Claymore 2026

 Ken Reilly, more famous as the Yarkshire Gamer, asked for volunteers to play in his award winning 1499 Siege of Forli game and I decided to jump in with two feet. As you know I have armies for the Italian Wars and play Furioso rules which is convenient as Ken also uses them.

My missus insisted on coming with me and I insisted she did not drive so we booked for a couple of nights on the Leith waterfront. Our journey north was halted for an hour or more at Langholm as it was their Common Riding, a tradition of horse cavalcades enacting the old custom of inspecting the town boundaries, which involved closing down the main A7 road, I was slightly miffed. The whole town was also closed apart from the pubs so we stopped at Hawick for lunch, our second disappointment began. I expected more of such an historic town. We eventually arrived in Leith and dinner on the waterfront was very nice, although the range of alcohol free beers was pretty poor with stuff I had never heard of, no matter, an early night as I had to be at Claymore for 0800.

I was last at Claymore two years ago, maybe three, before that it was when it was being held opposite the Museum of Scotland and I couldn't even guess how long ago that was. I arrived on time and met Ken and the other six guys  who had agreed to help, the table was stunning, some 2,300 figures in technicolour, banners flying and harnessed for war. Ken introduced the rules as four of the players had never played before (Andrei had come from Croatia to play) and we took our places, I had a mixed force of Landsknechts and Italians in the centre opposite Jason who commanded the Swiss, I knew just how dangerous these men were, Jason did not. The whole point of the day was to showcase wargaming the Italian Wars, the amount of gaming we could get in was simply a bonus.

As the game kicked off around 1000 hrs everyone's cavalry leapt forward while the infantry found their way to the front blocked by the horse, I did not have a lot of cavalry and neither did Jason, certainly nothing like the swarms on both flanks, I was also happy not to rush my foot forward and be crushed by the dastardly cash greedy Swiss. I did however hope to sweep away the Swiss cavalry and their Italian mercenaries and although starting well the combats bogged down and I eventually basically lost. Jason had got one huge pike block closer than the other and seeing there was a hedge to its front I knew from experience that there was a good chance it would not move through it without being disordered, my plan was to position one of my blocks to hopefully take advantage of this possible mayhem.

It was not to be however as by now there was only about fifteen minutes to go until the show ended, so we finished off that round and called a halt. It had been a long day with an hour off for lunch, Ken didn't get much time to himself as he did a sterling job fielding all the questions and visitors through the day, a lot of people were impressed and my lasting memory will be of a young lad and his sister staring in pure awe with mouths open at the spectacle, grabbing at his fathers arm to see what he had seen. Hopefully a convert in years to come.

A huge thanks to Ken for allowing me to take part and to the other six lads who were a pleasure to meet and play against.

Claymore was far better than I remembered and it was busy, there were lots of games in the same mould as Forli, large set pieces to showcase the hobby, there were also many smaller games and quite a few participation games, all in all a diverse mixture. I had the good fortune to run into some of my Old Guard from our big ACW game of a few weeks ago, Robert, Billy and Davy, the bus load of Groupies Robert had promised sadly never turned up, I knew 'Wargaming Celebrity' would not fly and tried to tell him.

Some of you will know I have been taking a fiver to shows now for several years, more than I can remember, so I decided on a heartfelt plea from Ray Rousell 'for gawd's sake spend that fiver' to do just that. I admit the M8 Hellcat cost more than the fiver and the pain was almost unbearable, but I am now officially skint. 

A great experience and I need to get my own Italian Wars back on the table.  

 

Crushed

 I am still coming down from the great surprise ACW weekend. I was supposed to venture north to Penritha and a Napoleonic game with Matt but I am having a real hard time with our World Beating NHS and could not take the chance of missing an important phone call in the depths of the Dungeon so I offered a game in the Bunker (which is not underground).

I didn't have a huge amount of time due to real life so settled once again on the battle of Ceresole 1544 which is easy to set up and as Matt wanted a larger game than our last one so I jiggled the OOB a bit. Matt arrived attired in suitable summer gear but without dice or measuring tape, I have plenty of both so sorted him out, something I was to regret later. Matt took the army nearest the door so became the French commander, I was the Spanish. Now although the French have the edge in this battle it didn't seem like an overwhelming edge so I was happy enough.

Imperials left, French right.

Imperial lines.

French left, Imperials right.

As battle approached my troops showed a reluctance to get to grips with the enemy, my skirmishers and artillery were less than enthusiastic and merely played at being warriors and for the most part stood still or could not find a match for the cannon. My light cavalry went forward without arquebus support and were destroyed by the French light cavalry tout suite as the Frenchies say, they continued to pursue the remnants off the table for the rest of the game. My infantry painfully slowly moved forward but not before my right wing was crushed, again my light cavalry was destroyed as were some skirmishers and my aristocracy.

Matt's die rolling simply could not be beat, if I got four or five hits Matt countered with six to eight, and my average was two, I knew I should have offered that chicken up, I have won only one Italian Wars game since I put the troops on the table, how long does 'new troop syndrome' last? 

Imperial camp.

Get a move on lads!

The French move forward

The Swiss looking for a fight, in the background.

One group of Gendarmes had flung themselves at a Neapolitan pike block and against all the odds eventually routed it, the other bunch of Neapolitans later met the French infantry and also ran. The Spanish on my right came up against one of the Swiss units and, yes, were cut down without mercy, my Landsknechts whom I had wanted to throw at the Swiss were still way behind. Before too long I only had the Landsknechts left, one was trying to move to defend my non existent right flank while the other went head to head with the second Swiss block. again they were cut down and routed. My whole army had disappeared in quick fashion and one of my commanders had been taken prisoner. One small block of Landsnechts now faced the might of the French army. 

Neapolitans about to be charged.

 

Neapolitans about to be rode down.

Imperial centre about to crack.

Matt has paella for dinner in the Imperial camp.

 

I normally do a map for these battles but looking over the debacle that had just happened the drawing would only consist of French units. Matt's die rolling had been nothing but spectacular, he offered me a king's ransom for the dice but it was no deal. As usual I actually changed my dice near the end but it did not save me. Crushed!

I am being left in Limbo by the NHS so have nothing planned for next week, although Matt is away if I knew what was happening I could organise something but as of this moment I can't.

I have finished Goldsworthy's book on Athens and Sparta, not a great read for me, it is a broad history and not simply a military history so if you are looking for that this book is not what you want. It was also fairly wishy washy with a lot being described as maybe or might or we don't know, fair enough but there was also a lot of repetition, I got it early on that hoplites could be stopped by city walls for instance and didn't need to be told this time and time again. I found it disappointing, maybe I was looking for something different.

'Alexander: God, King, Man' I knew was good from the first chapter, I didn't find myself falling asleep after a couple of pages. The two battles which have been covered already were far better described than the book above and I found myself googling them to find out more. Alexander comes across as a chancer when fighting battles (I have always thought this) and the Persians perhaps just a tad unlucky? The Greek mercenaries at the Granicus did not fight against Alexander and expected therefore to be captured and ransomed, he killed them all, or nearly them all. I can certainly recommend this one.

 Nothing much on the telly these days, I caught 'Obsession' which is being hailed as a marvellous kick in the teeth to Hollywood but I gave up, I just couldn't empathise with the main character or his girlfriend and why do they have to film everything in the dark, put the bloody lights on. I was caught out by 'Sugar' on Apple (I think), Colin Farrell (now he played Alexander as well) stars and is pretty cool as a private investigator driving a beautiful blue corvette, my wife caught the sting in the tail, it was lost on me. But will it have legs, who knows.

 My family north of the border were of course rooting for Scotland in the World Cup, I took the opposite view and knew they would be home on the next plane, but I also take the view that I would rather England win than be beat by foreigners, I am therefore a turncoat, but it was all played out in good humour online helped by Photoshop. In reality I would not watch a sport if you tied me to a chair and superglued my eyes open.

Never.

Now you're talking.

Disastro!

 After last weeks Chain of Command game I thought Matt and I could try something different for a change and offered Italian Wars, it would be something different for Matt and I could once again get my troops out for some exercise.

I kept it small and settled on the Battle of La Motta from Rodolfo Verginella's book, where the Spanish defeated the Venetians, I tweaked it a little to give the Venetians more of a chance allowing them some better infantry while I downrated the Spanish a tad, unfair but in the spirit of the game. When Matt turned up I gave him a choice and he settled on the Venetians as he was sat next to them. I explained the rules and we dove right in. Matt slowly advanced his right and held his left on a hill. I sent my men straight at the enemy as I thought that if I didn't my right might be outflanked by the enemy cavalry.

Spanish on the left, Venetians on the right.

Baggage train and looters.

Spanish left.

The cavalry met first and I routed the Stradiots in the centre, my heavy cavalry also looked like doing well, on the right I managed to almost break one of the Venetian light cavalry units but then found my men outflanked as I had thought as more cavalry thundered into their flank. As these fights continued my pikemen had at last managed to come to grips with the enemy foot, the Landsknechts as I thought defeated their opponents but the enemy had put up a fight and did not go easily. On my left it was very different for the Spanish, although outclassed they put up a stout defence and it looked at one point that they could come out on top. It was about this time that Matt suffered a 'Hazard' and quite a few of his men deserted, it did look bad for his infantry although his cavalry were obviously winning.

Venetian left (yes I know there are Spanish flags there).

Landsknechts advance quickly.

Spanish left also advance.

As usual I took too much for granted, Matt's Italians recovered and put my Spanish to flight, as we looked over the battlefield it was obvious the Venetians had had the better part of the fight, although the Landsknecht blocks were still on the battlefield they had been badly decimated (they also suffered from desertion). I had one cavalry unit left but it was facing a Venetian gun which had already caused severe casualties on it and it would not survive another volley. I handed my sword over.

Landsknechts clear the hill.

Venetian right and desperate fighting.

We had a discussion of the rules over a beer (zero) at the end. Matt brought up some points and I confess I am not completely happy with the way the game plays but I do like the main part which has a melee then a melee combat morale phase, I do like this. I do think however that I will look at it later, I won't go into detail as most of you, or maybe all, will not use Furioso. I do have Pike and Shotte and the Italian Wars supplement which a lot of people use and may be tempted to try this at some stage despite not being keen on Warlord rules sets.

Despite having packs of new sojers on my desk I have not been able to get to them as I am busy with maps at the moment, I might though manage to get a squad cleaned up and primed over the weekend in order to look at putting paint to brush next week.

I have an ECW game at Erik's next Wednesday evening but otherwise nothing on the cards for now, I might try and look at P&S again with a solo game to try them out. Who knows.

I spent a few days last weekend down South in Chorleywood at my son's, it really is a nice part of the country, very English and genteel and of course very expensive, in case anyone gets ideas above their station they can visit Watford almost next door. My granddaughter came back with us for a week and as usual is a delight to have around the house.

There we have it. 

The Battle of Ravenna

 Back at the club again, Bolt Action against 'Lucky' Jimi. I took the British and Jimi brought his winter Jerries, I debated whether to penalise his movement due to ski's but thought better of it, it was a friendly game after all. I stole Matt Crump's scenario from a couple of weeks ago, we both had a senior officer stranded with his vehicle and we had to protect him while capturing the enemy one.

I took four infantry squads a MMG, Cromwell tank, Humber armoured car and a truck, Jimi had four squads a truck, halftrack, MMG, panzerschreck and a StuG III. I have not played Bolt Action for a long time and cannot muster the enthusiasm to read through Version 3, you almost need scaffolding to hold it up due to the amount of guff in it, so we went with version 2 and some common sense.

I decided to put a squad and the armoured car on defender duty while I attempted to take the rest to capture the Party bigwig on my right. There was a tank duel at first and I lost the Cromwell but still decided to push my infantry forward, I had also managed to get the Humber into a position where it could fire on the flank of the StuG, I needed a lot of luck to penetrate but I could deal out pins, there was so much going on around the StuG that Jimi forgot to move it. The British get a free (no idea why) artillery observer, losing my tank forced me to use him and my artillery barrage caused a lot of disarray in the German defenders, no more mister nice guy.

Fat Hermann, party big wig.

 

Major Bracegirdle.

 

That changed things.

Slowly but surely I closed in on the Party faithful while Jimi lost several morale throws and failed to move, this happened to me as well but only once, in keeping with his usual bad fortune Jimi also got two FUBAR's and several units fled for the rear. This meant he now brought a couple of squads in to attempt to take my Officer, but I was ready and brought in my last unit to ensure he couldn't manage this while I took fat Hermann prisoner, game over.

Welcome support for the Major.

Easy target.

Potential game winner.

The game moved swiftly and was a bit of fun, the artillery bombardment really played havoc with the German morale, I have always been more than dubious of the 'free' units in Bolt Action but with the loss of my only tank and the Jerries having upgraded MG fire I felt it necessary to give me a fighting chance. I still feel guilty, although I have been on the recieving end many times of the 'free' something rule. 

I found myself with a free week and in desperation I decided to go solo in order to get my Italian Wars collection on the table, I looked for inspiration in my three scenario books and settled on the Battle of Ravenna from 'All is Lost Save Honour' published by Helion and Co. and on which I worked along with the authors Colin Ashton and Conrad Cairns, a must for beginners to the period. I use Furioso rules which are well suited to solo play as once the initial deployment is set the Initiative system can take over and the battle runs itself. One good thing about solo is you can use your common sense in all situations despite what the rules say. Not shown on the map are the arquebusiers I allowed to line the ditch.

To the battle, the duel between the artillery of both sides which I allowed for a couple of moves changed little as the French especially could not hit a barn door, which was a shame as they had far more guns. One unit of Gendarmes on the right threw caution to the wind and charged the enemy, they managed to defeat some Papal men-at-arms who had tried to intercept them and then charge the Spanish gun line wiping out a complete crew. They were then in turn charged by some Spanish men-at-arms, beaten and dispersed.

View from the French positions.

The Imperial defence.

The battlefield.

Meanwhile the French and Spanish light cavalry skirmished with each other on the French left while the French infantry slowly, very slowly made their way forward, they immediately began to suffer from the arquebusiers lining the ditch, they needed to get a move on before their casualties increased. It was now apparent that the French wanted to crush the Spanish centre before their flanks were attacked.

The French reach the ditch.

French pikes break the Imperial gun line.

The Landsknechts break through.

Imperial right.

Attacking across ditches or other defences in Furioso is difficult and this was proven as most of the French assaults became disordered, but the opposition were mainly arquebusiers and these were all swept away, although some put up a struggle before running. As the French breasted the ditch the Spanish pike blocks moved forward, several brutal melees ensued, the Italian's on the French side failed miserably and were defeated however the Landsknechts destroyed their enemy and the French pike engaged more of the Spanish in a to and fro melee. On the right the artillery still hammered away at each other while more French pikes drove into the Imperial left, the Imperial cavalry falling back from the pikes or faltering and failing to change direction. The fight here was still anyone's, as both sides now manouvered for an edge.The crises of the battle was fast approaching.

Landsknechts meet more Papal infantry.

Spanish pikes undecided, left or right?

French artillery.

French pikes pushed back.

Renaissance Uber Eats arrives.

Most of the infantry cresting the ditch were held or actually routed apart from the Landsknechts who smashed their way forward, to their right a French pike block which had kept up with them was then pushed back by some incredibly tough Spaniards just as it seemed the whole Imperial centre would break. 

At this point the Imperial army had reached its break point despite from a wargamers standpoint looking like it could overturn the result and maybe, just maybe grab the win as the French also were one point away from breaking. As I pondered this a look at the casualties on the side showed the Imperials, despite outnumbering the French had been roughly handled so I let the rules dictate the winner. I have to say that throughout the French seemed way more keen than the Imperials to get to grips with the enemy, their Initiative dice were generally much higher than the enemy who, as in reality, were far more cautious. The attack on the works was a daring move but paid off just in time. 

I have a lot coming up over the next four weeks, I have mate Billy coming for a couple of days from north of the Wall for some Chain of Command, then my son for the same on the following Sunday, then a week later I will be fighting Rob Broom over a weekend of War and Conquest, and after that a little holiday for a week in darkest Northumberland. I also hope to fit something in with Matt Crump as well.

So, that's it for now, still nothing on the paint tray although spent time doing a few map projects for Helion while waiting for the Atlas author to get back to me, nothing complicated. I almost forgot, Ken Reilly (Yarkshire Gamer) wants to take his outstanding 'Relief of Forli' to Claymore this year and is asking for volunteers, I have put my name down and if available I will be there.

I did start looking into a CoC mini campaign and I have the framework ready along with the German OOB based on 6th Panzer Divisions attempted relief of Stalingrad, but I have put it aside at the moment due to visits from family and the large IW game, but like Macarthur "I shall return" but will keep my feet dry.