After battle report- Samurai game 12/12/09

Situation: A group of Owari Samurai marching in company with some civilians comes across a road block put up by hostile Ikko-Ikki warrior monks.

Unsure of the intent of the Monks, the Samurai have to decide whether to cut their way through, or try to negotiate a safe passage.

The samurai leaders met for a discussion and decided to distract the Ikko-Ikki with 2 feint attacks while the main body and the civilians took a wide detour.

A group of warrior monks and some Ikko-Ikki appeared on a hill to the Samurai’s right and were attacked by the first body Owari troops

On the left, the Owari troops, having secured the small hill, launched a fierce attack on the Ikko-ikki on the 2 hills facing them

Having achieved victory, a small group sought glory by attacking a Samurai allied to the Ikko-Ikki in his ‘Mako’ enclosure. This failed miserably as the enemy turned and hacked down their attackers who were forced to flee.

The rest of the left wing moved on to attack other Ikko-Ikki nearer the roadblock.

The main body of Owari troops used the cover of these attacks to move round the right. They managed this without difficulty.

With this manoeuvre the Owari won the game and for the loss of 1 Samurai and a few Ashigaru would have achieved great honour and prestige!

(Pictures by L.Coxon and R.Bradley)

December 5th 2009 - Chaeronea Refight

Phillip II of Macedon and his issue, 'Alexander the Shows Promise' (© Lloyd 2009) go on an aggressive recruiting drive in BCE 4th Century Greece.

3000 point Warhammer Ancient Battles game, using the 'Rise of Macedon' list from the 'Alexander the Great' supplement for Phillip's Macedonians and the standard 'Armies of Antiquity' list for the Geeks. The Macedonians consisted of 4 battalions of pike plus one of hypaspists in the phalanx, a few peltasts and javelinmen out front, a sizeable contingent of Cretan archers, two troops of Companions, one of them the Agema, a troop of light horse and a troop of Thessalian Purple People Eaters. Alex was at the head of the Agema whilst Phil the not-quite-Greek (the Army General) was in the rightmost battalion of the phalanx.

The Geeks had a phalanx of six battalions, two from Athens who held the left, two mercenary units who held the centre and two from Thebes, one of which was the Sacred Band, who were on the right. The remainder of the Geeks were peltasts, Cretan archers and the obligatory, solitary, useless unit of light cavalry. Each of the three hoplite contingents had its own general but in true democratic style, no-one could agree on an overall commander or, indeed - as it quickly transpired - a plan. As inveterate rule tweakers we couldn't play it straight but we didn't invent any rules, just attributed existing rules properly. Thus, all skirmishing troops get the 'feigned flight' rule, as did the hypaspists; the Athenians were rash, in that they could never refuse the opportunity to pursue a broken enemy. Both generals rolled slightly above-average for Oracles and both would like to put on record that this system makes a much better game than the '+1 in combat for having a standard' rule that it replaces.

The game played out in predictable, but still very enjoyable style. The Greeks got the better of the central skirmish fight at first but their lights could make no significant impact on the Macedonian phalanx with their missile fire.

The Companions made some headway on the Macedonian left but got bogged a little in a fight with peltasts in broken, higher ground. On their right, however, the hypaspists , Cretans and Thessalians quickly saw off the Geek lights, exposing the Athenian hoplites rather uncomfortably. The hypaspists and Athenians engaged with the Athenians initially gaining the upper hand, but eventually succumbing to those dratted WS4 mountebanks. As Demosthenes' oratory wavered, the Thessalians piled in and the hoplites decided that a quick trip home and a life in the navy was what was called for.

The centres clashed, meantime and then unfolded a typical Warhammer Ancients scenario: as the fight is resolved unit-by-unit, one side wins at one point and loses in another and the battle-lines fragment to an either a) exciting or b) ridiculous extent, depending upon your perspective. The Geek mercenary hoplites gave a reasonable account of themselves but were becoming ever more isolated, as the left-wing Athenians did one and the Thebans on the right, as we shall see, stood around stoically, waiting for the inevitable and trying hard not to spill any Macedonian blood.

On the Theban wing, the Companions had stopped fiddling about with peltasts and started killing hoplites instead. An especially devastating flank charge left the mercenary hoplites in the centre bereft of support. The Sacred Band, meanwhile, were far too occupied with, er, bonding to deign to come to anyone's aid. The Macedonian wings closed round the mercenary hoplites and surrounded them completely. At this point, the mercenaries unanimously agreed to swap doru for sarissa and take an extended holiday in Persia. Game over.

Credits All figures provided by me (Steve Spence) Participants: Lloyd and me. Manufacturers: Foundry (phalangites, Thessalians, some hoplites, peltasts, Cretans); Navigator (Companions); Minifigs (more Companions and sundry lights); Essex (more hoplites); Old Glory (yet more hoplites); Pete Foggin (sundry peltast types, cast sometime in 1890s)

After Game Report: World War 2 Operation Sealion game 21st November 2009-11-24

This was a game based on the supposition that the Germans had landed in southern England and joined up with the parachutists Fallschirmjager dropped south of the Thames.
As a ‘Fantasy’ game, this did not preclude the appearance of a certain Local Defence Volunteer platoon from Warmington-on Sea!

Situation:

The British, composed of a platoon of Regulars, supported by the local LDF platoon, a Matilda 2 and 3 Vickers Mk 6 light tanks and a 2 pdr A/T gun, deployed along a river bank near a ruined abbey.

The Germans, composed if a platoon of Panzer grenadiers with a heavy platoon of tanks, flanked by a group of about 20 Fallschirmjager appeared on the opposite edge of the table, tasked with brushing aside the British and exiting the other table edge.


The Germans moved rapidly to cross the river leaving their panzers in reserve. On the right, the panzer grenadiers moved over and around a small hill, but failed to spot the waiting British regulars on the riverbank.

The British opened fire on the grenadiers when they were in the stream, but failed to cause any casualties, the returning fire from the hill drove the British back in disorder taking their wounded with them.

As the Germans began to outflank the retreating British they were forced to take cover behind the hidden LDV platoon. One could almost hear a Scottish private whispering ‘ Whear aall doomed!’.

Seeing this the portly captain of the LDF trotted back to summon the tanks to their aid. His short legs would not be able to save the day though, as events were to prove!

On the German left, the Fallschirmjager moved forward, but failed to spot the infantry in cover facing them. A sniper on their right did however, and smartly disposed of the British NCO – the section falling back to the woods behind them.



The Panzer Grenadiers swept forward after their easy victory, but were met by accurate fire at short range from the Local volunteers. The Germans were forced to ground and had to fire a flare to summon the Panzers.


With the arrival of the Panzers, the Local defence volunteers were forced back from their positions and the Germans pushed round the flank to victory!

In the end, all the players were glad Operation Seelowe did not take place for real. On the basis of this game we felt that in 1940, Britain would have had little chance.

At least, in Wargames, all the dead guys get up in the end! -War without tears.

(Pictures by L.Coxon and R.Bradley)

Updated Pike and Shotte Rules posted

I've just added the updated versions of Richard's Pike and Shotte rules to the download section of the website. There are also some printable game markers for all the skirmish rules, and a Formed Infantry Supplement for the Pike and Shotted as well.

Please download them and let Richard know what you think, either here or on the Club Forums.

Cheers

Andy

MEETING CANCELLED - 28th November 2009

The meeting this coming Saturday (28th) is cancelled. The hall is being used for other purposes and hopefully most people will be at SMOGGYCON in Middlesbrough.

See you all on the 12th

AAR - Club Meeting Saturday 14th November

Last Saturday saw me make it down to the club for one of my rare all day visits. I was playing Grande Armee (report on my blog) but I took a few pictures of the other games so thought it would be nice to post them here.

First up, overview of the hall:


Ian and Lawrence and another (I'm terrible with names!) were playing a General Quarters naval game. Not the most photogenic game due to lots of blue/grey on blue table so the pictures doesn't really do it justice:


And then there was the regular Great Captain game with Pete et al. There is currently a Roman Civil War type campaign running and the day saw two games fought to resolve the status of Gallic and Numidian allies:


My game, Bucasso using Grande Armee in 6mm, was great fun and is written up in my own blog, Another Slight Diversion, but here are a couple of taster pictures:



There were also two 15mm Napoleonic games using Empire V rules:


And finally an excellent 28mm Pirate skirmish game from Lloyd and Steve:

All in all another successful club meeting with a wide variety of games and a good turn out.