Busy Week

 With my recovery from my operation pretty much done I decided it was maybe time to carry some boxes of my own troops to the club without help. I therefore decided on a small Italian Wars game with Rob, the recent Battle of Sanguetta seemed to fit the bill but this time I would add one more cavalry unit to each side to make the game last a bit longer.

Rob took the Florentine forces while I led the Papal States, as I have said before the Florentines had superior cavalry while the Popes had better infantry, or so I thought. Rob was cautious with his infantry while I pushed forward hoping to better them, the Florentine cavalry came on at a good pace. At first it looked like I might be going home early and ruining my wife's 'me time'. Surprisingly my condottiere put up a spirited fight and as the dust settled we had both lost a heavy cavalry unit, meanwhile as the infantry clashed Rob continued to frustrate me by beating my supposedly superior troops, throwing them back in disorder then routing the Landsknechts. This left him free to overwhelm my Papal pike block as the Germans fled, I surrendered as there was nothing left to fight with and my lone cavalry were exhausted. My cavalry had managed to keep me in the game longer than I deserved so kudos to the mercenaries but once again I had lost an Italian Wars clash, well done Rob.

Great expectations as my infantry march.

Go get 'em boys.

Not looking good on the left wing.

It's about to be over.

This last weekend was a wargaming weekend, my son and grandson arrived for a fight. On the Saturday we had a War and Conquest game, they were the Saxons and I took the Romano-British, my very first WAC army but one I normally give to guests as it has a slight advantage over the Saxons, remember this. As both sides moved forward I was hoping to threaten the Saxon left while beating their right, I did seem to start off well but it took me too long to destroy the Saxon cavalry and the fact I forgot to move my massed archers twice in a row didn't help as my hard fighting Pedyts eventually ran away after putting up a decent fight.

Saxons to the left, British to the right, James in the middle.

 

The Saxons charge to disrupt my lines.

The Picts in action.

My useless elites.

In the centre the Saxons hit me hard and right away I lost two units, on my left I really screwed up with my elite cavalry and got nothing from them all game, I had to push my left wing infantry into battle to shore up the line. At one point it looked quite good and I thought if not a win then I would get a draw, but I was quickly taught a lesson as almost my entire army began to flee. I handed over my sword. It was great to get a large battle of WAC on the table again but despite gaining lots of hits I could not convert them to kills so suffered as grandson James' dice seemed unable to fail. As usual my elite troops were anything but and my Welsh were beaten by a bunch of peasant farmers.

On the Sunday James chose WWII so I stole Matt Crump's Paras on the Bridge scenario and we set too, I was the Germans and the attackers this time. There was confusion in the British command structure as Stewart and James argued over what to do for the best, meanwhile I threw caution to the wind and threw everything I had at the men on the bridge. The defenders began to lose more and more men while the tanks on both sides traded shots, I had my armoured car immobilised by the British armoured car in a position which really didn't help my assault, in return I immobilised the Sherman and then two shots later blew it up. 

Ready for the second game.

The Paras hold the bridge.

The British attempt to rush the bridge as a last gasp.

I too was now beginning to lose men as I assaulted and took the bridge as the last turn approached, however I managed to ensure the British could not get to the bridge by wiping out their nearest squad. James was reluctant to surrender despite his fathers pleadings and my assurance that the jig was up. I then spotted what the little tinker was up to, the British had the last dice from the bag and he had his command team in a position to get on to the bridge without being shot, therefore stealing a draw, cunning. Sadly for James the last roll gave the game another turn, nothing could now prevent his command team dying as the Germans threw everything they had at the brave officer and his batman.

Kudos to Matt for designing the scenario and James for nearly gaining a draw, I am going to play this again at the club tomorrow night with 'Lucky' Jimi. In the end an excellent weekend of gaming and a few beers in Lancaster with Stewart.

I have a very busy week coming up, the club tomorrow, Chain of Command Wednesday night with Robert and then Chain of Command on Thursday with Matt. 

I am sitting waiting for the postman to bring me Bolt Action V3, I have said before that I shouldn't have bothered but knew in the end I would get it. Comments online give me the impression that there are a few good commonsense rule changes but that others are simply there to be different and have no basis in reality, yes I know it's Bolt Action but that's not a valid excuse if your rule set is based on something specific. No matter I am talking out of my backside not having the rules in front of me or having played a game, I will rectify this in a few weeks.

I finished my extra Landsknechts far quicker that I did my SYW battalion, next up are the mercenary hoplites, I am going to be busy next week but might get them cleaned and primed before then.

I finished my recent book on the Battle of Pinkie 1547 and although scholarly I enjoyed it, Pinkie was a 'run away, run away' battle. We, the Scots, had a decent and slightly larger army than the English but lost most of our cavalry the day before the main clash, many were dead or had simply gone home, the next day the remainder basically rode off into the morning mist and disappeared. The Scottish army was then charged by the English cavalry but successfully beat them off, but while redeploying and under cannonfire from an English galley something went drastically wrong and the skeddale began and just got worse. Numbers of course from these battles are usually off the scale but in the pursuit it would seem 6,000 Scots were killed while English casualties may have numbered about 600 overall, although some records would hint at two men and a dog. Once again we lost but in the end it amounted to naught in the grand scheme of things, the point of Pinkie had been a union between the royal houses of England and Scotland which would happen without fighting 56 years later. Maybe a game I could refight with my Italian Wars forces.