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.

Seleucis and Alexander

It's been a quiet week and same again next week with nothing on the cards and real life getting in the way of wargaming. I did have a weekend trip to Darlington where my son took me on a run ashore and a meal, and quite superb it was too, we found an old fashioned pub which had a varied mix of clientele, no televisions, no drunks, no shouting and where we could sit and sup decent beer and have a conversation, where the barmaid, no spring chicken, could remember our order each time.

I did however have one game sorted today, it was a trial of On Bloody Ground, a ruleset written by a good friend of mine and his son, Dave has been at me for ages to try them out and as he could sell ice to Eskimos it has been hard to resist. My opponent Stuart had played the rules but some time ago, he also had his Macedonian army ready for the table so it was time to come off the fence. My army was Seleucid so slightly later than Stuart's but otherwise both had basically the same troop types, I took pikes, mercenary Hoplites, skirmishers, horse archers and Companion cavalry, I felt obliged to take an elephant so Nellie came along as well. Stuart faced me with Hypaspists, pikes, Hoplites, skirmishers and Peltasts, he had two units of Companions and some light cavalry.

My boys.

Stuart’s lads.

Seleucid on the left, Alexander on the right.

Looking from Seleucid’s line.

Thankfully Stuart put his cavalry opposite my horse on his right, I had been a bit anxious that he might threaten my right which had only a skirmish unit to guard the flank, but I was quite sure I could match his mounted troops on my left. Sure enough my Skythian's and slingers managed to wipe out the light cavalry and eventually do the same to the Peltasts, I took advantage of this and moved my Companions and the elephant towards the enemy household cavalry, the rest of my line went forward to engage the Macedonian infantry in echelon against their left.

The ‘heavies’ move off.

The first clash.

The enemy right suffers.

Slowly does it boys.

As the dust settled from the initial charges my Companions and Hoplites had beaten their opponents and as the enemy fled turned in against their main line, both flanks now looked very shaky. The second group of enemy Companions were now hit in the flank by my own elites and frontally by the elephant, they were pushed back. Time was getting on and with both his flanks gone and now outnumbered Stuart offered his sword.

It’s all over.

If you read this blog you will know I am pretty set in my ways and it takes a lot for me to change from what I like, I like War and Conquest and it does what it says on the tin for me. OBG has a faster play style and certain rule mechanics offer enough complexity for interesting tactics to keep players coming back for more, they are also very well supported by Dave and Dan and they have plans to keep this up during the next year with possible weekend events. I wish them well, me, I'm just an old fossil.

Royal Mail are still struggling to deliver my support weapons for the BEF as 1st Corps posted them almost a week ago, so in the meantime I finished off some NCO's and Soviet tank riders, the latter I got from Mardav Miniatures and am really pleased with them. I also managed to paint up my Nashorn this morning, I still have the crew to paint but the new tank killer will be ready to roll by the weekend, will it ever see the table, who knows, but I'm happy, and you can take that to the bank.

I gave up with the 'Last Yorkists' and did indeed jump to the Battle of Pavia, the book was too much like a novel and read as such, I also think that the author overplayed much of the supposed influence the Yorkist pretenders had with the Holy Roman emperor or the French king. Anyway I am now back on the Eastern Front with Prit Buttar's 'Bagration 1944'. I have watched several pieces by Buttar on WW2TV and he knows his stuff.

I was taken in by the rave reviews of the BBC comedy, and I use the term loosely, 'Small Prophets', I don't get it. I find the main character a drag and when I watch him I know he is acting and trying hard, I long for him to lose his job. Thankfully a German spy thriller called 'Unfamiliar' is streaming on Netflix, and, wait for it, I like it.

 I notice that no less an august establishment as the British Museum is touting the 'fact' that 50% of all Samurai were women in its new exhibition, a blatant lie, but what does Joe Public know eh?

 Can I end on a high, eh, I really did enjoy that weekend.

Rebels

 The club is back and sorted now, however I had a game organised with Matt in Penrith so did not attend, it has been a bit since I had a trip to the Dungeon and I asked Matt to do anything except WWII, I braved torrential rain and roadworks to arrive at our usual time of 1000 or ten double-O as we used to say, just as easy to say ten hundred I guess, but I digress. We were doing the American Revolution and Matt had set up the usual lovely table, he uses Rebels and Patriot rules, I have played these once before in one of my first visits to the Dungeon, maybe even the first. Normally I would play the British if given a choice but I found myself commanding the Rebels, we had to stop the British from completing a bridge they had started to build across a small stream. To this end I had a couple of regular units along with four Militia types and two Indian warbands, the British had four skirmish units, and a couple of regular battalions most of whom were Hessians, further supported by some cavalry and a cannon, recollections may vary on numbers.

Another lovely set up from Matt.

I decided to put the natives on my left flank to hopefully rush the dragoons and the engineers at the bridge, all the rest of my little army was on the right and again I hoped to rush forward and set up a firing line to overwhelm the British as they turned up. The indians were slow off the mark while the right flank surged forward, all apart from one Militia unit which would fail activation for most of the start of the game. Matt marched his regulars towards the bridge as my boys cut down the dragoons and forced the engineers to retreat, he eventually got his cavalry to join the British skirmishers on his left and he moved on my right. It was now I was thankful that my cautious battalion had not moved and with some skirmishers we stopped the cavalry and sent them packing. It did not all go my way as the Royal Artillery cut down my skirmishers and forced them back, the gun was proving to be a right nuisance and  would continue to be, I also lost one of the Indian warbands. 

My Indians moving cautiously, very cautiously forward.

Militia move forward.

Men of the match, or people of the match according to British Rugby.

The Indians rush the building site.

Nevertheless I had halted the work on the bridge despite the engineers continuing to try and return to their work (Matt needed 60 points, rolling dice every time the engineers activated at the building site), Matt huffed and puffed but for a moment he came back into the game as his gun forced a retreat on a Militia battalion which had been doing sterling work, this frightened them as their firepower seemed to fall off dramatically. I had by now given up my attempt to close the bridge and instead was relying on firepower to keep the British at bay. As the enemy wavered I sent my last Indian warband to attack some very rash skirmisher who had crossed to my side of the water, they cut through these men and continued on to take up a position to hit a second unit in the flank, to aid this I had moved my remaining damaged skirmish units from the right flank to the left in order to pressure the bridge defenders and prevent them shooting at the friendlies.

More Americans move on the centre.

It's all over as the Bridge defenders are overwhelmed.

At this juncture I managed to kill the last of the engineers and although a second unit could appear it would have to get to the bridge and run the gauntlet to get anything done, Matt handed over his sword. A nice little scenario and well balanced which could go either way, it just went mine this time. As always a pleasure to fight in the Dungeon, wargaming at its best. You can read Matt's account here.

I have 'splashed the cash' again recently. First up was a couple of 3D bombed out buildings from Highlands3D, these are excellent and full of detail which does not show up well on the photographs, there are pictures on the walls and lying on the floors, slippers, plates a carpet and all sorts, everytime I look I see somthing else. Probably too much detail for me to bother about but we will see. Secondly I felt I needed at least a couple more explosion markers as I can see the mortar barrage being used more in CoC2, I originally bought a giant tub of foliage but couldn't find one so bought a couple of packs from Woodland Scenics. This was better than the stuff in the tub but it was expensive and I only managed one explosion per bag when I had wanted three, but they will have to do. I also treated myself to the Cavalry Trilogy book as I wanted to have my own copy, but kudos for Robert for bringing it to my attention and for me to read. I am sure there was something else, oh yes, the new updated 'At The Sharp End' from Too Fat Lardies, no I probably do not need it as I have oodles of mini campaigns to try out but it scratches an itch. 

The new with one I prepared earlier.

Friend Erik asked if I could put on a CoC game as he had just bought the rules and wanted a try out. I sorted out a Probe scenario thinking this was a nice easy one, in actual fact the attacker would have to be fairly lucky to win this one, of course with differing dice rolling anything can happen but even so. Erik had a British Platoon so I took the Germans, just normal Heer so that he would not be hit by the wall of lead from panzergrenadiers etc. Erik was a bit unlucky as his smoke rounds went awry and he lost a squad to some heavy fire from the Cafe de Normandie, made more effective by several double rounds of play. In the end British morale fell to the point where there was no recovery or chance to attain the victory objectives. I can give Erik the chance to play more games hopefully. 

The British turn up.

Still they advance.

 

 

 

 

 

The Germans prepare.

More Jerries turn up.

The battlefield from the British positions.

The lynch pin of the defences.

I have sorted a game at the club this coming week, a CoC scenario against Simon's Russians, I played the same scenario against Paul a few weeks ago when 'rain stopped play' so I am hoping for bad weather. Matt will be back in the Bunker on Wednesday as he cuts a swathe through the French on his way to the Channel.

On the entertainment front 'The Last Frontier' and 'Cemetery Road' are approaching their end and I have enjoyed them but what will be up next. What about the new knitting yes knitting show on Channel Five (yes it is still there) with Tom Daley....... nope.

?????

 It's a funny old world, I saw a note on the Tribal Class Frigates Facebook page today about the 'crossing of the bar' of 'Soapy' Watson who served on Nubian at the same time as me. Way back in the mists of time during an exercise I was in a Wasp helicopter being ferried with two other guys to an 'incident' to reinforce our Royal Marine detachment, we had to jump from the hovering Wasp. The guy to my left went out but 'Soapy' would not, I was supposed to be last out being in the middle so I thought it was my duty to help him out by pushing him towards the open door. Above the din the pilot noticed and intimated I was to leave him alone and get out myself. RIP Soapy. If you have ever watched the movie 'Virgin Soldiers' with the tape and banner that was our job in the Internal Security platoon, lol.