Britcon Day Two: Game Five & Results

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My final battle at Britcon was against Peter’s Ostrogoth army: another almost-all cavalry force that was bound to lap around my flanks!

Outscouted, my set up was defensive, but I managed to place enough terrain to protect the flanks of my camp, then put the cavalry on the left hoping to hold up his elite nobles for long enough for the Legions to quash any other resistance with a Space Invaders like march forward in a straight line.

The game really turned my way very early on when a couple of extremely unlucky cards meant that Peter and the Ostrogoths lost an elite unit and their senior general in the first proper cavalry clash on the left.

After that, it was a matter of pining his troops back against things they couldn’t evade through and heading for his camp with everything I had: a workmanlike victory 17:4,

So, on to the results. I had four victories and one defeat under my belt, but one of the victories was the 7:5 Carthaginian affair so in reality three victories, one draw and one defeat.

In the end, when everything was totted up, I came third, an improvement of one place on Ewelme. The full scores were:

Congratulations to Adrian on a well deserved victory, and huge thanks to Sid for organising it all.

I would recommend giving the Britcon tournament a go at least once: it’s great fun even if it is quite a test of endurance: it certainly knocked me out for the next few days!

I’d also recommend a trip to 4550 Miles to Delhi the Indian restaurant we (and, coincidentally the Lardies) all ended up in on the Saturday night: great food and atmosphere.

CDS Arab-Israeli AAR: Chariots of Fire

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Steve Blease and fellow Lardy Phil got together to push some 6mm tanks around the table using the Arab-Israeli 6DW variation of Charlie Don't Surf. 

Steve devised a basic scenario loosely based around the Battle of Dothan Valley on the West Bank at the start of the June/Six Day War of 1967. Click on the picture below to see all..

Britcon Day Two: Game Four

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This was probably my hardest game of the tournament: matched up against Howard’s beautifully painted Later Carthaginians.

This was an epic clash that lasted some 3½ hours and was the only game of mine that was stopped by the umpire rather than coming to its natural conclusion.

Rather than use the set terrain, we had used the rules in the book, allowing me to protect my wings with a couple of pieces of impassable rocks. That meant that I could tie up his three units of heavy cavalry with the Praetorians and Auxilia whilst the rest of my army went for the rest of his.

My plan was for one unit of Legionaries to take out his elephants centre-left, whilst my cavalry took out the rest of his cavalry centre-right and then got round behind and into his camp. Meanwhile, I would hold back his elite pseudo-Legionaries with the rest of my true Legionaries on the right.

As always, no plan survived first contact with the enemy: my Legionaries refused point blank to go after his elephants and my cavalry got blocked in the middle…Howard had some annoying light infantry positioned on steep hills that caused me a lot of grief.

One of the key moments of the game: the equites alares get back to block the carthaginian heavy cavalry

The battle started to sway Howard’s way but, for once, the Roman cavalry were superb. The Equites Alares effectively held the centre on their own, rushing backwards and forwards to force his advancing units to protect their flanks.

At the end of the game it was tied 5:5, but my cavalry, on their last turn, managed to flank charge one of Howard’s units knocking it from the board and thus giving me a 7:5 victory.

Britcon Day One: Game Three

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My third game at the Britcon 2023 To The Strongest tournament was against Simon and his Hapsburg Burgundians again. Regular readers will know that I fought a warm-up battle against Simon on the Friday night, losing badly!

This was a grinding game that could have gone either way. The enemy pike pressed forward relentlessly with the Legions conducting an epic fighting withdrawal as the Roman cavalry worked their way onto the HB’s flanks.

Unfortunately, my “roll up” mounted flank attack went in with only enough time for me to break one of Simon’s pike blocks before the legionaries finally gave way: a 5:17 loss.

What was frustrating was that my plan was sound and I came so close to rolling him up entirely…it just didn’t quite happen. If one more pilum had gone in, if my cavalry had got one more hit…if, if, if!

Still, at least I did better than in the first battle!

Britcon Day One: Game Two

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My second game at this year’s Britcon To The Strongest tournament was against Si’s Sassanid Persians. I was someone nervous about this one: Si is a very good player and the Sassanids are a nasty army for the Romans to fight. All that cavalry laps around the Legions’ flanks!

This game, however, went my way…but mainly because Si had the worst possible luck throughout the match: he failed every save he should have made and missed every hit that should have gone in!

As a result, my cavalry held up the Sassanid heavies on my left flank for long enough for my Legionaries to get to grips in the centre and, as my auxilia sagittarii defended my camp against his lights, ground forward pushing his other horsemen back until they had nowhere to evade to. I then took his camp and the game with a 15-0 victory.

So a great result for the Romans, but mainly because Fortuna was firmly on my side.

Britcon: Day One: Game One

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My first game of the tournament proper was against Andy’s Dacians. Co-incidentally, Andy was also the first person I played against at the European’s in Ewelme, so it was good to see him on the other side of the table again.

As per usual with the Romans, I got into trouble on both flanks, but somehow held on for long enough for the Legionaries to win the battle in the centre.

On my left flank, the cavalry achieved nothing except to hang on against multiple flank attacks: not good for veteran cavalry but a considerable improvement compared to their usual dire performances.

On the right, one unit of Legionaries held on against a series of vicious flank and rear attacks for three consecutive turns: laurel wreaths all round.

In the end the battle was decided by my equites sagittarii (horse archer Auxiliaries) who managed to charge some rather nasty cataphract types in the flank and took them out.

Result: a 13:6 victory, worth 17 points once the extra for winning all my opponent’s coins was added in.

Britcon: Day Minus One

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One of the five To The Strongest competitions that I am playing in this year is currently taking place at Britcon: the massive wargames competition event held in Nottingham each year.

As I’m quite a long way from Nottingham, I travelled up on the Friday i.e. yesterday. Horrible journey where a combination of a very busy M40 and a clogged M1 meant that the trip took me an hour longer than I expected, but I found the car park no problem and, almost even better, a cracking place to re-charge my car - I’m 40 miles short of being able to do the round trip in one charge: a bit too much to risk!

Check in to the accommodation was easy too, so kudos to BHGS for their superb organisation. Okay so the room is not what one is used to (it’s been a long time since I was a student!) but very pleasant once you get used to it. The shower is very good, so things could have been much worse!

Carrying a metal 28mm army from flat to venue proved challenging: my arms and fingers had just about reached their limit by the time the main hall sprang into view, but a quick cup of coffee soon revived me and I was able to have a wander and get my bearings.

The rest of TTS lot arrived soon after, and we decided to have a warm up game to get into the swing of things. My opponent was Simon Miller, author of the rules and all-round good egg, with his Burgundian Hapsburg army of mostly raw pikemen.

My Early Imperial Romans advanced in echelon, and got into the perfect position to flank charge his slowly advancing line…but then I suffered the most extraordinary bad luck for the rest of the game and got thrashed 0-13!

Now you may say “oh, the old "‘bad luck’ excuse, eh?” but even Mr Miller kept apologising not just for my card draws but also for his extraordinary good luck. Put it this way, during the game I had nine flank charges that resulted in no effect whatsoever: not even a single disorder!

All I could hope for was that this was not an omen for the competition itself, and that I had used up all my bad cards!

Here are some pics of the game:

IABSM AAR: Storming the Citadel

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Will Depusoy and friends have been converting the Kursk “Storming the Citadel” campaign to I Ain’t Been Shot Mum, but using Chain of Command activation and buying support “platoons” instead of single models.

Here’s a quick report from one game taken from the IABSM Facebook Group. Click on the picture below to see all.

TTS AAR: Romans versus Indians

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More practice for Britcon as friend Rob comes over for a couple of games of To The Strongest. The first game was my Early Imperial Romans (well, the Marian Romans proxying for them) versus Rob’s Classical Indians.

not a lot of romans…

but an awful lot of indians

My plan was simple: my veteran cavalry would sweep forward on my left wing and quickly dispose of his raw horse; meanwhile the Legion would advance forward into combat using their superior strength and flexibility to chew through his javelinmen and elephants; once the lines were fully committed, my cavalry would return and hit the enemy from the flank and rear or sack the enemy’s camp.

Unfortunately, my cavalry were having an off day and just couldn’t break the Indian horse: they spent the entire battle tied up way out on the left. That meant that the job of winning (as usual, some would say) was all down to the legionaries.

Fortunately they proved more than up for the task and, apart from the odd minor set back mainly down to the Auxilia, once the lines had closed and the Roman “mincing machine” had started up, there wasn’t a lot that could stop them.

The coup de grace came from one legionary unit breaking through the Indian line and sacking their camp, taking the last Indian victory medals in the process.

Here are some pics of the game:

IABSM AAR: A Final Effort

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Great After Action report from Dan Albrecht and friends, originally posted on the IABSM Facebook Group.

The battle recreated an engagement between 12th SS Panzer Division and the British 11th Armoured Division on June 27th near Caen. Order of Battle is from the excellent book Monty's Epsom by Skirmish Campaigns.

Click on the picture below to see all the action:

Romans Take To The Field (x3)

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I needed to get some practice in for the To The Strongest tournament I’ve entered at Britcon this year, so friend Peter kindly invited me round for a gaming session where I would fight the Romans against whatever he fancied playing.

Given that my Early Imperial Romans are mostly infantry, it was no surprise to see a huge mass of cavalry waiting for me on the other side of Peter’s table. The first two games we played would be Mongols versus Romans, the last would be Normans versus Romans.

Game One: Mongols versus Early Imperial Romans

Being a mostly infantry army, I was comprehensively outscouted and ended up with my troops exactly where I didn’t want them. At least a fifth of my army was out-of-play until they moved in from the flank, and what cavalry I did have were faced by enough swarms of light horse archers to also keep them occupied for the whole game.

Outflanked on my left, my left flank collapsed, and I spent the entire game reacting to the threat from that side. The upshot was a massive 13-0 defeat for the Romans (including the death of the CinC) that boded ill for the rest of the day!

Game Two: Mongols versus Early Imperial Romans

Much to all’s amazement: I won the scouting and, as a result, began the game in a much better position than last time.

Despite this, my left flank collapsed again and I soon found myself 0-4 down in terms of medals. This time, however my better deployment meant that I could recover from this set-back, and in one glorious charge, a unit Roman Equites Alares dashed six victory coins of Mongols from the table, tearing a great big hole in the enemy centre.

Although I was by now running out of victory medals, knocking out another unit of Mongol Lancers and taking the enemy camp finished the job, although I did lose my CinC and part of my camp again. An 11-11 scoreline, but victory for the Romans.

Game Three: Normans versus Early Imperial Romans

Amazingly, I won the scouting again and, if I say so myself, deployed perfectly against the Norman threat.

I advanced forward confidently, only to have my cavalry charge forward with an advantage and get comprehensively stuffed. The worst that should have happened was an even-stevens tussle, but my horsemen just evaporated!

I might have been able to hold on and counter-ruck against an infantry army, but against a mobile mounted army I stood no chance. The rest of my Romans put up a brave fight, so it was no whitewash, but in the end a 6-13 defeat.

Conclusions

So what did I learn? Well, I shall be changing my list slightly just to give me a bit more flexibility, but the main lesson learnt was “don’t fight cavalry armies” which is not very helpful at all!

19thC AAR: The Battle of Nachod

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Bevan and I played another game using Neil Thomas’ 19th Century rules, this time using one of the scenarios included in the book: the battle of Nachod from the Autro-Prussian war of 1866.

There are three small towns above Nachod (which is the one with the pond): Wenzelberg, Wysokow and Aldstadt. The Prussians occupy two of them, Wenzelberg and Wysokow, with cavalry on the hill above and reinforcements on the way. The Austrians are just arriving near Wenzelberg. Victory goes to whoever occupies all three of Wenzelberg, Wysokow and Aldstadt at the end of turn 15, with any other result being a draw.

The Austrian infantry pushed the Prussians out of Wenzelberg fairly easily (historically they were cut to pieces by defensive fire) but rather than retreating the Prussian previous owners hung around and, together with the Prussian Uhlans and Jaegers, caused huge delays in the Austrian advance towards Wysokow.

Meanwhile, the Prussian reinforcements had also started to arrive.

The Austrian were pouring troops onto the battlefield, and lined up ready to begin their assault on Wysokov. Behind them, the Prussian Guards from Wenzelberg were still causing problems, and it took another two Austrian units to finally get rid of them.

This was all taking up too much time: the Prussian column was getting closer!

The Prussians in Wenzelberg weren’t waiting for the Austrian hammer blow to fall: taking advantage of a pause in the Austrian advance (the Austrians were “exhausted” for three turns i.e, couldn’t charge, and moved and fired at half effect) they advanced out of the town, formed line, and began blasting the advancing Austrian columns with fire from their breechloaders.

Meanwhile, a terrific cavalry battle developed between two Prussian and three Austrian regiments. The Prussian Uhlans were, however, on fire, as they were historically, and although the various cavalry melees would continue until the end of the game, the Prussian Uhlans would effectively fight the superior number of Austrian cavalry to a standstill.

The Austrian infantry were, however, doing better than their donkey-walloper comrades and, ably supported by artillery, were able to defeat the other regiment of Prussian Guards and occupy Wysokov. They then prepared to face the onslaught of the arriving Prussian reinforcements.

Keen not to allow the Prussians any time to deploy effectively, the Austrian columns marched straight out of Wysokov and straight at the enemy.

The Prussians had managed to deploy some of their regiments into line, but their guns were still on the road behind them, and although those that had deployed opened up a withering fire on the Austrians, there just weren’t enough of them ready to fight.

As the game drew to a close, the two sides were locked into a firefight that was slightly going the Austrians way: if only because their guns were deployed and firing whereas those of the Prussians were still limbered.

With two of the three objectives in Austrian hands, and with a superior tactical position, the game was declared a winning draw for the Austrians.

Aftermath

This was a tight-fought game with the Prussian Guards fighting for every yard: at one stage, two units of Prussian guard were fighting six units of Austrians and holding their own! It was only when the Austrian guns came up that the situation turned against them.

In the end, Austrian aggression won the day for them, although we probably had the width of the table too wide by 30cms or about two turns of road movement. A right-sized table would have let the massive Prussian column of reinforcements close with the Austrians earlier than actually happened, something that could well have turned the game in their favour.

So a draw was the right result: as the person playing the Austrians, I was not looking forward to facing the Prussian breechloaders should they have had the time to properly deploy!

SP AAR: OML9: Xhosa Raid!

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My second game at Operation Market Larden 9 was a game of Sharp Practice set in South Africa in 1846.

To quote the briefing, “Xhosa raiding parties have brough terror to European settlers along the border with Cape Colony, destroying farmsteads, murdering their inhabitants and driving off livestock. The Governor has ordered both Regular and locally-raised auxiliary units up into the Waterkloof mountains to escort the civilians back to safety”.

I would play the commander of the auxiliary units tasked with rescuing the civilians.

The column I was helping to protect. My auxiliaries will enter the table from far to the right of what you can see here. The xhosa will come from where the camera is and off to the right as well.

This turned out to be a Ripping Yarn of a game, with waves of Xhosa initially trying to overwhelm the column and my troops with fire then, realising that we were winning the firefight, attempting to charge in and fight us at close quarters.

Most of the work, I admit, was done by my colleague controlling the Regulars, who established a firing line towards the rear of the column and a group of Riflemen in a ruined farmhouse and, quite frankly, shot the Xhosa to death.

For my part, apart from an initial hiccup with Corporal Nutter’s section of militia, who used my first move to retreat behind cover and then did not activate for the whole of the rest of the game, I managed to get some very useful Frontier Light Horse types into a position where they were protecting the road and could use their double-barrelled carbines to good effect, and then started rolling up the Xhosa’s left flank with the rest of my troops.

A charge from the Xhosa just about wiped out another of my units (horsemen who were, at that point, fighting dismounted) but that left the charging Xhosa vulnerable to a couple of volleys and a counter-charge that sent them scurrying from the table.

In the end, we defeated the Xhosa without taking too many casualties ourselves. Here’s a gallery of the action:

My thanks to everyone who was running/playing the game (it was great to use such beautifully painted figures on a cracking layout) and, of course, to Ade Deacon for organising the event as a whole. Can’t wait for OML10!

IABSM AAR: OML9: The Race to Brussels

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One of the games I played in at this year’s Operation Market Larden was a superbly presented I Ain’t Been Shot Mum scenario put on by Phil and Jenny.

Iaon and I would lead tanks from the Welsh Guards supported by motorised infantry from the Grenadier Guards in a race across Belgium to be the first units into Brussels. Historically, the only opposition encountered was in the town of Halle, and that’s what the day’s affairs would recreate. Our mission was to get a “significant force” off either of the bridges at the other end of the table.

Unfortunately, things did not go entirely to plan mainly, I hasten to add, due to a spectacular cock-up in tactics on my part!

Click on the picture below to see how easy it is to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory!

IABSM AAR: Race to Brussels

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At Operation Market Larden 9 last Saturday, my morning game was a superb Race for Brussels game put on by Phil and Jenny.

The Dynamic Duo had playtested the game a few days before, and Steve Blease has written a lovely After Action Report that you can read by clicking on the picture below:

But how did you do at the game, I hear you ask?

Rest assured, I’ll be writing a full report concerning my execrable performance when I have time to do so but, put it this way, it was definitely an “interview without coffee” for my company commander when he limped back to base!

FK&P AAR: Transylvanian Double Act

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I recently spent a bit of time properly marking up my 17th Century “eastern front” Transylvanian and Muscovite armies: by “marking up” I mean putting identifiers on each unit that allows me to remember which are which! That done, it was time to get them onto the tabletop.

The Transylvanians were a bit of a mish-mash. Their core Household troops (heavies and lights) were supported some more light cavalry and two brigades of infantry, one of foreign Commanded Shot and one of Szekley Pike & Shot (represented by Scots!).

The Muscovites were similar: a core National Cavalry and foreign Reiters supported by a brigade of Tartar horse-archer allies, with two brigades of foot, one Cossack, one Soldat (foreign-trained foot).

Game One

Our first game was very short. My opponent, Kavan, had forgotten how important it is in For King & Parliament not to lose your commanding general (as valuable as a couple of camps in To The Strongest) and blithely sent his CinC forward with the first wave of attackers.

The Transylvanian Household Cavalry were, however, having an exceptional day: their first charge smashed the squadron of enemy cavalry led by the Muscovite CinC from the field (meaning that Kavan lost about half his Victory Coins in one go) and then charging again to KO a second unit as well.

Combined with losses elsewhere on the field, this was enough to break the Muscovite morale and send them fleeing back to “the first throne” in some disarray!

Game Two

As the first game had been so quick, we decided to re-set the sides and play again, but this time with the Muscovite CinC safely at the back of his troops rather than leading from the front!

Two key differences in this game. Firstly, the Transylvanian infantry had to fight for possession of the small town on their right flank; and secondly the Transylvanian Household Cavalry didn’t achieve the same success on their initial charges as last time.

This meant that the heavier Muscovite cavalry had time to drive back the Transylvanian light horse, particularly on the Transylvanian left wing, and then curl around to threaten that entire flank.

A combination of steady foot and charging horse put the town into Muscovite hands and that, plus the combination of lost light units and the usual battlefield attrition in the centre, meant that the Transylvanians were gradually ground down and, after a series of reverses in the centre, were forced to retreat.

Aftermath

Two great games of For King & Parliament/Eastern Front Edition and honours even with one win for each side.

Success for the Transylvanians has to come from understanding how to make the significant numbers of light horse work. I didn’t manage it in either game really (the first game was the Household cavalry’s show!) so something to work on for next time!

TTS AAR: Anglo-Normans Hammered!

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With Viking and Norman armies now complete, I thought I’d have a look at what else this meant I could field. The most obvious mash-up was an Anglo-Norman army i.e. an English army from after William the B’s victory at Hastings.

This seemed to me to be quite a good combination: you have the the mobile power of Norman knights, the endurance and ferocity of the Viking foot (well, Anglo-Saxons…but the fyrd is a fyrd as they say!), and some lights in support.

With that decided, it was time to pick an opponent. Looking at the list of units that have been painted but haven’t been on the tabletop yet, it was obvious that the Assyrians were up. Not an historical match up by any stretch of the imagination (well, perhaps a pre-emptive strike on what would be the site of the British museum?) but this is Ancients so we won’t worry about that too much! I would play the Anglo-Normans, Kavan would play the Assyrians.

I deployed in a conventional manner - infantry in the middle, cavalry on the wings, lights with missile weapons in front - but Kavan made the unusual choice to put all his heavy infantry on his left wing, with the heavy cavalry and heavier chariots in the centre and his lighter infantry on the left. He then proceeded to march his heavy infantry forward at a rapid pace, hanging back most of his other troops.

I must confess that this completely banjaxed me, and I spent the next phase of the battle trying to re-arrange my troops to match. Talk about surrendering the initiative to your enemy!

Kavan’s troops, of course, were not waiting for me to sort myself out: they were up and at me, taking full advantage of the confusion to sneak a unit of cavalry through the middle as I tried to face the twin threats approaching my flanks.

And this was just the start!

With cavalry now driving through the middle of my line, I couldn’t advance the infantry I’d moved to the right flank to counter his infantry, meaning that I tried to stop them with my knights. Kavan had anticipated this, however, and had hung a unit back to protect his flanks. So this effectively stalemated that side of the field, taking my best troops out of the battle.

Things were going no better on my left and in the centre, with Kavan cross-ruffing his heavy chariots between the two to both prevent me getting any sort of advantage on either and then, with a superb run of cards, even managing to rear charge a unit of heavy Norman spear that I was pulling back to try and defend my camps!

Even if my heavies did survive that initial impact, I was definitely now on the back foot, and it wasn’t long before they did give way, leaving the way clear for the Assyrian chariots to break through and finish the capture of my camps that the cavalry had begun.

That took care of the last of my victory medals, meaning that the Assyrians had won a glorious victory over my utterly-defeated Anglo-Normans.

A great game of To The Strongest, fought superbly by Kavan, who knocked me off balance with his initial deployment and never let me recover. A master class!