Napoleonic 28mm

 Same scenario as last Dunday but now with 2 players a side.
Austrians: Steve & Chris.  |
French: Mark & Mike.

The French (on the right) have put all their cavalry on their left flank & all their artillery in the centre.
The Austrians have place half their cavalry on each flank.

On the left the massed French cavaly are attacking on a restricted front between table edge & house. 
On the right the Austrians are manoeuvering around the French flank as the French form a line to face them.  In the centtre the French artilery cover the gap between their divisions, though half their guns are being re-deployed to support their right.their htier line rule.

On the near flank, the Austrian cavalry put up a good fight aided by infantry support & the restricted front.  But number counted  & the French have almost broken thru. 
The French infantry supporting their cavalry are held up by Grenadiers & Yegers. 

On the ather flank the French are hard pressed by the Austrians, but still hold their line.

On their right the French have reduced the enemy to 2 unshaken & 2 shaken units, but only have 1 infnatry & 2 guns left unshaken themselves, so theyr are unable to exploit their advantage,

In the French right, the French Diviision is below half strength while the Austrians still have 6 units in good shape. 

Neither side has lost over half their units.  Both sides claim victory on one flank.  The Austrians have 7 unshaken untis to the French 2.  The French were on the verge of winning decisively on their left, but Steve had sent an hussar unit across from his flank & accompanied by great dice it took out 2 French cavalry units to stop the French from mopping up.
Both side will claim victory, but it is the French who were saved by nightfall. 

Napoleonic 28mm

Austrains: Chris: 2 grenadier, 10 line, 2 yeger, 2 art, 2 Cuirassier, 1 dragoon, 1 lancer, 1 hussar.
French : Jim: 10 line, 1 legere, 4 art, 2 dragoons, 4 hussars.

Pics from behind French left.

The French advanced infnatry into the central farm, formed a defensive line on theri left & puleld abck their cavalry on the right.
The Austrians advanced into both farms.

Onthe left the Austrians had better cavalry, but the French had more of it.  Neither side felt inclined to attack. On the far right the French cavalry was out-numbered and of lesser quality, but they had artillery support & infantry in the field made the AUstrian Cuirassiers take a long way round the flank,
Left of centre, the Austrian foot forced the legere in the wood to retreat, but hussars persueded them not to follow up & the wood was reinforced.
In the centre musketry is being exchanged as both sides act with caution. 

The Austrian attacked in the RH farm driving the end of the French line back. .In the centre the French artillery is slowly gaining an advantage for the French.  The cavalry are stalemated on both flanks.

Ont he left the Austrians are beginning to crumble.  On the right of the RH farm, French reserves have stopped the rot. On the left of the RH farm the HTH fighting continues. 

The combats in the farm went one each way, but the French had a reserve & the Austrians didn't & the French have secured their right flank.  In the centre the the Grenadier's hot shooting took out a unit, but  the French artillery paid them back with interest & the Austrian centre is reduced to 1 battlalion & 1 shaken battery with 3 battalions advancing on them with artillery support.

The Austrians conceded the battle. This was a very enjoyable battle played in a very 18th century style  with lots of subtle maneovre & very little HTH combat.
 

 

WWII Mech War

Soviets: Chris - army all Inexperienced.
Jim: German - army all Veteran.
Scenario: Soviets to defend: Deploying half unts in their half.
                Germans then place all their force within 12" of their edge. 
                Remainder of Soviets come on their table edge on turn 2.

Initial deployments.  Pic from behind Soviet left.

Most of the German infantry deployed into the 2 woods in the middle of the table.  Their Marders deployed in the centre wood while the Panzers advanced in the centre.
The Soviet armour came on & a wave of SUs & T34/76s moved up to hull down on the ridge.  Their T34/85's were delayed by command dice, then masked by German artillery friirng smoke.

The tanks squared off against each other.
The German deployed some infatyr to cover their right flank while the rest advanced on the village.

20 Inexperienced Soviet AFVs engaged 15 German Veterans.  It should have been a fair match, but the dice gods were on the side of the big battalions & the Soviets won the armoured fight decisively.
Meanwhile the Panzergrenadiers were storming thru the woods & into the village.

The Panzergrens have taken most of the village & now outnumber the Soviet survivors there, but a horde of Soviet armour is heading their way.  The Germans concede the battle, jump in their Hanomags & make a run for it.

Over the last few Mech War battles I've been trying out some ideas for improvements & gradually irioning out teh omssions & clumsy bits.  This battle went really well & didn't show up any issues, Maybe I have been making a few refinements to our Mech War rules recently, but this battle brought no rules issues to light. It wasn't the rules fault I got smashed.

Rome v. Celts

I didn't have a chance to preapare anything tonight, but we quickly knocked up a scenario of Romans v. Celts.
Romans: Chris & Jim.  Celts: Mike & Mark.

Pics from behind Romans right.
Initially the Romans advanced on their whole front. 

On the right, the Romans slowed their advance faced with Celts on ridges supported by archers in the wood.  They held their cavalry back out of bow range & closed up to javelin range with their infantry.
On the left the Celts are counterattacking.

On the right, the Celtic infantry have charged off their ridge.
On the far left, Celtic chariots have broken thru the Roman cavalry. 

On the right, the Romans have got the upper hand, but have still lost half their infantry. 
On the left, the Celtic chariots have got into the Roman infantry's rear. The Roman second line turend to face, but squeezed between foot & chariots they soon broke.
The Roman losses were now well over half while the Celts had lost less, so what was left of their army on their right flank withdrew.

 

Modder Fokkers

We had 5 players tonight, but flew 3 planes a side with one player flying 2 planes.
We tried out new 3D printed mounting brackets for the planes 

Game 1: Germasn:  Steve & Chris: Fokker DVIIs, Jim: Pfalz XII
               British: Mark: 2 camels, MIke :1 Camel.

The Pfalz finished off Mike's Camel after the Fokkers had shot it up.  The other Camels ran for home.

Game2: Germans:  Steve: Hannover CIII + Fokker DVII.  MIke: Fokker DVII
             British: Jim: SE5a.  Chris & Mark Camels.

This turned into a real close quarters dog fight.  Note that the nearest Camel & Fokker are on the same rod. The new brackets make it easy to temporarily clip the higher plane onto the lower one's rod if they end up in the same hex. 

Mark's Camel was Steve's first victim followed soon after by Chris' Camel while the SE5a opened the throttle & bugged off outrunning the flock of Fokkers.

WWII: Soviets v. Germans

Mike & Jim's Soviet force is entirely inexperienced reluctant troops.
Steve's Germans are entirely Fearless Veterans, so consideably outnumbered.
Encounter battle scenario with equal points.

The photographer forgot to take a pic at the start. The pics are taken from behind the Soviets.
The Soviets are advancing all along the front with the first contact on the Soviet left.

The battle turned into 3 separate fights.
On the left Jim's Soviets attacked immediately to initiate deadly close combat in the wood.
In the centre Mike sent some troops to assist Jim, but they were intercepted by Marders & infantry.
On the far flank the fight developed more slowly as the Soviets had further to go to get into action.

Casualties mounted quickly in the close range fighting.

On the left the Soviets took the wood, but had only 2 shaken infantry squads surviving.
In the centre the Germans held their ground.
On the right the Soviet infantry's weight of numbers prevailed & they took the wood while the tanks bashed each other down to just 3 T34/85's v. 2 Mk IVs. 
With dusk falling both sides were content to stop fighting & send news of the virtual destruction of their enemy back to HQ.
It was a good test of the points system to have two very different quality forces fighting to a draw. 

WWII Late War

The Germans (Jim & SteveJ) are dug in on a plateau.  The British (Mike, Mark & Mitch) are ordered to attack & drive them off the plateau.   The Germans deployed first, took a photo then removed the figures so the Brits couldn't see their deployment. 

Germans deployment before the British players arrived.

The British are deplyed ready to start their advance.

The first shots were 2 Pak 40's hidden in the woods on their right flank opening up against Honey's making  flank move while the main force advanced frontally.

Mark's Honeys retreated into the village as Mitch pinned the German centre & Mike attacked the german left with massed tanks.  The Germans had rearranged their reserves a bit as the Brits advanced.

The main British attack lost 5 tanks in taking out the German infantry line & the Stugs in support, but the Germans had pulled their Toigers back behind the ridge in their rear & they advanced into view to lpug the gap.  The British partially neutrlsed them by firing smoke from theri off table artillery.
The Brits started rolling up the German line & the MkIVs advanced to meet the threat to their centre.
On the right, the germans in the wood were brioeknm, but infantry reserves filled the gap. 

At that stage we ran out of time, but the Brits were running out of men & armour & although it was dneted, the Germans still held a line. 

The scenario was set up as test to test how much advantage in points a side needed to make an attack on a prepared position.  The OOBs had the Brits with a 22% advantage in points.  Without the Tigers, the advantage would have been 35% & the Tigers had clearly saved the Germans from defeat.  So it appears that about 27% would have been fair.  In reality the advantage of defence was probably much greater than that, but this is a case where too much realism would make a less interesting game.  

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WWII in the desert again

Similar scenario to last week, but eacch side has an extra tank platoon (4 MkIII or 4 Matildas).
Italians: SteveJ & Mark.
Brits: Jim

Italians dug in around the oasis deployed first.  Brits attacking from this side of the table.

The British armour charges to the left.  The Axis move their armour to meet them.
The British infantry deploy behind the crest of the plateau & dig in.

Unlike last week this time the Axis getting first fire at the advancing enemy wasn't supportted by the dice gods & the Brits struck back increasing their numerical advantage.

The Crusaders traded blows frontally as the Matildas advanced onto the Axis flank & the Axis armour was all  but destroyed at the cost of just 1 Crusader.

The Crusaders advanced to finish off the Carri while the Matildas engaged the Italian artillery & infantry.  The British infantry & bugs now advanced & opened fire on the Italians infantry.

The British tanks are continuing to advance around the Axis flank, picking off the Italian artillery  & rolling up their infantry.  But the infantry attack did not go so well.  A smoke barrage intending to shield the right flank of their advance fell off target & accurate Italian fire & tank support inflicted serious casualties.
The British infantry went to ground but the remaining Italians are clearly doomed with a mass of tanks in their rear, so they conceded the battle.
The British repeated their strategy of last week, but with a bit more subtlety & a lot more luck.  This time it worked.

 
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