Perryville

 Friend Mark came up from Welsh Wales on Thursday for a game so as we would potentially have two days wargaming, I decided to pick a large battle, I had written Perryville decades ago and had only ever managed to play a few hours of it so it was basically new to both of us. 

The Union forces of General McCook, two divisions (five brigades), were attacked by Braxton Bragg and the Confederate Army of the Mississippi with three divisions (nine brigades). McCook was spread across the battlefield while the Confederates began arriving from all directions to support the troops already in position. Bragg had two objectives, a small ridge on the Union right and a line of stone walls on the centre and left. The armies had a range of smoothbores and rifled muskets, the troops ranged from green to elite, the Federals had more rifles and more powerful artillery albeit slightly outnumbered.

Union right.

Union centre.

Rebs begin to arrive.

Union left.

I reorganised my troops to cover most of the battlefield with reserves and pulled back my far right as I could see the dust of enemy columns approaching there. The battle opened on my left as Mark tried to overwhelm my troops on another ridge with wave assaults but failed and was hurled back. As Reb reinforcements arrived another brigade assaulted the position but yet again the defenders held, this really put an end to Confederate movements in this area apart from the odd potshot. I did try an attack of my own later just to upset the enemy but it came to naught. So for the loss of one unit the thin blue line held off twice their numbers in enemy regiments.

Rebs outflank Federal right.

Attack builds against Union centre.

Attack on Union left halted.

Rebs take the ridge.

Not looking good for the Union right.

As more and more Graybacks turned up Mark organised more assault waves to come at my centre, although I did not have much luck at first I did hold and a run of damaging morale throws basically stopped several enemy brigades and disorganised the attack. I was holding but just. My weakest point was my far right flank as again several very large Reb brigades were massing to attack. It was now my turn to feel the wrath of the dice gods and when the enemy did attack my line buckled and they punched a hole in my line while more of them came forward. I had pulled right back out of the range of most of their smoothbores but another wave of charges left me with only the 39th NY in front of a tsunami of gray, my 39th have the worst reputation in my army for running, at the drop of a hat, I hurled some expletives to all my troops who had now fled from my right and left me in such a precarious position. I half heartedly threw about five or six morale checks for the Garibaldi's and lo and behold they held! They even managed to send their tormentors back to their start line.

Federals in disarray

  

Rebs forced back in the centre.

 As I looked across the wreck of my right flank only the 39th were still standing after the charges, and although I had lost four regiments swept away I had rallied five more from the debacle of the turn before. Most of the Confederate units were now disordered as were the troops in my second line. If Mark threw in some desperate second charges I might lose two or three but I could reform the others and continue the fight.

Union right breaks.

Federals begin to rally.

More Rebs heading for the hole in the line.

More Federals rally.

Men of the match, 39th, never thought I would say that.

We had fought nine turns with six remaining. The Confederates had lost 11 regiments resulting in one brigade lost and two badly shot up, the Union lost 8 regiments with two brigades shot up. Three Union officers had gone down, while the Reb count was at least double that. The Confederates had run out of artillery ammunition with several batteries and had at least one battery rout but they captured three of mine. Perryville was a bloody battle in reality and so was ours.

Who won, up until the last couple of turns it looked like I might hold on to the ridge on my right, but after two disastrous turns and my right crushed we called it a draw, I could have argued for a slight victory due to being heavily outnumbered and still having a decent force at the end albeit weakened, but I will settle for a draw in favour of the Union. 

It was a great two days of gaming and I now need a rest. My thanks to Mark for taking the time to visit.

Yee Ha.

Big week, two games one after the other, first up is Matt who wanted to try Brandy Station and get some cavalry on the table, something seriously lacking in most of my Johnny Reb games since taking them up, despite having enough for around eight brigades. Ryan and I put our scenario together years ago and it is in two parts, I put together the northern part of the fight, so three large Confederate brigades versus two Union and a small infantry brigade. Matt bravely took on JR having only played once before and it is quite different to what he usually plays. Matt took the Confederates which left me with the Union forces.

Union forces.

Confederates.

Brandy Station (just noticed no railway, duh).

One Reb brigade is already on the table with another arriving on my left as soon as the game starts and a third arriving on turn 2 on my right. I was crushed together in a wood with my only elite troops at the rear of the column, the Rebs are nearly all elite, it did not look promising. I decided to move the infantry to the right and shuffled Devin's brigade of cavalry along to my left while Whiting's elites took their place but sadly they could not all get to the front line, I also sent  two batteries to support Devin. 

Starting positions.

Rest of the Federals turn up, no room at the inn.

Jones on the hill.

Hampton turns up.

I eventually got Devin into a firing position as his breechloaders had the range on the enemy muzzle loading carbines, some good shooting sent one of the Reb regiments routing to the rear, this was a setback for Hampton's attack and his brigade now looked pretty weak as I readied Devin to prepare to charge. I was feeling better but should have known better, Devin was hit and stunned by a sharpshooter and his brigade halted until he recovered, at the same time both my artillery batteries now ran out of ammunition, you couldn't make it up. Matt took the time to reorganise and now sent Jones' brigade to move on the Union centre right, this was not a success so he turned towards the cavalry in the centre and those moving on Hampton.

Union left get ready to attack.

Traffic jam.

Artillery runs out of ammunition, did they bring any? 

As my artillery floundered charges now swept across the empty ground on my left, although I had a good start here the results left several of my regiments disordered up against elite Rebs in the second round, I was forced to send these boys back into the fray. Meanwhile on my right the Reb brigade here had advanced very slowly and my infantry had them covered this flank was secure, but looking across the battlefield I couldn't say the same for the centre and left. I still had a couple of regiments in reserve but as Confederate cavalry had now broken through my line I found these in the wrong positions to counterattack. It was time to leave.

Lee's brigade on the Union right.

Lee and Jones move forward.

Guns that work.

Another hard fight and a tough one for the Federals, Devin being hit and my line halted had a drastic effect at the wrong time, the less I say of the lack of ammunition the better, I also found it very difficult to get my reserve cavalry up to the line and it was fed in piecemeal. 

I have added a stand of sword and buckler men for my Spanish pike blocks. Matt Smith very kindly printed off some Patrol Markers for me, The Big Red One for my Yanks, I have also found some pieces which will do for Jump Off Points, so that will be them done and a few itches scratched. 

Yesterday was my second date with the dice, I was at Erik's and he had set up a scenario based on the lifting of the siege of Newark by the Royalists, my objective as the dashing Prince Rupert was to prevent the Parliamentarians from simply leaving the battlefield. To do this I would have to destroy the enemy forces or cut them off from the two bridges which would allow them to retreat. At first I went straight for the enemy cavalry and after a hard fought engagement and with more cavalry turning up I swept them from the field. 

Royalist cavalry.

Newark.

Parliamentarian festung.

By this time I realised that my cavalry would now have to attack the main Parliamentarian position which included artillery and infantry regiments behind stone walls along with a couple of cavalry units which had escaped as I now saw that there was no point attacking them as I would be unable to cross the river anywhere apart from going through Newark and hopefully putting myself and my army on the enemy line of retreat, and beating them of course. My cavalry were no longer fresh and some had to find shelter beneath Newark's walls taking them out of harms way. My infantry had now turned up but were a long way from the city so I only managed to get the garrison into a position to possible try and make a fight of it, this did not help as the retreating enemy would easily outnumber my forces before the rest of the army could arrive in support and I would have no room for maneuver. 

My cavalry victorious.

I head for Newark, I need to get to the windmill in the background.

We called a halt at this point as it was obvious the scenario needed a lot more time before my large flanking move would be ready and I had no intention of attacking the fort, it was also getting dark and I am at the mercy of modern LED car lights. So, my cavalry did well but I just couldn't see my infantry having any chance of taking the fort. I could be wrong but didn't want to chance it. Once again a well researched scenario using Erik's very smart collection on a lovely table. Tactically I did well but didn't win as I saw it, in reality the Parliamentarian commander retreated so would it be a strategic win beating his cavalry and making him leave as the rest of the Royalists turned up, not sure. The main point it was an afternoon of gaming.

Next week I have a friend coming for a couple of days from Welsh Wales for some JR, I am looking at the Battle of Perryville and maybe a smaller scenario depending how the larger one goes. 

Contemplating battle on the morrow. On the Perryville battlefield 1992.

I have decided to free all my slaves to avoid reparations, what? We don't have any, never have? Our ancestors were farm labourers. Oh I'll be OK then......................... 

GI's do well

Another run at WWII this week in the Bunker, we had decided on Chain of Command and Matt mentioned he wanted panzergrenadiers with lots of machine guns, instead I gave him my Fallschirmjager which just happened to have the same number of MG42's, I would take my new US Infantry. These guys fight rather different from all the other platoons and I hadn't a clue how to get the best out of them, the rules however, all rules in my opinion, tend to give the Yanks an easy time of it. They get to move and shoot without an accuracy penalty, they also get the Storm of Steel mechanic which in this instance is over egging their abilities and they get to use Scouts as Jump Off Points.

Why did you bother with them I hear from the back. I never intended to build an American platoon but I needed to take my mind off other things for a while and what better than to build up another platoon before I stopped, yes I hear more grumbling in the back. This all pertains to playing with wee sojers, I have the utmost respect for those men who fought through Europe unlike some of the ungratefully liberated.

I introduced a few little changes, both sides got a 'Red Dice' to help with orders, I also changed the Force Morale so that 10, 11 or 12 replaced 8, 9, 10 or 11, the table was also set up with what I hoped would be less open ground. I put down a village straddling a river with two bridges, the northern part of the village had been hit by artillery and was mainly ruins but a few buildings had survived including the station, hotel and a boozer. The Yanks had to capture the bridges to win, two bridges would be a major victory and one a minor victory. Matt supported his Para's with a Pz IVG, I on the other hand took a 75mm Sherman, a 60mm mortar and an extra squad.

I wanted to pressure the Germans in the centre and on their left flank while planning to use a Scout team to get further up the table if the opportunity presented itself, Matt just wanted to hold me up. I managed to get three squads into decent positions but somehow began to take mounting casualties on my troops in the wood which were targetted by the Panzer and quite a few machine guns, so much so that I had to withdraw them. Matt had a run of double phases to help with this, although I must admit my boys weathered it well, It was time to bring on the Sherman.

I deploy.

The remaining civvies beat a hasty retreat.

My tank and and a nearby squad turned on the ruins just north of the hotel while I pushed another squad up to sneak into the large building, it was Matt's time to withdraw. I now did the same to another set of ruins near the rail bridge and the Jerries again retreated, the tank however was still being a real pain. I had now sent a Scout team out to flank the German right as the Panzer was now busy firing on my right. I better mention this but I too now managed a good run of double turns and used them to reorganise. then I saw my chance, my men in the hotel broke the enemy opposite them, I deployed from the scouts into the station where the last of the Jerry squads had deployed but were beginning to suffer, one good phase and I would be on them.

These poor guys got caught out later.

The annoying panzer.

Matt now got a double turn, my boys in the open field were routed and fled, the survivors that is, around this time I also had two of my Junior Leaders hit which meant I had to put my Senior Leaders into harms way to keep up the pressure. Once I got t he initiative back and despite losing a squad I broke the Para's in the ruins and stunned both a SL and their JL. This sealed the deal for the Americans as two enemy leaders and an enemy Jump Off Point now lay within touching distance of my boys in the Station and Matt's morale plummeted. Game over.

Help is at hand.

Forward boys.

I think the higher morale worked, you could at least throw a bit of caution to the wind to try something different and recover if it went south, the extra dice for orders also worked well although I think the double turn mechanic should lose a dice after the first one, both Matt and I suffered a bit from our opponent having several in a row, and it is quite frustrating to sit for a couple of phases doing nothing but dying. Cutting down the lines of sight, it helps, we had a bit of a conversation about this and might have to up linear obstacles to medium, you cannot really see through a decent hedge.

I have not done a lot of painting in the last couple of weeks, one set of four halberdiers and 50% of a sword and buckler base, I am home alone next week so expect to get a move on with these. My wargamers ADHD is kicking in as I realised setting up the game I do not have American Jump Off Points so I am going to 'need' those at some point and of course some US Patrol Marker's. I also noticed that my 2nd Panzer markers had been painted white on black, so naturally I had to change them to yellow on black, phew. Who will notice, I will.

Matt is back next week and wants to do an ACW cavalry battle, so it looks like Brandy Station, I have eight cavalry brigades most of whom have never seen action in my 30+ years of Johnny Reb. Yeehaa. 

The worst night of the year coming up, although most of the little darlings gave up knocking on my door years ago, it also helps there are no young families in my part of the village. I think it must be a nightmare in America, I could not take that. 

Greeks get the gifts.

 Back to the sunny climes of Penrith, it does tend to be better than Warton mind you, I left nice sunshine after the game and as I proceeded south it looked like the shadows of Mordor were in front of me. Anyway, back to the Dungeon for a game we had to postpone a few weeks ago, it was to be early WWII, Greeks vs Italians and this time I was given the Greeks. I had to capture a fuel dump in the centre of the table reputedly containing not fuel but Extra Virgin Olive Oil, though I expect this was a ruse. I had some Regulars and some Elite mountain sections along with the usual heavy weapon supports, the Italians had no elites and a couple of dodgy Albanian squads and a little tankette.

The objective.

Another view.

I was allowed to initially bring my first wave on from any of three sides but decided to stick to the opposite side from the Eyeties and brought on my howitzer and heavy weapons apart from an anti-tank rifle. I intended to soften up the Albanians who already held the fuel dump. That went fairly well and by turn three I had captured the olive oil and a massive amount of dried spaghetti, however the tankette was now roaming around causing me a bit of strife and my second wave seemed well short of the dump as Italian regulars moved closer to my survivors of the melee. Matt also managed some very good mortar drops along with one of my elite squads proving a lot less elite than I had thought and hitting the deck.

My own heavy weapons teams proved quite useless for most of the game, my anti-tank rifle at first refusing to turn up but negating this with a lovely flank shot which destroyed the little tank, my sniper managed to find two bullets which worked and hit an NCO and LMG gunner, the rest were duds.

The Albanians hold the tins.

The Greeks lost it then the Italians took it back.

It's all or nothing, go boys.

Matt got the supply dump back, this changed sides several times and the bodies were stacked inside like Rorke's Drift. Time was running out and critical decisions had to be made, I had one untouched elite squad which I wanted to leave to the last minute and kick out any Italians which were left on the objective, but I had no choice but to take it and hope the game ended. It did not, there were three Italian squads close enough to assault, one could do nothing due to a large amount of pins unless it was lucky, it was not, the second I charged with a forlorn hope of elites which took them out. 

Once more the Greeks can relax.

The tankette ist kaput.

This left one opportunity for Matt to make one last charge, I threw everything over the turn at these men and whittled them down until the odds were almost even. They nonetheless managed to reach the ramparts and a furious melee began which was quite simply down to Lady Luck, the Greeks pulled it out of the bag, phew!

My right flank move in at last.

The Greeks really can relax, a narrow victory.

A superb game with both side alternating between sighs and shouts of joy. Matt got some really nice mortar drops against some desperate failed morale tests which did for him in the end. I matched him in despair at some die results but also managed a few successes just at the right time. A tense and exciting game. 

Yet another skirmish game hits the stores. "Tear Down the Empire", "The Fall of Rome" the advert shouts, now that's going to be spectacular and all you need is a dozen figures. How can five men form a Shieldwall or why does a hornblower allow you to move further, fantasy vs reality. If a bunch of Germanic brutes wanted to raid a village they would not chose one with a garrison, even if it looks like there is one cataphract among them, lost Marcus? What you would have is a bunch of peasants with sticks, not much of a game there then. The average small Viking raid for instance would have around 3-6 ships with crews of 30-60 so at least 90 men, not a dozen, there goes the pocket money. And yes I have played several skirmish games, cowboys, spaceships and even Dark Ages, back in the, eh, Dark Ages, but there were no hornblowers or Merlins stumbling about. For some reason I do not see platoon level WWII games as Skirmish. Each to their own, and I know that playing with rules generally at least two decades old, but really, another turnip raid?

Shieldwall.

?

 I am painting again as you know and have finished my first two halberd bases, I have several more but don't want to rush them, I also received two boxes of sword and buckler men from The Assault Group. I am also working on maps again as I have some loose time, "The 1684 Campaign of the War of the Holy League and the Failed Siege of Buda".

My granddaughter phoned the other night and while we were talking movies said I should watch 'Jojo Rabbit', this is a fairly old movie and I dismissed it from a clip I had seen of Adolf Hitler being an idiot with a young boy. How wrong I was, it was an excellent and clever movie. The reason we were discussing movies is that she said they watch movies in history classes, not documentaries but movies, and we all know how accurate 'based on a real event' or similar is. What a dreadful way to teach history.

And I could not end without this lunacy from Ireland, You should get consent before you hug your grandchildren, you won't be able to see it now of course because commonsense prevailed and the lunatics who thought it right were forced to take it down. Each new day never fails to surprise me.

Group hug?