Full steam ahead

 The beauty of retirement on such a wet and miserable day, a wargame in the morning and a blog post in the afternoon as the rain plays on the window.

But first the disaster of club night, Matt our leader had warned that the school was having an open night and parking might be a problem, when is it not. I had an ACW game organised with Fran and set off early in the false hope I might beat the crowd, no, it was like the dodgems in the street at the back of the school and I had to park several streets away and hoof it to the club. I then got a text from Fran saying he could not get parked and had went home, he offered to walk in with a board game but I had an idea of only staying and passing some stuff on to Rob before heading home. Simon and Jimi were having a Bolt Action game (British vs Russians) and kindly let myself and Rob join in, I was British with Jimi, we had to take a Soviet officer prisoner who was settled in a house right in the centre of the battlefield.

The terrain was fairly heavy and LOS was difficult to get, both sides brought monster tanks, the British a Churchill AVRE and the Ivan's a KV2, so the infantry kept hidden for the first part of the game as one hit from either of these tanks would kill a whole squad. As the KV moved around the British dashed for the objective while the Russian infantry also gingerly advanced. Casualties mounted on both sides, as most of the enemy were situated around the objectives house I dropped artillery into the area. I was spectacularly successful and everything in the area was hit, two British squads along with the Russians, oops.

I managed to get some PIAT shots in at the beast but I may as well have thrown eggs. As it became obvious we would not get the objective Jimi turned his giant mortar on the house and blew it and its occupants to smithereens, only two, shell shocked survivors were left in the rubble. Rob declared a draw but only because there was no objective left for either side to rescue. A good end to what was looking like a barren evening.

This morning Matt Crump turned up from sunny Penrith for a War and Conquest game, he brought a Persian army so I faced it with my Seleucids, the game was 2,500 points. I took a fairly typical army with a good mix of all troop types along with an elephant, something I don't normally choose but what is a Seleucid army without one. Matt's Persians were quite numerous but lacked good melee infantry apart from some mercenary hoplites, but nearly everything carried a bow.

Seleucids left, Persians right.

 

 

 Matt forced me to go first and I decided not to faff about and sent the whole army forward, the arrows came thick and fast and my men began to fall, my little band of casualties far outweighed the Persian one, I hesitated, but continued to advance my flanks and at last my shooting had an effect as the enemy cavalry began to die and the elephant chased off some horse archers. The pendulum swung again and the Persians made some aggressive moves, I had to try and hide my hoplites behind the hill to take them out of the arrow storm.With Matt's forward movement I once again pushed the army forward and there were several clashes, the White phalanx hardly gave me a shock with a pathetic effort but the Mercenary hoplites of the enemy made an even worse effort and they broke and ran. Things began to go south for the Persians, their chariots were shot and destroyed, a couple of cavalry units ran and the Seleucids were once more on the advance in the centre. The Greek heavy infantry slammed into the poorly protected Persians and before too long the whole army had collapsed. There were troops off table hoping to come back but they would be returning on their own.

So, a good game from my perspective but a bit one sided once my infantry got into action, Matt's desperate morale throws did not help. We had a chat and might look at doing a Chain of Command mini campaign in the future. I hope to get up to Penrith for a visit next month.

After all these years wargaming I now have a lead pile, my TAG stuff came last week, more on the way, and my Steel Fist order arrived today, so the winter months will just fly by. I am now spent up and will need to give the LMF a rest in the present financial climate for now.

I have finished more heavy cavalry for the French army and added another general figure in the shape of Giovanni de' Medici, this famous mercenary commanded a large company of arquebusiers and light cavalry and at times what would amount to a complete army, he died of a wound received from a falconet gun which turned gangrenous. After this his troops and he were referred to as 'the Black Bands.'

I also finished off the small number of buildings I had left for my Italian terrain, my idea is they will come together as a couple of farms and outbuildings with or without walls. I plan to add the usual scatter of carts, boxes, civilians etc. but that's for another day. I really need to get on and get another game of Furioso in to scratch an itch.