AAR TTS: Classical Indians vs Alexander's Macedonians

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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.

TFL Painting Challenge: Second Mid-June Update!

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No sooner had I posted Friday’s Painting Challenge update when a flood of e-mails hit the inbox with more entries (including some that I seem to have missed) so, rather than make people wait another couple of weeks, here’s a part two:

TFL Painting Challenge: Mid-June Update

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Just a quick update to keep things ticking over so that I don’t have too much backlog to clear!

Today we have entries from Matt, Carole, Nick and Mervyn. Do look in the individual galleries (access from the NavBar, above) but here’s a taster for you:

IABSM AAR: Breaking the Panzers

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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:

SP AAR: The Hundred Days

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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:

Operation Market Lardon 2022

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I’m just back from another very enjoyable day’s gaming at this year’s Operation Market Lardon TFL Games Day in Evesham.

Really nice to see everyone again after the lockdown break, and my heartfelt thanks to Ade Deacon for organising it as brilliantly as ever. I couldn’t stay for the evening curry this year but I am sure a good time was had by all!

As is usual, I played in a game in the morning and a game in the afternoon: Sharp Practice and I Ain’t Been Shot Mum respectively. I’ll write both games up over the next couple of days but, before I do that, here’s a pic of all the games on show from just before the day kicked off:

IABSM AAR: Le Hamel

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Another great After Action Report from Mark Luther.

It’s I Ain’t Been Shot Mum and Normandy 1944. This was going to be a two part battle, with this AAR describing the first contest covering the attack by 46 Royal Marine Commando and the Fort Garry Horse on the village of le Hamel on June 11, 1944.

Click on the picture below to see all:

Panzers for the Afrika Korps

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I used the long weekend to build and paint up all the German tanks with the Battlefront Kasserine box set.

There were nine tanks in all: three Panzer IV and six Panzer III, all of which could be built in a variety of different marks. I opted for a mixture of tank types to give me maximum flexibility when fielding them on table.

The kits went together very, very easily…even for someone as bad at kit building as I am. Really confirmed my belief that plastic really is the way forward.

First off the production line were the Panzer IVs: one F2 or G with the long 7.5cm gun, and two F1 with the short 7.5cm gun.

Then came the three Panzer III L with the long 5.0cm gun:

Finally another three Panzer III, this time the H or J with the short 5.0cm gun:

All were painted in the same way: a spray undercoat of Desert Yellow washed with Agrax Earthshade then drybrushed with Vallejo Iraqi Sand. Tracks were painted metal and then washed with a heavy Flesh-coloured wash. Finally decals were added with the use of a decal softener: essential if you’re applying the turret numbers to the bumpy bit on the side of the turret (I put a bit of softener on the turret, then apply the decal, then paint more softener over the top; leave for twenty seconds or so, then gently press down with a tissue).

These really are very nice kits that paint up beautifully, even with my crude skills. At less than £2 a tank, I cannot but recommend this boxset for anyone wanting a quick fix of Afrika Korps.

TFL Painting Challenge: Early June Update

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Almost half way through the year already, so hope everyone’s on course to hit their Painting Challenge targets?

Today we see the welcome return of Mr Slade: his galleries are always well worth a visit , always very inspiring.

We also have entries from Stumpy, Mr Luther, Mervyn and John Emmett…some excellent work on show. Below you’ll find an example from each: as above, I’d highly recommend a browse through the individual galleries.

IABSM AAR: Relieving St Omer

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Another excellent battle report from the equally excellent Bleaseworld blog.

Set during the Blitzkrieg in May 1940 the game was based around efforts by the 3rd Royal Tank Regiment attempting to relieve the French defenders of St Omer who were under attack by the 1st Panzer Division.

This AAR features a beautiful table put together by Phil and Jenny, so is well worth a look. Click on the picture, below, to see all.

A New Project: Afrika Korps

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One of the gaps in my collection of WW2 figures is the Afrika Korps. I have Western Desert Brits and Italians, but no Germans. When, therefore, I was at the Vanquish show a couple of weeks ago, and saw the Battlefront Kasserine boxed set, already good value at £42 for twenty-one vehicles/guns, reduced by another 20% by those nice gentlemen from The Pit, I quickly reached for my wallet and snapped it up.

I also bought one of their Team Yankee sets to join the others currently languishing in the lead mountain: so when I do eventually get around to painting some modern Russians, I will have everything I need to hand.

Anyhow, those who are regular readers will know that this year’s rule is that I’m only allowed to paint something new if I also paint something from the lead mountain as well. Lucky then that also lurking at the back of the cupboard of shame was the Battlefront 90th Light Africa Division “themed formation” box set that I’d also picked up at a heavy discount somewhere else. A quick shop to buy the right paints and bases etc, and I was ready to go.

SdKfz 6/3 “Diana”

The first unit off the painting table was a zug of SdKfz 6/3 “Diana” self-propelled anti-tank guns, unique to the aforementioned 90th Light Africa Division. There were only nine of these ever produced but, hey, I might be able to field them one day even if I have to write the scenario for myself.

The models were very easy to put together, even the usually tricky ‘mounting the gun and shield’ bit and, as you can hopefully see, paint up nicely as well. I painted the crew figures (there are two manning the gun in the back) effectively on the sprue by cutting a small slit in a blister pack blister and fitting the tab on the end of the crewman figure into the slit. That was much easier than detaching them and trying to hold a small tab whilst painting.

PaK 36(r) 7.62mm AT Guns

Next up, and from the same 90th Light Africa Division boxset were some ex-Soviet anti-tank guns. These had been captured in 1941 and re-purposed for north Africa.

The models (metal guns with plastic crews) also went together very well, although I had the usual problems with getting the gun barrels absolutely straight after the mangling they had taken in the Battlefront factory and in transit. Is it really so hard to take what is arguably the most important part of the model, or certainly one of the most noticeable parts, and ask your staff to be particularly careful when extracting them from the mold?

Finally I was on to the first unit from the Kasserine box set: a zug of PaK 38 anti-tank guns. The whole box set is plastic, so these needed to be clipped from a sprue before use.

Pak 38 5cm AT guns

Now plastic gun barrels don’t bend like the metal ones but you have to very careful when clipping them from the sprue, as thin barrels can flex as the clippers go in and end up snapping…which is what happened to the gun at the back in the photo above. I glued the barrel back together, but it just looks wrong at most angles. How very annoying! Of course I could have scrabbled around in the bits box for a different barrel, or sent off for a replacement etc, but I was painting them now, so I didn’t, so will have to put up with the wonky barrel for evermore!

So that’s a fair start on the Afrika Korps. Nine Panzers to paint and then I’d better think about what infantry to buy…and what I’m going to paint from the lead mountain to justify that expenditure!

Colours

Vehicles and guns were undercoated with Army Painter Desert Yellow spray then washed with GW Agrax Earthshade. They were then dry-brushed with Vallejo Iraqi Sand.

Crew were undercoated with GW Wraithbone spray then the uniforms block painted using Vallejo Yellow Green. I painted this lot wearing full Afrika Korps uniforms, but when I come to do the infantry, there’ll be a mix of Afrika Korps green and Italian yellow elements i.e. trousers, tops, caps. The helmets, gas mask cases and webbing were Iraqi Sand. The whole figure was then washed using GW Agrax Earthshade. I had then intended to highlight using Yellow Green, and did on the crew for the Dianas but, to tell the truth, it didn’t make much difference, so I just highlighted the faces on the gun crews (forehead, nose, chin, cheeks).

Q13 AAR: Snake in the Space Dog's Shadow

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It had been ages since I’d last played Quadrant 13, the company-sized sci-fi game using the basic IABSM engine that I wrote for the Lardies, so it was great to be able to take advantage of a day’s holiday and take the Astagar (space snakes) and Protolene Khanate (space dogs) for a ride.

Click on the pic below to see the whole report.

The majority of both armies originally come from Critical Mass Games, with the Khanate being one of the original races available and the Astagar added vis a Kickstarter campaign.

Unfortunately, CMG closed down, but the infantry figures (not the vehicles, just the infantry) are available from Ral Patha Europe.

Incidentally, one thing I missed out on Astagar-wise was the SP artillery. If anyone does have any that they don’t want any more, the snakeheads could do with a bit of support. E-mail me at admin@vislardica.com if you have some to sell.

And just for completeness, once I start collecting one particular category of sci-fi race, I have to have every variant possible…so my core Protolene Khanate space dogs are augmented by a platoon of Garrhul from Dark Star and a platoon of Raug from Khuarasan. If you are after dog-men, you have the choice of three different manufacturers or, like me, all three!

Musketballs 1812 War Gaming

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Last weekend I had to drop a couple of people off at Southampton docks (they were going on a cruise) and, as I usually do when I visit somewhere I don’t go very often, I Google’d to see if there were any wargame shops nearby.

Up came the interestingly named Musketballs 1812 War Gaming : a mere 2.7 miles from said docks, so I set the satnav and headed over for a visit.

First up, it’s in an interesting location. You go into an industrial estate, then into another one at the end of the first one, then head between various sinister looking factory units until you get to the end. There you see a corridor, which you go down, then up some stairs and then, finally, you’re there. Sounds hard, but it’s all clearly signposted and easy to find…I just kept looking round for the rest of the Fellowship!

But don’t let me put you off: it’s well worth the journey. Musketballs is an Aladdin’s cave of goodies and I ended up spending far more than I had intended to. The shop has every kind of painting and basing materials you can think off (and some you can’t) plus a goodly selection of figures and box sets as well. Lots of GW stuff, I also spotted Cruel Seas, those 10mm Napoleonic figures that come in strips, and a lot of RPG figures as well.

Bob Graham, the proprietor, is very friendly, and even made me a cup of tea to ready me for the long drive home. They also have a gaming room, attached, and although I couldn’t stay, I could tell that if I’d wanted to, I could probably have found someone to game with.

I’ve got to go back to Southampton to pick up the aforementioned cruise takers, and will definitely be writing a shopping list of paint and basing supplies for when I do so. Highly, highly recommended!

FK&P AAR: Swedish vs Cossacks

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Now that I had my Swedes all planned out, it was time to take them into action against my only other vaguely contemporaneous army, the Zaphorogian Cossacks.

This would be an interesting clash, as the two armies were very different: essentially a western pike & shot army (the Swedes) against an eastern pike & shot army (the Cossacks). Indeed, so different were the Cossacks that Bevan, my opponent, asked if he could use the Swedes (despite the dice initially saying otherwise) as he wasn’t sure how to fight with the Cossacks.

The Cossacks, therefore under my command, consisted of a brigade of four tabor war-wagon bases and some artillery; two brigades of Tatar cavalry, each consisting of two horse archer units and one heavier cavalry unit; and two brigades of infantry, each consisting of two Moloitsy units and one Registered Cossack units.

The Left Wing of the Cossacks

The Swedes, commanded by Bevan, were more like a conventional ECW army. They fielded two brigades of Reiters (like harquebusiers) , each with three squadrons; two brigades of pike, one consisting of three “Swedish” or pike-heavy battalia, the other consisting of four “German” standard battalia; and finally a battery of artillery and an orphan brigade of mixed cavalry consisting of a small unit of cuirassiers and another unit of standard Reiters.

The Reiters grouped together on the Swedish left wing

Despite having all the Tatar bowmen to seek out the opposition, the Cossacks were out-scouted and had to deploy first. The ground wasn’t ideal for war-wagons, with the only open space on my left, so that’s where they went along with a brigade of Tatar horse. The two infantry brigades went in the centre and centre right, with the final brigade of horse out on my right. I planned to hold the hedgerows on my right whilst the war wagons dealt with the Swedish left wing, and go from there!

The battlefield from the Cossack side. My CinC is obviously off to visit the church in the middle of the field!

The Swedes massed their cavalry on their left wing, and lined their infantry up next to them but stretching across the rest of the battlefield. That looked like an awful lot of cavalry facing my right, and I could immediately see that Bevan was intending to punch through my right hand cavalry brigade and then bring his horse round onto my flank. Gulp! I’d better win elsewhere rather quickly then!

The Battle Itself

The battle itself divided neatly into two halves: with action taking place on either side of but not along the road that ran up the centre of the field.

On the Cossack left flank, the tabor trundled forward with the Tatar horse easily keeping pace. Opposite them, the pike-heavy Swedish battalia advanced in a slightly ragged line, with the orphan brigade of cavalry behind them.

As the two sides got closer, the tabor turned and deployed ready for action, quickly opening fire with their light guns and muskets. One Swedish battalia was disordered by their fire, so the Tatar horse archers moved forward and double-disordered them with bowfire.

This was too good an opportunity to miss: the veteran Tatar Noble Lancers charged the disordered pike and smashed them from the table! Behind the pike were the Cuirassiers, but they were also dashed from the field by the rampaging Tatars. Unfortunately, the exhausted Nobles were then dispersed by the Reiters accompanying the cuirassiers, but they in turn were then routed by the horse archers following up their Noble comrades.

Meanwhile, one tabor was locked in combat with a battalia of pikemen. The action swayed back and forth, but the Swedish pike were too strong, and the tabor’s crew fled the field.

That was, however, the limit of Swedish success on this flank. Another battalia was hit in the flank and routed by horse archers, and as the battle on the other side of the field reached its climax, more Swedish infantry were about to be charged in the rear by the rampant Tatar horse: the combination of fortress-like tabor shooting any enemy that moved and the nimble Tatar horsemen proving a winnig combination.

It was, however, on the other flank that the battle was decided.

The Swedes wanted to push their horse forward en masse and just overwhelm the outnumbered Tatars in front of them. Unfortunately the cards did not smile on this endeavour, and their attack was first delayed and then delivered piecemeal.

This allowed the Tatars to focus their efforts on the front-runners and break two squadron of horse, but this initial success turned into a gradual retreat in the face of overwhelming numbers of Reiters and, as the battle ended, all three Tatar/Cossack units had been routed and the Swedish horse was preparing to lap around the right flank of the Cossack infantry.

The three Tatar/Cossack units had, however, effectively neutralised the initial Swedish plan of punching huge numbers of Reiters around the Cossack right flank meaning that, along with the successes on the left flank, the Cossacks had a real chance to win the battle with their infantry in the centre…provided they could do so before the Reiters eventually arrived.

The gallery below shows the cavalry action on the right of the Cossack position:

So the battle would be decided in the centre-right axis of the Swedish advance, where the good quality “Swedish” (pike-heavy) infantry moved forward against the Cossack foot: mostly raw infantry armed with long spears rather than pike.

The Cossacks lined the hedgerows near the crossroads and the Swedes advanced to contact. Cossack musket fire was largely ineffective, and they were soon forced to retreat away from the hedgerows in the face of a series of determined charges by the enemy pike.

I brought up reinforcements from the other flank, but so crowded was the nature of the fighting that I couldn’t find a way of extricating my disordered troops from the front line so that I could replace them with fresh. This, as I said, was due to the ferocity of the Swedish attack: continually pressing forward.

And then Lady Luck smiled upon the Cossacks: the Swedish Commanding General was cut down by Cossack musket fire as he led his infantry line forward!

In FK&P, your c-in-c is worth a lot (and I mean a lot) of victory medals, so this really tipped things in my favour. If I could break just two more Swedish units (across the battlefield, not just on this flank, so including all the action on the other flank, happening simultaneously with what I’m now describing) then the day would be mine.

The death of the swedish C-in-C

Unfortunately, Lady Luck is nothing if not even handed, and the very next turn the Cossack commanding general was first lightly wounded and then also killed, losing me an equal number of victory medals!

Death of the Cossack Commanding General

Both sides were now down to just two victory medals remaining: whoever next broke a unit would win the battle.

The initiative was with the Cossacks, so my line of Moloitsy and Registered Cossacks opened fire, bur failed to break the enemy. They returned fire…and this proved too much for one of my raw Moloitsy battalia. They broke and fled the field, taking the rest of my infantry with them.

Seeing their right flank broken and, indeed, with the survivors about to be cut down by rampaging Reiters, the victorious Tatar cavalry and tabor on the left flank remembered an important appointment elsewhere and also skedaddled. The day was with the Swedes!

Aftermath

It had been an epic game that, once again, came down to the final action.

All credit to Bevan for having a great plan and deployment: if his infantry hadn’t carried the day then his Reiters coming in from my right would have finished me off for sure.

17th Century Swedish Command

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Over the last couple of year’s I’ve built up a sizeable 15mm collection of English Civil War figures. To them I’ve added some Cossacks and am in the process of building a contemporary Polish army as well.

Looking to get more use out of all the above, I realised that I could quite easily use the bulk of my English Civil War collection as Swedish troops for the Thirty Years War. After all, the Swedish troops dressed in “western” styles rather than the “eastern” styles of the native Polish or Cossack infantry: so my “Swedish-style” ECW cavalry could masquerade as Swedish reiters, and the infantry could be fielded as is.

That was a good start, but I didn’t have any idea as to the composition of a Swedish army…but a couple of hours online and with the FK&P rulebook enabled me to put together the following, which I think does the trick nicely.

The main elements of the army would be reiters and either “Swedish” of “German” foot. “Swedish” foot were rarely actually Swedish of course (a lot of Finns and a surprising amount of Scots): the name comes from the way they were fielded in terms of pike/musket ratio following Carl Gustav’s reforms. Likewise, “German” foot were not all German, and the term applies to any foot with a more conventional pike/musket ratio.

I could have gone into more detail and noted that CG’s army were often short of pikemen, so all the infantry were effectively “German” stylee, but that’s probably an unnecessary complication: it’s enough that I can call pike-heavy battalia “Swedish” and standard battalia “German”.

The next question was how to make the army look a bit more Swedish. The solution was actually quite easy: the Swedish Command pack from By Fire & Sword gives you seven different command stands plus flags.

One problem is that the By Fire & Sword models are really difficult to get hold of in the UK: exports from Poland presumably more difficult now due to a mixture of Brexit, COVID and the dramatic increase in postage/transport costs. I manged to get one of the last I could find from Entoyment in Poole.

The models are generally up to the usual high standard of By Fire & Sword except, unfortunately, for a lot of the faces. I don’t know whether it’s the original sculpts or the casting, or even worn out molds, but many of the faces just didn’t have the relief that you’d normally expect. I’m not the best painter in the world, so I reply on clearly defined detail on figures to bring out the, er, detail, including faces. Base colour, a wash then highlight forehead, nose, cheeks and chin only really works if you have a clearly defined forehead, nose, cheeks and chin…otherwise you’re actually painting faces from scratch, well beyond my talents!

This was disappointing, but I still think the By Fire & Sword packs are great: everything you need plus flags.

So that’s a Swedish army created from existing stock and one pack of command figures. I might see if I can do the same with some of the other TYW nations…

Assyrian Lights

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With the Akkadian army now tweaked to fit in with the latest lists (i.e. with the new, slimline infantry units) I decided to go through all my armies checking that I had everything that I could need.

First pause for purchase were the Assyrians: I have all the core troops but could do with some more light archer units as the one that I had was almost certainly not enough.

Most of the existing Assyrians are from Essex, so it was off to their website I went to get some more. After all, as the madaxeman says on his blog:

Essex have a vast range of 15mm figures in all periods and are often seen as the "baseline" for all other manufacturers - whatever army you are looking to buy Essex will have a figure range for it, and the decision you need to make is "can I find any manufacturer of figures I like better than those from Essex?" (or maybe "everyone will have these Essex figures - I want my stuff to look different as it will then give the impression that I have a personality of my own!"). IMO their figures are always to a good standard, take paint nicely but are sometimes accused of lacking a little in "personality" or animation. Very good consistency and compatibility throughout the entire range.

Wise words!

Essex also have excellent service: I ordered on a Saturday and by Tuesday the figures were sitting on the painting table ready for a bit of attention.

Lovely figures, and easy to paint up: I used Contrast Paints and did the whole lot in a couple of hours.

Highly recommended.

TFL Painting Challenge: Second May Update

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Here’s another Painting Challenge update, with entries Steve Burt, Carole Flint, Mark Luther, Andrew Helliwell, Mervyn Douglas and Sapper.

See their individual galleries for all their work, but here’s a taster to whet your whistle…