THE BATTLE OF COLINA DE LAS ROCAS

An early play-test game for the ‘in development’ Soldiers of Napoleon rules… Napoleonics! Which is back to where it all started for me, my first wargames with models and dice and Charles S Grant rules were Napoleonics, with plastic Airfix men. I think we do a do a bit better these days.

In this Peninsula battle I took control of the Anglo-Allied forces, with 3 brigades. On the the right, the Portuguese infantry, behind earthworks as I chose a defensive deployment, 4 battalions and battery of 6 pdr guns. The centre, on the hill and either side of the big rock, was a British infantry brigade, 4 battalions and a battery of 9 pdr guns. My right, a light cavalry brigade of light dragoons and hussar with a horse battery of 6 pdr guns. I had a reserve brigade, off-table, ready to move up, of a heavy dragoon regiment. They would arrive on my left from turn 2.

Facing them, Le French!. On his right, a weak provisional infantry brigade of various un-enthusiastic German and Swiss battalions and an artillery battery. In the centre, a French infantry brigade with an artillery battery and attached small regiment of dragoons. His left was a light cavalry brigade, hussars and chasseurs with their horse battery. His reserve brigade was 2 grenadier battalions, marching up in the centre to reinforce his main attack on the British-held hill. They were slow though, only arriving until turn 5, so didn’t play any part of the battle.

The rules, card-driven as per other ‘Soldiers of’ sets, but with a lot of major changes, are in early testing. But the ideas are working, even if it taking a lot of tweaking to get the balances right.

In this game, which lasted 4 hours not including the lunch break, the French main attack was straight up the middle, columns coming on in the same old way. My red-coated lines facing them. He would have small supporting attacks on the left and right, but the centre was his biggest brigade and the best, they either took Colinas de Las Rocas and won, or failed and lost. My plan was to hold, then counter with a left hook by cavalry into his centre. The line must hold long enough for the cavalry to come to the rescue, and break his attacks momentum either with charges or forcing him into squares.

It did not turn out so… his main attack was heavy and despite my cannon fire and excellent skirmishing musketry, his veteran infantry broke through and pushed up the hill. When my light dragoons tried to swing right to aid, they were counter-charged by his small dragoon regiment, which, aided by good special cards and better dice, routed by light cavalry who fled along with their horse battery. The arrival of my heavy dragoons sent his dragoons running, but then artillery pounded my heavies and skirmish fire from the provincial battalions light companies, lurking in the cornfields raked them. They lost men and time rallying from the Disorder… and so their attack lacked any impetus. Meanwhile, the French columns had won the centre, breaking my Scottish and Irish battalions and then the Nottinghamshire lads as well… that was the battle. My Portuguese had contributed, erm, some cannon fire? … and his light cavalry had done, nothing, not moved a single inch. We'll look at that, doesn’t seem quiet right… but a good start, and here are some quick snaps of the action. A fun afternoon's gaming… but much work to do.

Skirmishers out, the two centres facing-off about to start the bloody business of the day... British skirmish line reinforced by rifles, of course.

Watched on by my commanders from the hill and their 9 pdr battery making the French pay for their boldness. 

Portuguese brigade on the left, second line secure behind the earthworks.  

My light dragoons move up on my left to swing in, only to meet very determined French dragoons coming the other way. Dice show the amount of disruption on a unit. 

The French centre's four column attack ans 12 pdr battery, hammering the hill with annoying accuracy.

 

French light cavalry, having the day-off as bystanders. 

My heavy dragoons ride in on the left. Their impact was - not so much... certainly not decisive as I hoped.

Nam ’68 WIP

Play-testing in these times of lock-down has been, well, all but impossible and that’s a problem with a new game system that needs to be played to see what it throws-up but also, just how it feels when the dice are rolling and models moving on the tabletop. This has set-back my work on Nam ’68 for a few months, oh well… can't be helped. It'll get there in the end.

I have though co-opt my eldest into trying a few games with me to test the rules as I have them. It was useful, first a brief history lesson, that could have been entitled, American Foreign Policy Blunders, 1960-1973. Second, in game terms, it caused me to do a fairly major revision on the ‘actions’ system, which whilst OK in small games, was just too slow and clunky when there were more models on the table. Detail I want, but the game mechanics as-was just felt time-consuming to me, especially in a ‘fast-paced game of close-up firefights and ambushes’. The counters set was revised to, as the values were just too high, making the game feel too random and possibly too short. But, the scenario generation system worked well.

The first game was a small, 1-squad affair, but in a high treat environment, so the VC were tough, well equipped and up for the fight. The second was a larger game, 2-squads from the platoon plus support, but in a low threat area, with only a few local VC guerrillas to worry about (plus all the booby-traps and lurking snipers, etc). Nowhere near as determined though.

The intention is that the scenario varies by size, by location (first was in jungle-scrub, second in marshes/wetland), and by threat level, so either low, medium or high, and that sets the VC forces that will be encountered. Better equipped and larger forces in higher threat than low.

The mission in the first game was a stand-up firefight, where the VC were determined to make a fight of it, and they did. The US patrol got something of a bloody nose. The veteran Platoon Sergeant was KIA, bled-out as the medic reached him but couldn’t save him. Another fire team's corporal was also hit by bolt-action rifle fire, clean head-shot and thus going home in a body-bag. Having been refused armoured support (twice), the US patrol pulled back, called in for air and watched the grid get napalmed. Bad day at the office. The body-count was not one to make Battalion HQ happy.

The second game was a patrol sweep through a small fishing hamlet, with search points to locate and clear. It was held by a few local VC and a sniper in his hideout, who was something of an ace, as he quickly put 2 GIs down, one dead, before a WP grenade posted into his hidey-hole finished him off. The village itself was weakly defended, but the search points revealed nothing. In the end, with the LT and RTO calling in mortar fire, the few VC ran for it rather than be shelled, leaving just 2 dead behind - the cooked sniper and one VC with a PPsH hit by M16 fire. Not a good body-count day again.

That felt like a good game, very Nam, the med-evac rules got a run-out and two wounded GIs were lifted out of the marshland reed beds to hospital during the game, which was fun side-story in the overall battle. 

With the right sound track playing in the background, it all felt very 'Vietnam War'… and work will continue to make it ever more so. The game's campaign system is up and running - Tour of Duty sees a player run through 12 months in action with a single platoon to control. My test platoon (1st Platoon, Bravo Company, 1/18th Infantry) have had a tough few months. So far, 5 months in, they are claiming 25 enemy KIA for their body-count, with 6 KIA, 6 WIA and 7 NBCs lost. Kill-Ratio of 4.1-1 is good… and morale remains OK, not great, as the loss of the Platoon Sergeant was a heavy blow. Some R and R is due… but not forthcoming, so the next mission is an airborne one, so in ‘Slicks’, a chance to use my Huey model.

Here are some quick shots of the two games.

Game 1's small but highly determined VC National Force, including 2 small bunkers

Game 1's US patrol, 1 squad (2 fire teams), support M60 team and the platoon HQ

Hidden in the undergrowth

The 60 in place to give suppressing fire, medic lurks behind, out of LoS until needed.

Hunting Charlie, trying to get close enough to the small LMG bunker (top right) to throw a grenade. 

Game 2, skirmish line advances on the fishing village.

Man down, sniper fire from a hidden bunker. 

One man runs to move the wounded out of the line of fire and hauled him to the chopper. 

 Med-evac chopper arrives and circles down to the reed beds, clear enough to hover.

Pouring on some fire into the village from the trees. Little coming back.

Slick hovers over the reed beds (all obscuring cover in this game), as the two wounded and lifted onboard. 

The fishing village is mortared, causing some pinning, but that's enough of a fight for the VC today, they run-off. The US search finds nothing of any importance, except some fish. The 3 civilians that started in the village all soon ran off too.

NEW BIG PROJECT

Lock-down has meant time for miniature painting has dramatically increased, as for many gamers I'm sure. This though, has meant a few old projects have been finished, along with the back log for Vietnam skirmishes, a new 20mm German infantry platoon and few other 'shelf queens' cleared out. I found myself without much to paint (disaster). I am not one to have huge numbers of unpainted miniatures piling up (obviously, we all have some). So, after a few weeks off from painting, I've decided it was times to start with something fresh. Something new, something I'd only attempted in these strange times. A new army for a new period.

My earliest wargames, back in 1982-83, were using Charles Grant's Napoleonic rules, photocopied from the back of a library book and using Airfix soldiers bought in the toy shop. They were the first games we ever played on a table, with dice to resolve the action (rather than rolling marbles). We were young, the games were terrible, but a small group of local boys were all busy buying and daubing Airfix men for Napoleon's battles (many were not actually Napoleonic soldiers, we had ACW cannons, Bedouins on camels, some French foreign legion troops!).

So, back to Napoleonics. I've avoid it for years, mainly to concentrate on WWII as my main period and getting everything I wanted for that. But my WWII collections are massive now, so, after just 38 years, its time to go back to fighting Napoleon.

I was tempted to just collect my first wargaming army again - British, for Waterloo. There are lots of plastics now, good ones too, and it would be pure nostalgia for me, but I've be doing my research and reading David Chalmers' 'Campaigns of Napoleon', a hefty tome suitable for lock-down. Inspiring stuff, I decided to rethink. British are a well trodden path, always popular with Anglophile wargamers (and we won). I went off the idea and started to lean towards something else. It couldn't be the French, which would have been my first choice, just because you get some much use from them and can fight everybody, but my main opponent already has a large 28mm French army - he's collected it for years. So no French, and 28mm is a must.

In the end, it came down to one of two, Prussians or Austrians (all very Germanic). Caught on the horns of indecision, and wanting to get on with it whilst I had the time, I flipped a coin... here are the first results, as I test out my painting plan for mass production. A lot of painting to do over the next 8-9 months, I'm planning 200+ infantry, 50 cavalry, 10 guns. That should get me a fight-able force for 2021... when campaign season opens.

First batch of Victrix Austrians as a test, various ways of getting a quickly shaded white base. Working on 50 at a time, and 2 months for each brigade to get finished. First battalions well on the way.

Rules of course have already been started too.

SCI-FI SKIRMISH - ZENTAURI ALPHA, BATTLE OF ATRYA RIDGE

A bit of knock-about fun, my youngest has a lock-down project, to get his Scouting hobby badge, so he decided to write a set of wargames rules for his favourite toy soldiers (I have no idea where he got that idea from). He’s been playing around with the ‘HALO’ guys and aliens on his bedroom floor, and how has a set of rules, using D12s(!), so I agreed to do some first play-testing.

We dug-out my Warhammer Realm of Battle desert boards and my sci-fi terrain for our own sci-fi world, Zentauri-Alpha, where the human colonists and miners are under attack from the rival Urtheni Empire, covertous of the planet’s mineral wealth. The human forces are either tough colonist militias or the trained soldier of the 8th UE Shock Regiment, sent from Earth to defend the planet from the increasingly aggressive Urtheni and their army of various enslaved or allied races (the Urtheni themselves are rarely seen, semi-mythical figures with, rumoured, mind-control powers that they use to dominate other races - very dangerous). Their rapidly expanding empire is a major threat to Earth’s far colonies. Enough background… suffice to say, it’s an arid desert world, rocky, with a scattering of human colonies and a lot of human industrial activity (most via automated mines and factories). These are the key locations for the Urtheni’s troops and humans to fight over.

Our game, the Battle of Atrya Ridge, saw the humans and Urtheni clash over the local automated factory works, the alien raiders having just taken it. The 8th Shock Regiment’s heavily armoured troops have been dispatched in their combat-shuttles to drop in and take it back. Fight on.

Here is a bunch of photos from our afternoon’s fun. It didn’t go so well for the 8th… defeated in their assault, they withdrew to be evac’d back to base. For models we use all manner of stuff from various sci-fi ranges, including GW stuff (mostly TAU head-swap conversions), converted old Battletech Mechs, Dreamscape plastics (with replacement Anvil Industries resin helmets), there are some Infinity models that suit and vehicles from other smaller manufacturers too - I love the Antenocitis Workshop scout buggy.

 Atrya Ridge, humans attacking along the length of it, to it's left and right.

 Automated extraction plant and landed combat shuttle.

The wind sculpted deserts of Zentauri-Alpha. 

 Alien Loor tracker team - they move in single file to disguise their numbers!. CP model's Loors. 

 Scouting out the area, before the humans arrive.

Touch down, first squad out, the lightly armoured colonist militia scouts, but they know the ground. 

Shock troops HQ squad, air strikes on call for when they spot the enemy. 

 Urthenti slave soldiers fan out.

Move out! Heading towards the main extraction unit, and that firing line. 

Militia scouts come under the first fire, from the lurking Loor in the rocks. 

 Loor on the ridge, and firefight hots up. But the ferocious desert-native aliens are shot down.

Dune buggy arrives at speed, to add some supporting fire for the shock troops.

Urthenti squad engages it at short range.

An automated weapon is set up by the 8th (Anvil Industries gun).  Trying to match the Urtheni's advanced weaponry and firepower.

 Air mobile 'Scorpion' light tank, joins the assault by the human's right.

Urtheni drone weapons carrier, holding the 'supply depot' objective. It hits the dune buggy, but it's only minor damage. Infinity model. 

 Shock trooper squads in full assault on their left. 

 On the right, the human 'armour', the three converted colonist mining robots lead the assault, slow, but tough. They take a beating.

Urtheni weapons drone (airborne), arrives as more reinforcements. 

The last Loor scouts stalks the Shock trooper's officer on the ridge. He shot it dead... phew!  Those Loor scouts are cunning and dangerous. 

Robots into the assault.

The Urtheni battle-line, issuing a withering hail of blaster fire. 

 First robot is hit and smoking - heavily damaged.

Kaboom! It explodes. 1 down, 2 to go.

Dune buggy makes it to the supply depot and takes the objectives, and is then destroyed as the Urtheni take back the lost objective.  

 Urtheni slave infantry. They seemingly fight for their strange masters without a care for their own lives.

Urtheni heavy battlesuit arrives with serious firepower, to match the enemy tank. 

Behind you! Scout drones speed into the rear and surprise the shock troops on the left. 

End game, the assault on the right has failed, troopers gunned down, 2 robots destroyed, the 8th pull back. They'll neither objective and the looses have been heavy.