their cavalry at this end of the table avoiding the hedgerow.
The royalist left is deployed on a ridge with their artillery.
The Parliament's detached musketeers are in on their extreme left flank on the far side of the stream.

On the near flank the Cavaliers advanced on to the ridge & waited.
In the centre the Royalist foot advance enticing the RH Roundhead cavalry to charge the P&S on the right of the wood.  The cavalry bounced off the P&S & the LH cavalier brigade charged to take advantage of the roundhead losses against the foot the Royalists' reserve P&S behind their centre is moving left to counter the detached musketeers.  The rest of their left wing waits on the hill with their artillery deployed.  

On the near flank the 2nd roundhead brigade has charged up the ridge.
The other cavalry fight is still indecisive.
In the centre the Royalist have charged en masse.
On the left Partliament's attempt to storm the ridge has met with a storm of fire. One P&S regiment didn't even charge home, the other got to grips but is not doing well.
The musketeers have been delayed by poor command dice & the terrain. 

The cavalry fight is turning into MAD, the Cavaliers winning on the LH side & the Roundheads on the right. 
The infantry in the centre are still slogging it out.
On the left the Royalists are now advancing on Parliament's second line having destroyed the first.

Both sides are losing with one cavalry brigade & winning with the other, but not much on eitehr side remains fit to fight.
In the centre The Royalists have supported their P&S on their left & the Parliament's front line foot has finally broken.  With that Parliament failed their army morale test having only 12 of 30 sub-units left unbroken while the Royalists have had just 4 cavalry units & 2 guns broken. 

The rules tweaks were mainly to do with restricting the what we can do with the mixed P&S units, that is the shot have to stay in contact with the pikes &  not be used as detached sub-units.  The tweaks worked so well the game was over by 9pm.   

 

 

English civil war

 

On the left the Royalists are commanded by Mark & Steve.
On the right the Parliamentarians are comanded by Chris & Mike.
Parliament made a map of their deployment, the Royalists deployed on table, then parliament deployed to their map. Both sides have 2 infantry brigades of 3 units & 2 cavalry briagades of 4 units.  The Royalists had bigger pike blocks & 3 guns, balanced parliament having 2 musketeer units & half their cavalry being heavy. 

Both sides advanced their right flanks.

The Parliment's cavalry have charged the guns in the cntre, riding them down & then countercharged by Cavaliers.

When Royalist musketeers wrapped around the roundhead cavalry's right flank, roundhead cavalry from the 2nd brigade charged their flank, but they managed to get themselves broken with a failure to find any 4+'s in 10 dice. The cavalry fight in the centre is stil indecisive.On the far flank the Royalist foot is advancing cautiously in the face of roundhead horse.  The near flank has become an exchange of shot.

The cavalry fight has become mutual destruction.  The Royalist left continues it steady advance but their right is getting the worst of the firefight. 

The Royalist right has so many units verging on breaking thay have begun a retreat as parliament attacks though the orchard.

On the near flank the Royalists comintiue to withdraw.  On the other flank the Royalist attack across the cornfield has been defeated & is about to break relieving the pressure on the Parliamnt's right.

At this stage it was agreed that parliament had won, but the Royalists could cover their retreat with their cavalry.

Medieval multi-player

Six players each had a battle to command.
The battles varied in composition & were allocated to players by lot.
The starting location of each battle was also determined by lot.
Figures 28mm.  Rules: House rules M2M.

Jim is in ther foreground with comrades Mike on his left & Mitch on his right.Chris is in the far corner with his comrades Steve on his left & Mark on his right.

Chris is ending his infantry to support Steve on his right & his cavalry to support Mark on his left.
Mitch's advance is compromised by the orchard.  Jim is moving his cavalry & half his foot towards Mark, the rest of his foot to support Mike.

On the left of screen Mike & Steve are squaring off as Chris' foot joins the end of Steve's line.
On the right of screen the cavalry of both sides are engaged in front of their foot.  Jim's foot ordered to support Mike are going nowhere due to repeated bad command command dice. 

On right of screen Jim & Mitch are getting the upper hand.
On left of screen Mike tried a cavalry attack but has been beaten off with loss.
in the centre, Jim's 2nd infantry mob have finally got moving again.

Left of screen Mike is hard pressed.
Right of screen Mark's battle has broken.

Left of screen Mike's battle has fallen back behind the hedge, but Jim & Mitch's battles have wrapped around the enemy's left flank.

While Chris' infantry still hold the house on the left of his line, converging attacks around the house have broken Chris' battle before Steve's can finish off Mike's & the near side have won. 

Napoleonic Naval

A small battle to try out a different damage counting system for our Men o' War.  The old system used 2 dials in 3D printed plastic bases to record hull & rigging damage.  They worked pretty well except that the dials were too easy to accidentally turn while moving the ships.  I'd been thinking about re-designing the bases to fix the problem but then realised that the system we use for WWI naval could be used.  That system uses simple card bases with paper overlay printed with ship data and coloured counters placed on the base.  The problem with needing to count to about 12 leading to too many counters is solved by using green counters for 1 hit, then replacing every 3 greens with an orange counter. 
Chris: British: Squadron 1: 1 1st rate , 2 3rd rates.  Squadron 2: 1 3rd rate, 2 4th rates.  All elite crews.
Jim: French: Squadron 1: 1 1st rate , 2 3rd rates.  Squadron 2: 1 2nd rate, 2 3rd rates.  All regular crews.

The wind is coming straight down the table so the French on top left the weather gauge. 

As the fleets converged the British admiral decided to tack away perhaps expected the French to turn to Por.  But the French turned to starboard where they could pond the British ships as they turned. 

The Brits were fortunate that the French shooting was at long range & not very accurate, but they still suffered many more hits than the French as the French wrapped around their sterns with all ships able to fire. The British ship at the tail of the fleet was blown away.

As the French rounded the island in a ship shape line the British were still getting their ships into a line.

Now toe to toe at close range the superior British gunnery was now hurting the French van & the 2nd ship in the French line has dropped out of the line. 

The 2 leading French ships have now turned away with heavy damage, but the 2nd British ship is also a shambles & has struck it's colours.  The rear squadrons are now fully engaged and the effects of the casualties resulting from the earlier British mistake are beginning to tell as the damaged brits take on fresh French ships.

One of the fleeing French ships has struck its colours as the lead British ship pursues it, but that ship is also in trouble as it is cut off from it's comrades & also heavily damaged.  The tail of the British fleet has turned away with every ship heavily damaged.

The 3 French ships in the rear squadron pursue the British tail as the 3rd ship of the lead squadron forces the other British ship to strike. The British tail has to tack to get away up wind & just can't get away.  All the 5 British ships still afloat strike their colours.  The French ship that struck it's colours has run them back up again.  A rare but glorious French victory.  One turn the wrong way can be disastrous in the age of lines of battle.

The new system for counting hits worked really well.

 
  

WWI Naval: Cruiser Action Reprised

As Chris & I enjoyed the cruiser action last Sunday I put it as similar scenario on again for the group.
Same ships as last time except an extra DD flot each side.
Brits: Mike, Mitch & Nick.
Germs: Steve, Chris & Mark

The Brits are at the far end, wind SSW (north table edge on the right). 

The Germans sent their DDs & CLs forward as the BCs & CAs formed line & turned to starboard.
The Brits advance in 3 columns with DDs ahead.

The brit CLs get their T crossed with dire consequences for the lead CL.
ship.  The German lights turn away behind smoke when they come under fire from the British fleet.

The surviving brit CL turns away laying smoke.
The Brit DDs pursue the German lights as they fallback towards the main fleet laying smoke
The British CA & BCs are wandering about in some disorder at the very edge of big gun range.

The Brit DDs are at the tail of the German line. The German DDs are engaging them with their guns from inside the arc.  The BC's are at the edge of their range & firing ranging shots to no effect.

The Germans have formed a complete line with BC, CA, CL & DD in succession.
The Brit DDs are closing in on the tail of the fleet.

The DDs are still exchanging fire, but the Brits got off some torps & sunk a CL. 
At extreme range BC Lion managed to hit CA Scharnhorst inflicting serious but not fatal damage .

One of the Brit DD flots has been sunk, the CA Gniesnau has pulled out of the line to avoid torpedoes.

At this stage time had to called ,so nightfall, with the battle still indecisive. Losses are:
Brits: 1CL & 1DD sunk, 2DDs with serious damage, 1 BC with minor damage.
Germans: 1 CL sunk, 3DD with serious damage, 1CA with serious damage.

A very different battle to Sunday where the ships got in close where the gunnery was deadly. Tonight the capital ships fluffed about at extreme range achieving little while most of the action was with the DDs.

WWI Naval: Cruisers in the North Sea

Brits (Chris): 2 BC's (Tiger & Lion), 2CA, 2CL & 2 flots DD's.
Germans (Jim): 2 BC's (Moltke & Seydlitz), 2CA, 2CL & 2 flots DD's.
Ships: 3D printed.  House Rules. 

The Germans are on the near (LH) side & have turned to port to go south of the islands.

The Brit DDs have gone round the south of the islands & make torpedo attacks.  The DD's were shot up by the German DDs & cruisers and the few torps got away were evaded.
The German CA's have circled the 1st island to engages the brit CA's.

The Brit DD's are all destroyed or sinking.  The German CA's came under fire from the Brit BC's and CA's & have turned away laying smoke. 

The BC's are exchanging fire through the strait & the Brits have landed the first serious blows. 

The German DD's have advanced to fire torpedoes.  The Brit BC's turned away to avoid the torps.  The torps all missed, but the Brit BC's evasive action made them lose the range to save the German BC's from serious damage.

There's a bit of a lull in the action as the BC's circle opposite sides of the 2nd island. 
The German DD's escape the British cruisers by laying smoke.

The BC's come into sight of each other again and both soon get the range.

It's matter of bigger British guns v. thicker German armour as both side's BC's cop a pounding.

It could have gone either way, but the dice gods favoured the Germans & it was the Tiger that cracked & the lion turned away under smoke.  Sydlitz then added her guns to the cruisers pounding the CA Duke of Edinburgh & sent her to the bottom as well. 

The Brits turned away laying smoke.