Hail King Richard: Medieval

With Barrie's Sunday School not on this week Chris & I introduced Darren to Hail King Richard at Camp Cromwell - that is our tweak of Hail Caesar for the medieval period.
Darren's Yorkists are on the far side. Chris' Lancs on this side.  I am umpiring plus giving Darren a bit of advice. In turn 1Chris advanced except where his cavalry held back.  Darren advanced his right & sent his left flank cavalry across the front to the right.

Chris' line had firmed up into neat line.  Darren's cavalry in the centre failed to charge, but so did Chris'

Finally Darren got his cavalry to charge.  It destroyed the enemy bowmen & his cavalry, but was then all shaken & unable to do any more.   Chris is trying to attack on the right.

Daren has tried to pull his cavaly back to get it rallied.  On the near flank the bows & crossbows are exchanging fire. 

 Chris attacks on the right.

 Chris' attack ran out of steam, the advantage of his armoured infantry negated by the hill & Darren's billmen.   Darren's attack on the left of Chris' attack is the last straw and Chris' army breaks.

Bolt Action

Chris' Soviets v. Jim's Germans
1000 pts Hold Until Relieved Scenario, Germans attacking.

I this scenario the defenders have a feature to defend (the bridge).  They can initially put 2 units within 6"of it. Half the rest come on in First Wave on turn 1, the rest in Reserve from turn 2. The Attackers deploy at least half no closer than 18" to the enemy on the table, others in Reserve.

The German force was well suited to the scenario.  By the end of turn 2 the panzer grenadiers had rushed the objective with mounted infantry.  They then set up  defense that easily held the Soviet advance at bay.  Only the T34 could not be stopped or delayed, but it couldn't kill enough Germans on its own to turn the battle (the objective can only he disputed by infantry).

My Blokes Book Club Pick: Winged Victory by V.M.Yeates

As my turn picking the book for my Bloke's Book Club I selected Winged Victory by V.M.Yeates.

The discussion meeting was held in my wargames room where I was able to amplify the bloke's education on WWI air warfare with my collection of 1/72nd scale models, my headfull of history & a demo of WWI air wargaming.  The group of retired professional gentlemen, none of them wargamers, really enjoyed the book and the discussion.  I recommend the book as both a rattling good read & an education on WWI dog-fighting.

Modder Fokkers

Game 1:
Germans: Mark & Steve both had a Fokker DVII.  They also had a Hanover 2 seater which had to do a straight photo run diagonally across the table at 2 hexes a move.
Brits: Mike & Chris had Camels staring low.  Jim had an SE5a starting high.

The Germans have started in the far corner & the Brits on the left.

As the Brits converge on the Hanover the Fokkers come in on the Camel's flank.

Camera angle changed to other side of the Germans.   Mike's Camel is engaging the Fokkers as Chris' goes for the Hanover's tail.  The SE5a even though its engine is damaged has dropped under the Hanover, has it's Lewis pointing up & can still keep up.

The Fokkers split off from Mike and dive after Chris's Camel. 

A deadly conga line has formed behind the Hanover.

It couldn't last.  The Hanover went down but Chris' Camel soon followed.  The spluttering SE5a is looking for a way back the mess to claim it's half of a kill.

Both British planes are damaged & run for home.Both side claimed 1 kill but the Brits conceded the field so a German victory. 

Game 2:
Germans: Oakie & Steve have Albatrii, Jim has a Pfalz.
Brits: Maike & Chris have Camels.
To even up the 3:2 the Brits have better planes, and were also were given a height advantage with the the Germans forced to fly straight until the Brits dive out of clouds and open fire.

The Brits are about to pounce of the their prey.

It soon gets up close and personal. Oakie's Albatros dives out of trouble, the other two Germans take them on.

Mike went though the dogfight and out the other side leaving Chris looking a bit lonely.

 Mike comes back into the fight face to face with Oakie while Chirs finds hiself in a Hun sandwich.

Some hot shooting my Mike blow's Oakie's Albatros out of the sky evening the numbers.  But only for moment as while Steve turns to fight Mike, the Pfalz shoots Chris down.

Mike intially got the upper hand over Steve, but a nifty sideslip and a bit of Pfalz turned tables.  With two Huns on it's tail the Camel was doomed.
So another German victory, this time 2 kills to 1.

Hail Caesar at Barries

Macedonians: Barrie & Darren
v.
Persians: SteveJ, Ed & Jake
644 pts as side, played with Hail Caesar with a few house rules, with Jim umpiring.

The Persians are on the left.   They have 5 divisions & chose to deploy them with 2 cav divs on the far flank, the guard infantry in the centre with levy infantry behind & their Greek mercenaries on ther right.
The Macedonians have 4 divisions, cavalry on both flanks (the companions on the far flank supported by 2 peltasts), The phalanx (which counts as 2 divs in the army break test) right of centre & Greek mercenaries left centre.

The Macedonians attacked with their phalanx with the others held back a bit (not entirely by design command rolls slowed some down)

The phalanx failed to break though due to Steves's good defence of supporting his best troops with the levies & an administrative error detected too late that had the Persian guard infantry with 7 HTH instead of 6 on the OOB. 

The Macedonians attacked on both sides of the stalled phalanx as the Persians counterattacked the mostly shaken phalanxes - which they found tough nuts to finish off.  On the far side the Companions were fought to a standstill, but not broken.  The mercenaries of each sides lugged it out indecisively on this side.  

The Macedonians had moved their left flank cavalry around the enemy flank.  If theri charge on the hoplite flank guard had broken though they might have had a chance of rolling up the enemy line.  But it was not to be.  The hoplites held them off.   The phalanx division has finally broken in the centre.  The Macedonian cavalry divs are now too weaken to do much & their mercenaries are about to be swamped by the Persian centre.  The Macedonians conceded.

Steve was the only experienced Hail Caesar player playing & I think his experience was the decisive factor.  His grouping of both cavalry on one wing with the long spear armed mercenaries on the other was good - it meant that one Mac cav div was outnumbered the other only had longs spears to throw themselves at. Using the levies only as supports for his good troops was also good tactics. 

Bolt Action At Good Games

Steve's SS v. Darren's Brits
Jim lent Darren a british army & umpired a 1000 pt Point Defence scenario, Germans defending. 

The 3 objectives are on the hill in the right foreground, on the RH corner of central wood & in the far house.

Darren put a bit of pressure on the German right but grabbed the easy objective in the centre and went for the poorly defended one on his right.  Steve erred in putting too much of his force on the right.  It put too many units under the British bombardment to start with, though they mostly recovered from that before the Brits got to them.  The main problem is that he didn't have enough left to defend his left

Steve got his rocks off shooting up the Honey with his Puma, but the Brit inf grabbed the centre & near objectives and Steve couldn't bring enough firepower to bear to blow them off them.

Waterloo +201: East flank-ish scenario

For the 201st anniversary, Mike made up a scenario loosely based on the arrival of the Prussians on the French right at Waterloo.

View from behind the British line. PeterC's Brits & Hanoverians are deployed behind the reverse slope on the flat behind the gentle rise.  Mark's Dutch-Belgians Dutch Belgians are in the village on the far left.

View from behind the French lines.  SteveJ's 2 ibf divs & a cuirassier div are on the left.  On the right Jim has a line div, a Guard div, a cavalry div of hussars & dragoons & 2 batteries.

In the opening moves the French got uniformly excelent command dice and advanced rapidlt except for a curiously reluctant guard div.  The Brits looked anxiouslt to the east, but bad dice kept the Prussians out of sight.

Jim got a nasty shock when a British Hussar division suddenly materialised in front of his advance carelessly lead by unlimbered artillery.  One of the batteries managed to evade behind the infantry, but the other was ridden down. 

Jim's cavalry counterattacked, but the infantry remained pinned down by the hussars.  In the meantime Steve, just returned from Europe apeared full of French elan.  He threw his Cuirassiers at the centre of the British line. It bounced off, kept it busy while his infantry attacked the far flank of the british.

Steve's left is making progress, but it's hard fighting.  His right is moving up.  Jim's cavaly has broken the hussars.  Mark's Dutch-Belgians have come out of the village.  Still no Prussians.

 Heavy fighting continues on the French left.

The Prussians have finally arrived on the east flank.

The French guard's dilatory advance has put them in the perfect place to form a flank guard.  Part of Jim's cavalry plus and his line infantry have moved up onto the British left flank.

Suddenly it all goes pear shaped for the British.  Steve has broken through on the far flank & is overlapping the British line.  His infantry on his right has put pressure on the other end of the british line just as Jim's infantry smashes into it from the flank.

Both British divs break leaving only the Hanoverians surrounded by Frogs on this flank.

The scenario was a pretty loose adaption from Waterloo, but was a good battle anyway.  It's the first time we've taken advantage of the 4.25m table length made possible by the new layout of the wargames room.  The French had a pretty sound plan helped by some good command dice early.  The British hussars gave them a  scare, but the late arrival of the Prussians meant the delay bought by the hussars wasn't nearly enough to save the Brits.

Muskets & Tommahawks at Barrie's

There was  a good crowd at Barries for a large M&T game he set up, then couldn't play in because he'd injured his back & couldn't stand up for long enough to fight.

JohnM, JohnW, Rusty & SteveJ defended with the Brits.  Jim, Jake & Darren attacked with les Frogs.
The Brits had works parties out working surprised by the Frogs, but had forces in the camp & the fort available once the alarm was raised.

The French made good progress at first, but some of the works parties escaped back to camp as the Brit regulars formed up gave the French some real opposition.

When time was called the VPs were added up, 2 for each works party fig that escaped & 1 for each enemy killed.  It was narrow French victory 53 to 57 - virtually a draw.