The Lilies Triumphant

 A quiet day ahead, no large map projects, some tweaking to do with a couple but nothing else except wait for Storm Agnes, what used to be known as bad weather, at least it will keep the weathermen happy while BBC reporters don wellies and look for puddles to stand in and 16 year old females howl that the end is nigh.

No club last night, the school was having a sixth form meet for parents or some such and therefore parking was going to be at a premium, so we decided to give it a miss, I therefore offered a game here in the even more spacious budding War Room. It was going to be Italian Wars as I missed last months game with Julian due to his work schedule, it was a four player battle French vs Imperial/Spanish, Jimi and I were Imperials and Dan and Fran were the French. The sides were equal in units but quite different in the make up of the forces, the French infantry was slightly inferior to the Imperial foot but they had a Swiss pike block to make up for it, their cavalry was superior to the Imperial horse but with a little bit of luck that could be handled. It was a simple game as Dan had not played before and Jimi and Fran had had only one small introductory game at the club, there was a crossroads in the centre of the open battlefield which one side or the other had to capture.

We split the armies into two divisions each, I was opposite Dan while Jimi held our right flank, Dan had held back his Italian pike so I saw an opportunity to race forward and assault his Landsknechts before the cautious Italians could intervene, he also left one of his gendarme units in the rear mistakenly taking them for less armoured Archers, so I also felt that as I had the one elite cavalry unit in our army I could take on and beat his advanced cavalry. On my right Jimi also advanced quickly with his infantry while his cavalry were slowed down due to an annoying hill to their front.

 

Jimi's infantry.

Imperial left flank.

Swiss advance while Old Band wait.

The Imperial army received a Papal blessing so advanced confidently as the battle opened, the French artillery opened up and handed out some heavy losses to Jimi's Landsknechts, a bad start, nonetheless his men drove on. My cavalry were soon in action against Dan's gendarmes and for a moment, just a moment it looked like things were going to plan, then disaster struck and my elite cavalry were destroyed while the others were held up and losing the fight. On the right our plan to put some hurt into the Swiss before they came to blows was in disarray, Jimi's artillery, skirmish screens and Spanish shot failed miserably to inflict casualties on the burghers from the mountains. The best mercenaries in Europe smashed into the Spanish pike block and quickly routed it, this loss caused the nearby Landsknechts to stop their advance and retire, Plan A had failed. Nearby Fran and Jimi's cavalry now clashed and this went too and fro but eventually the French won the upper hand.

French and Imperial Landsknechts clash.

Old Band still skulking.

Just before the end.

I had now managed get one of my pike formations into action but it was a hard slog, my cavalry were in a mess and then the hard fighting pikes were hit in the flank by cavalry sent over by Fran, this was the death knell of the army, the Imperials had shot their bolt and could now only react as the still largely untouched French army swamped the battlefield.

Useless French artillery (Jimi's)

Triumphant Swiss.

And there you have it, a great game and a lovely wargaming spectacle. I had been hoping for a little luck for my cavalry and didn't get it, on my other flank Fran's incredible die luck was the complete opposite of Jimi's. Our plan to shoot up the Swiss as they advanced was a disaster while the French artillery in contrast knocked lumps out of our infantry. 

In other news I finished a second unit of Jinettes/Ginets for the Imperials, light cavalry have still to make their mark on my battlefields and I am not sure they ever will in stand up fights. I also took stock of where I am with the Imperial army, I needed one more pike block and quite a few cavalry units so these were ordered and are on their way, the pikes arrived from Wargames Foundry yesterday. My favourite heavy cavalry types from Steel Fist are out of stock and Simon is unwell so I turned to the Perry's for these, I have went for the metal Scurrours from their Wars of the Roses range which I think will do, I have one unit on the way and if they are OK I will get some more to finish the army off. Casting Room Miniatures do a heavy cavalry type figure but it is not up to standard and is quite wooden and mainly unarmoured. The use of plastic even jumped into my mind, but thankfully only for a few nanoseconds, although I suppose I could drill out the plastic lance and replace with metal, but only in the most dire of cirumstances.

Not a lot on the cards at the moment, mate Matt Crump is recovering so no games here or in Penrith for the moment, nothing else planned for the war room for now and I have guests over the next couple of weekends (I think) so only weekdays are free for now. Italian Wars albeit much smaller will be at the club next week against Simon.

The dice below were left behind as Jimi left last night, they are for sale although the 1, 2 and 3 facings will need refurbished while the 4, 5 and 6 facings are like new.

Up Against it.

 Bolt Action last week, it was supposed to be Dux Britaniarrum, and I wanted to try something new, I am trying to get all my WWII stuff on the table at least once, so I decided to take my Volksgrenadiers, beautiful figures from Empress Miniatures. I did some research into these guys and you can field an Assault Platoon or a Rifle Platoon for Chain of Command or the same in Bolt Action with a bit of jigging about, BA only gives them as inexperienced, this is not quite right but I went that route anyway.

My whole force was inexperienced, I took four squads all armed with assault rifles apart from the LMG team, I also gave two of the squads a halftrack. Neither CoC or Bolt Action seem to know what to do with these vehicles and the rules are pants, but I wanted to get my men into action quickly and with added support from the LMG in the 251, and no, I don't allow a transport to get lifted simply because someone unfriendly is close by. I was playing 'Bad Luck' Jimi with British, he had an elite Commando squad and three others supported by a sniper, mortar (no FOO), an AT gun and a Sherman. Did I mention my support was a Hetzer?

There were five objectives roughly along the centre line, two of which were very close to our own table edge so there would be a fight for the remaining three. I quickly deployed my halftrack and ran my intial troops forward as fast as I could to narrow the range to the enemy, I had warned Jimi that I was taking Volksgrenadiers but he hadn't done his homework and on he came. I opened up and the British began to take horrendous casualties from the assault rifles, I suffered the odd hit from the sniper and thankfully the mortar began a trek across the battlefield to get a shot in, not having an observer. The Sherman and the anti-tank gun turned up, I managed to keep away from the AT gun but the Sherman started lobbing shells at my boys in the centre, not very well as it turned out, sadly it was approaching the squad which had lost its panzerfaust, "Hans, don't touch it, it is dangerous and Herman ist kaput" (no one picks it up in BA of course, yet children and old women could use one). I digress, my Hetzer crew had decided not to turn up until turn four and duly missed with their first shot, in return they were stunned by a reply from the Sherman. Having got the range they did not miss with their second shot and the Sherman went up in flames.

By this time I was doing very well on my left and Jimi was losing units at an alarming rate, in the centre I rushed for the mid objective past the flaming tank so that we both contested it. It was turn five and the British were suffering at least 60% casualties as the Volksgrenadiers turned their right flank and the Hetzer was about to run amok on the left. We shook hands and called it a day, true to form Jimi had some bad dice luck on several occasions while I was fairly average. I had managed to keep my infantry in cover until they could use their assault rifles to overwhelm the smaller British squads and teams, despite them being easier to kill Jimi did not have a great deal of success in that endeavour.

I took a break from painting Italian Wars and built my new Rubicon kits. I managed to get two versions of the T-26 by not sticking the top deck with the turret on to the hull, I can now have it as the twin turret MG version or another 45mm single turret, I have one already, there is a bit of a bad fit with the vision plate on the front left, I noticed this on my original tank as well, it is a bit more pronounced on this model as I wanted the decks to be swopped, I will live with it, just. The 250/7 mortar carrier is a lovely little model, you also get a spare mortar and crew to dismount, but I didn't want them, the whole point was to have it mobile. When I questioned its use in Chain of Command I was told because of the scale it would be off table, damn, money down the drain I thought, but then a nice gentleman put up the ranges for the 80mm mortar from a manual he had and the minimum was 65 yards, and this meant around 18" in Chain of Command. It came to light that other medium mortars had pretty much the same minimum ranges. Yes it would be desperate to fire the mortar at that range but it could be done, it can be used on a 6x4 table, the muffled cries were silenced by "play the period, not the rules", that gave me a smile. I might only bring it in on a table larger than 6x4 but then again.......

We have been slowly emptying the shop of all the junk that has built up over the years and managed to sell the last of the actual shop fittings, and last weekend they were collected. I now have a really large space to play in until the builders turn up hopefully early next year, it really is a large space, upstairs the same area has two bedrooms, a corridor, walk in cupboards and a dining room.

As I said above I put the Italian Wars to the side building the kits, I have only just finished cleaning and priming some Spanish Jinettes and have yet to pick up a brush, I have some map projects which I might concentrate on this week and do some extra time on them, so you won't see them for a bit yet.

The dreaded Black Powder last night, ACW this time with Fran's amendments. The scenario was loosely based on the arrival of the 1st Division at Gettysburg fighting against Heth so it was an outnumbered Union force against a gray tsunami intent on clearing McPherson's Ridge. I was on table awaiting the arrival of the Iron Brigade, I had small regiments in my brigade against two very large Confederate brigades on my flank, the Rebs had to break both Federal brigades to win, how successful they would be would in a large part be down to Lady Luck despite their numbers.

Fran had for added flavour given me a small skirmish unit of dismounted cavalry, a left over from Buford's force, by the end he wished he hadn't bothered. These men were way out in front of my line and for a moment held up the Confederate advance then fell back behind the thin blue line. As the enemy approached I unleashed hell in a cloud of musket smoke and the Rebs shuddered to a halt their leading regiments taking heavy casualties, but the brigade to my immediate right still managed to struggle up the hill.

The massed gray ranks.

Steady boys.

Fire!

The first charge hit my boys but to everyones surprise was repulsed and caused some disorganisation in the ranks following, just as I was feeling superior my centre regiment broke and the reserve had to make its way forward. Another Rebel assault went in and this time my boys narrowly failed to stand but had stopped the victorious Sesech from advancing further, my second and last reserve regiment now took its place in the line and the Rebs went back again. I had also managed to stabilise my centre and some bad command rolls stopped Fran from taking advantage of my weakness. Time and again despite my best efforts Fran managed to make saving rolls only one failure of which would have spelt doom for his regiments. Eventually however I was forced to withdraw, my men could look the Iron Brigade now arriving in the eye and in my mind had saved the day.

Edward's mass undone by their slowness.

The Iron Brigade sets up just in time.

On my left things had gone awry for both sides, Edward's two brigades due to a combination of horrendous die rolls and terrain took almost two hours of the evening to get into action, Alex's Iron Brigade also had problems turning up from turn 2. This meant that as the sun set these two forces eventually got to hand to hand combat in the woods and the Union line held, helped by the death of one of the enemy brigade commanders and the fact they were elite. Despite my brigade having broke the Rebs had failed to break both Federal brigades.

Fran and I had enjoyed some desperate fighting on our part of the battlefield and his tremendous luck at saving rolls had frustrated my efforts time and time again but I was eventually pushed back. On the other flank command rolls ruled the action, Edward took the whole evening to advance to contact and Alex also suffered but not as badly in bringing the Iron Brigade to the front line. I find this and the disorder rules the most frustrating part of Black Powder, Fran had sorted the disorder thing out but failing to move turn after turn is a nightmare, a bit like not getting the right command dice in Chain of Command, there is nothing you can do.

I am taking part in another Chain of Command campaign run by the lads from Grange-over-Sands based on the battle of Gazala, I am commanding a German platoon, their are six of us and we should be kicking off in a few weeks. The club may be closed next week so we are unsure what will be happening next week.

Normans again!

 What a fantastic spell of warm weather we are having, almost like a late summer, a tad uncomfortable at night but I can live with that as no doubt 'Person who gives birth' Nature will get her/its/whatever own back later.

On a more serious note it was Chain of Command at the club this week, we took a scenario from the 1940 Blitzkrieg book with the Italians riding on the back of German good fortune and invading the south of France. I was the French and took a Motorised Platoon with a Panhard armoured car and a Renault R35 tank along with an extra infantry squad and mortar as back up, you get a lot more support points in this book. Rob had added an extra section to his platoon along with a couple of tankettes and an anti-tank gun, there may have been more but that is all I saw or knew about.

The Italian squads are huge, 16 or so men with two LMG teams, so able to throw out a lot of firepower, hence why I had taken two vehicles, anyway the Italians turned up, orgainised themselves and then slowly advanced. I brought on one squad on my right but kept them out of LOS until such time as I needed them, Rob had to capture all my Jump Off Points to win, a huge ask to be honest. Not such a great ask after all it would seem as I realised, courtesy of Rob, that my support would only arrive on Turn Two, in Chain of Command many times you never get to Turn Two, so as a little tankette turned up to support the Italians and I had no anti-tank it looked like game over, no matter how silly the little vehicle looked, if you don't have anything to kill it, it suddenly looks very frightening.

My grenade launchers who never fired once.

That damn tankette.

The Italians arrive.

As I contemplated an early night Rob brought me back into the game by throwing three sixes and ending the turn! It was now Rob that looked like he was going nowhere as my armour and mortar turned up, as did another squad to hold my left. I got lucky and chalked up a couple of wounds on NCO's and wiped out at least one squad as Italian morale fell and they went to ground.

My armour.

Rob tries an advance.

To enable my Panhard crew to see the enemy.

The little tankette had to be destroyed, time after time my armour either did not see it or did see it but couldn't hit it, it was sent backwards a couple of times but was never in danger of brewing up, luckily for me its firing on my infantry was abysmal. I got kind of fixated on the damn thing and kept thinking one good shot will get rid of it but it never did. He had another in the box even if I had killed it.With my armour at last pushing forward and Rob's anti-tank gun being as effective as my gunners and mortar rounds falling with impunity he decided to withdraw.

Grrrr.

The Italians on the back foot.

A good game as always with Rob, but the scenario is a bit loaded, if the French do not get their supports on quickly then they may as well look for a white flag, OK it would still take time to capture the JOP's but there would be no doubting the outcome. On the other hand once the French do get their support their defence hardens and I would think it impossible for the Italians to get all the JOP's. This means then that part is out the window and the winner is whose Force Morale can hold out best.

The very next day I had a game of War and Conquest organised with new player Stuart who lives only 45 minutes away, I got in touch with Stuart by chance on Facebook as he had posted a game with a friend of mine. I love War and Conquest, it is my second favourite rule set and I don't get nearly enough games so I jumped at the chance when Stuart said he was available. He was bringing, yes, Normans! You know I have no time for William and his usurpers and they are very tough in WAC, I was going to face them with my Saxon Heptarchy, I would therefore be low on armour and elite fighting units but my Saxons are veterans of many successful battles against Normans.

 On the day we faced off and I put my elite Gedriht on my right and then expanded my line to the left where my cavalry sat, I also had four groups of skirmishers to the front, hoping to quickly finish off any Norman missile troops before the lines clashed. Stuart put most of his cavalry on his right and one skirmish unit on his left, the Norman infantry held the centre while allied Anglo-Danes were on his left (Stuart had to make up the 3,000 points).

Saxons on the left, Normans on the right.

 

Saxon King.

Anglo-Danes and Norman army.

Both sides advance.

Plan A did not work well and my skirmishers were nearly all forced back while causing less than a nuisance to the Normans. I pushed my Ceorls and the young Warriors to the left to close down the area in front of the enemy cavalry and make them have no choice but to attack my infantry. I advanced my Gedriht quite quickly into javelin range of the Anglo-Danes while on their left my Franks slowly advanced, these were quickly picked on by the Norman archers and began to lose quite a lot of men giving me a bit of a fright.

 

Action in the centre.

Norman shock cavalry.

The Saxon left.

It was now that the main lines clashed, the Franks hit the Norman crossbows who despite everything managed to stand and hold them, I looked skyward, the Franks were back to normal. The Gedriht on the other hand slaughtered the Anglo-Danes and sent them packing, sadly however their pursuit moves were lacking and the enemy escaped. On my left the Norman cavalry had charged in, my Ceorls held magnificently despite their leader being killed and along with the young Geoguth soon turned the tables on the cavalry. The Norman centre now found itself in trouble as the Franks had heard my whinging and routed the annoying crossbows and slammed into the Liberi behind and also vanquished them, well done lads, the other Liberi unit was taken out by some Duguth. As things turned sour one Norman cavalry unit hurled itself at my mounted Duguth and swept them away, but it was too little too late. Stuart handed over his sword.

The Norman centre under pressure.

A close up.

My hardy Ceorls.

 Almost five hours of combat and it was like five minutes, an exciting battle. I made a mistake with my skirmishers expecting too much from them, I should also have covered the frontage of the Franks, no wonder they were cheesed off with me. I did have an opportunity to wipe out the Huscarls but thought no, you impetuous fool, do not grab defeat from victory, I would instead let my javelins wear them down as there were only a few left around their leader. Stuart went away with thoughts of reorganising his army for the next clash, I think then I shall bring my Romano-British to the fight, you can find Stuart's report here.

I wanted a bit of a break from Italian Wars painting or at least fighting units, so I put together a couple of stands for Imperial generals, Charles of Bourbon and Georg von Frundsberg from Pavia. I continue to have a bit of a break and am doing some artillery at the moment.

I have not spent a lot of money on myself this year as was the plan drawn up with the suits at the LMF, but decided I deserved something, a couple of somethings actually. I got another Soviet T-26 for my early war Russians, this will be built with two MG turrets, there are actually 10 variations in the Rubicon kit. I also got a SdKfz 250/7 which is a mortar carrier, I just liked the idea of it and I suspect it would be a dangerous opponent in Chain of Command. NO, it would have to be off table cried the regulars on Facebook, damn thought I, have I wasted my hard earned cash. Coming to the rescue was George Kettler with the German 80mm mortar manual, 60 meters (65.4 yards) is the minimum range for this mortar, so about 18" in CoC speak, take that! Others are similar ranges, the American and Russian 'medium' mortars for instance were mooted. These vehicles will be in the queue after the Imperial cannons.

I am returning to Dux Britanniarum on Tuesday, well that's the plan, I really enjoyed this game so thought why not.