First Game in New Home!

Well, not all the minis and terrain are unpacked, so it still looks a bit sparse, but I'm ready to try it!

(It's been a long week.)

The Ga Pa mission (please excuse the lack of Swedish accent) is the simplest in the book - two full sides at either edge of table, go at it, and start rolling for final turn once there are five or fewer units remaining. We have twelve, so this may take a while... Also, it's about four in the morning as I write this intro.

Roll for officer qualities. Von Blacke of Talabecland is to the manor, but not the manner, born and thus gives his men no leadership bonus, whilst his opponent Ensign Schotte of Middenheim is blessed with invulnerability to lucky blows. Curious to start with certain rules negated for them, but while I could just pick something more interesting I can already determine who's attacker and defender in this scenario!

The Talabec (Red and Yellow sides) are spread across their table edge, with each "regiment" of pike and shot near a piece of terrain, and their dragoons in the center to support whoever needs it.

The Middenheimers (Blue and White) have their infantry to the left, and dragoons to the right ready to sweep round the hill and try to hold up that flank while their infantry overwhelms the other.

I'm afraid the tiny Wofuns make the photos a little incomprehensible. My apologies, today's report is mostly for my own practice and comprehension and the closest this gets to eye candy will be like those teensy mini M&Ms in the cylinders.

Turn 1: "Eastern" flanks move forward. (Right for the Talabec, Left for Middenheim). Dragoons on both sides fail activations on rolls of 4.

Turn 2: No one except the red Talabec pike manage to activate, moving to the edge of the forest.

Turns 3-4: The Talabec shot make it into the forest and their left flank makes it into the village, while one dragoon unit ranges ahead to spoil the Middenheimers, who have advanced into and past their own forest on one flank and round the hill on the other.

Turn 5: The Middenheimers are in range to shoot at the isolated dragoons with shot and their own dragoons. The dragoons take four casualties but their survivors pass two morale tests, then hold off the enemy pike. After this the other Middenheim dragoons roll a double one to activate and end up charging across the table towards the town.

Surviving dragoons in peril.

Both sides needed three sixes to cause a casualty.

Dragoons careen towards uncertain doom.

Turn 6: The Middenlander infantry emerge from the fallen trees, and the fleeing Talabec dragoon (singular) fails a rally check and is thus eliminated.

Turn 7: The Middenheim dragoons continue to retreat, but the rest of the blue-and-whites move to the center of the board. The Talabec cement their hold on the village and their own forest.

Turn 8: The Talabec turn aggressive, closing in on the Middenheim flanks as they in turn move towards the Talabec center. Three blue musketeers are killed by a first volley from the trees.

As the western sun streams thru the window and warms the photographer...

Turn 9: A fierce but inconclusive pike fight between Yellow and White.

Turns 10-11: Blue shot and Red pike are eliminated.

Yellow officer desperately duels his opposing number...

To no avail (the side with more 5+'s wins).

Turn 12: Yellow pike (containing the officer) is forced to retreat after shooting casualties, but cannot do so since it's blocked by shot of its own side. This means it rolls a morale check (4+) and if it fails (with a three in this case) loses that number of figures (worst case scenario!).

Turn 13: Sensing victory, the blues and whites push on. Though the officer-led pikes rally, and the shot move out of their way, their next casualties force them not to retreat but to disintegrate altogether. Everyone on the Talabec side checks morale, though only one unit retreats a quarter of its distance. In response, the Talabec dragoons return the favor against the Middenheim officer, forcing him back into his own shot.

In Turn 14, the Middenheim officer unit fails to rally and loses another three figures...!

We still have six units left, so the game isn't over! (you roll for last turn only once there are five units remaining on the board.)

In Turn 15, the Middenheim unit breaks, eliminating their officer, but the Talabec dragoons get shot up some more, down to one man. The Talabec shot in the village roll a double 1 for their activation and retreat six inches towards the board edge.

In Turns 16-18, two units (one from each side) are taken off the board, but the game still goes on. At this point the two Talabec shot units are being pushed closer to the edge by the Middenheim shot and dragoons.

Dragoons trying to sneak up on shot under cover of a wall.

Turn 19: Final turn! Unfortunately, the dragoons fail their roll to charge, and then the opposing shot in the far corner fail their rally check.

"We're done here!"

They're not quite off the board, but while it's a tie (and both officers routed from the board), I think the Middenheimers got the better of the exchange. Had this been a campaign, I'd have ended it in Turn 13 with a Middenheim victory but more survivors on both sides.

Von Blacke rolls an 8 for his fate (Wounded but Rescued), while his opponent Schotte rolls a 9 (captured honourably). 

This was a long report - longer than it looks since it took me most of the day to play (lots of breaks). Notes of interest:

• Automatic end of turn on a failed activation isn't actually all that bad because it makes the turns go by faster. There are few enough units in an army that you work through them quickly, and if I hadn't been writing a report, the game would have been over in a couple hours, tops. With more familiarity with the rules, this can be a fast game.
• The more casualties, the more difficult it is to rally. Once a 12-strong unit has fewer figures than its morale score, it can't pass since it has to subtract its casualties from the roll.
• The 6/12 combat dice allows even an understrength unit to have an effect on the game.
• Pikes and dragoons generally stand off against each other, because pikes are better when charged, and dragoons can avoid combat with Evade and Skirmish activations.
• But it's always possible to brick a roll and thus lose that "good" move.
• I have good dice - I rolled a lot of sixes today!

Thanks for your patience with this post; hope it wasn't too confusing! Back to the grindstone...

Sorry for the quietus on the blog. Been alternately too busy and too tired to post, but just got some deliveries in. First, from my talented brother:

My new work mascot, a sort of dwarf librarian.

And the BEF, all painted up:

Scottish Republican militia (one figure short)

Command group with mortar

SMG assault half-section

BUF section

My brother painted everything in the same scheme, so I imagine that all these chaps are Scots, with the blue cap, whether traditional or military, as the national "spot" colour. I look forward to trying a round or two of Kill Team with them.

I also received an order from Raven Banner Games. The first is a full pack of 18mm Thirty Years War skirmish figures which should be just the thing for games of The Pikeman's Lament.

Pike and Shot units.

With the addition of horses and holders, the Shot double as Dragoons.

The other is a selection of Peter Dennis AWI units. Partly to add to my 18th-century Imagi-nations, and partly for America-250-appropriate games at work.

British...

And American.

(Plus one battery of French artillery and a handful of Hessian riflemen.)

Not sure how to name the "American" Imagi-nation regiments - maybe borrow from Bob Cordery's alternate 1891 map?

Speaking of Cordery, I've been fiddling with Portable Wargames, in hopes of running one during Chess Club at work. Unfortunately, both the 18th-century and Napoleonic rulesets require two bases per unit, which at 60mm across won't quite fit on the two-inch chessboard squares. On the other hand, some folks on the Facebook group use Risk figures, and I do have a donated set. A third option is to play 3x3 and have each "square" take up 2x2 chessboard squares. Hmm... 

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...

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.