The Upteenth Battle of Blasthof Bridge

Countless gamers have fought across the fair fields of Blasthof in the last fifty years, and tonight it happened once more. Ron and Mark, two stalwarts of the South Florida Miniatures Gamers, kindly consented to be my guinea pigs for the evening. We met at The War Office (aka a small office suite) for the set-to.

As we were playing with my 18mm Wofuns and centimeters, rather than the classic 30mm Spencer Smiths and inches, the field needn't be large.

Unfortunately, we had neither a river nor a bridge in the club!

Due to the available terrain, Blasthof Farm and the Blasthofberg were relatively larger than the original, while the River Blast was reduced to a desperate trickle. At least the bridge was sturdier than the original paper.

The sides were drawn from, respectively, my WSS French and '45 British collections.

Ron:

• 18 1e Cuirassiers
• 32 1e Guard Francaise
• Anvre Battery (2 guns)

Mark:

• 12 Yorbourne Dragoons
• 40 Royal Kempston
• Halmouth Battery (2 guns)

As usual, I failed to take enough photos, but here's a representative selection.

Mark moves his guns to the hill as his Dragoons cross
the river; Ron moves stolidly towards the "bridge."

Mark spreads out his troops and opens fire (to no effect).
His light horse are already to midtable.

As Ron slowly moves upfield, the range closes and Mark's
guns start to pick off his infantry. Ron's cavalry are
angling towards Mark's dragoons, who are out of view behind
the farmhouse (out of LOS of Ron's guns).

Ron's Guard Francaise are on the bridge,
while his cuirassiers charge Mark's dragoons.
Unfortunately, both French units are under
short-range crossing fire...

The combat went badly for Ron (who spent much of the game
rolling nothing but ones and twos), and his defeated cuirassiers
are rallying in the field. Meanwhile his infantry, trapped on the
bridge, are at least fighting back while they get the crap
shot out of them.

No more game photos, but suffice to say that by turn seven, not only were both of Ron's regiments understrength (requiring them to retreat from the field) but his guns were charged and taken by the dragoons (despite a game blast of canisters that killed four horsemen. His infantry had to rally on the bridge in full view of Mark's infantry and guns and would probably not survive to retreat!

So a solid victory for Mark. Though, to be fair, Ron rolled badly all game, and even his heavier cav (+1 versus lighter cav) didn't help. Both enjoyed the game and seemed to like the rules despite the fiddliness of one-to-one melee alongside multi-bases.

They were also impressed by the look and feel of the Wofun miniatures. Which allows me to segue into the Paperboys I've built this week:

A DBA "camp" base for medieval Scots. As the miniature
soldiers are 3D, I removed the paper figures, but the tent and
shields look pretty good!

Added a light gun to my Continental troops guarding the
America250 book display at work. Unfortunately,
their command base was destroyed in action.

Til next time...

Remote Charge!

Today I taught my brother Josh to play Charge! over Discord.

A bit tricky. But interesting, as it turned out.

I picked the classic Sawmill Village again for the scenario.

Like my previous Charge! game, I reduced the table
size, moves and ranges, substituting cm for inches.

Navarre Regiment, Bulkeley's Regiment and Royal Ecossais.

Essendale, Royal Kempston and Calein Highlanders.

Setup.

As per the scenario, we set up in opposite corners. In hindsight (given it took us three hours to do this) we should have set up across the long edges. The goal was either to seize the center of the field, or reduce two of the opposing three battalions to under 50%.

I took photos after each move and sent them to Josh over Discord. It may have been my phone, but I eventually found that Discord could not save photos I took to immediately post them - I had to go back and forth between Discord and my camera app. My brother was patient, though.

Turn One- we're both in column.

Josh, underestimating distance and moves, formed into line early.

Discovering he hadn't enough room between the buildings,
Josh "obliqued" forward and to the left, keeping his gun
on his right flank...

While my infantry debouched into the field from the hills.

By turn 6, my gun has found a commanding position
on the hill, but Josh has formed his line and is
plinking away at my gun with his own.

Turn 8: I have two regiments in line to Josh's three.
My third is hot-footing it around the tower.

Musketry begins. My gun is
down to one crewman.

The French line is breaking up
as Josh attempts to put all his men
in position to fight. Close-range
fire begins.

Turn 11: the firing is furious.
My gun is now unmanned.

Josh's left-hand regiment is down to half strength and
will have to fall back out of the battle. My 
nearly-equally-reduced right-hand unit forms into
column (meaning it can fight in four ranks to Josh's two).

As the French unit retreats,
Josh hopes to lay on to my
flanking column before his own
lads get into his line of fire.

Turn 12: My column is badly hurt by a volley but then
charges in...

And wins the combat, as my flanking column overruns
the left-hand French and manuevers...

... into position to charge a flank.

At top center, my center regiment is marking away out of range of Josh's swinging right flank, as it is one man from being half strength and thus losing me the game. This is because in front of the French line can be seen my worn-out assault column falling back out of the fight.

On turn 15, the 14-strong French
to the left are retreating; I've narrowly won.

End result:

• Two French regiments reduced under 50%.
• One British regiment reduced under 50%, another at 17 strong out of 32, and gun knocked out.

I'd say honours were about even.

Mistakes were made, of course. 

• Shooting is semi-simultaneous, so that those killed in a turn may return fire in the next. I thought that only happened during the same turn rather than the next, so that Josh (as the first player) lost troops to my return casualties fire, but could not in turn fire his own casualties in his next turn.
• Unit-retreating begins at 50% strength, not 50% minus one.
• An understrength unit is not simply wiped out when contacted, but still fights - if at half effect. This made a difference when my flanking column contacted Josh's understrength unit and we decided that, as in Warhammer, it was automatically eliminated.
• Finally, playing the game photo by photo was wearying, and video would have been quicker and clear. (The catch being that an overhead camera would make it hard to tell flat units apart...) I couldn't figure out how to start; a video call would have done the trick, but then I think I could not have taken photos for this blog.

Ah, well. It was a practical experiment, and above all I got to play a game with my little brother, which happens quite rarely. Even with voice and still photos only, it was enjoyable.

I am almost done with the Saxons for the 960 Project; just a flag or two and a handful of alternate shields to add and then I can send them off to Peter Dennis. (He's offered to base them for those of us across the pond, so shipping in an envelope shouldn't be too difficult.)

There will also be gaming at Das Krieg Haus 2 this weekend, and I'll try to make it. See you after.

Battle of Blasthof

This is a game I've wanted to play for close to thirty years. Well, to be fair, I did play it with my first pack of 28mm AWI Wofuns, years before I started this blog, but I was using the original "beginner" rules then. This time is with the Athena Books edition which I hope to run at Das Krieg Haus. All moves and ranges are converted from inches to centimeters.

The forces:

2nd Foot, Yorbourne Dragoons, and Blew's Battery

 Saillant Regiment, 1st Cheval and Jaune Battery.

Deployment. My apologies: closer examination
will reveal the refuse of the farmer's feline harvest.

I did not play a true solo game with intent to win, I simply put the "Electoral" Brits on the defense while the "Imperial" French aggressively moved to seize the bridge. As it proved, this wouldn't be good tactics, but it did provide opportunities to test all the mechanics.

Turn 1: Both sides move, Brits cautiously - except to
cross the river with cavalry.

Turn 2: Closer to bridge. French cav reforming,
with intend to hold off Brit cav from preventing
a crossing.

Turn 3: Brit cav tempt French to charge. Notice that
the British guns have been plinking at the French horse,
who thus far have three casualties.

Turn 4: Cavalry charge. French lose due to 4 casualties
from crossing artillery fire, though killed two Brits
in melee. Infantry crossing bridge.

I used the SCRUD method for the 1-1 fighting. One combat was 2-1, so its side got to double the score and I rolled separately. Infantry melee is simpler, one die-score of casualties per 10 men fighting.

Notice that until this point, the French battery was entirely masked. It fired its first shots and killed one British gunner, who was immediately replaced by a nearby infantryman.

Turn 5: French cav retreats one move past guns while Brits rally.
Infantry gets onto bridge but takes 11 casualties
from guns and musketry. I forgot that canister allows full score
to hit between 6-12", so it could've been even worse.

Turn 6: French horse retreats second move. French infantry charges. British canister causes only two casualties! Also I think I forgot to roll for British musketry on the way in - there should have been three dice of long-range (ie half casualty) fire.

19 infantry a side, at one die per 10 men (I'll use full dice, though the second ought to be halved). The French win the melee, 9 casualties to 3! (plus two prisoners), but are now at half strength of their original 32 and must retreat. They fail to capture the colour (on a 6), which would have been a consolation.

I should have tried column attack here, which would have allowed four ranks of the column (16 figures) to fight versus two (eight figures) of the line. It probably would have come out the same.

Brits, recovered, charge the French guns, taking two casualties to canister on the way. One gun is contacted. Gunners cannot fight and are automatically deleted.

Turn 7: French cav rally. Both sides' infantry retreat.
The Yorbourne Dragoons take the second French gun,
whose crew do not have time to spike
(would be hit during the spiking move).
Brit guns fire canister at the retreating infantry on the bridge,
again causing only two casualties!

Owing to the order of actions, in which artillery fires before charges go in, it would normally be possible for the French gun to get a shot off, but the cav are too close (less than 3cm).

Current casualty score: 

• Brits: 18 of 60
• French: 34 of 58.

Turn 8: The now understrength French have clearly lost, but as the bridge is the objective and they're still on it, we'll do one more turn. Infantry fall back again, Saillant are now off the bridge. To prevent them being charged by the dragoons, ten rallied French cav charge six Brits, meleeing among the guns. Three casualties to one, plus a prisoner - the British horse are down to two men and (at 1/3 strength or less) out of the game. This will give the French the opportunity to retrieve their guns, even under fire from the intact British battery.

Just for the heck of it, the British battery gets off two more rounds of fire before the French are out of range. They cause two more casualties to the infantry.

Turn 11: Both British units are done rallying.
They can both return to the bridge by turn 15,
so, like Soubise's Electorals, have thoroughly won.

End total: 

• Brits: 22 casualties, including three prisoners. Serious casualties to infantry regiment, cavalry almost eliminated.
• French: 38 casualties, including entire gun crew and over half an infantry regiment. Guns retrieved from field.

I think this went pretty well. And it was surprisingly fun. At this small scale, the inch-cm conversion worked very well. My first thought for playing this scenario at Das Krieg with more than two players is to raise each base to a regiment, thus having five battalions and two horse regiments against four and three respectively. The two guns would remain, being appropriate for the size of fight.

My other thought is to run "Kleine Krefeld" from Charles S. Grant's first Wargaming in History volume, but that is a less "setpiece" action. I may try it myself in the cm scale at home. 

Speaking of which, I found Grant's Scenarios for Wargamers on ebay and have a copy on the way. Looking forward to reading it.

Thanks for reading.

Hurricon 2024: Saturday

Three more games. This has been a more relaxed convention than the last one, and I even dared to run my own game!

The first was Pete Panzeri's Op: Market Garden game, part two (He'd done the first five or so days of the battle on Friday). This is the same operational scale and ruleset as a D-Day game at Krieg Haus broadcast by Sitrep Podcast which I missed, so it was good to get into this one. Hopefully we will see a Bulge version in December. It was quite elaborate - the table stretched from the Dutch border to well north of Arnhem. This means the minis were purely representative - each infantry base, vehicle and gun represents roughly a company, squadron or battery.

The Einhoven sector, clear of Germans by this point.

I was 82nd Airborne, in charge of the sector from Nijmegen to Arnhem where the Brits and Poles (who'd gotten there early thanks to good weather) were slowly running out of ammo and equipment.

Part of my initial position. The Nijmegen bridge is unbroken,
but the forward edge of XXX Corps is jammed on it.

Some supporting artillery.

More of the 82nd, with Arnhem to the left and ...

beleaguering Germans to the right!

There are many phases to a turn (representing a day), many of them administrative - supply, air cover (including a bad-weather check), bombardment, etc. When playing demo games, I feel the best are those where the GM simply tells you what to roll, but the rules seemed fairly simple regardless - each base or vehicle added two dice to a pool, sometimes increased or reduced owing to assorted circumstances - 

For example, if a dropzone, represented by the supply canister
at right center, is under fire, or if a command element (on the hill
at center) is isolated enough to be destroyed.

- and any sixes rolled were hits and removed a base. The choice was that of the player, so if there was a primarily-armor formation, infantry units with it could be "ablative."

Closeup south of Arnhem. I hastily decamped some troops
to the ridge to hold off the Germans coming in from the west,
and headed the rest towards Arnhem to help 1st Div, still holding out.

Artillery support eliminates monst of the panzers,
then along comes the XXX Corps column.

I also started building a Bailey bridge to get my infantry across.

At this point, another panzer column crosses east of Arnhem...

.. while the north side swarms with bad guys.

Some more, during the "air cover" phase.

XXX Corps hurries toward Arnhem.

... While heavy bombers unsuccessfully try to interdict
the panzers in the woods.

I've got the Bailey bridge up.

Boating some of the 82nd into Arnhem to help hold off the Germans.
(Quicker than getting to and across the bridge - remember this image
represents several miles, and it would take a turn or more and mean
getting in the way of tanks that must use the bridge or nothing.

Furious combat in Arnhem.

Germans streaming in.

The dead pile.

XXX Corps with tank destroyers leading are almost there.

They have a clear road - a couple turns of concentrated bombardment
and the panzers this side of the river are now gone.

End result - a minor victory for the Allies, as we a) held more buildings than the Germans and b) had at least a few tank units across. My view was a bit constricted as I was concentrating on the 82nd sector, but while I had some scary moments, the player handling 1st and Polish Brigade was earning his pay too. It looks crude, but this was an excellent and strategic game with a very good GM. I even came away from it with my very own Combat Infantryman's Badge.

At this point, I paused - I had not got into Jeff's game as I hoped, so I roved the hall:

Blood and Plunder.

Gaslands.

Salamis, also by Pete Panzeri.

Another Quar demo:

Some of Jeff's NW Frontier game, I think:

Some magnificent 3D prints - here a CG4 glider.

Fantasy skirmish.

More ancient naval:

Chariot race. The buildings were reset
next day for a gladiator game.

Wings of War.

At this point, I bit the bullet, bought and assembled a couple more packs of Wofun Paperboys (and some paper rulers), and ran a Charge! scenario for the first time with my Pocketmod ruleset.

Meeting engagement between Stephen of Raven Banner Games,
who provided the minis and mat, and another guy named Steve.
Books for hills as with the original.

Each side started in column. Stephen aimed to put one
of his guns on the hill. Movement and shooting went well.

There were some cavalry clashes, which turned out more
problematic because CC in Charge! is man-to-man rather than
one die per 8 men (for infantry) or per shot (for guns).
The other issue was morale - I kept forgetting that cavalry
are understrength at 2/3 casualties, not 1/2.

In general, it went well. Here Steve captures one of Stephen's guns.

I did this on the spur of the moment - I wish I'd thought to bring some of the troops I already had, though. I'd forgotten how difficult it is to construct the Wofun MDF cannon - one, having broken both trail pieces, will have to be converted to a howitzer! More difficult to run than I expected, but like Quar, a very useful playtest that will help me improve both the rules and my GMing.

Another TSATF game I observed with delight, this one a Mexican scenario between Pancho Villa and Federales. An elaborate setup:

A lovely Curtiss Jenny.

Fantasy jousting, with Halflings...

And camel riders.

Lord of the Rings 15mm Rohirrim.

And Uruk-Hai.

A Crusade game.

I'll pause here, because the post is getting really long. Next time, Sunday and loot!