Yet Another Greco-Persian Disagreement

 A couple of weeks ago we fought another clash, using Hail Ceaser 2 to adjudicate a land grab by the Persians under Tarius the 3rd.

A strong initial advance by the Persian Left Wing cavalry force was brought to a standstill by the hastily raised Hoplites of Mantinea, supporting and supported by the weak Greek cavalry force.

Thereafter the Spartans lead an advance into the heart of the enemy but were eventually flanked on the left and it was up to the Greek Right wing to act as a rear guard whilst the rest of the greeks removed themselves as best they could.

The figures are a mix including Victrix and some Foundry, and are mostly from Chris Cunningham's collection, with the Mantineaens hastily assembled for mine.

A project started 24 years ago revisited.

 When I first moved to Brussels in 2000 suddenly I found that I had a little extra money that I could spend on my hobby. At that time Wargames Foundry were releasing figures faster than I could say Wow! 

I had acquired a few of the Pirate Range, largely still languishing in the Locker. I painted a crew for Legends of the High Seas but the rules did not really take off, and there is an African Expedition exploring my garage somewhere. They may even run into the Forest tribe painted all those years ago.

Yes, I know I sold a Greek army and replaced it with Steve Saleh sculpts, and added a few Macedonians to boot, but they are for another post, no, what concentrated my mind that following spring and summer was that I wanted to create a force for small actions, and not using the English Napoleonic army. 

I think my inspiration came from Blasthoff bridge, but I wanted it a bit more formal. So I bought 4 units of Infantry ,and three Cavalry units a side, adding foot and horse artillery, and command. Mostly through Foundry deals, so some things are a bit odd. Oh, and there were a few skirmishers as well. The Nationalities? French and Austrian. And I had a thing about French Light Infantry - I still do- especially the regiments with the Colbacks and plumes. And Hussars. Pheasant faking is a definite thing and it really annoys me that I have to keep raiding the plastic spares to repair the Hussars. 

Anyway time and tide wait for no man and someone invents Field of Glory, the Picquet style rules. Battalions were 12 figures strong and horse 8. And my skirmish force got rolled up into a Front Rank based force where they languished through Black Powder and Shadowof the Eagles.  Until this year.  

I remembered I had a copy of Musket and Tomahawks, and the Napoleonic supplement. Dabbled a bit. Enjoyed Saga more. And then Studio Tomahawk brought out the new V for Victory which seized my imagination.  And I also looked again at Shako and Bayonets. It does not need the forces of Sharp Practice. Officers are important, but flags and drummers are mere ornament, as are lowly officers below shall we say field rank. Suddenly my old Foundry figures had a new purpose. Rebasing and repairing began. The results are below. 

Oh and the numbers in the Front Rank collection were made up, now that Gripping Beast are making them and to the same standard as the originals. 

So. At the Dorchester club meeting on Wednesday they got their first public outing. It was a learning game with 4 players and we decided between the pairs how the hand of cards would be dealt. there were some surprising runs of cards.  It was a clash, with an objective in the middle of the table to give some focus to the game. Each detachment was to try and take Frau Miggensius's tavern. Somewhere on the Danube front in 1809.  In the end it just became a deathride for the newly raised (painted) French Dragoons who valiantly charged around the tavern and into a cross fire from the Austrian lights.  They managed to charge one unit and did damage, but not enough to dislodge them, and ended up bouncing off rather than continuing the fight.

Egypt and Assyria

 Another Tuesday Murder club meeting in February.  This time the Assyrian muscle was trying to take on the Egyptians.  The rules were black powder, but instead of a head on clash it was decided that only two divisions of each force would be deployed at the outset.  The Assyrian Commander decided to field his cavlry heavy division alongside the Heavy Chariotry.  Egypt went for 1 infantry group and one composed of several light chariot units.  Reinforcements would arrive on the drawing of an A or and E from a scrabble bage, from move 2 onwards. At the end of a move the general would draw a letter if it was his own a dust cloud was seen and the division would arrive on the next turn. if it was not then the letter went back in the bag.  The terrain square was nominated (we were using a 3 by 4 array of TSS tiles) and could be challenged and diced off for. A win by 2 spots or more allowed the opponent to move by 1 or 2 Squares.

The opening to the game saw the Assyrian cavalry being shown that they could not match the light cavalry tactics of the chariots.  The Egyptians were held up but at great cost.  In the centre the Heavies advanced on the Egyptian infantry and charged the centre.  They bounced off.  The unit charged had the mace axe, restricting the saving throw of th Assyrains to 5+ instead of 3+.  Note to self, I should have bullied the archers to their right and broken through.  

It took a couple of moves for the supporting infantry to arrive, and then they stood around for a while having failed command rolls. Meanwhile the Chariots re established sthemselves and started wearing down the Egyptians with bow fire.  However, another attempt to break the line also failed and the infantry ended up fighting a valiant rear guard action to cover the retreat of the chariots and other sundry hangers on. 

It was a good and colourful game using Steve's vintage troops. These are mainly Hinchcliffe from the 70s and 80s, but they still look good. 

Black Powder - and back to Wilsons Creek

 A small group of us meet pretty much every other Tuesday.  We have been playing a lot of either Black Powder or Hail Ceaser at these game sessions. For a change we thought we would downsize and try out the Glory Halleujah! supplement using or various collections of 15mm ACW figures. Mine had been based again for Fire and Fury , but |Chris's collection is for Rules for the Common Man. My collection was used to distinguish the rifled musket armed troops.  

Wilsons Creek is an interesting scenario as it is small, early war with a larger proportion of muskets than usual for ACW games.  Something which became deadly at very close range. Both sides tried an outflanking manouevre , the CSA with their cavalry, the Union with an all arms force. It was a close tussle.  The CSA was holding on , just , at the end of the game but the union hadd too many broken brigades.

The initial set up as per the scenario book

A nicely presented command stand- one of Chris's

The Union arrive in the CSA rear.

The small unit of cavalry escorting the guns

Clash!

The situation at the end of the game. Unfortunately the third unit of five of the union rear attack just went to shaken, which technically granted a narrow victory to the CSA. The red markers show shaken status. 

The Game is bloody. The very low stamina scores means a constant recycling of units and the need for generals to encourage and reform the shaken regiments.  The use of 'Whipped' where a unit would have been broken but instead hangs about on the field generally getting in the way is useful. Whipped only happens when a unit is reduced by fire.  All in all a good game, and as a result I am rebasing my collection to conform with those of the rest of the group.