Wednesday 30 May 2012

Battle of Bosworth: Treason

This week we had decided to have a 10mm wars of the roses game with a collection belonging to a friend of mine. The battle was designed to represent the latter stages of the battle where king Richard ran his knights straight for Henry Tudor determined to kill him. But Richard was dragged from his horse and slain as he cried "treason". We are starting at the bit where the two kings are riding for each other with their forces.

Henry Tudor and his Nobles ride out to meet the king of England in open battle.

Richard III rides beside his knights, intent on a charge to slay the usurper Henry Tudor once and for all.

For this game we were using the Basic Impetus rules (http://www.dadiepiombo.com/basic2.html can be downloaded here), they have been recommended to me before but after taking a brief look at them I had concluded that they were too much like Warlord game's systems to be any good for medieval, but with a large scale 10mm game it was the perfect opportunity to try something other than WAB.
The models are Old glory and Pendragon.

Henry Tudor's force was composed of a unit of knights, a unit of men at arms, two units of welsh billmen, two units of welsh longbowmen, a unit of French crossbowmen and a unit of handgunners.
My Yorkists were composed of a unit of knights, a unit of men at arms, two units of billmen, one unit of longbowmen, one unit of light cavalry and a unit of Scottish borderers.
I deployed with the cavalry on either flank and the infantry in the centre, where as the lancs put theirs the other way around.

I started off with some very risky moves. The light cavalry which had been facing off against the french crossbows and the men at arms along with the borderers moved towards the hill, riding straight at it. It was very risky as whilst I was on the hill I would be much more vulnerable having been disordered as I ran up it, but I thought it might work because it was just so foolish and unpredictable.

The enemy line moved forwards slowly in the centre but the men at arms moved to guard the crossbow's flanks as though they still expected a charge from the light horse. Meanwhile the Handgunners made their way behind the woods forming a flank guard to the army.

With the Light horse and borderers now atop the hill it was clear that our intentions were to use the gap left by the lancs as they moved around the hill to penetrate further in to their lines. Meanwhile the billmen and men at arms drew up in a line to the right of the hill and advanced. The knights on the right continued up the right flank with Richard at their head.

The Light horse took some flanking fire from the French crossbowmen, but they held their ground even though disordered upon the hill, If the Lancs didn't close the gap the horsemen would soon be amongst them.

It appeared that the Lancs were employing Agincourt like strategies as they held their ground and let loose at us with their arrows. But this left their line open as the light horse (disordered and taking casualties) charged down past the billmen and towards the longbows behind. The rest of the yorkist line began to form a crescent advancing on the Lancs. But on the right flank Richard and his knights were charging for the handgunners, lances down!

The element of surprise awarded by the lunatical charge over the hill was well worth the damage caused by the charge, as we were now in the thick of the action.

The lancastrian men at arms tried a flank charge on the light horsemen but they were beaten off by the horsemen and took casualties. However the borderers weren't so lucky as they broke, scattering from the charge of the welsh billmen.

Alone but unchallenged the light horsemen were now free to set about butchering the welsh longbowmen, for one unit that had done what many had thought impossible (crossing a hill before fighting off the Lancastrian men at arms) they were performing very well.

Behind the woods on the flank, King Richard and his Nobles set about killing the handgunners who were guarding the flanks. The Knights easily overpowered the handgunners and sent them scattering.
Now the yorkist knights were free to roll up the lancastrian line.

Unfortunately the light horsemen were beaten off by the welsh longbowmen, sword and bucklers in hand, and their unit scattered. It had been a feat of military tenacity and courage, but although the horse had done no more than bash the men at arms a bit, they had greatly disrupted the lancastrian formation and put Henry Tudor in a diffiult spot.
Our English men at arms had also charged the welsh billmen and had broken them. But now the heavy infantry were facing off against Henry Tudor and his revel barons.

The remaing Welsh billmen charged their Yorkist counter parts, but were forced to retreat and were cut down and scattered as the Englishmen forced them to turn and fight. The Lancastrian force was suffering badly with the loss of all the billmen and the handgunners. But with the Scot fled and the light cavalry slain Richard's smaller force was also dwindling.

The men at arms had taken Henry Tudor's charge and had been beaten in the combat, fleeing only to reform on the ridge of the hill. But Henry led his knights on and the men at arms were forced to fall back over the hill top with almost 50% casualties.

The men at arms quickly marched down the hill to try and reform and regain order on the other side. Meanwhile Richard led his nobles into melee with some of the Welsh longbowmen, cutting down many and sending the rest packing. His Billmen and longbows were now closing in on Henry Tudor and his knights.
It was clear now that Richard had executed the classic flank turn manoeuvre (not something I had intended) and the foes were now facing each other from north to south.

Henry reacted to the threat to his flank by turning his own knights and riding down a unit of English billmen. The rest of his Welsh and French mercenaries turned to face Richard and his charging knights.
Henry's charge had punched a hole in the Yorkist line and he could now use his heavy cavalry to roll it up towards Richard.

The Two leaders, king and pretender, could now see each other face to face across the field of battle, but the patriotic Englishmen would pose much more of an obstacle to Henry Tudor than any Scottish schiltron would!

And the Englishmen proved their worth! The billmen charged into the flanks of Henry's nobles, hacking at the armoured horsemen with their bill hooks. They were also supported by longbow fire from the English archers, and one of these shots hit home in Henry Tudor's chest, the pretender falling from his horse into the mud.
Perhaps it is fitting that a Welsh invader should be slain by a weapon invented by his own people.

With the loss of their leader, the lancastrian knight's spirit seemed broken, and many of them fell to the billmen's pole arms. Eventually they were forced to fall back, but with the men at arms on their rear, the longbows in their flank and the billmen advancing on their front they didn't have much of a hope of survival but they would fight to the last in defence of Henry's body!

Or so it appeared until the Yorkists got hold of them. They charged the longbows and inflicted some damage forcing the Englishmen to fall back, but they were eventually sent charging off after they took heavy casualties from the billmen's flank charge.
Meanwhile Richard had been battling with the lancastrian men at arms whom he had sent packing with heavy casualties. However he himself had lost some knights and the last French and Welshmen were forming up to prepare themselves for a charge.

Richard's knights took a flank charge from the men at arms, but the infantry broke and fled the field. However Richard's knights had taken some knocks and it seemed unlikely that they would be able to break the fresh archers standing in their way without heavy casualties, which may endanger the king!

However the last Lancastrian knights were dragged from their horses and hacked to death by the English peasantry. The French mercenaries and Welsh bowmen quikly decided that with their leader and all the nobles slain they would have to admit defeat and the field was Richard's! Long live the king!

It was a great game and the basic impetus rules worked a treat, though I would say that if you are planning on doing a game with larger than 15mm models that you should probably use Warhammer ancient battles or a similar system that works round casualties rather than morale.
The casualty/morale debate is a big one and there are many arguments for and against it. The thing is that hardly a single battle in history was ever won by one side annihilating the other, so the idea of units being removed once their morale has broken is a very inventive idea of representing this, also for periods after the latter ages of the pike and shotte periods (post ECW) rules like black powder, pike and shotte and impetus work quite well as the era is all about braking the morale of your opponent.
However before this period, unless you are playing in 15mm or smaller you are only replicating a small skirmish where the objective would have been to kill as many of your opponents as possible so WAB is much better for this (it does include rules for fleeing as well but it is not quite as essential as for games such as hail Caesar).
My personal beliefs can be summed up as follows: Post ECW and other periods smaller than 15mm, rules that revolve around breaking morale are good.
Pre ECW, small skirmishes and larger than 32mm rules that revolve around casualties are best.



Saturday 26 May 2012

Ancient Enemies

Instead of the fourth age of man campaign (which seemed to be going down in popularity) this saturday the store was holding a mini gamesday in preperation for the main thing (I have to tell you I have been to the main thing and I would advise you all not to waste your money! Go somewhere free like Milton Keynes Campaign they are far better... oh yeah and the models are the same... but cheaper!). There was a scrap demon challenge and an armies of parade clinic, but myself and A from tale of two gamers arrived after all this for the Big Apocalypse game! I had originally been playing tennis so I had said I wasn't coming but my partner cancelled so we caught the bus to the store with our fully painted eldar units.

The game was a smaller version of their Gamesday game which the store will be hosting.
Here are the lists:

The Wraiths of Iyanden
Yriel of Iyanden
Farseer with 3 warlocks
Farseer with 3 warlocks
10 wraithguard with 1 spiritseer
10 wraithguard with 1 spiritseer
10 wraithguard with 1 spiritseer
10 wraithguard with 1 spiritseer
10 wraithguard with 1 spiritseer
10 wraithguard with 1 spiritseer
6 Harlequins (my unit)
Wraith lord
Wraith lord
Wraith lord
Wraith lord
Wraith lord
Wraith lord
Warp hunter (A's)

I had originally planned to come along and join in with some of the wraith units in the first part of the hour before I left for the bus, but then I realised that I had some Harlequins in my Dark Eldar force so I brought them along.
A brought along his forge world warp hunter with the Doom of Mymera rules (which are written by a lady who looks like she would tell you to be quiet in Sainsburys). Its a very very nasty tank that can do alot of damage... I can't remember if I've faced it before...
The necron force was basically the two staff member's necrons put together with a few detachments from some customers.
The Necrons of the tomb world
Overlord
Overlord
Overlord
Illuminor Szeras
Destroyer lord
C'tan shard of the deciever
Triarch stalker
10 lychguard
10 immortals
10 immortals
10 immortals
10 immortals
10 immortals
15 necron warriors
15 necron warriors
15 necron warriors
12 scarab swarms
Doomsday ark
Annihilation barge
Annihilation barge
Annihilation barge
3 canoptek wraiths
Canoptek spider
Canoptek spider
Canoptek spider
Doomsday cannon
Megolith
The Necron force was gigantic compared to our small army, but we were far more elite and ready to take on anything they threw at us. In the centre of the Necron army was teh huge Megolith! It followed all the normal rules for a monolith except that it had three structure points and allot more nasty stuff. We had two hours to play. Our objective was to destroy five of the eight pillars that were feeding power to the megolith (each pillar counted as an armour twelve vehicle... and to make it worse... they all got we'll be back!) whilst still leaving at least one model on the field.
As our wraith hordes advanced we felt confident of an easy victory. Turn one had seen us blast down a pillar which had not returned, and the D cannon on the warp hunter had opened up killing two lychguard and wrecking the Triarch stalker... in turn one! However the necron barage was more damaging than expected and the Doomsday cannon (firing an apocalypse template) blasted apart swathes of the wraith guard. We suddenly began to feel allot less confident...
The Necron forces began to close on us with the scarabs, Lychguard and canoptek spiders taking the lead along with the three overlords. My small gun line of six wraith guard and a spirit seer sood firm and true with the Harlequins dashing out along their right flank and my wraith lord firing from behind the wraiths.
I then sent my harlequins in for the charge, they dashed in to combat taking out nine scarab swarms before being annihilated by a rear charge from the lychguard.
Our thin yellow line was holding back the swarm of necrons whilst our wraith lords opened fire on the last pillars (we had already destroyed three pillars and kneeded just two more to win) with a barage of bright lance fire.
With the monolith spawned from the megolith and our line crumbling away fast, we quickly opened fire on the last pillars with all our bright lances blazing! My wraith lord took down one pillar and one of the others took down another. However this was the last turn and there was still a chance that one of them or both of them may pass their we'll be back tests. So we decided to take down another with the Warp hunter's D cannon... but we were told by one of the staff that it could not fire this turn as we had contested one of the rules. Now I may get a bit side tracked here as we all know that bending the rules to suit a better reality is much approved if not encouraged, but this sort of rule bending could be described as competitive in the extreme! However rant aside it made no difference and both of the pillars failed their we'll be back roles. With twenty minutes left we concluded that our policy of holding the dire avengers back on the very far boad edge secured us victory, though a narrow one.
In the spirit of the gamesday ocassion there was a raffle at the end. For every ten pounds you had spent you got two tickets. I had decided not to enter as my money is reserved for Rupert's royalist cavalry force and if I were to get anything mad by Games workshop then Wayland games or Wargames emporium sell it for much cheaper (do not fear Games workshop will not go out of business if we stop buying, they make a 76% gross margin so they can easily cut their prices to get us interested in it again). But as our side had won the game we all got two free tickets, and as my tale of two gamers partner had bought a hobby drill and got two tickets from it we decided to stay.

Up for grabs was five mystery bags (later revealed as a unit of savage orcs, a drednought, a tau skimmer, five lychguard and something else), a fully painted copy of dread fleet, a large bag of eldar and the necron terrain set (basically the necrony pieces of terrain from todays game, plus the megolith and Doomsday cannon).
In the draw I was some how called out?! and the five lychguard were mine. I'm not quite sure how this happened... and I don't think the chap with sixty tickets who didn't get a think was either...

Anyway a good game that you are never likely to play again (we worked out that the entire eldar army would cost you around £700).




Shadow in the east: reprisals

Today I was hosting* a game of Lotr. I had never actually played one of the scenarios from the Shadow in the east supplement book as I didn't believe I could make up the forces. But by using some  dwarf heroes as khazad guard and morgul knights and khandish cavalry as Kataphracts we had two nice armies exactly replicating the ones in the book.

The scenario basically revolves around a raid lead by Dain Ironfoot (I was using Thorin Oakenshield) on an easterling temple where many of the dwarves precious artefacts have been stolen and held. The easterling Infantry and captains start in the temple whilst the cavalry start on the eastern board edge. The dwarves then start on the western board edge.
The objective is for the dwarves to gain 25 pts before their force is eliminated. The dwarves can gain 1 point for each easterling captain slain and 3 points for each artefact moved off the board. They can also gain 10pts for torching the temple but they lose 10 points if Dain (thorin) is slain.
Each turn the Easterling player may move on D6 models removed last turn.

The opening positions were as follows with the dwarves setting up as close to the temple as possible, facing off against the infantry defending it. The cavalry meanwhile were riding dow the flank to role up the dwarven flank.

The dwarves lost the first priority, but this did have the advantage of getting the charge, and in lotr it is very often beneficial to lose the priority. Four dwarven archers sprinted for the watchtower and flung themselves up into it so as to rain down shots on the easterling defenders. Thorin and Durok lead the charge on the captain's phalanx together with their khazad guard. Thorin lept forwards and hacked down one of the captains whilst durok wounded the other. Th dwarven archers opened fire on the on coming cavalry, taking out two of the men's horses whilst the dwarves with two handed axes stalwartly advanced towards the kataphracts, hoping to stem their charge whilst the dwarf shield wall held the flank.

 The next round of combat saw the fighting slowly descend towards the chaos it would become... Thorin struck down the other captain and Durok and his guards fought off the easterlings. But now the eastelings were scaling the watch tower scaffolds, pursued up them by dwarven warriors.

The archers in the watch tower had held out strong and now Thorin and Durok had all but negated the easterling right flank, and could start to pillage the temple. Indeed two of the shield wall had broken ranks, diving through the battle to run out from the temple with two artefacts before fighting off all the easterling who tried to grab them. And with the cavalry still held off the four dwarf axemen seemed to be doing their duty.

Some of the cavalry had finally managed to pull away form the four dwarves, but the damaged was already done. Two dwarves were sprintin it for the board edge whilst four more dwarves (including durok) had grabbed some loot and had now started to torch the temple, starting two fire in its framework. The dwarves ha by now secured a root of escape for their loot off the western board edge, so the cavalry had the new mission of breaking this supply route.

The cavalry and all the easterling reinforcements were still being held up by but three dwarves and a couple of the shield wall were also  helping stem the charge which was well and truly blunted  by the valiant stand of the four. Thorin and two other dwarves had now started  to try their hand at looting and als burning, lighting another two fires! But the easterling archers who had fled the burning temple were begining to douce the flames and put out two of the four fires.

The remaing two dwarves of the four were swept aside and the cavalry charged forwards, catching up with the artefact carrying dwarves and setting on them with their scimatars. But Durok had already deposited his and like the dwarven hero of legend he is, was now running up and down the supply train encouraging and helping  the stragglers.

And so the game ended. With but eleven points the dwarves had not achieved their objective, however there were still ten dwarves standing so netehr had the easterlings. With four artefacts in dwarven hands and most likely to be rescued another twelve points was probably the dwarves due but in the end it really was still all to play for.


*Hosting in wargaming terms means a game where you supply both forces.

Tuesday 22 May 2012

Memoir "44" game 2

For my second game of Memoir 44 we swapped sides, myself taking the side of the allies against the german forces. We played this game in almost half the time of the other one so apologies for some of the bad photos but we were playing quikly. I had three units of 4 infantry, two divisions of 3 tanks and one battery of 2 artillery pieces.

I started off with my Infantry and Tanks in the centre rushing the German panzers and grenadiers that had made their way onto the ridge. We forced both back into a retreat and gave the greandiers 25% casualties!

It seemed fairly evenly matched so far with myself losing one unit but also destroying the grenadiers in the centre. However the Germans were worse off having taken more casualties than us and with the river in the centre open and exposed to our forces on the ridge it seemed as though we could spearhead right down the centre and split their forces apart.

 It was still completly even points as the game went on, we had lost the left flank village to the panzers and our men in the centre had been slaughtered between the two ridges by tank fire. However on the right we had one panzer surrounded by infanrty and in the centre the last grenadier was left exposed to our tanks on the ridge with another two germans and a panzer tank in a perfect position to fire down upon.

But in the end it was another allied victory! We had dispatched three grenadier units, two infantry and a panzer division and we still had fire to dish out from all our tanks on the ridge to the last panzer in the centre and two lne infantry in the low ground. We were in a strong position with the right secured, the centre practically ours and the left holding out well enough, though a couple more rounds and it would have been lost.

For myself (speaking as a less than enthusiastic WW2 wargamer) I do have to say it is a great game. It is much more about tactics with much less chance (there is still the element of chance with the dice, but it seems far more like the chance you would have in a real fire fight and much more predictable). I would be very interested in converting it into other periods WW1 trench warfare may be quite interesting with it and I'm sure the "shieldwall-king arthur" period would work well, I can just imagine it being perfect for Hastings...

Next time I am hosting my game, Accident in Baro gorge, for the first time ever (At least with 24 tirailleurs and 120 abyssinians to paint I may have to put it off but I hope not.)

Memoir "44" game 1

Our monthly club game was meant to be ACW 15mm fire and fury (as last time) but unfortunately, again, we were foiled as one of our members couldn't make it. So instead we played this beautiful little game called Memoir 44 (made by the same company as the game ticket to ride, which seems so popular in the non wargaming world). It is a WW2 board game (though I understand many people scale the board up and use their painted 28mm collections instead of the equipment that comes with the box).
You have three types of unit:
Infantry; made up of four models (meaning that they have four wounds) who roll three dice when shooting (they subtract one for every hex in between their target) and may move one hex and fire or two and hold fire. (There are some anomalies such as the Grenadier units which can move an extra hex and still fire and the depleted units which have one less wound).
Armour; made up of three models (three wounds) who roll three dice when shooting (they do not suffer any penalties but they may only fire three hexes) and may move three hexes and still fire.
Artillery; made up of two models (two wounds) who roll three dice when shooting (they subtract one for every two hexes in between their target) and may move one hex and hold fire (they do not need line of sight).

I opted to play the Germans for my first game, so I started with three units of 4 grenadiers, six units of 3 infantry, four units of 3 tanks and one unit of two artillery.
The game is card driven with the board divided into three sections. When you play your card it will allow you to activate a certain number of units in that section of the board or carry out a special action. However the shooting and fighting is done on dice, but they are no ordinary dice... 1 = star which means a miss, 2 = flag which means the unit being shot at falls back one pace, 3 and 4 = infantry which kills one infantry man, 5 = tank which kills one tank and finally 6 = grenade which can kill one of anything.
The victory conditions is the first person to reach six points. A point is gained by destroying a unit, but in this scenario there were other ways. The two villages controlled by the allies counted as one point each should they be occupied and held by German troops. The river counted as one point for the allies should they have a unit adjacent to it at the end of the game.

 We deployed the forces and terrain according to the scenario set up in the rules and prepared for battle

I opened up with a left flank rush from my panzer division and the grenadiers, followed up by another infantry division. The grenadiers opened fire on the village, and the allied troops fled the village under the fire. It did seem a little easy that we could now be in control of this position...

But as an allied assault rushed forwards, blowing one of our tanks, we shot at them with flanking fire from the grenadiers in the village and the infantry in the forest killing half of them.

On the right flank my other grenadiers, backed by a panzer division, spearheaded for the second village, but although they caused 50% casualties on their targets outside the village and 25% on those inside the resistance was stronger than expected and we lost our first unit to artillery fire. I also moved our last grenadier unit along with three other infantry squads to hold the river banks against assaults from the ridge overlooking it. However on the left we were having a hard time holding the village against the allied assault and they had now dispatched four infantry units and a tank division just to secure it.

In the end we were sent packing. The entire left flank was overrun and our left flank assault had ended with the grenadiers being slaughtered. The river was perhaps more successful and the infantry men entrenched in their positions in front of it were holding out well. But with the loss of three grenadier units, a panzer division and two other infantry squads we seceded defeat.