Remote Wargaming

 Well I have done it, dipped my toe into the new technology. I suffered the usual heartache during the week when I asked the missus to help me try out my set up, for some reason, obviously just to annoy me and test my patience, it asked if I wanted to invite someone by email, I said yes, filled in the form but then could only Cancel the thing, not Send, this still happens. Trying to refrain from turning the air blue we persevered and after an hour or so I had the battlefield view on my iPad and close ups on my iPhone, so far so good.

I got in touch with Stewart and we set up a War and Conquest game for this morning, a regular game so 2,500 points and a 6x4 foot table, I would take the Saxons and Stewart the Romano-British, now the latter have a bit of an advantage in that they can have large shields but I had a plan. My plan was to use larger Warbands, so I took Frankish, yes them again, and Pict allies while boosting the numbers of the Saxon units, I also took two cavalry units which is unusual for me, I intended to use them as skirmishers but it didn't happen. The enemy had one Comitatus, one Pedyt and the rest were Milites, one with extra armour, my men were mainly unarmoured apart from the King's Gedriht and one cavalry unit.

I managed to get two pieces of terrain and put them way out on both flanks, rough ground and a small copse, Stewart only took one, a large shallow hill. My intention from the start was to fling my warbands forward and quickly engage hoping my numbers would offset the large shields, it looked like the British were going to probe my right flank with their cavalry and wait to see how that turned out.

 I thought I would be in trouble on the right so sent my left flank cavalry running that way while the rest of the army, apart from the Ceorls and the Picts who were facing the hill, ran at full tilt towards the British line. My one unit of cavalry on the right was not going to last long but I thought they would hold the enemy cavalry long enough for me to smash their infantry, especially with help on the way. Stewart advanced his line a short distance and then went into shieldwall, this meant I should be able to get my charges in first but the extra protection might stop me.

 

The lines crashed as I lost my cavalry, to his disgust the Kings household were held by the peasants, not a good omen, the Franks pushed their foes back but the Duguth also were held, only one shieldwall had broken, the King looked around nervously as did the Duguth with the enemy cavalry victorious on their flank and rear. A further two rounds of ferocious combat followed and slowly but surely, with mounting casualties, the Romano-British line broke. Forced now to attack the Dux sent his bodyguard down the hill and into the nervous Picts, the northerners could not stand and fled, the nearby Milites and Ceorls glowered at each other within javelin range. The second Saxon cavalry unit had done well and only just failed to fight off the enemy after being hit in the flank, however their sacrifice had ensured the Saxon infantry could slaughter their retreating foes. A Saxon win was on the cards as both household units turned to face each other and trade insults.

 The low battery lights on the iPad were blinking and the iPhone had already given up the ghost, we got three hours of play and had managed our planned six moves each. Zoom lied to me and told me that with only three participants I would have unlimited time, it kindly let me continue after warning me my 45 minutes was up, there was only three devices on the call, duh. At the end it told me it was kindly going to give me another unlimited call if I scheduled a meeting there and then, I didn't and left it hanging for now, so I will have to give this some thought quickly. If I was limited to 45 minutes that would not do as time passes very quickly when playing, so I will look at alternatives during the week. The game from Stewart's point of view went well, he saw all the action and only on the odd occasion did he have to ask about measurements. On my part only my old back was strained again having to move both sides, perhaps I should have played on my smaller 6x4 table rather than the 9x5 but the latter gives plenty of room for dice, dead guys and other paraphernalia. So a success, will I do it again before and if normality returns, probably but we will see.

In other news I finished my Early War German platoon and got started on my Russian kits, the T28, BA10, T26 and field gun, I cleaned them up and gave them all a coat of Army Painter Army Green, I am really into spraying vehicles now, it is so much easier. A wash of AP Military Shader was given to them all then rust streaks and black chippings, I also put mud on the little T26, they all turned out very nice, well I like them. I am still waiting patiently for my German stuff from Blitzkrieg, I do have the little 3.7cm PAK, built, tomorrow I am going to prime it. I have also dug out four MG34 teams and three officers/NCO's from my lead pimple so that I can have panzergrenadiers for 1942.

 I got a nice surprise this week as the editor in charge of the Atlas sent me a draft copy of the cover for the book now that it is approaching being put together for sale in the Autumn to see what I thought. I pleased to see my name alongside that of David Bonk the author. Very chuffed.