Picket's Charge Rules in Canberra

Dale set up an ACW game using his Warlord's Epic Scale figures. 
The scenario had Jim's Union Army of mostly green troops having to intercept & hold up SteveD's better quality Confederate force.

The Union army is coming on from the right, the Confeds from the left.

Both sides deploy their lead brigade facing the enemy at extreme artillery range to cover their deployment of the rest of their forces. 

Both sides deploy their 2nd brigades to the centre, then the Confeds pull back their front brigade & sent it to their far left.

The Union responds to the Confed move to the left by redeplying their 1st brigade to their right.

The Confeds advance along the wooded ridge as their centre falters in front of the Union line wrapping their left flank.

The green Union brigade in the woods has fallen back from the Confed assault.  The Union counterattack on the far flank is faltering in front of the Confederate artillery.

A renewed push by the Confeds in the woods has pushed the Union left back further, but the Confed left is now retreating.

A bad morale test has caused the Union brigade on their left to break.  At this point the umpire pointed out that the victory conditions gave the Confids victory iof they controlled the road junction.  The Union conceded that they had no way of tstoping the Confeds taking it & no way of taking it back & conceded defeat.

The Union command didn't  listen closely enough to the Victory Conditions & the Confed move to their left worked well to help them to continue to overlook it.  The Confed command claimed it was their plan all along. 

This was my second game of Picket's charge & I did enjoy it.  As I said in my previous report I think they give a pretty good simulation though the mechanisms are bit over complex for my taste.  But in a game run by an umpire who knows the rules you seem to be able to do pretty well by military principles without needing to know the rules chapter & verse.   

Talavera 1809 in Canberra

A scenario set up by SteveD for my visit to Canberra.
French: Jim.
Spanish: SteveD
British: Dale
Rules: Camp Cromwell M2M
Figures: 15mm

View after turn 1 from behind the Spanish on the allied right flank.
The Brits are on the left, the French on the far side.

The French have made a general advance all along the front to deploy & intiate a long range artil;ery duel to open the battle.  They are also moved 2 cavalry brigades from their central reserve to the their right flank.

On the near flank, the French have advanced in line to engage the Spanish.  On the far flank they have taken upa  defensive position on & behind a ridge. 
The Spanish are moving cavalry from their central reserve to the far flank to support Brits against the Frech cavalry.

The French are now attacking the Spanish.  Mostly with cannon fire & musket fire from lines of infnatry, but with infantry columns & cavalry at points of weakness. (One brigade of dragoons was held back in central reserve). On the far flank the Soanish cavalry eventually came up to suport the British cavalry who have now attacked the French cavalry. The British infantry seem reluctant to leave their good defensive position behind the creek line.

This pic is from behind the British flank.  The British cavalry are getting the better of the French on the end of the line, but otherwise both sides are happy to enagage on long range artillery on this flank.  On the far flank the French are attacking the whole Spanish front.  The Spanish aregrimly defending the town, vineyards & creek line.

In their attack on the Spanish the French front line lost a lot of casulties, but their second line has smashed thru the brittle Spanish troops.  More than half the Spanish units have been broken but only one French.
|On the far flank the British have beaten one Frencg cavalry brigade, but it's only effect to ensure that the Brits can retreat safely behind a superior cavary screen.
It was hard ask for the Spaniih to hold their line against a well organised French attack.
The British should have attacked to take the pressure off theie allies, but the French deployed just enough of their troops in a sound defensive position to discourage them from doing so.   

 

Multi-player Bolt Action

Mike deployed 1250 pts of US v. Steve's 1250 pts of Germans on opposite sides of a 10'x6' table with two objectives - the village & the railway bridge.
Then Mark & Mitch turned up, so both sides got reinforcements.  Mark came on the far end of the table (on the US left flank) with 2 Hetzers & 2 half tracks with infantry.  Mitch came on the near end of the table on the German left flank with 2 Shermans & 2 half tracks with British infantry. 

The flanking forces ensured that both sides were able to dominate one objective,so it became a battle of attrition as both side pulled back their left flanks & attacked on their right.  The Germans did better in this than the Allies & lost only one unit to the Allies' five.  

 

Something completely different

While the flu cut a swath through the attendance tonight we had a rare visit from Nick, so a party of three.  Fortuitously, Nick brought along a boardgame "Maria" with the unusual feature of being a game for three.  The "Maria" is Maria Therese & it is a strategic game set in the War of Austrian Succession (right before the 7 years war).

The game is from Germany with the rules & playing pieces all bi-lingual - being in both German & English.   Nether Mike or I liked the use of cards rather than dice & there was too much gaming technique involved for our tastes, but it wasn't hard to learn to play & strategy did matter too.  It certainly presented interesting conundrums to the players, so a good rare option for 3 players.

Bolt Action 2,500 pts

Both sides had two 1,250 point forces.
Chris's Germans faced Mark's Brits on the German right.
SteveJ's Germans faced Mitch's US on the German left.
Jim assisted Chris & umpired one flank.
Mike assisted Mitch & umpire the other flank.
The table is 10' x6'.  There are two objectives, the railway bridge & the village.  The objectives count as 3 VPs if held unopposed at the end.  Each enemy unit killed counts as 1 VP.
There was separate dice bag for each flank.  The order dice were pulled at each flank's own pace but whoever finished a turn first waited for the other side before starting the next.   Units are at liberty to engage the enemy on the other flank.  To do so they announce that they are doing so the other  flank pauses other actions until the cross flank action is resolved. 

Picture taken from the German right flank.  

The only cross flank action was between the US Sherman on their left & a Panzergrenadier unit in the woods on Chris' left.  The Sherman killed a few Panzergrenadiers but the Panzergrenadiers got their revenge by popping the Sherman with a panzerfaust.

On the near flank there was a lot of firing across no man's land before both sides rushed the objective on the last turn.  It ended up disputed with 2 Panzergrenadiers surviving with 3" of it.  On this flank the Germans lost 3 units & the Brits 4.

On the other flank the objective also ended up contested, but the Germans only lost 3 units to the US's 6. So in aggregate the Germans won 10 VPs to 6.

Sunday School: ACW

We re-fought last Tuesday's the attack on the railway village to try to get a handle on exactly how much advantage defending a village provides in ACW with our rules.
Chris attacked with 10 Confederate regiments.
Jim defended with 7 Union regiments.
All troops were the same class to simplify the comparison.

The Confederate begin their advance.  The railway station & whore house have troops in them.

The Union regiment in the orchard on the left have broken their attackers but are being outflanked.
The attack on the whorehouse has been beaten off.  The attack on the right has been delayed by a command failure.

On the right, the Union extended their line with a reserve regiment & beat off the attack with fire. 
The attack on the station by 2 regiments has succeeded & it has been occupied by the Rebs.
On the left, the flanking regiments of each side have neutralised each other in a long range firefight. 
The Union regiment in the orchard was broken by an attack from the left & the victorious Rebs charged the whorehouse.  The defenders had beaten of the first attack but with heavy loss.  The battle came down to this fight - made even by Union casualties negating the house advantage.  the Union threw better dice & so it was the Rebs that broke.

The battle came down to the dice in one combat, so the odds of 10 to 7 seemed to nicely balance the scenario.   Last Tuesday, the Rebs had 12 regs to 6 regs & 2 guns & won comfortably.

American Civil War: Made up scenario

The Confederates are mounting a raid on the Union supply line.  Their objective is to take Carpet Junction railway station & the nearby bridge & destroy them.  They have an infantry division of 12 regiments, a cavalry division of 4 regiments & 2 batteries of Napoleons.  

The Union have two small infantry divisions of 6 regiments a rifle battery to defend the railway station at the junction & the bridge.

Mike commanded the Confederate infantry, Steve the cavalry & Jim commanded the Union.

The Confederates are expected to attack from the far side of the table.

The Confederate infantry immediately advance on the village.

At the same time, the Confederate cavalry advance on the bridge & dismount with their artillery on their right.

The Rebs attack the village directly while wrapping around the Union left.  The Rebs left is held up by the Union battery over by the bridge firing shell into the flank.

On the other flank the Union have counterattacked the cavalry & artillery.

The Union have held on to the whore house, but been driven out of the station & both flanks are falling back.  The end is neigh for the Union on this flank.

On the river front, the Reb cavalry are selling their lives dearly, but the Union have too many men & the Reb cavalry is about to break.

After taking the village, the Confederate infantry redeployed to attack the Union right.
At the same time the Union right, having seen off the Rebel cavalry redeployed to meet them. 

While the Rebel cavalry had been defeated, they inflicted more casualties on the Union right than the Rebel infantry has lost attacking the village.  They made the Rebels pay, but the Union right just didn't have the numbers left to hold off the renewed Confederate attack.  So a Confederate victory.

Bolt Action Tournament at Devonport

Camp Cromwell's force for the event was Jim's Panzergrenadiers, Chris' Soviets & Mark's US.  The tournament was all Axis v. Allies & as always Russel did a brilliant job organising & as TA. 

Camp Cromwell had a uniform & very average performance with an equal mix of wins, draws & losses in our 3 games each.  But due to the Allied dominance Jim's very average performance scored him best Axis general in a pretty pathetic Axis effort.  He also won the Best Tank Kill award for popping a KV with  panzerfaust.

Your correspondent only covered the Panzergrenadier's games.

Round 1: Panzer grenadiers masquerading as Afrika Korps v. British.  A bloody draw.

Round 2; The Germans must have pushed thru the Caucasus to fight the Soviets in the desert.  A crushing German victory that earned maximum VPs & lifted their commander to Best German General status. 

The brave MkIII goes toe to toe with the a KV.  Both missed this turn. Next turn the MkIII flanked the KV & missed again. but then a Panzergrenasier in the palm trees popped the KV front-on with his broomstick & a shower of 6's.

In Round 3 The Germans fought a lot of British Armour in the snow.   It was such a disaster for the Germans that they didn't think to get their Leica out.   It started badly for the Germans with their MkIII going up in flames with the first shot of the game.  Then the British barrage took out 2 units & heavily pinned 2 more on turn 2 & it really went pear shaped.