Nick & Chris

Another FOW tournament practice game. US Infantry vs German Fallschirmjagers. Nick attacking in a breakout.

The dice gods did not like Nick. On turn 1 he failed to dig in, failed to range in, failed to get aircraft, and lost 1/2 his infantry. Chris quickly moved to guard the objectives, as Nicks main attack just disintegrated. Then Nick's reinforcements failed to arrive till the last possible moment. However, when they did arrive, they arrived together and Nick managed to position 4x M10 behind hedges on one side of the field containing the objective, while 5x Stuarts massacred one platoon of fallshirmjagers. The Stuarts eventually fell to the German Tiger -- but the the Tiger wasnt going to advance and risk the M10's. The M10's on the other hand werent going to advance and risk bogging on the hedge, turning the fight against the Tiger in the Tigers favor. A stalemate developped, with Nick shelling the Germans while Chris pushed his AT guns foward to take on the US artillery. Eventually both sides agreed to a draw, as it was getting late, and a competition game would have called time.

Nick's on Friday 25/09/09

Jetstar, bless them, robbed us of Carl & his 28mm Wars of the Roses figs, we can only hope he ejoyed his wait at Tullamarine. But Steve stepped up with his e-bay 7 Years War 15's to fill the gap.

Field of Glory battle:
Nick's Byzantines v. Leigh's Arabs

It was Leigh's 2nd FOG & Nick's 3rd & it was slow going with endless searching through the rule book for that rule cunningly placed where you would least expect it. There is obvious advantage in learning a commercially successful set of rules & for some perhaps the mastering of an arcane set of rules is a satisfying, if machocistic, end in itself, but it's a pity FOG are so ordinary in every way except presentation. Nevertheless, hard core as they are, Leigh & Nick enjoyed their battle. Leigh gained some advantage in the deployment as Nick's best infantry was left hanging out on a flank a long way from the action. But in the end it was Leigh's better dice winning a 50/50 cavalry fight in the centre that won the battle.

Koenig Krieg 7 Years War battle:
Steve's Prussians v. Joe & Jim's Austrians

Steve's 15mm e-bay troops look magnificent & the Koenig Krieg rules are a beautifully printed set of rules (out of Queensland I think). Unfortunately, Steve had not done enough homework before the battle and things went terribly slowly as he struggled with rules. Things sped up a bit after we downloaded the summary sheets Steve had forgotten to bring, but there was no way the battle was going to get anywhere in the night. The battle didn't go far enough to make a fair assessment of the rules.

Comment from Nick: To be fair on Koenig Krieg, Steve put the battle together with only an hours notice, so he had no time to really read the rules or otherwise prepare. The game played on after Jim left and the two remaining participants seemed to think the system showed a lot of promise as they got more familiar and discovered some misinterpetations they had used earlier. So we will see how the rules really work at some future battle!

Nick in Launceston

Nick vs Darren, Flames of War mid war US Infantry vs German Panzers. Hold the line.

Nick defended, and set up M10's in quasi ambush and AT guns in ambush. On turn 1 both ambushes were sprung, but they didnt damage that much. The AT guns were destroyed. The M10's struck back and killed a panzer platoon -- but then the panzer II's killed the M10's. Nick's reinforcements hadnt arrived, his CinC wasnt on the table, and hence Nick failed morale.

Paraitacene 317Bc

Eumenes (Mark) v. Antigonus (Barrie, Joe & Byron)

Scenario from Lost Battles by Prof Sabin fought with Camp Cromwell Rules.

Afterwards Mark said it all went according to plan. He used most of his elephants to help his cavalry get the upper hand on his right while the rest of them supported peltasts, argaraspids & hypaspists on his left. He held back his heavy infantry in the centre behind a cloud of skirmishers. When Antagonus' phalanxes finally got to grips with Mark's centre, throwing some hot dice, the center of Mark's line developed some cracks, but the cavalry from the right arrived in the nick of time in the enemy rear, Antagous's phalanxes broke and that was the battle.

It was a long hard fought battle. It took over 3 hours, partly because it was a very big battle (over 40,000 men or 400 figs a side), but also because there was a good deal of pussy footing around, skirmishing & manoeuvre. The rules worked well except the consensus was that the bow fire wasn't quite effective enough. I'll adjust that.

1st pic shows Antigonus & staff advancing their horse archers on their left.
2nd pic shows Eumenes getting his left on the move.
3rd pic shows the battle about to reach its climax.

Eumenes (Mark)

Hypaspists: 3,000 1x4 Confident Vet Longspear Armoured CR 7

Silver sheilds 3,000 1x4 Elite Confident Vet Longspear Armoured CR 8

Mercenary phalangites 6,000 1x6 Reluctant Vet Longspear Armoured CR 7

Levy phalagites 5,000 1x6 Reluctant Conscript Longspear Armoured CR 5

Peltasts 8,000 4x3 Confident Trained Spear Javelin Protected CR 3

Light infantry 10,000 4x8 Reluctant Irregular Skirmishers 1 Bow, 2 Sling, 1 Javelin

Bodyguard cavalry 900 1x3 Elite Confident Veteran Armoured CR 7

Companions 900 1x3 Confident Veteran Armoured CR 6

Heavy cavalry 3,000 3x3 Confident Trained Armoured CR 5

Light cavalry 1,500 2x4 Reluctant Irregular Unprotected Sword Javelin CR 0

Elephants 125 4x3 Reluctant Warrior Protected CR 4

Inf 35,000, Cav 6,300, El 125

Eumenes 3 dice + Eudamus 2 dice.

Antigonus (Byron, Barrie & Joe):

Macedonian phalanx 8,000 2x4 Confident Trained Longspear Armoured CR 6

Mercenary phalanx 9,000 2x6 Reluctant Vet Longspear Armoured CR 7

Levy phalanx 8,000 2x4 Reluctant Conscript Longspear Armoured CR 5

Peltasts 3,000 2x3 Confident Trained Spear Javelin Protected CR 3

Light infantry 5,000 2x8 Reluctant Irregular Skirmishers Javelin

Bodyguard cavalry 600 1x2 Elite Confident Veteran Armoured CR 7

Companions 1,000 1x3 Confident Veteran Armoured CR 6

Heavy Cavalry 4,700 4x4 Confident Trained Armoured CR 5

Light cavalry 4,300 6x4 Reluctant Irregular Unprotected Sword 3 Javelin, 3 Bow CR 0

Elephants 65 2x3 Reluctant Warrior Protected CR 4

Inf 33,000, Cav 10,600, El 65

Antigonus 3 dice + Dimetrius 2 dice.

Battlefield is a plain with scrubby hills (difficult ground) on Eumene's left, Antigonus' right.

Ground scale is 500mm per km on 8x6 table.

Free deployment in own rear 1/3 with maps.

Core units for army morale test are the heavy infantry (phalanxes) for both sides.

Nick at Chris's

Nick and Chris in a trial for the upcoming FOW tournament. Nick (US Infantry) vs Chris (German recon).

This was one of those games that swung wildly. First hit was to Chris when his planes damaged Nick's M10s and his recon raced for an undefended objective. Nick hit back with his Stuarts eliminating the recon that were pushed foward (though this was several turns of swirling action). Nick then assaulted the other objective with his infantry, destroying the German artillery, only to have a German counterattack destroy the US attack.

Both sides calmed down and waited for reinforcements. The US forces got theirs first and started another attack, only to have the German reinforcements arrive and destroy the attack. Then more US troops arrive to destroy the German counterattack.

At this point the US had only lost one platoon (though most others were badly damaged), but the Germans were down to 3 platoons of their original 8 (surviving because two platoons had marched off as 'sole survivor'). Then in one turn the game changed when the Germans destroyed the US stuarts and AT guns in one turn, and the game swung in the German favor. Finally the Germans got to the US objective and the US didnt have enough troops within range to contest. An amazing game!

Nick in Launceston

Only one historical game at the club in Launceston -- it seemed everyone was too busy chatting!

Daniel vs Nick R. 1500 pts mid war Flames of War -- German tanks (Daniel) vs US Paratroops (Nick R). The game started badly when 3 of Daniels tank's were destroyed in an airstrike on the first turn. It got worse when his assault on the paratroops was repulsed with the loss of two tanks. Then a second airstrike killed another tank, and Daniels second assault fell into a maelstrom of bazooka's. The net result was that Daniel conceeded by turn 3 with only 3 tanks left, having only killed one team of paratroops.

At Barrie's on Thursday 17/09/09

Jim & Barrie’s US Mech v. Joe & Adam’s Falshirmjager

1730 pts HTL on 6x4, Germans defending.

The line of half tracks & Shermans backed up with half dozen Priests looked very intimidating compared with a lone Falshirmjager platoon on the objective & neblewerfers in rear. But that changed quickly on the German’s 1^st turn when 4 Pak 40’s in ambush evaporated the Shermans & half the centre Mech Coy was blown away by Neblewerfers. The Yanks pressed on with the plan sending the other Mech Coy down the right flank towards the rear objective. The lead half track did take it, but the platoon did not survive the Marder ambush supported by Neblewerfers & recoiless artillery. It was Kasserine Pass all over again.

7 Years War at Camp Cromwell

Jim's Prussians v. Mark's French on 8x6 table with map deployment - Camp Cromwell Rules.

The French deployed with a massed battery in their centre, infantry behind & on each side, cuirassiers on the left and dragoons on their right. The Prussians put all their heavy cavalry on their right, hussars on the left & infantry in the centre. Their artillery was in 2 batteries, 1 in the centre one on the right of the infantry line.

The Prussians advanced on their right with cavalry, artillery and infantry echeloned. They also turned their hussars around and moved them right across their rear. The French advanced their cuirassiers to the edge of a ridge to gain an uphill advantage then halted. They also redeployed some infantry to their left and began moving the dragoons towards the centre. The Prussians paused their advance to open a bombardment on the cuirassiers. After a lucky volley got 2 hits the Prussian cuirassiers charged uphill to be met with a French countercharge. The French had 3 brigades to 2 plus uphill advantage, but the Prussians hoped the artillery casualties would redress the balance. But it was not to be & the French slowly got on top. However the Prussian cuirasiers bought enough time before they broke for the hussars to slip past the French flank while their infantry resumed their advance on the French left centre. When the Prussian cuirassiers finally broke, the Prussians had their second line of dragoons waiting with artillery support to meet the victoriou French cavalry & hussars in their rear. The victorious cuirassiers were destroyed by counterattacks from 3 sides.

The French tried to counterattack in the centre with their dragoons, but they had to expose their flank to do so & suffered badly from artillery & musket fire as the Prussian left advanced on them. One hussar brigade charged the left rear of the French infantry. The brigade at the end failed to form square & was hit in flank. Some of the pursuing hussars then hit the rear of the enagaged line & the French left disintegrated.

With their left in tatters & their dragoons being shot down in the centre, the French called sauve qui peut.

I spent much of my spare time in France reviewing the Camp Cromwell Rules. This was my first battle with them since - it showed up a couple of minor issues, but in the main the revised systems worked a treat. I was very pleased with the way it went (not just the win). It really was a fun battle to fight & so easy to do compared to the other rules I have used recently. The basic systems all work well & after a little more play testing to fine tune a few things I will make a pdf to distribute to those interested.