Imperial Ambitions Thwarted

 A new game for me on club night, well I say new but it wasn't as it is yet another branch of Warlords rule sets covering everything from cavemen up until the Bolt Action era, yes my prejudices are showing. Anyway it was Wars of the Roses played with Hail Caesar.

Matt kindly let me in on the game (Dower, not Smith or Crump) and I took command of a Yorkist division on the right flank opposite Michael, the figures were all Matt's and very nice they were too, many I recognised from my own Swiss and WotR armies in the distant past, lovely sculpts. Michael came at me from the start so I decided to meet him in no mans land. We clashed very quickly and I seemed to have the upper hand, but Michael now managed to continually hold on by regularly making sixes and fives turn up on his morale throws. 

The Roses line up.

 

My Division of Yorkists.

My assault stops.

This fight now see sawed back and forth, I did lose a small and elite(?) unit of men-at-arms in the initial clashes but held my own as my boys retreated, the whole game for us went like this, I was helped by Matt bringing over a household unit to shore up my line. Over on the left the German and Irish mercenaries opposite each other continued for most of the game to ignore all commands, Matt was set upon by the Lancastrian centre and again the fighting was confused with no one getting the upper hand.

I try to bribe my mercenaries to try harder.

The unenthusiastic Germans.

Just as the clock ticked down I managed to break Michael's division but had nothing left myself and may even have been broken but we were unsure. The centre fight was still a draw and although the left had now managed to get into some vicious combat which I believe was going the way of the Germans. The game was good fun and we had a laugh, I actually thought the fighting suited the period with the commands wrestling for a win and the to and fro of movement, perhaps it was too difficult to actually destroy or force a command to retire. And of course the old bug bear of commands sitting doing nothing raised its ugly head, now and again this is a bit of fun, but when you spend almost two hours of club night basically doing nothing it is less funny.

Warlord rules are a fact of life at our club and luckily the members make it easy to join in, so you will see me doing these again whether SYW, Naps, ACW, Colonial or even WotR.

 It was time to fit in the monthly Italian Wars game with Julian. I decided to go with the rule books army lists this time, I know some wargamers detest army lists but I do not have that problem although I do prefer properly researched lists with maximums and minimums to at least give the army some kind of historical bent. I decided to use an Imperial force and used the Spanish list but also added Landsknechts as a choice, I have no idea why these would be left out of what is basically an Imperial list, perhaps in hindsight I should have used the Holy Roman Empire and added Spanish foot to it, anyway I intend to look a lot closer at the armies involved, or at least the ones I use when I get time.

So, after a call to Julian he said he would use the French as he had just painted up some Swiss pikemen, we settled on 500 points which would give us decent forces for Furioso. I took some ditches as I wanted to put some of my infantry behind defences, I messed that up as a ditch is an obstacle but not a defence. I then took a large Landsknecht pike block and a small one, then a small Spanish block and decided to try out my idea of a Spanish Colunella with a pike and shot unit, I took four units of mounted men at arms one of which was Condottieri these were supported by some Spanish light cavalry and the rest of the army had two shot units and two field guns. My plan was to keep my centre behind the ditches while shooting the enemy to bits while my cavalry overwhelmed the French right flank.

Spanish on the left, French on the right.

 

The Swiss are coming.

The French right flank.

I had modified my War and Conquest terrain chart for Italy but the dice gods scuppered both Julian and I, we got a stream and several hedges along with a wood, most of the difficult terrain was in Julian's half of the battlefield, but as I was not planning to attack it could be ignored, apart from the stream of course as the French put a large part of their army behind it.

The game opened as the French knelt for prayers, this had an uplifting effect which might benefit them in combat later but it did mean the army was late to the field and depoyed further back than the Imperials, again as I was not moving it did not matter in the grand scheme. The Swiss though decided to go straight at the enemy, this was just what I wanted as my large Landskecht block moved up to the prepared ditches, one more ditch was on their left but the diggers were a lazy bunch and could not be hurried up to complete it.

The French come on in good style.

 

A major clash over the ditch.

The French right ford the stream.

The French infantry were happy to advance as was their left flank cavalry the right stood waiting behind the stream. I moved to defend my right happy that my Condottieri would see off the enemy heavy cavalry supported by my Italian shot. I moved my men at arms up to the stream and again confident that their heavy armour would win the day decided to cross, the crossing between a nearby wood and a hedge turned out to be too narrow and it took me too long to get across and form up for an attack, both my light cavalry and elite knights were disordered by the water. I did manage to chase away some mounted crossbowmen and despite their disadvantage my knights knocked back the French heavies, but not fast enough and another French unit ploughed into their flank as they celebrated, thus destroying them. Thereafter we both glowered at each other across the stream. My Condottieri also failed to live up to the faith I had put into them and failed to beat the enemy, although my arquebusiers managed to wipe out the mounted crossbows to their front.

Desperate fighting in the centre.

The Spanish centre has gone.

Now for the massive clash in the centre as the Swiss approached the Landsknechts behind the ditch and had their formation disrupted crossing, this was what I had hoped for and the bitter melee began. The Swiss took heavy casualties but their morale held steady and the fighting continued. The rest of the French infantry splashed through the stream and more hand to hand combat ensued, although one disordered pike block was routed they had more than enough men to continue the fight. On my right the Colunella had been dealing out casualties from their shot but now that these had withdrawn for the clash of pikes it settled into another slog.

In the centre despite the loss of troops the Swiss now turned the tables on the defenders and they broke and ran, my centre had gone and a huge hole had opened between both wings of my army, I reluctantly left the field.

What a cracking game, halfway through the pendulum of luck swung in favour of the French as Julian's dice improved, not hugely but enough to ensure my defeat. My cavalry on which I had hoped would give the French trouble in the end were pathetic, partly my own fault for trying to squeeze them through a small area. We had a few events throughout the game, the French prayers being answered was one, then any Swiss troops would retire due to non payment of dues and I sighed for a moment, but it did not effect units already in contact, this would have been disastrous had they not gone impetuous and still had to close the Imperial line, damn. The last event meant one French unit became fatigued which again turned out to be toothless. I really like these touches. What happened to the diggers you ask, well it became obvious that their ditch was going to be more of a problem for me than Julian, so I told them to down tools and sent them packing to the rear.

I have some Steel Fist Landsknecht arquebusiers ready for painting but as I am away for a bit I decided to leave them until I return. These are gorgeous figures full of character with some fearsome beards.

My computer woes seem to now have been put to bed, mate Simon has delivered a super machine and helped me with any questions which have arisen, my Wacom problems also, touch wood, seem to have been cured by the new machine. As an aside the keen eyed among you might notice my second monitor sits on a box set of Def Comedy Jam which I got years ago as I enjoy stand up comedy, this muck is now at last useful.

Our tribulations over the now defunct Post Office are still not over, seemingly we need the government to approve our change from business rates to domestic. So we are dealing with civil servants sitting at home dunking Hob Nobs into their morning coffee while watching daytime TV who probably have no idea where Warton is. They are unable to ensure we have power over the coming winter but will fight tooth and nail to ensure I pay more than my dues in rates.

I am now going dark for a few weeks.

&^%*$!

 More about &^%*$! in a mo. Firstly what with all the recent cowboy nonsense and after a game of What a Cowboy I took Dead Man's Hand along last week, it was a three way throw down scenario where two gangs had to steal money from a safe and a third had to stop them. If you are under 30 and easily triggered do not read any further, cultural references and body shaming will be part of the story.

I led El Arana once again, hoping against hope he would come through at last, Jimi had a bunch of Desperados and Simon led the Lazy So and So ranch hands. I sent one of my least experienced men towards Simon's side of the street just to put pressure on him, I also had 'Beaner' in ambush so he could appear anytime, anywhere. Jimi simply sent his men forward eschewing cover, Simon's cowboys, tooled up with rifles opened fire and Jimi's men began to fall, as did my brave but useless cabellero who despite getting close to the stable failed to hit at point blank range and died in a hail of lead. Despite taking losses Jimi managed to get Dumb and Dumber into the bank, however they were so inept it would take four moves to open the safe, The Spider held back waiting for the boys to crack the safe but got into a gunfight in the backyard, Fat Pedro lived up to his reputation and couldn't hit a barn door with his shotgun, as the bullets flew he bit the dust.

"My mistake, more coffins"

 Beaner now turned up in the rear of Simon's men around the Stable, they rushed to take him down, bullets hit everything except Beaner, but sadly he also couldn't hit a barn door. Simon now realised that he just couldn't sit around sniping at people, he actually had to stop the money being taken so a bit late he rushed two men towards the bank. The clunk of the safe was heard opening, Dumb was shot down through the bank windows by Simons late arrivals, The Spider kicked the back door open and entered firing like a mad man but only hit the walls as the customer service people cowered behind desks, in the alley the Mexicans had shot down the last of the Desperados. Dumber, surrounded by enemies squeezed past the surprised hombres at the door and fled, the money bags however slowed him down and he caught several bullets in the back, I still had one man left to go, he sprinted, grabbed the bags and set off. THE END

Everyone has an interest in the bank.

The Spider and his men.

Beaner leads a charmed life.

There we go, an exciting game which came down to the wire on the last move, a lot of fun and laughs which is what is required of such a game, and in my humble opinion, far better than any other cowboy game.

I have had a bit of a break from painting, well a few days at least, what with the heat and real life needing my attention. So I picked up enough to finish an Imperial cavalry unit and start another, this second one is very close to also being finished, it will be on to Landsknecht arquebusiers after that.

Today I ventured to Penrith for a game with Matt, a beautiful day and I am glad the Dungeon is cool. On arriving I found he had set up a hypothetical game in Sicily where some US troops were defending against the Germans, some of whom were Fallschirmjager, and he also had a Tiger I, scary. I had a 75mm Sherman, an M8 Armoured car and a jeep for my main supports. The Jerries had a couple more squads if I recall.

We used the Chain of Command patrol phase and jump off points at the beginning of the game, this worked very well and allowed us to get into action far quicker than a normal Bolt Action game. I kept my tank and MG jeep off the table at the beginning waiting to see where the Tiger would turn up, the rest of my men I lined up in cover where they could and sat back to see what would happen. Matt did not beat about the bush and on came the Tiger heading for my left flank, along with two infantry squads. I moved my HQ team with the bazooka towards the road keeping out of sight of the beast for now. The main German infantry attack with four squads was heading for my right, I was asking a lot of the squad there to stop the Jerries getting the objective but I also sent along a HMG, the M8 and eventually the jeep although it took a couple of turns to arrive. I now brought on the Sherman and sat it in an ambush position to wait on the cat moving, Matt had no qualms and trusted in his armour protection, he moved flank on to the Sherman and the 75mm barked, or tried to as the shell scraped the paint work, the Tiger returned fire and also failed to penetrate.

The Yanks are here.

So are the Krauts.

Lovely table to fight over.

As the turns counted down the troops I had moved into the large courtyard and a two story dwelling were proving a problem for any Germans moving towards my centre and right, the Tiger was needed as support for the attack on the left. It was a new turn and a lovely blue die came out, the Sherman opened up, a six, the shell penetrated, a six, and the Tiger blew up, a six, I really needed to stop moaning about all the ones and twos I had been getting, well that's what I remember. I now moved my central squad over to the left just in time as the poor doughboys there were whittled down and ran away, things were now getting desperate for the Jerries, even though their artillery had taken out my M8.

German left flank attack stalls.

The centre, decisions, decisions.

Tiger!

Now, fire now!

A last gasp assault on my left failed while a thrust towards the centre was dealt with by the men in the courtyard supported by the Sherman, on the right some Fallshirmjager managed to mount the hill on which an objective was sitting but were wiped out by the waiting Americans. THE END.

The tenuous right flank.

Boom!

Now the Sherman has no fear.

The End.

Once again an excellent game at the Dungeon on some lovely terrain with beautiful figures, you cannot beat it. It was also nice if frightening to see a Tiger on the table, although this was surprisingly taken out quickly by a very lucky Sherman crew. I have some holidays coming up and a few other things so I am unsure when Matt and I will meet again, although he seemed keen on some SYW.

&^%*$! now what is that about you ask. Well I had some problems with my drawing tablet as I think I mentioned, I got Alexandra, who put me through hell and decided I had to uninstall/reinstall and delete all sorts of files before my machine would work. I tried but gave up knowing I had a new computer on the way. I got my new machine and ran into a different problem, I got, yes, Alexandra, who again urged me to do all that guff above. Let me talk to someone else as I am not doing that, Benjamin was just as adamant that I had to do what Alexandra was telling me. Get lost says I. Then I remembered something from the distant past (not that easy nowadays) and click, click, problem solved. I told Wacom that Alexandra and Benjamin were useless and could actually have caused me further problems and funnily enough I have not been bombarded with endless emails about 'how did we do?'

Long story short I got a new monitor so that I could continue to use two for my mapping, the new one is super duper, 24 hrs later my second monitor had a black screen, it had died, why me? Oh and of the old monitors that I have only one is compatible with the new PC, lucky white heather? The new computer is magnificent, built by mate Simon, far too powerful for anything I actually need unless Houston gets a problem and needs help and some disk space. Well done Simon.

And we now have our approval to convert the old Post Office back into a room in the house, it cost us oodles of money it should not have done, but hey, here is hoping that by next summer I will have my personal wargaming space up and running. I have boxes of paracetemol at the ready for dealing with the builders.

Smolensk: 7th Panzer humbled, but first..............

 Right, big news is I got my planning approval, not a single millimeter changed from the first application but this time a different result, begs the question why refuse the first one, but of course that would have saved me a couple of thousand pounds I could have spent on the rebuild, but what do I know I didn't go to university. I have always said the real thieves normally wear a smart suit and a tie, although that doesn't hold true for the oik that came out to inspect the building the first time.

I have also had numerous problems with my computer and drawing tablets, this has resulted in a new computer being ordered which mate Simon is going to build for me in a week or so. To this end the LMF (Legendary Map Fund) has been hemorrhaging money at a fantastic rate, a sad affair for a Scotsman.

What about some good stuff I hear you say, right, I took the Italian Wars along to the club on Tuesday night to introduce another new player to the joys of pikes and fancy dress, it was Fran this time. I once again gave my opposition the better army, the Frenchies, while I took the Imperials and kept things simple as we faced off over a blank canvas. The cavalry of both sides clashed first as the infantry slowly advanced, apart from the French Old Band pike that is, those boys are never very keen.

As the cavalry clashed I thought my left wing was going to be ridden over, but despite being hit by two Gendarme units my elite cavalry held and the combat went back and forward for the rest of the game, with no one getting the upper hand. A hazard was thrown for this flank and Fran lost a stand of mounted crossbows to desertion, not that I could take advantage of this as the clock ticked down. My cavalry on the right did get beaten, although it was after some very intense combat, at the same time I lost a Landsknecht pike block to the terrifying Swiss. I called a halt at this, so once again I had lost an introduction battle, but who cares we both enjoyed it. The club not ideal for large Italian Wars battles which take much longer than the normal three hours to play to a conclusion, although it is perfectly fine to introduce players to the period.

Scots vs Gonzaga.

Spanish Pike.

My Landsknechts about to lose out to the Swiss.

Next up was a return to the Smolensk Campaign and a game here with Matt, I had fought my way back from a couple of defeats to stand on the edge of the main Soviet supply depot, I was feeling very pleased with myself and throwing caution to the wind decided to leave my victorious panzergrenadiers in the rear and attack with a full panzer platoon, what could go wrong. Well I left any planning to the last minute due to my woes above and only gave the game a cursory thought, as well as the tanks, a PzII and four Pz38(t) I took two squads of grenadiers, I had such high hopes invested in the tanks I did not equip these guys with anything to knock out enemy tanks, they were to mop up and take the objective. Matt surprised me and along with his tank platoon, 3 BT-7's he took a KV2, he had wanted to use this from game one, in support he had two anti-tank guns, a far better thought out force than I had.

The objective.

 

Panzer Marsch!

Soviet defedner.

In Chain of Command all your vehicles have to come on on the road if there is one, I do not really like this aspect of the rules, I have heard of the arguments for it but am not convinced at this level of play. Anyway my tanks trundled on as I managed some good die rolls, Matt seemed to have a problem at first and was struggling to get his tanks on. The the KV2 turned up, sat at the end of the road like a colossus casting a long shadow, it was backed up by his command tank and the armoured dual began, my infantry meanwhile were moving along my left flank towards the station house.

The Panzerwaffe.

The monster.

 Matt kept hitting and although not knocking out a tank caused shock to build up, and once that is exceeded the crew bail out, he did however damage gun sights and wound or kill crew members. I on the other hand did manage to hit the monster but his armour saves continually staved off any bad things happening to his crew, I did manage to force his command tank off the table for a short time but this was as far as I got. At some point in the exchange one of Matt's anti-tank guns turned up in the bunker covering the road and started popping shots in my direction, first one crew ran then another.

The Red defence is too strong.

First one down, followed by two more.

Bunker.

I had lost the plot and kept hoping against hope that my tanks would win the day as my die rolling took a turn for the worst and I was struggling to move my remaining armour, isn't there something about continuing to do the same thing but expecting a different result. Matt had gone from strength to strength and got several double phases and one treble. I tried moving two tanks over to the centre of the table and traded some shots with the Russian tanks around the station, but again came off the worst. It seemed looking at the rules that my useless infantry may have managed to drive off the tanks with some luck or, if they could take the building and use a command die to end the turn it would be all over, but no, there had to be no enemy units within four inches. This clinched the deal as my command tank crew also legged it, my bad die rolling along with my incompetence and Matt's handling of his forces meant I had to give up. I have yet to get around to sorting out the damage but you might not see another armoured platoon from 7th Panzer in this campaign, and the initiative is with the Soviets. Now, bring up the panzergrenadiers.

Too little and too far.

The end.

My command tank is abandoned.

I have not got anywhere with painting this week, I did clean and prime some Imperial cavalry and actually got the base coat on the horses but nothing else.

I have however got on with maps instead and once again have several projects in the pipeline.

A work in progress.

French in Indochina.

Jordanian Civil War.

Tudor Arte of Warre 2

 We were meant to be playing a game in the Gin Pit on Sunday, but poor Rob fell over a greyhound and got concussed, so although he is getting better he won't be fit for a full days gaming, this means a quiet weekend and a game of Dead Man's Hand at the club on Tuesday. Later this month is a visit to Matt in Penrith for a game and then Julian a week later here at me casa.

On Tuesday night at the club while lost in my game I heard the chimes of an ice cream van, my first thought was what an annoying ring tone. I changed my mind when our resident chef treated everyone to an ice cream from his cool box. Well done Julian, a chuckle and an ice cream, result.