It’s heatwave after heatwave at the moment, so Mark Luther attempts to cool us all down with a great game of I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum set in Hungary, 1945.
This was just a quickie scenario setup that wasn't based on a specific historical battle, but was inspired by the German actions to relieve Budapest in early 1945. Mark also wanted to get his Tiger IIs on the board.
Click on the picture below to see all:
As Rob had not only come a long way but also beaten me fairly quickly playing The Attack on Marlowe scenario, it seemed only meet and right to have another game…and being logical chaps, we set up the table for the second scenario from Marlowe the Maidenhythe scenario pack: Widbrooke Common.
Scene from behind the Parliamentarian lines
It’s the Royalists on the attack: advancing against the Parliamentarians across the eponymous common. Although Rob had played the Cavaliers in the first game, we got switched around somehow, and now I would take the loyalists into battle against the Roundheads.
The Royalists wasted no time, and marched forward smartly towards the traitors opposite them. One slight worry was that a lot of my infantry were Untried (the yellow markers in the picture below) meaning that the first time they encountered anything battle-ly (were shot at, wanted to shoot, were charged etc) they would have to check their morale
Slightly to the left of centre, the two cavalry lines clashed, with honours really falling to the Roundheads: their bigger ‘Dutch’ units surviving the initial charges of my smaller ‘Swedish’ squadrons and then bashing me up in the melee that followed.
In the event, both sides cavalry effectively cancelled each other out, especially as one of my infantry units was able to turn and blast a Roundhead horse unit in the flank. The battle would end with each sides’ surviving cavalry manoeuvering for advantage in the open ground on my left wing.
Which meant that the battle would be decided in the centre and on my right.
As you can just about see in the picture above, the first thing that I did was to dispose of the Roundhead artillery with my small unit of Cuirassiers. A bit risky, but the cards were with me and the guns were silenced for no loss.
The Cuirassiers then went on to threaten the Roundhead rear, eventually destroying the unit of commanded shot that formed the Parliamentarian reserve.
You can also see, in the picture on the right, that my infantry have moved forward and begun to push back his main line. Here’s a couple of great shots of them going into action:
What isn’t shown in the pictures above, and the reason that victory was eventually mine, is that on the right flank my horse had moved forward and outflanked two Parliamentarian infantry units that were trying to evict a Royalist Forlorn Hope from a small farm building.
Here’s a shot from earlier in the game: the Forlorn Hope would keep the Roundhead infantry distracted for long enough for my horse to turn left and hit them in the flank…which meant that when I broke the infantry in the centre, Rob ran out of Victory Medals and I had won!
It had been a great game, fairly tight right until the end. The initial Roundhead success with the cavalry hadn’t turned into more mainly because his horse pursued my retreating horse for too long, which gave me a chance to re-group what I had left and at least keep him occupied while my infantry moved forward.
The Cuirassiers were, despite their small size, the stars of the game: punching a hole in the enemy line and then disordering the main Roundhead line by violently removing their reserves behind them.
Another great game of FK&P!
New friend Rob came up for a couple of games of For King & Parliament, a system he was considering but hadn’t played before, so where better to start than the first game from my Marlowe to Maidenhythe scenario pack.
Without going into the detail of why and what for, the Royalists are attacking a Parliamentarian force “dug in” on the approaches to Marlowe. Rob would play the Royalist, I took the Parliamentarians.
Royalists on the left, Roundheads on the right
Here’s a pictorial account of the game:
So a win for the Royalists, and for Rob in his first game.
So with Bevan having defeated me twice in quick succession, it was my turn to take the Persians and his to take the Gauls.
Having watched the master at work, I knew that the best tactics were just to get forward as fast as possible, get my horse archers shooting quickety-quick, and charge home with the heavies as soon as I got the opportunity!
The terrain forced the action into three separate channels: the left past the woods, the centre, and the right past the woods.
On the left, two of my heavy units backed up by the elephants faced the Gauls’ three main cavalry units. The heavies quickly chewed through the more likely armed Celts, but the elephants had to divert to protect the rear from a marauding Gallic warband. These Gauls weren’t up to much snuff, however, and the elephants quick sent them packing.
On the other flank, I used another unit of heavies and some horse archers to quickly dispatch his final unit of horse: things weren’t going too badly at all!
Regular readers will know that usually when I say that, it presages an immediate reversal of fortunes and a catastrophic defeat…but not this time.
The two centres clashed, and I scored an immediate success as a unit of veteran clibanarii smashed an enemy warband off the table!
My line wasn’t (unfortunately!) a solid wall of heavy cavalry, so Bevan pushed forward hard at the sections held only by horse archers. These naturally danced backwards, which was fine except for the fact that it meant that the Gallic warbands concerned now had a chance of taking my camps.
One of the good things about having a cavalry army, however, is its ability to move rapidly around the table, including to head backwards to head off travel.
As one of my heavy units headed for the Gallic camp, another headed straight into the rear of one of the warbands threatening my camps. The hit was, as you might imagine, devastating: the warband shattered and I had won the game!
So one game back for me, making the day two for Bevan and one for me…but three-to-nothing for the Sassanids.
This must make them one of the best armies under the To The Strongest system, at least where the battlefield is fairly open. Must be time to re-base the Sassanid infantry as well then!
Having been sliced and diced in under and hour in our first game, the Gauls had plenty of time for a re-match against the Sassanids. Bevan and I played the same sides again: me taking the brave and heroic Celtic underdogs again, him taking the Persians.
Both sides set up in a fairly similar fashion as last time, although the Gauls did split their cavalry between the two wings rather than concentrating on just the one.
As the game opened, once again the Sassanids shot forward rapidly, effectively clearing half the battlefield before the poor Celts had even had time to finish their croissants.
Out in front were the two wings of each army, and the first action was therefore clashes on the left and right.
On the left, two units of Celtic horse (the third had hung back for some reason) faced a unit of Sassanid Clibanarii and, led by a Boudicca type in her chariot, smashed the first unit from the field. They then went on to engage a second unit behind and quickly disordered them too. Yes they disordered themselves in the process, but things were certainly looking promising on the left!
On the right, I also achieved what I saw as an advantage: another cavalry unit and some Gaeseti fanatics effectively got the drop on another lot of clibanarii, getting a two-on-one advantage, and although some horse archers had slipped through my line, things looked promising here too.
Meanwhile, in the centre, my main group of warbands had hit the enemy line (a combination of horse archers and heavies) and pushed it back. Okay, the horse archers were evading away rather than being broken, but his camps were soon in sight, and they were worth a lot of victory medals!
Although I had taken some casualties, I was on the cusp of victory: all I had to do was survive the next, Sassanid, turn, and I would presumably finish off one or two enemy units, take his camps, and therefore win the game.
As you may already have been guessing, the salient part of that last paragraph was “all I had to do”!
Although Boudicca survived another round of combat, my infantry units heading for the Sassanid flanks were now hit in the flanks by those horse archers that had danced away from their advance. I wasn’t too bothered: deep warbands can soak up a lot of damage…but not, unfortunately, enough!
One was dashed from the field, the other disordered, effectively curtailing its advance next turn.
On the right, where my horse supported by infantry had been mullering his clibanarii, the fortunes of war suddenly turned against me. I went from two undamaged units facing a disordered enemy heavy cavalry unit to a lone, disordered warband facing two enemy units!
Finally, and to add insult to injury, that lone unit of horse archers that had slipped through my lines managed to get into my camp and ravage my Gallic baggage. That cost me three victory coins and the game!
I had, however, actually come quite close to winning the game, and had certainly lasted longer than last time!
Even better, next game it was my turn to run the Sassanids!
Having re-based all my Sassanids, I couldn’t wait to get them onto the tabletop…and fortunately friend Bevan was available to help me do so.
The real question was who to pitch them against: the Sassanids are one of the most successful armies under the To The Strongest system: the combination of horse archers and chunky lancers giving everyone except a similar army real problems. I eventually decided upon the Gauls as suitable opponents: lots of big warbands that could soak up damage, not as fragile as the Ancient Brits, and with some decent cavalry of their own. Chuck in some Gaeseti fanatics, and on paper it looked like it might be a good match.
On paper.
Despite the fact that I had re-based the Sassanids, I elected to take the Gauls first time round. Outscouted, I decided to put all my cavalry on one wing: probably a mistake as that allowed Bevan to get his elephants opposite my horse…and if there’s one thing Gallic horse don’t like, it’s the look and smell of nellies!
The Sassanids opened proceedings by sprinting up the battlefield towards my line. Most unusually, the elephants shot out in front of the already fast-moving Sassanid line and stomped into the forest that I had thought I might use to protect my flank.
This looked like a good opportunity to me, so I sent a unit of Gaeseti fanatics into the woods to root the pachyderms out. Surely this was a couple of points I could secure before the rest of his line arrived.
Apparently not.
The elephants proved their worth and soon my fanatics were reeling backwards, with my CinC falling heroically in the melee!
Also on the left flank, the first charge of the Gallic cavalry versus the Sassanid cataphracts had taken place. Despite having the initiative, my horse had failed to dent the armoured horsemen at all, and another of my generals died!
Worse, some enemy Clibanarii were working their way down the flank and needed to be dealt with before they got into my rear!
Meanwhile, on the right flank, I had taken possession of the hill in front of my line. My thinking was that I could soak up a bit of horse archer fire, rallying if necessary, and then be uphill when the enemy lancers went in.
This didn’t really work either, as the Sassanid horse archers were having a very good day, and soon my two warbands looked like pincushions…and, you guessed it, I lost a third general!
So thirty minutes into the game, the situation looked like this:
The Gauls look pretty solid, but that’s an illusion. Next turn, the Gaeseti got mullered by the elephants, the lead cavalry unit got smashed off the table by the cataphracts (foreground action in the pic above), and I also lost the unit of cavalry next to the fanatics and one of the warbands on the hill. That, plus the three officers, was it: I was out of victory medals and out of the game!
Horrendous: Bevan had expertly sliced and diced the Gauls and served them for Sassanid tea!
Here’s a few pics from a recent game that Rick Staple had with his son, all lifted from the IABSM Facebook Group.
Click on the pic below to see all.
With the Moghuls having defeated the Cossacks in short order (see previous post) there was time to have another game. This time I thought that I would wheel out the Swedes: not sure quite how the contemporary but not contemporaneous Swedes and Moghuls would ever encounter each other…but then that’s the great joy of wargaming!
I was a bit more confident of victory this time: the Swedish army has a good mix of pike-armed infantry and decent Reiter horse: surely this would be enough to put the upstart easterners in their place!
The Swedes
The Moghuls
I drew up my Swedes in entirely the traditional manner: two brigades of infantry in the centre, a brigade of cavalry on each wing. My plan was to advance in a line and just get stuck in as soon as possible: my pike should be able to defeat his largely musket- or sword-armed infantry through reach alone!
The Moghul plan was to sweep his wings forward using weight of numbers to win the cavalry battle there, then curl in to take my main line in the flanks just as his main line hit them from the front.
His cavalry duly swept forward, with my cavalry advancing to meet them.
Left flank
Right flank
As the cavalry on both sides began their fight for dominance on the wings, the Swedes marched their infantry forward in the centre.
On the left wing, my cavalry were initially successful, and had a great opportunity to charge his main horse units in the rear by swinging around the small wood top left in the left hand picture above. Unfortunately, I drew a “10” for my first movement card, so got into the perfect position to launch the charge but just couldn’t actually charge before the way into the enemy cavalry’s rear was blocked by Moghul elephants.
Meanwhile, on my right wing, the cavalry clash had proved inconclusive. Both sides had lost multiple units, and things ended up with his cavalry technically ready to do more, but positionally unable to do so before the main battle lines clashed.
With the cavalry actions on the wings proving inconclusive, it was obvious that the battle would be decided in the centre. The two lines moved into contact and a grinding melee began.
As with most grinding melees, it was 50/50 who would win: the advantage I had from my pikes countered by the Moghuls slightly outnumbering me.
To cut a long story short, after a long series of to-and-fro clashes, I lost. At the end of the battle, the Moghuls had only three victory medals left, so if I’d broken one of his foot units before he broke one of mine, then I would have won.
All that was left in the centre of battlefield!
A great game, with the Swedes proving decidedly harder for the Moghuls to beat than the Cossacks!
Here’s a chronological, pictorial history of the battle:
Friend Bevan has recently acquired a 17th Century Moghul army, so naturally we had to get it onto the tabletop as quickly as possible.
The Moghuls’ first opponents would be my Zaphorogian Cossacks, and we’d use the “eastern front” version of For King & Parliament (in turn the ECW version of To The Strongest) that we have built up based on some core rule variants that you can find on the Tales from a Wargaming Shed blog.
The Moghuls
The Cossacks
My plan was to anchor my left flank on a patch of impassable ground, placing my artillery behind it so that they couldn’t be charged from the front (you can see this in the picture, above right). The left flank would be held by one foot brigade consisting of a sotnia of Registered Cossacks and two sotnias of Moloitsy.
Stretching out to the right from this point were the tabor war wagons, able to hold the centre of the field with sheer weight of fire. To their right were a second infantry brigade (same as the first one) and then, on the far right wing, the stars of the last battle, a brigade of Tatars: one squadron of noble lancer types, two clumps of horse archers.
The plan was, as I said, to anchor my left and centre, win on the right, and then sweep in and take his centre, battered from the fire of the tabor, from the flank.
Bevan’s plan, on the other hand, was to stay well clear of the killing field in the centre in front of my tabor, and advance strongly on the flanks. Hopefully his men there would win, and he’d decide what to do after that. Seems like quite a good plan to me!
The battle opened with the Cossacks being extremely reluctant to move forward at all. I managed to get the left wing into place, but only one tabor war wagon did what it was supposed to do. On my right wing, although the Cossack infantry were well up for a fight, the Tatars were not interested at all. This was slightly worrying: were my allies not quite so allied as I had thought? Had the Moghuls paid them off with more coin than I could afford?
The Moghuls trundled forward towards me.
Rather than spell out each phase of the battle in turn, let me give you an overview of what happened. In essence, Bevan’s plan worked perfectly.
On my left flank, my infantry, who should have been able to give a good account of themselves, especially as they were supported by the artillery and one end of the tabor line, crumbled under the weight of the Moghul attacks. One moment i had a left wing, the next I didn’t.
It was even worse of the right wing. The Tatars, the battle winners of my last two games, just refused to engage at all, and when they were attacked, just melted away. Definitely some dodgy politicking or bribery going on in the background!
Once my flanks were broken and driven it, Bevan’s Moghuls curled in on my flanks and the last of my victory medals soon disappeared. My tabor had hardly got to fight at all.
A nicely executed plan by the Moghuls and a well deserved victory. Here’s a chronological pictorial account of the game:
Steve Thomas from the Milton Hundred Wargames Club took a game of Charlie Don’t Surf to the Rapture Festival last weekend. The scenario was inspired by the Battle of Snoopy’s nose.
Click on the picture, below, to see some pics of the game:
David J Blood ran a game of Q13 at the Advance! 2022 convention in California.
The scenario featured a force of Humans trying to hold a force of Kzin (cats!) in place.
Click on the pic below to see the full report:
Bevan and I manged to squeeze in a quick game of To The Strongest last week. Choice of sides was up to me, so I decided to test out the new-ish massed lights rule (where two light units can join forces and keep most of the characteristics of a light unit but be a bit tougher in combat) by fielding my New Kingdom Egyptians. Against them Bevan would take the newly slimline Akkadians: their deep spear units being reduced to normal size under the latest incarnation of the army lists.
I deployed my infantry in the centre, with two strong chariot-based units on either wing. My plan was to use my superior missile fire to weaken his troops and then either smash his weakened centre with my foot, or have my chariots harass his flanks…and it almost worked!
On my left, Pharoah himself led his veteran chariots forward. They shot loads of arrows at the enemy but failed to make any impression: there was obviously something wrong with their bow strings that day!
They then spent the rest of the battle being slowly pushed back or, in one case, sandwiched i.e. keeping the enemy’s right wing occupied, but not much else.
My right wing, however, did exactly what it was supposed to do. Quickly disposing of some light infantry, one unit of chariots swept around the flank of an enemy spear unit and drove it from the table. The other chariot unit skirmished with another enemy spear unit until it was sufficiently wounded, and then charged in and finished it off.
Great success, but the fact that I was hitting only on an “8” (light units remember) meant that it had taken more time than I had anticipated to achieve what I had done. One unit of chariots was also now quite a long way from the action, although the other was in a position to strike a commanding blow by taking the enemy’s camp.
Unfortunately, the cards failed me at the last minute and I ended up one square short (photo: right, above). The other chariot unit, or perhaps a unit of light infantry, also missed charging into the rear of an enemy spear unit in the centre by a similar margin. I would win the next turn, but could my centre hold out long enough for me to do so.
The simple answer was “no”. The Akkadian spear and axe units in the centre had been grinding forward and my mixed force of archers and spearmen just could not hold them. On Bevan’s next initiative he manged to break enough of my units to win the game just as I was poised to do the same to him!
So another great game of TTS. Looking at that last turn, I had four chances to take Victory Medals, two of which I needed to make happen in order to win the game. In the event, none of the four came off: by such slim margins are the fortunes of war decided!
The final game of our To The Strongest battle day was a double-sized game with two players and 260 points per side. Si and I would take the Classical Indians again, Peter and Cayden would take the Alexandrian Macedonians.
One slight twist was that the results of the last four games were applied on top of the existing TTS points system to further balance the armies…and as the Macedonians had won three of the day’s four encounters so far, they had their Victory Medals (lose them all and you lost the game) reduced by a third.
Si and I decided to try the same plan that had almost worked in an earlier game: our left flank (under me) would hang back and try and hold the enemy’s main attack with the Companions and Phalanx whilst our right flank (under Si) advanced quickly, brushed aside the lights in front of it, and curled around to hit the phalanx etc in the side.
That was the plan…but unfortunately it didn’t work. Although the left flank did some heroic work holding up the Companions (the new rules about Javelinmen in rough terrain being very useful), the various Macedonian Phalanxes proved pretty unstoppable in the left centre, and our troops on the right just couldn’t get into play fast enough.
So there you have it: despite even points and a bias on the Victory Medals, the Indians still lost, Over the course of the day, that made four out of five Macedonians victories: I guess there’s a reason Alexander conquered the known world!
For the second encounter of the three-game marathon organised by Peter, I would take the Alexandrian Macedonians into battle against the Classical Indians.
My opponent set up in a tight formation in the centre of the battlefield hoping, presumably to pepper me with arrows before we made contact. His right wing looked very strong, with his heavy chariots and some elephants facing off against my Companions, but his left wing…well it looked a big “hanging” to me!
I therefore placed my three units of horse archers way out on my right: their aim would be to swoop round and attack his left wing from the flank and rear.
Once the game had begun, I advanced in echelon: holding back my left whilst my horse archers sprinted for the other end of the table. My pike blocks moved forward as fast as they could and, admittedly, I got a bit lucky here: the phalangites trotted forward faster than expected and almost immediately threatened his front.
After that good start, the battle unfolded almost exactly to plan. The horse archers swept around his left flank and rear just as the two phalanx units hit his front, and his left flank crumbled.
I then brought forward my Companions to prevent his quality troops on the right from intervening, and then it was just a matter of letting things take their course. In the end I won a victory 12:2 i.e. I only lost a couple of light units.
Having recently played on a table set up by Phil & Jenny Turner (click here for the AAR) it’s great to see that they are gearing up for another demonstration game at this year’s Britcon.
Michael Curtis has posted some pictures of the playtest of the game onto the IABSM Facebook Group. Click on the photo below to see all:
Off to Peter’s house for a three game marathon with him, Si and Caydn. The idea was simple: two teams of two, individual battles in the morning, one giant game in the afternoon.
My first game, therefore, was to take the Classicial Indians into battle against Peter’s Macedonians.
I was out-scouted, so set up with my powerful escorted elephants on my left flank, standard infantry and normal elephants in the centre, and my chariots and cavalry on the right. Opposite my left flank were the dread Companions, in the centre the phalanx block, and on the right several units of light horse.
My plan was for the left flank and centre to hold the Macedonians at bay whilst my chariots and cavalry dealt with the light horse and then swung round to take his phalanx in the flank…and it so almost worked!
As the battle began, his Companions and Phalanx did indeed come forward. I held back my left and left-centre brigades, but was still engaged quite early on. My chariots and cavalry began dealing with the light horse opposite them, but were too slow to do so, and although my right-centre brigade did start turning the Phalanx’s flank, it just didn’t seem to be happening fast enough.
The strong Macedonian units facing my left and left-centre began chewing me up, and although I now had infantry in a good flanking position, my chariots and cavalry were still trying to mop up the last of his lights out on the right.
I did manage to take out one Phalanx, but ran out of medals on the left and in the centre before I could get everything I had on the right back and into his flank. Unfortunately my army crumbled before that could happen, and I lost the game 4:12.
We both agreed that if I’d managed to hold out on my left and centre for just one more turn, then things would have been very different (you can see my veteran heavy chariots posed to sweep his troops off the table in the picture bottom right of the gallery above) but it was not to be. A great game, though, and much closer than the result would suggest.
Phil’s second game of I Ain’t Been Nuked Mum was based on an encounter from the Battlegroup book, with British infantry (a mix of Regulars and TAVR units) trying to clear Soviets away from a village so that engineers can breach the minefield it covers.
Some beautiful pics of the game can bee seen by clicking on the picture, below:
Phil Venables and friends have recently been taking I Ain’t Been Nuked Mum for a stroll.
Here’s a pictorial AAR covering their first game: Swedes versus Soviet Naval Infantry.
Click on the picture below to see all:
My afternoon game at Operation Market Lardon 2022 was a game of I Ain’t Been Shot Mum run by the legendary Phil and Jenny.
I must confess that I got so into the game that I forgot to note the background properly, but from memory Scottish infantry supported by tanks from the Lancers, commanded by Noddy and I, would be defending a village in Normandy somewhere against an attack by a combined force of infantry and armour from the Waffen SS commanded by Andy and friend John.
A superb game of IABSM played on wonderful terrain. Click on the picture below to see all:
Here’s the first of my two battle reports from the TFL Games Day, Operation Market Lardon: a game of Sharp Practice set not only in the Hundred Days campaign but actually at Waterloo itself. As you’ll see below, Joe McGinn put on a great-looking game
John and I played the French, commanding a force ordered to stop an ammunition cart getting to the British Guards in Hougement. The Allies were played by Ally and Phil
The French were quite lucky in that our Voltigeur skirmishers got onto the table quite quickly and managed to almost immediately drive the British guards away from the cart. One set of skirmishers was then able to take possession of the cart and get ready to move it towards our baseline.
The Allies then brought on a large force of German infantry in column that headed straight for the cart and managed to recapture it, forcing our skirmishers to withdraw, but they withdrew just far enough to put the Germans under fire again, with concentrated.fire from the two Voltigeur units then driving the column back.
This meant that the French had time to bring on both their main infantry force (conscripts) and a decent sized support unit (line infantry). The former headed towards the cart and were able to finish the German column off, the latter formed a blocking force that quickly got into a fire fight with some Nassau infantry coming up from the direction of Hougemont itself.
The blocking force and Nassau were fairly evenly matched until one unit of French Voltigeurs was able to break away from harassing the German infantry (who had been broken by the arrival and volley fire of the French conscripts) and lend its fire to the battle. The Nassau infantry started taking heavy casualties and were forced to withdraw.
As the battle ended, the French had the ammo cart in their possession and well on the way to their baseline; the German column and British guards were on the run; and the Nassau skirmishers were starting to backpedal fast.
It was a glorious victory for the French: we did not lose a single point of Force Morale and had reduced the Allied force to just one Force Morale point. We had also lost just two Voltigeurs whereas dead Allied infantry lay strewn over the field.
Here’s the game in photos:
Vis Lardica is a website devoted to wargaming and military history, with a special emphasis on the company-sized rulesets produced by the TooFatLardies: I Ain't Been Shot Mum (WW2); Charlie Don't Surf (Vietnam); and Quadrant 13 (science fiction)
Welcome to Vis Lardica, a not-for-profit website mostly dedicated to the company-sized wargaming rules produced by the TooFatLardies, but encompassing my other gaming interests as well.
If you need to contact me, you can do so at:
vislardica@gmail.com
If you have enjoyed visiting this site, please add a link to it on your own wargaming blog: www.vislardica.com.
