January 2026 Report

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So, a new year dawns and our kick off game was Iran Iraq using our usual Cold War Commander rules.

This one was a narrative driven game, 12 turns long. Both sides began off table – the Iraqi 10th armoured brigade coming from the east and the Iranian 92nd armoured brigade coming from the west, and both were aiming for the main highway. The Iranians began the game with an armoured cavalry battalion on table proceeding east in column on a minor road and the Iraqis had BRDM-2 Sagger platoons randomly placed on the tabletop. Both sides had pre determined possible entry points for individual battalions but these could not dice to enter until the recon elements had reported back – a die roll for each element determined the turn number.

I wont detail who arrived when but the choice of where was critical. The Iranians could arrive on the minor road used by the cavalry, further to the south, in the corner, initially covered by a hill and north behind the river bend facing the town – in they chose this route they were given bridging equipment. The Iraqis had their own minor road facing the town, the northern end of the main highway and the far northern corner. The Iranians chose the table edge behind the river for their mechanised infantry and aimed for a small village, their two Chieftain battalions chose the minor road and the corner. The Iraqis chose the minor road for their 1st & 2nd armoured plus the 10th mechanised and the corner for the 3rd armoured, all the Iraqi armour were T72s.

In the opening moves the Iranians dithered; the infantry occupied the ruins for no real reason and then later got out and went somewhere else – apologies for the photo of the flying infantry, players just can’t resist! the M150s were under utilised – blasting the opposing BRDMs would have been a prudent thing to do. The Chieftain battalions rolled badly and so the initial fighting was over to the cavalry.

The Iraqi mechanised arrived before the tanks and occupied the town over the next couple of turns, sighting their Faggot and Sagger support platoons to cover the open ground to the south. An added plus for the Iraqis was the prompt arrival of their FAO who took up residence on the radio tower hill with a clear line of sight over most of the battlefield.

Well before the Chieftains arrived the 2nd and 3rd T72 battalions arrived; the 3rd rolled into the town and pretty much stayed there for the game – that town was never going to fall, the 2nd rolled south toward the highway intent on messing up the cavalry, the FAC found himself a nice little hillock to sit on.

Heading towards the halfway point of the game the Iraqis were doing a good job of combined arms co-operation. The FAC successfully called in the Mirages on two runs and that along with supporting tank fire eliminated the big threat of the M150s – the M150s did get off some shots and some T72s burned but there was plenty more where they came from 😁 Up in the north it became a bit of a turkey shoot, at first the Iranians couldn’t decide whether to push for the river or occupy the village so just sort of sat around and then rolled blunder upon blunder which left their HQ reduced to being essentially inactive which meant that when the Iraqis called in their artillery (one barrage of which was smack on target) a lot of M113s and the men inside died 😢 The Iraqi 1st battalion also arrived and headed south toward the sacred mosque – couldn’t be occupied by either side.

Passing the half way point the Chieftains arrived along with the FAC and FAO but it was going to be an uphill struggle.

One of the fun aspects of an Iranian force is the sight of F14 Tomcats roaring over the battlefield; what is not so much fun is when they deviate way off target and bomb the sacred mosque twice! Cries of “war crime!” echoed across the table – somewhat ironic in the light of modern day events but we are playing a wargame.

The Iraqi air continued to be more successful and pecked away at the plucky cavalry battalion.

Back on the ground the Chieftains did start to make their presence felt and the Iraqi 2nd battalion felt the heat in a big way effectively ending up as a burning screen for the 1st battalion who sneaked around the now burning mosque.

The game soon became one of cat and mouse as the Iraqis tried to stay out of the way of the superior Chieftains and hoped to score just enough hits to push the Iranians beyond their break point. If I’m honest this did become a bit ‘gamey’ but somewhat inevitable I guess.

As the game entered its final stage the Iranians had managed to avoid reaching their break point by 3 points and so theoretically it was a draw but objectively the Iraqis had scored a victory and the Iranians would be forced to withdraw.

The game played out over two sessions, that wasn’t the intent but I think on the first day we were all still suffering from ‘Christmas stodge’ so our faculties were on low power 🤣 Reflecting on the game itself, the narrative worked out fine and gave both sides a challenge; for the Iraqis, deal as much damage as possible before the big boys arrive – they did! for the Iranians, use the on table stuff to establish an early dominance – they didn’t. The die rolls for arrivals certainly favoured the Iraqis but the Iranians didn’t help themselves by dithering; they dithered about crossing the river – one of the tank battalions would have been the better choice here because even if it didn’t cross it had the range to shoot a fair way across the table, they dithered with the M150s and they dithered with the Chieftains – way too cautious about the ATGWs. A good start to the year and a game that was also noteworthy for a huge amount of blunders on both sides which provoked much hilarity all round.

Next on the calendar, and still on a cold war theme, was a personal away day down Oxford way to play a divisional level game on a 27 foot long table over two days using a set of rules under development by Alasdair Harley who came into contact with via Facebook – I went away for the weekend to meet a bloke I met on Facebook 🤣

I liked the rules. Each base (see above) represented a tank battalion for Warpac – I think NATO forces are slightly different and so you fight at a brigade level which means that some things are a bit abstracted but overall it worked well.

As the Warpac player you do feel like you are using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut and the losses do pile up, which in theory is what most think might have happened. Overall I had a good weekend and would play it again.

Back on home turf we refought the battle of Nordlingen 1634, the one the Swedes should never have fought and having fought as the Swedes I can see why!

For those in need of a history lesson the Swedes under Gustav Horn and Bernhard of Saxe Weimar took on a numerically superior Imperial/Spanish force in defensive positions under the cardinal Infante Ferdinand and Ferdinand of Hungary. On the Swedish right Horn relentlessly attacked uphill against entrenched Spanish tercios for several hours while Bernhard occupied the Imperial centre and right to prevent them reinforcing the left. The disparity in numbers meant that Bernhard was hard pushed to do anything of note and so consequently Horn fell back exhausted and as he tried to disengage was hit by an Imperial counter attack which swept away the Swedes in a rout which saw the end of Swedish involvement in the war.

In our attempt at history the armies were deployed as per the historical prototypes – as much as can be determined from conflicting sources but once deployed players could act as they wished.

Our redoubtable Swedes opted for the cavalry stratagem, using Bernhard’s cavalry to batter the right of the Imperial line and to filter Horn’s cavalry across the back of the Swedish line to follow on through the gaps punched by Bernhard. Meanwhile Horn would demonstrate against the fortified hill position.

The problem with plans is they rarely survive contact with the enemy 🙄 Bernhard’s attack didn’t go quite as well as expected and was stopped almost as soon as it began. The ride of Horn’s cavalry took longer than anticipated and when they arrived there were no real holes to exploit just defeat to reinforce 😮

Bernhard did manage to commit some of his infantry but numbers told against him.

There was a bit of a fight for the hill when the cocky Spanish came down to fight like proper gentlemen and got a bit of a duffing but the death of Horn and Spanish cavalry flowing round the flanks now that Horn’s own cavalry had gone meant that history was repeated, just differently.

Our final battle was Timurids v Mamluks in the ongoing development of my rules for the period. The battle was an equal points game – refights and narratives are somewhere in the future. The Timurids featured two divisions of formed cavalry and skirmish cavalry plus elephants equating roughly to a tumen of 10,000 overseen by the Army General and his Guard plus a separate contingent of White Sheep Turcomen. The Mamluks featured the Royal Mamluks accompanying the Army General, two divisions of Emirs Mamluks, exclusively made up of formed cavalry supported by city militias plus separate contingents of Black Sheep Turcomen and Bedouin.

Looking out from the Mamluk lines a stream between two low hills flowed diagonally across the table ending in a wooded pond area on the edge of the left centre of the Timurid baseline. A track entered from the opposite corner to cross the stream and end at an abandoned crusader fort in the middle of the battlefield. A low hill extended from the Mamluk left edge centrally into the gaming area, an obvious magnet to both sides.

The Mamluks deployed from the hills/stream left to their side edge, Turcomen next to the hill, then Emirs Mamluks with Royal Mamluks behind and then past the castle the Bedouin screening the other Emirs mamluk division.

The Timurids deployed with both divisions on their right between the table edge and the wooded pond with the Turcomen out beyond the pond over the stream. The Guard sat behind the centre.

My vision for the rules and the games is lots of arrow fire with contact in the closing stages and within the first two turns the Bedouin experienced just that; they advanced up to the low hill and were met at the top by a barrage of arrows from the skirmish cavalry elements of the right hand Timurid division. Two failed morale tests later and they were on their way.

The rest of the day saw the fight on and around that hill flow back and forth with the Timurids benefitting from better armour but hampered by stampeding elephants. Eventually the Timurids prevailed and the flank was lost.

In the centre it was much as I envisioned; skirmish cavalry in cantabrian circle firing out and everyone else letting fly where they could. The constricted space between castle and stream rather favoured the smaller Timurid division, the mamluks suffered from trying to fit in the swirling Turcomen, the Royal mamluks and the Emirs mamluks.

The battle was always going to be won or lost in the centre and as we played on that became clear.

The collapse of the Mamluk right.

As we closed the day out both divisions of Emirs Mamluks are gone. The Royal Mamluks remain but the Timurids are pushing both flanks and have uncommitted cavalry. The day belonged to the Timurids.

We had the chance to fight the battle again a couple of days later with different commanders. The Timurids deployed basically the same if a bit further over to their left which meant that the Turcomen were further over the stream. The mamluks deployed differently; their Bedouin were out on the far right hoping to swing around the Timurid left, the Turcomen were on the left screening one division of Emirs Mamluks, the other division was to the right of the castle with the Royal Mamluks behind.

This time the Mamluks were not so constricted in the centre and gave a better account of themselves.

On the ‘hill of death’ honours were more even and the slow moving Timurid heavy armoured formed cavalry took too long to get in and make a difference – thank Allah for elephants!

At the close we were back in the centre again with both sides having pierced the others line essentially leaving a stalemate.

Overall I’m pleased with the rules. Some more work to be done on the command and control especially the issuing of changes of orders by drums and trumpets – stay tuned 😂

Still haven’t got my mojo back for painting and modelling, just not feeling it. My reading fell victim to socialising but I have been reading this, an excellent read about Generals doing their best with limited resources and scant direction in an important but less well documented corner of the war – the Trans Mississippi. refreshing not having to read yet another book that is all about Grant.

That’s it, so until next time, play well and be respectful.

December 2025 Report

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The inescapable Christmas illnesses and Christmas events thinned our ranks a bit over the month but we struggled on manfully 😂

Our opening game was a return to Gerard’s 15mm Samurai with Ieyasu Tokugawa facing off to Ishida Mitsunari using our amended version of Battles in the Age of War.

A large portion of the game time with the rules is taken up in the pre game activities sorting out the quality levels of the various general under the Daimyo and the number of dice assigned to army traits such as treachery, spies, leadership, politics, etc. For us this generally takes about an hour which might be of putting for some players but we have all day to play so what the hell.

Notionally,Tokugawa was the attacking side with 3 clans distributed evenly over the table edge while Mitsunari, with 1 clan missing off table, made the best use of the terrain for his 2 on table clans.

The early couple of moves saw the Tokugawa army advance on its broad front. Opposite them the Mitsunari army tried to buy time until the third clan returned, Kenshin, on the left, fell back and Shingen, on the right, manoeuvred to the centre hoping the marshy stream to its right rear would delay the advancing Noataka clan long enough.

The first clash came with the centre clan of the Tokugawa line, Toshiie, hitting Shingen and ultimately collapsing it.

On the Mitsunari left, Kenshin and Honda met in a brawling conflict which ultimately saw Kenshin leave the field in defeat.

In the centre of the Mitsunari line the unnamed third clan had turned up and got itself organised but it was too late, two thirds of the army was gone, retreat was the only option.

Next up was a game of ‘For King and Parliament’ refighting a minor battle I’ve forgotten the name of 🤣

Full disclosure here, I’m not a particular fan of the mechanics of the Simon Miller stable of rule sets, they are too much like a board game for me and the playing cards and markers distract from the aesthetic. That said, if someone invites you to a game and you accept then you are obliged to keep your thoughts to yourself and play with a good grace.

Both sides were deployed more or less historically which meant the Parliamentarian foot had the advantage of the higher ground and largely kept to it forcing the Royalists to do the attacking. The cavalry from both sides was out on the flat land beyond the hills.

The cavalry actions occupied a good deal of the playing time with regiments being thrown in, rallying (sometimes) and being thrown in again. This was pretty brutal stuff (I think we might have got something wrong 🤔) but fun in a kind of abstract way.

Ultimately the cavalry space was largely empty with honours going to the parliamentarians.

The fight for the hill started while the cavalry struggle was going on and then occupied us solely until we called time.

My takeaway from the infantry combat was that the forlorn hope were especially effective…

And the ‘proper’ fighting was a bit of a lottery. But maybe that is as it should be?

Next up was what could be called a series of unfortunate (or fortunate, depending on your viewpoint) events. Someone suggested we play French Wars of Religion a period we had not played for quite sometime and so we took on the second battle of any note, Saint Denys 1567, having fought Dreux 1562 twice already. The rules were our tried and trusted ‘For King or Faith’.

As a game this is a difficult call. Historically the Royalists far outnumbered the Huguenots as demonstrated by the time it took for the army to march out of Paris and deploy. No self respecting wargamer would willingly line up with 3 bodies of cavalry on the flat to face of to double their number, especially when those opposing cavalry were backed by Swiss, artillery and substantial bodies of home grown foot – the Huguenot foot were a few arquebusiers hiding in flanking villages. None the less that was the history so off we went!

Historically, the Royalists attempted to outflank the shorter Huguenot line but strayed too close to the villages and became disordered from arquebus fire. The Huguenot cavalry then charged these horse and saw them off into the Royalist main line where an inconclusive melee saw the Royalist commander, the Connestable Montmorency, killed and the Paris militia fleeing back to Paris. The Huguenots rallied back to the villages ready for a second round but the leaderless Royalists showed no inclination to fight on and the action petered out.

In our refight the Royalists were far better organised and managed to advance their whole cavalry line forward (more or less) – the rules restrict the number of units that can action to the skill rating of the commanders of the battailles.

First contact was between Francois Montmorency (Royalist) and Conde (Huguenot) which ultimately resulted in the death of Montmorency.

Next along the line the Connestable clashed with the Admiral Coligny and the Connestable defied history and didn’t die.

Despite their lack of numbers the Huguenots hung on.

Coligny retreated and the Huguenots committed their reserve infantry to stabilise the situation.

We had a random option for the Duke d’Andelot to cross the river Seine on the Huguenot right and he arrived late in the game – he actually arrived on the next day.

Out on the Huguenot left Biron (Royalist) charged and saw off Genlis (Huguenot).

With only a few scattered squadrons left the fight was over for the Huguenots and rallying on d’Andelot they yielded the field.

This is a tough ask for the Huguenot player and our Huguenots made a decent fight of it so well done them.

The Wars of Religion vibe had now got a will of its own and so we rolled into the next documented battle, Jarnac 1569, a confused mess which is difficult to unpick.

In brief the Huguenots under Conde and Coligny were spread out along a river line trying to prevent the Royalists under Tavannes from crossing but failed and their position was turned. This left Coligny with his half of the army spread over three villages and the only defensible point a marshy stream being approached by the Royalist advance guard. The ensuing battle saw the Huguenots defend the stream against superior numbers of Royalist foot until outflanked by cavalry who found a crossing point upstream. The fight then rolled back to the next village, cornettes of Huguenot cavalry were committed piecemeal to stem the flow and were swept away as the Royalists committed more cavalry to the fight. Ultimately the Huguenots were back at the third village as Conde arrived with the other half of the army. This completed what chose to call Jarnac part one and fought as our next game.

Our refight was as close as we could get to the small numbers of the original. A regiment of Huguenot shot defended the stream facing off to twice their number advancing on them. Behind them were a couple of cornettes of cavalry, then a village with enfants perdus, then some more cornettes, then the last village with a full body or horse and foot. Besides the foot facing across the stream the Royalists had a body of horse poised at the designated crossing point and then 3 regiments of reiters ready follow on at a predetermined point but who might arrive early on a random die roll – they didn’t.

The early moves saw the Huguenots do as well as their historical prototypes and hold off the larger Royalist force (above) – this was helped a bit by the Royalist player keeping one unit behind the other and not expanding out to one side to get more shots in.

The Royalist horse under de Guise crossed the stream and now the Huguenots were aware.

Partly due to luck and partly due to Royalist lack of concentration, de la Noue’s Huguenot horse caught de Guise in column and sent his force reeling back across the stream.

As de Guise was sent packing on came the reiters.

The fight at the stream went on with both sides losing regimental colonels.

At the stream de la Noue is reinforced by d’Andelot. Who will prevail, lance or pistol?

De la Noue and his cornettes are shot to pieces but d’Andelot presses his attack.

One of the reiters are stopped but d’Andelot is forced to retire.

One of the reiters that got through shoot up the foot at the stream.

The second (and somewhat reduced) reiters ride forward to be confronted by Coligny’s full regiment. I think we know how this is going to end….

Yep. Coligny sweeps away the reiters.

The Royalist advance is stopped. Losses will be adjudicated for part two.

In the historical version of what we called Jarnac part two (essentially later that afternoon) the battlefield had swung 90 degrees with the Royalists advancing in a wide arc from their crossing point and the Hugenots conforming. This left Coligny and Conde with 3 bodies of horse facing around three times their number in Royalist horse backed by several regiments of foot, the royal swiss and artillery while their own reduced infantry defended a line of swamps and ponds off to their right against the reiters. Just like Saint Denys the Huguenots attacked with massively inferior numbers but this time it went very badly, they got through the first line but the royalist infantry held firm giving time for the reiters to sweep onto the flank. In the confusion Conde was killed and the Huguenots extricated themselves as best they could.

In our refight the royalist flanking force was much reduced and this made a significant difference to their contribution, also the numbers of royalist horse were down, all a reflection of part one.

As our refight kicked off the Huguenots rather surprisingly turned about and retreated back across the road, reasoning that it would enable one of their units to face off to the advancing reiters and give the royalist cavalry more ground to cover before they got to grips.

The opening moves didn’t go well for the royalists; the Huguenots used some of the enfant perdus defending the ponds to take pot shots at their cavalry and managed to shoot oth Montpensier and d’Anjou out of the saddle essentially halting those units for a brief while and buying the Huguenots time – they were very lucky shots!

Out on the Huguenot right flank Montgomery’s horse stalled the brave breakthrough by the royalist reiters, three regiments might have been a very different story 🤨

In the centre the main bodies of horse clashed.

Numbers told for the royalists.

The advance of the Swiss ended it for the Huguenots.

I think we’ve killed off our Wars of Religion mania for a while now but it was a very useful experience for me at least. It reawakened my love of the period and has spurred me on to rework the rules in the light of new research and better ideas of how to play; a new year resolution before the year was out 😂🤣

In between the Wars of Religion mania we managed to experience a WWII skirmish game, rather appropriately using our snow covered Ardennes terrain.

Three squads of Americans were holding a crossroads unaware of an advance by two reinforced German squads.

The Germans had several rounds of off table mortar fire to plot prior to the game commencement and the Americans had three minefields that could be laid. Neither did a damm thing 😂🤣

The Germans approached by two routes north of the American positions, one over a bridge and into a wood, the second through the main wood and out onto the road flanking the American position.

Caution was the name of the game until it wasn’t. The Germans had to advance and used as much of the cover as they could, the Americans waited and when they did open up it was only with a single man to start so as to draw the Germans out and then open up fully.

The German advance down the road nearly worked except that as a last minute deployment whim the American player had deployed a sergeant with a Thompson forward in a stand of trees mainly to observe and what a gift a column of infantry presented. Merry Christmas!

Then it just got worse as a fire team down the road joined in.

It was officially a German disaster. Next time look before you move 🙄

And that was the month and the year over. No real hobby work done during this month, too many distractions but back into it next year. So it remains to wish everyone who reads this a Happy New Year and see you in 2026.

November 2025 Report

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Winter is coming. The games however are undeterred.

First game of the month was from our GNW collection – “Action at Sychevka” a narrative game.

In this fictional encounter both sides – Russians and Swedes were heading for the village of Sychevka, the Swedes thinking there are supplies there, the Russians because they have heard that’s where the Swedes are going. Both sides had separate columns heading towards the village; the Swedes had a cavalry vanguard under Horn (above) out in front but they got lost and have turned up on the far right of the Swedish advance and are awaiting orders, in the centre a 3 brigade infantry column under Count Lewenhaupt is advancing on the village and out on the left a 2 brigade cavalry column under Major General Creutz is emerging from a defile somewhat surprised to find Horn in the wrong place! The Russians had a 2 brigade cavalry column under Major General Bauer marching on, the centre and left was under the overall command of Field Marshal Sheremetiev comprising a cavalry & infantry force out on the left – 1 x cavalry & 2 x infantry brigades and a similar cavalry & infantry force in the centre with a cavalry brigade leading and 2 infantry brigades following.

Both sides had general orders of “advance to the village of Sychevka” (except Horn who was sitting around wondering what to do) and so senior commanders were having to issue orders as the enemy became visible and as brigades marched on. In the initial stages this rather favoured the Russians whose centre dragoon brigade under Tiernischov duly advanced on the village and got off their horses.

The opening action therefore centred around the dragoons holding the village which they did remarkably well – partly due to a rules cock up by the umpire (me!) and partly due to the normally aggressive Swedes being over cautious.

While the infantry struggle for the village developed the first cavalry action commenced on the Russian right as Kroptov and Golitsyn committed their brigades against Hard and Armfeldt.

This rolling cavalry melee occupied most of the game with Swedish regiments, Taube, Ducker, Smaland and Ostgota taking serious losses – Taube was in fact lost from the battle, while Kroptov’s horse grenadiers, and regiments, Archangelski, St Petersburgski, Tverski and Narvski took equally heavy losses. Both sides saw their brigades fail morale but the difference that decided the day was the better ability of the Swedes to rally.

Back at the village the Swedes had sorted themselves out and orders had been given. Stackelberg’s brigade (seen above) stormed the village driving out the dragoons and entering a firefight with Pfennigbeir’s brigade which ultimately they lost – both Jonkoping battalions were seriously shot up and the brigade retired hurt.

However the other two brigades of Lewenhaupt’s command, Sparre and von Liewen flanked either side of the village and took on Sheremetiev’s remaining 3 brigades – Sparre in fact took on two, Hallart and Golovin and smashed them both up.

Out on the Swedish right Horn didn’t have the best of days. When he received his orders to advance on the Russian left the dragoons he should have attacked had already dismounted amongst some burnt out buildings and proceeded to shoot him up supported by Hallart’s infantry (before Sparre arrived), forcing him to retire – Ostgota in fact left the table badly depleted. However, in an inexplicable turn of events the Russians got a bit cocky, remounted and came after the Swedes who rallied and gave the Russians a bit of a drubbing (seen above), this did however see Horn and his brigade leave the table giving chase to Repnin’s brigade.

We were now getting to the end of things, Sparre was getting stuck in – none of this shooting nonsense for him!

Bauer’s command was in it’s death throws.

The village was surrounded – buildings removed for ease of play.

It was over. A bloody day for both sides but by the end all the Russian brigades were on the run. Great game.

Next up a return to the Pacific with Victory at Sea. A simple equal points game this time with each side given free choice within the 1943 time frame and both sides having a “free” carrier and aircraft either on table or off. As a bit of a “can I do it?” the Japanese player chose to just have the Yamato battleship and the aircraft carrier off table – meant the air cover was slightly delayed in arriving, the Americans chose a mixed force from destroyers up to their own older battleship.

The game was essentially one of the Yamato keeping enough distance between itself and the Americans and preventing them concentrating fire. It nearly worked!

The main worry for the Yamato was the American planes and if the American player had handled them better it would have been a very short game!

However, the American chose to attack piecemeal and this allowed the Japanese player to “zero in” – see what I did there 😂and take out a lot of the American air strength.

They even got a chance to attack the American carrier.

And damage the Chicago and Houston.

The duel of the “big boys” saw the sinking of the New Mexico.

But you can’t fight against multiple ships and not take damage and the Yamato took some unlucky hits which slowed her and the sharks (aka American destroyers) began to circle.

Multiple torpedo hits and it was the end for the Yamato 😢

Our next game was a return to long neglected ‘modern’ skirmish, this time in our Syrian Civil War ruins set up.

Our basic scenario was Hezbollah and Islamic Front units clashing in the ruins of Aleppo. Both sides had a couple of squads plus a tank – the Hezbollah squads were smaller but better trained and they had a T72, Islamic Front were bigger squads but their tank was a T55, although they did have a truck mounted ZSU.

Both sides advanced cautiously, partly because it was the right thing to do and partly because we were a bit rusty with the rules – it had been over a year since our last game.

Both sides worked their way around the central hospital building utilising the cover as best they could.

One of the Islamic Front squads detoured into one of the wrecked buildings, a bad decision which effectively kept that unit out of the majority of the game as it picked it’s way through the wreckage to no advantage.

The “oh shit!” moment that can only happen in a wargame 😂

Fortune favoured the T72. Scratch one T55.

The bad luck streak continued for Islamic Front continued when their ZSU gunner was cut down before ever firing a shot.

Islamic Front fighters press on.

“man the barricades!”

Oh dear.

Both sides took losses but ultimately the losses were more severe for Islamic Front and they withdrew, ceding this piece of war ravaged ground.

Our next effort was a roll out of the Timurid project. This has been a long running saga of me rebasing (twice!) and reconfiguring all my old Mongol, Ilkhanid, Russian, Persian and Mameluke figures into a representation of the armies of Timur, Tokhtamish and sundry others of the C14th. There are far better and more accurate figures out there nowadays but the sheer expense alone was enough to kick that idea into the bin and frankly in a lot of instances the differences are marginal and the set up is for home consumption only. The rules are a version of the proven Successors rules and as a first run out I was really pleased.

Our armies were a Timurid force in two divisions both containing formed & skirmish cavalry plus an elephant and an allied division of White Sheep Turcoman. Facing them was a Golden Horde Mongol force in two divisions containing formed & skirmish cavalry, a Guards division of elite formed cavalry and skirmish cavalry and a division of Russian allies containing boyars and Polk.

Both sides advanced steadily and the skirmishers went into the wargames representation of cantabrian circle.

Once players got the hang of the idea that is was a game about shooting – nearly everyone has a bow, the arrows started to fly.

However, the stars of the show were the boyars who hurtled across the table, shook off casualties from bow fire and smashed a hole in the centre of the Timurid line – well that was unexpected!

Elsewhere it was all about the shooting and the person who managed to concentrate the most fire at a critical point had the advantage – in this particular run it was the Golden Horde who grasped the concept quicker than their Timurid opponent.

The collapse of the Timurid centre had enough of a ripple effect for the Timurid player to concede and we had quite a chat about the rules and the game – all positive and some good suggestions to go forward with, next task, rebase all the Russians to take on the Golden Horde.

Next up was a ‘reconquista’ game featuring a Norman excursion into Andalusia where they are met by a united front. The sides were pre set out so it was just a question of writing any orders and having at it.

The Normans were deployed in three divisions, strong right wing of knights, centre of spearmen covered by skirmishers and a left of allied light troops. Naturally it was the knights that started the action and all seemed to be going well.

Into contact, encouraged by their General and still going well. This is going to be easy…..

Meanwhile the Andalusian right gets into action and as the allied light horse fell away the General leads in his nobles to stabilise the situation. You know where this is going…..

“kill!”

And then there were two dead generals and it was all over. Oh dear 😭

Final game was a ‘back of beyond’ away game where the British were landing once again to plant the union jack where it had no reason to be opposed by two afghan hill tribes allied to Red and White Russians – history was a distant second here.

Each side had it’s own set of objectives, some easily achieved, some downright impossible, but the scenery and figures did look very nice.

Hill tribesmen ready for the conflict – they didn’t fire a shot 😂

White Russian Cossacks attacking an armoured car.

And destroying it.

I’m really not sure who won the game, it was more of a case who didn’t. The White Russians and allied hill tribe definitely failed, The Reds obliterated one British force but I’m not sure that was their objective 🤔, the other hill tribe didn’t appear until the end but the second British force disembarked and captured the railway station with minimal casualties so I guess they won. In these kind of games it doesn’t really matter, they are played for a laugh and plenty of laughs were had.

Some painting and modelling was done. Here a mosque for the 10mm set up.

Bridging units.

AA fire support.

Thureophoroi for the Successors.

This months reading. The McNab was an ok generalist assessment of the Roman Army, I wasn’t completely convinced by some of his takes. The Tom Clancy I read because of our interest in Cold War gaming and all I can say is, no wonder we were all paranoid in the 80’s! Orwell’s Homage to Catalonia is very much of it’s time and obviously not a Beevor mighty tome but in a slim volume it tells you a lot about the war in the snapshot of time that Orwell was in that particular front, still worth a read.

Well that’s it for November, Christmas is coming but there are still games to play before we drink and eat ourselves into oblivion so keep well and play nice.

October 2025 Report

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Coughs and colds have meant a bit of a lean month but we did have ‘The Other Partizan’

Our first game of the month was a 1980’s cold war attack defend scenario with the Soviets having to push on through after an initial breakthrough. The rules were Cold War Commander.

Outnumbered but not outgunned the Bundeswehr opted for taking the battle to the Soviets – big mistake!

The Soviets deployed a full tank regiment (3 x tank battalions & 1 x motorised infantry) plus air and artillery assets with the option to flank march (which they did) against 2 combined arms Leopard & Marder battalions and a small reserve Leopard battalion. The Soviets had to take the battle to the Germans and had 8 moves to do it in.

The Bundeswehr command decisions were not good and each mistake compounded another. The first was bunching one battalion up behind a fence line like a Napoleonic grand battery and never moving – originally this had some merit as the battalion was back from the fence line and so out of LOS but once up they were fair game to the HINDs and FAO/FAC call downs plus the added problem of this being the flank that the soviet flank march arrived on 😒

The second miss step was swinging the right flank tank battalion out of a perfectly good defensive spot and roar across the open countryside to try and turn the flank of the Soviets. This did have some merit as the Soviets had deployed en masse to their right (opposing the German left) but open ground in the rules (and in real life) is deadly. The better option was to utilise the cover to swing behind his own lines and reinforce the centre and left.

The Soviets made better use of the cover on their deployment frontage dumping off the infantry in a wood and using the BMPs to fire their ATGWs out from the edge.

As in all games there were some comedy moments, like the flank march that took FOREVER to arrive much to the frustration of the commander and the fact that the Napoleonic grand battery just plain refused to acknowledge it was there 😮.

Under the cover of their air and artillery (which didn’t eliminate anything much but did keep German heads down) the Soviets moved onto the high ground dominating the grand battery and with the help of the finally arriving flank march pounded the Leopards into dust – at odds of over 2:1 even inferior Soviet armour is going to mess up the opposition especially as the flank march was literally getting flank shots in.

By the end of turn 5 it was all over, the Germans were on the run and the Soviets pushed on through. Lesson to learn? If you are defending then defend, the longer range Leopard guns in cover will always have the advantage, as the Soviet player pointed out the German players just can’t resist roaring about the table 🤣.

Before our next game we had a group outing to ‘The Other Partizan’. This was our 2nd time of not putting a game on and the plan was to have one of the table sale spots to get rid of some of our excess stuff but someone screwed up the booking 😖😞😤. That said we were kind of glad the plan failed because the set up for those folk who were selling was poor. A gazebo/tent in the open in the generally better weather of May is fine but on a cold foggy day in October not so good especially as one side of the tent was open to the elements – thank god it didn’t rain. If the organisers are going to copy the idea of Hammerhead then bring it inside like they do and have the admissions & merchandising outside in the tented area, lets face it by lunch time the bulk of admissions are done anyway.

Now before I say anything else I need to be clear, I think Richard and Laurence do a fantastic job of organising the show – quite what will happen when they pack it in will be interesting, but it is billed as the premier show for quality games and I’m not sure that is so. In my view, and that’s all it is, quantity has taken over from quality, the number of games on display simply cannot all be premier league standard. The quantity also made it quite difficult to get around and view some of the games and I felt the games in the centre perhaps didn’t get a fair shake, again just my take, there are plenty of podcast reports out there lavishing high praise so I’m probably in a very small minority.

Next up was a refight of part of the 2nd day at Wagram using 15mm Volley & Bayonet.

Our chosen piece of history was the attack of Massena’s IV Corps alongside the Danube towards Klenau’s VI Corps while the main battle raged off to his right. The villages of Aspern, Essling and Breitenlee were his objectives.

The initial French moves were more of a stumble than a confident advance and the Austrians scored some early jabs in the developing contest overrunning some guns and seeing off an assault on Essling.

Not to be left out in the ‘how not to do it’ stakes the Austrians then obligingly sent Vincent’s hussars in against the cuirassier of St Sulpice and not surprisingly paid a heavy price.

The French still hadn’t quite got their act together and some piecemeal attacks got beaten back.

Aspern came under a far better co-ordinated attack and duly fell, the French were getting into their stride now.

The French continued to press and the Austrians started to fall back.

Breitenlee was stormed and the right and left anchors of the Austrian position were gone.

The field belongs to the French who despite a stuttering start did better than Massena on the day and completely destroyed Klenau’s command.

Next up was a weekend away in Stone for a cold war game with the Cold War Commanders group, my 3rd, Gerard’s 2nd, organised and loosely umpired by Richard Phillips. This years scenario was Denmark; a couple of divisions worth of Warsaw Pact elements were pushing north up the Jutland peninsula while a naval/VDV force assaulted the island of Fyn to secure the eastern flank of the advance. NATO was represented by the Danes occupying the island and the mainland shore over a bridge and West German, British and US forces defending the vital E20 highway. All told we had 13 players, a significant band of gamers in one space!

In such a large game it’s difficult to capture what is going on over the whole table so this will be what I managed to pick up from conversations and the occasional trawl up the table. What I do know is that as Warsaw Pact we had to seize the island and eliminate the HAWK batteries stationed there and size the town of Odense, then working our way down there were the towns of Middlefart, Kolding and the airport.

The first day was largely taken up with manoeuvring and initial contacts. The more serious fighting was on Fyn where the Danes were giving a good account of themselves and at Kolding where Soviet armour surged forward. Further down the table there was a lot of command fumbling as the East German brigade (me) stuttered forward and the Guards tank brigade (Gerard) hunkered down in woods opposite the the airfield not wanting to risk the open ground.

Second day was more intense as serious fighting erupted all along the front. First to go were the HAWK batteries, falling to VDV forces as the Danes were pushed back into Odense, the fighting for Kolding was brutal but it finally fell to the Soviets.

Down the E20 the East Germans had a bit of a scare when the the US airborne defending the road line launched a do or die assault on the hills overlooking their position where the FAO’s were sited but for once the artillery responded with little drift and the infantry battalion and supporting tank company were vaporised leaving the way clear for a push to the E20. Apologies for the tanks sitting on top of the trees, with so many players it just becomes impossible to have the time to make it look pretty.

At the airfield the USMC held on despite some serious shelling from the Guards armour – for some strange reason I don’t have a photo of this.

Time called, the East Germans had breached the E20 and were circling behind what was left of the US airborne brigade, further up the highway the Soviets had breached it in two more places. A clear Warsaw Pact victory.

This was quite exhausting and fair play to Richard for keeping us on track especially when players had several different interpretations of the same rules 🤣😂. Like all these big game events the actual playing area you are involved in is not much bigger than a large table at home and without a proper briefing session on something like the Friday night – something the WHC used to do very well, there will always be the tendency to fragment and become isolated in your approach to the game, this in turn can result in some players having nothing very much to do – the USMC player literally could do nothing unless Gerard attacked and there was nothing to force him to do so. I find it difficult enough to co-ordinate 4-6 players so 13 is way out there!

Back home and old reliable, Successors! Late period Seleucid and Ptolemaics took to the field in a curious battle.

The Seleucids went full on ‘super weapons’, 4 squadrons of chariots, 4 of elephants and 2 regiments of cataphracts, leaving a couple of pike battalions protected by Thureophoroi and Thracians. The Ptolemaics were far more sensible, deploying settler pike and cavalry, plus Galatian warbands and assorted other heavy cavalry. Because of their limited numbers the Seleucids opted for a compact deployment, elephants out on the flanks to dissuade any cavalry attacks and the chariots in the centre backed by either the cataphracts or the pikes with soft sand splitting the centre. The Ptolemaics spread out, settler cavalry on the left others on the right, pikes spread across the centre interspersed with their own elephants Galatians on the left of the pike and nothing on the right as there was a village to anchor on.

The battle opened with the chariots surging forward and making a mess.

Followed closely by the elephants who really did make a mess of the settler cavalry.

The spreading out of the Ptolemaics rather favoured the compact Seleucid deployment which if it got outflanked would have been in trouble but the elephants on the left put paid to the settler cavalry and the Ptolemaic left cavalry (above)were so far out that it took a lot of time to swing in and by then the centre was resolving itself.

The Galatians tried to turn it for the Ptolemaics (well the pikes were doing nothing 🙄) and clearing their way through bits of destroyed chariots (they only stand for the first contact and then are destroyed) but missile fire whittled them down.

In went the cataphracts and didn’t really do much.

Thureophoroi did no better and were seen off by the already badly mauled Galatians.

However as we called time the Ptolemaics were done. Both cavalry wings neutralised and their fighting Galatians about to be seriously duffed up. Seleucid victory.

A really odd but fun game. The pikes didn’t get a look in which from a Ptolemaic perspective was a real problem. The exotics on both sides were all over the show, we had chariots hitting elephants, elephants rampaging, dead elephants and destroyed chariots creating obstacles and the allies doing all the fighting!

Our final game was an away day fighting ACW using Rebels and Patriots, not my favourite set of rules but a pleasant enough game.

Four commands, four points of entry; Union from the north west & north east, Confederate from the south east & south west. Objectives? I don’t think there was one 🤔

None the less we all ended up near a creek and began blasting away.

The Union got over the creek and onto the high ground making heavy weather of some enemy skirmishers.

Confederates seize a different hill.

All fought out. Union on one side of the creek, Confederates on the other.

Well that was the games but in other news I did manage to get some Pendraken emplacements done to use as tank berms for our Iran Iraq set up.

And some Iranian bridge layers.

And an Iranian armoured cavalry battalion.

Plus some engineers.

And rebasing my myriad collection of Mongols, Russians, Mamluks, etc to become Timurids and friends/enemies. This is going to be a bit of a journey, the Timurids and Golden Horde are essentially done, Russians, Jalayarids, Mamluks next. Rules done enough for a first draft run through. Looking forward to it.

And I thought I’d start sharing what I’d read during the month, can’t share Audible listens very easily though.

Anyway, thanks for reading, comments always welcome. In the meantime, enjoy your gaming, respect your opponents.

September 2025 Report

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The Autumn is here but it’s been a good one.

Our first game of the month was Samurai using Battles in the Age of War (BAW) set in the Sengoku period (1467 – 1650) with some local amendments to suit our take on the period.

Our commanding generals (or Daimyo) were Tokugawa Ieyasu and Ishida Mitsunari, each commanding 3 divisions of 3 sonei each (well one had 4 but who’s counting). Under Tokugawa we had the Date, Maeda & II clans and under Ishida the Shingen, Kenshin and Uesugi clans.

After we had done the pre-game stuff (treachery, scouting, weather, etc), which does take a while but is fun and gets you into the period feel, Ishida was declared the defender and Tokugawa the attacker with a couple of objectives (a wood and temple area) and the ultimate objective of killing the other guy – points are awarded for objectives but the big points are in killing the other side. Ishida did really badly in the pre battle manoeuvre and ended up with his largest division off table and so having to dice for each sonei to get on the table each turn; accordingly he spread his forces thinly across the range of hills to his front and prayed he could hold on.

Tokugawa advanced slowly with little co-ordination between the clans. Maeda got into the temple area with ease but the slow going through it (and the wood) meant that they were effectively out of the fight – good news for Ishida 😀 The most aggressive of the Tokugawa divisions was the II clan on the left, who had the best general but failed to form a cohesive line of battle and as they closed the Shingen clan pounced, ultimately routing 2 sonei (lots of points!) and by game end had surrounded the remaining one.

On the Tokugawa right the large Date division spread out across the table and dilly dallied allowing time for Uesugi to get his off table sonei onto the battlefield and link up with the left of Kenshin. Thus by the time Date and Maeda launched attacks by single sonei they were easy meat for the now superior numbers of Kenshin and Uesugi leading to more routs.

And that was the game. A classic lesson of the fate of over cautious advances and uncoordinated attacks.

Next up was our old favourite, Iran Iraq. Another narrative driven game based loosely around Operation Badr, March 1985. It was a 12 turn game so stretched over two playing days.

In this scenario the Iranian 37th Armoured were dug in around the town of Ajairda supported by off table SP artillery. Forward of their position was the river Tigris with two possible crossing points; the steel bridge directly to the front over which the main highway ran into the town and the old stone bridge off to the right over which ran the old road alongside a dried up stream bed, a long derelict bridge over to the left was of no use to road traffic. The narrative required the mechanised infantry battalion to be deployed within the town limits with the option to entrench individual platoons (bases). The two armoured battalions (one M60A1 and one M48A5) had the options of deploying on table with optional berms or deploying off table and dicing to arrive once the shooting started. The player spread his infantry amongst the buildings and entrenched a number of platoons on the right of the town along with half of the M60s in berms while the other half were on the left of the town. The splitting of the M48s did give operational problems in the game as the commander couldn’t be in two places at once! The M48s were off table behind the hill on which the FAO took up his position.

As the attacker the Iraqis had all the tactical problems to solve but also more kit to do it with. They started with the 26th Armoured – two battalions of T62s, one battalion of mixed T54s & T55s, and one battalion of mechanised infantry plus an attached battalion of elite commandos. In support they had off table SP artillery, similar to the Iranians, but in the Iraqi case each armoured battalion controlled its own artillery – this should have proved to be an advantage but…… Also in support was a wing of Mirage ground attack aircraft under the control of an FAC. Several jump off points were available along the Iraqi baseline although their recon elements could be deployed further forward and the commandos could start at the banks of the Tigris.

Unbeknown to the Iranians the Iraqis had the option to deploy pontoon bridges over the where the ruined bridge was which they duly did. The commandos were a bit of a surprise too!

The Iraqis opted for a three pronged attack. The weaker T54/T55 tank battalion supported by the infantry would assault over the pontoon and pin the Iranian left, in the centre one T62 tank battalion would barrel over the bridge and on the left the other T62 battalion would cross via the old bridge and, using the dried stream bed as cover, turn the Iranian right while the commandos assaulted across the river in support. It nearly worked!

The initial Iraqi moves were all about getting into position while the air and artillery pounded away, unfortunately this was largely ineffective.

The first sign that things were not going to go according to plan was the commandos, they came under fire from the dug in tanks (somebody didn’t think about the better ranges of US supplied kit 😮) and within a couple of turns were down to half strength which forced a rethink and the remainder of the battalion worked their way along the river bank to cross via the old road in the company of the T62s.

Next it was the turn of the centre T62s, out ranged by the Iranian armour they took early losses and had a moment of ‘do we, don’t we?’ before pressing on over the bridge so as to get into range, after all the Iranians couldn’t shoot everywhere at once, could they?

Now the shooting had started the Iranians bought on their M48s to bolster the left.

By about the mid point of the game the Iraqis were over the Tigris; the T54/T55s were on the losing end of the tank duel on their flank but were holding out remarkably well once the infantry ATGW moved up in support, the centre T62s were over the bridge and the other T62s & commandos were advancing unseen behind the cover of the stream bed.

Then the Iranians decided to be stupid. Overconfident, the M60s on the right left their nice comfortable berms and moved out to try and pinch off the T62 salient at the bridge. Unfortunately this coincided with the commandos getting into position at the stream bed and letting loose with their upgraded RPGs, which rather made a mess of several Iranian tanks. This could have been a turning point if the accompanying T62s had gotten into the action but in the second half of the game they failed their command role 5 times in a row!! Yes 5 times out of the 6 turns left to play 😱

Over on the Iraqi right the old war horses battled on and quite frankly did themselves proud but a combination of the better M48s and some pretty spot on Iranian artillery ground the attack down and soon there wasn’t much left.

As the clock wound down the stuck T62s sorted themselves out and advanced against the Iranian right but it was all a bit late and the dug in Iranian infantry prepared to let loose with their RPGs.

At the end of the final turn the Iranians were still in control of Ajairda and it would take some serious effort to move them out. Yes they had certainly suffered a near disaster with the loss of half of the M60 battalion but on the other side the T54/55s were no more and the accompanying infantry were hunkered down along the banks of the Tigris while the centre T62s were slowly suffering losses as they sat in their salient.

This was a good fight, the scenario worked well and it was down to the last couple of turns. Analysing afterwards this could so have been an Iraqi victory but over caution and bad game management cost them – the famous 5 failures to activate wasn’t just down to bad dice it was fuelled by the player not recognising how he could help himself by managing the factors that influenced the roll, forgetting to fire the attached artillery multiple times didn’t help either 😂🤣

To round off the month we had a couple of skirmish games, a bit of a rarity these days.

First up was a WWII encounter with an intriguing little narrative. A senior British officer and his escort have crashed on a country road somewhere in France leaving him seriously wounded. They managed to get a distress call out before the radio packed up and a mixed arms platoon has been dispatched to find him, unfortunately the Germans have got wind of the potential prize and have sent out their own lads. Unfortunately for both sides a thick fog has descended and so each squad moves randomly for the first half a dozen turns leaving them all over the place as the game starts seriously, just as the umpire wanted 😁😁

German squad proceed down one of the many lanes having no idea where anybody is.

British take the high ground.

“Hande Hoch!” The Germans win the race.

And away they go. A fun little scenario that worked well.

Our final game was an away day Vietnam skirmish using ‘Surviving Nam’ a set of rules in development from a guy on LAF.

Now I’ve played a lot of Vietnam games over the years using my own rules and a myriad of commercial sets and I think I know a reasonable amount about the period and recognise the difference between popular mythology and reality so I approached this in the hope of maybe this will be ‘the set’.

The basic premise of the rules is that each player is a squad/fire team of say half a dozen figures, all Free World Forces, on some kind of pre ordained mission, there are no VC/NVA players. In an agreed order each player nominates a figure from his squad to activate by rolling one or two D20 die, if they pass (different skill level, different score required) then they can move, fire, etc. If they fail they draw a random event(s) card which has something happen, usually some kind of VC/NVA action, hidden machine gun opens up, fire team deploys, etc. And that essentially is the game.

Now if you are a big fan of dungeon crawler games then this could be quite ‘fun’ but it is somewhat reductive. At best it reduces the enemy to random orcs or xenomorphs who pop up for the sole purpose of killing or being killed, at worst it could be seen as downright racist as the brown people, and lets face it in these types of games it is brown or black people who pop up not the white guys.

Putting aside me perhaps being over sensitive the other problem with this type of game is that no one has any agency. The Vietnamese certainly don’t as their actions are driven by the cards and the die rolling for their actions, like shooting, are done by the players who drew the cards. But neither do the players have much agency because once cards start to be drawn the game becomes a glorified ‘whack a mole’ which is justified by a vague notion that this is what Vietnam was all about. Really?

Now all that said I had a fine old time with my ARVN out performing the US Marines by miles. Again, really? The other guys had great fun and are motivated to paint up some more stuff so success but Vietnam it aint.

And that was the month. Pretty varied and generally successful. What will October bring? Well Partizan for sure but no game from us just visiting.

August 2025 Report

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Summer is drawing to a close but the gaming keeps on going 😀 Seven games this month, a tidy number.

First outing was an away day game of DAK Attack! with some local gamers not of the group. I’d call the rules ‘Heroic History’, just enough history to make the game immersive enough but at the same time deeds of daring do is the general vibe.

In keeping with the above the players were assigned an LRDG group each and a sector of the German town and airfield to shoot up, get in and get out in one piece. The Germans were controlled by the umpire via a card system but were very much in reactive mode.

So, jeeps rolled in, shots were fired (a lot!), charges were planted and jeeps rolled out again.

Well some of the jeeps rolled out again 🤣 Losses were taken by the Brits but plenty of German kit was blown up so a very successful mission.

As a set of rules they worked very well and delivered exactly what they set out to do, I’d certainly play them again.

Back at base our next game was another of our 1980’s Cold War encounters, this time, Bundeswehr v DDR. Our narrative was that the Warsaw Pact invasion had commenced and in the opening days the BAOR had been displaced north by the Soviets and now the second echelon DDR troops were sweeping forward from the southeast aiming for a power station positioned in the northwest corner of the board, The Bundeswehr had hastily assembled a combat group in the southwest and were scrambling to cut off the enemy advance.

The game was designed as an 8 turn encounter game using mobile deployment in specific areas of the southern end of the board. Both sides had off table artillery but no air cover; the DDR had a full tank regiment – 3 x 9T72M tank battalions and a motorised infantry battalion in BMP1-1P’s, the Bundeswehr had 2 x mixed battalion of 8 x Leopard 2’s and 4 x Marder with attached infantry. The rules were Cold War Commander.

The Bundeswehr got on table straight away – better command values, and positioned the FAO and half a tank battalion on a convenient hill while everyone else headed north utilising the plentiful cover.

The DDR struggled to get on table and this definitely affected their ability to co-ordinate their efforts. The 1st Panzer roared came on and roared into a field where they got bogged down as the Leopards on the hill zeroed in on them and the FAO bought in M109 fire. Eventually the battalion was wiped out without firing a shot 😢

The 3rd Panzer, when they came on, executed a long right hook, utilising as much cover as possible and headed for the road to the power station.

The 2nd Panzer and BMP’s arrived late and were forever playing catch up which wasn’t helped by the panzers failing two first move rolls and rolling two blunders! Needless to say their contribution was minimal. The BMP’s nipped straight into a wood and kept out of the way but their ATGW advantage was negated by the electricity pylons stretching up the board. The pylons also affected the Marders but with their longer range tank guns this was less of a problem for the Bundeswehr.

The DDR did manage to get their off table into action but with zero effect.

And counter battery fire soon took them out anyway.

The exciting part of the game however was the actions of 3rd Panzer whose right hook had caught the Bundeswehr slightly off guard – they were too busy shooting the shit out of the rest of the opposition 🤣

And so it became a race for the bridge……..

The Bundeswehr threw everything they had at 3rd Panzer as turn 8 loomed.

But eventually 3rd Panzer were swept away and with the end of turn 7 the Leopards were on the bridge and the lights over West Germany could remain on 😁

Next up was a Reconquista game on the arid Spanish hillsides, Spanish Christian v Moslem Andalusian but with both sides having allied contingents from the other faith. Alfonso & El Cid commanded the Christians, co-operating for once.

The Christians had the better cavalry and took the fight to the Andalusians.

The opening skirmishing favoured the Andalusians.

Alfonso had to do a bit of steadying the infantry and the line held.

Meanwhile the Cid was leading his troops to victory with a sneaky flank attack – not very Christian 🙄

The game became quite the cavalry slog with both sides throwing in units and generals.

Ultimately it became a Christian victory with the Cid casting down his opposite number.

Next was the 2nd in our Guadalcanal mini campaign, this time Cape Esperance, influenced by the fallout from our first game. Again the battle was fought at night.

For this one we hade to think a bit. Our resident expert and umpire, Gerard, had us steaming by map in column – yes they deployed in column! Once visibility was determined the models came on but you still had to spot before you could fire and if a target fell out of spotting distance then it was no longer a target – very challenging.

Pretty soon the ships were all over the place and the spotting was a real pain but in a good way.

The Americans used their destroyers very effectively, getting in close to launch torpedoes, even though the early torpedoes were generally useless, but not always 😀

The more effective Japanese torpedoes certainly did their part – here the Boise goes to the bottom.

Followed by the San Francisco.

But American numbers (and guns and armour) told and the Japanese beat a retreat. Interestingly both flagships were sunk but the Japanese suffered higher overall losses.

Our next outing was on the plains of eastern Europe where an Ottoman incursion was being opposed by the troops of the Imperial borderlands.

The playing area was bisected by a meandering stream (representing the border) which was close enough to the Imperial left for them to use it to aid the defence by the Croatian horse and close enough in the centre of the line for the levy and mercenary pike to get to and defend the banks. On the Ottoman left their Tartar cavalry & Delis were poised to cross the bridge while across the centre & right were 6 bodies of Spahis screened by Azab foot.

The Ottoman advance was a bit of a mess, the Azabs wouldn’t move so didn’t provide a screen to the Spahis who advanced through them (at least they had bows) while out on the left the Tartars dithered and the Delis went home! The Imperialists were a bit more organised and on the right the Austrian and Hungarian nobles galloped forward.

Here come the nobles!

First contact was the Hungarian nobles splashing across the stream and hurtling into some waiting Spahi who were dispatched in short order.

Out on the Imperial left the Croatian contingents were doing nice work with their carbines.

On the Ottoman left the last unit of Tartars is about to run away and that flank will be gone.

In the Ottoman centre it all starts to go horribly wrong as the German mercenary horse and pike splash across the stream (out of shot) and start shooting up the Spahis.

Terror is infectious and the Ottoman centre dissolves. The Imperialists are not without casualties but no morale collapses were suffered which was a rot that set in amongst the Ottomans.

Our next foray was a Carlist War encounter. Government troops, being mainly the British Legion plus the Guards battalions, seeking to turf the Carlists out of a reinforced position.

Skirmishing was very much the order of the day for the opening moves with the Carlists having the better of it, particularly on their right wing.

Attempting to force the issue on the Carlist right the Government lost patience and rolled out the cavalry, perhaps a little bit too early…..

In went the Princess Hussars with plenty of “Huzzah!”

So much for “Huzzah!” 😂🤣😭

And then came the cuirassiers, who did a little better but had to fall back hurt.

But they came back for more and a Carlist general died trying to hold his troops together.

The cuirassiers finally chopped their way through and this part of the Carlist line was unhinged.

Out on the government right the lancers from the British Legion hurled themselves into the Carlist line.

And desperate squares are formed as the first line falls.

At them with the bayonet as opposing attack columns close.

Casualties on both sides mount but the Carlists now have three divisional generals dead on the field and so yield the ground. A bloody and pointless affair.

Our final effort was good old Successors, Antigonus v Eumenes.

To try and get away from the usual slog across the open field, historical though it undoubtedly is, a more narrative approach was tried. In this, Eumenes is marching for his camp, placed beyond a fast flowing stream and approachable by a single bridge. Antigonus and his son Demetrious have split their forces in an attempt to out manoeuvre their old enemy and have ended up on the opposite side of the table in two constrained areas, Demetrious upstream from the bridge and Antigonus separated from Eumenes by several low hills. Both sides had constraints about which troops (and Generals) could be where and then drew disposition maps.

Demetrious had all the good cavalry plus a single elephant backed by two pike battalions, which soon got left behind in the rush for the bridge.

Antigonus had the main body of the infantry backed by some satrap cavalry.

Eumenes opted to send his cavalry, backed by the Hypaspists, past the bridge to take on Demetrious and thus create a funnel behind them for the rest of the army to access the camp. But first those infantry were going to take on the host of Antigonus and see if they could do enough to make them pull back.

Eumenes had two elephant squadrons to the Antigonids one and so tried to use them as blockers. Here one crashes into the Antigonid veterans.

The result was inevitable but it did keep the veterans out of the pike clash which was about develop.

At the bridge, Demetrious just about won the race and the cavalry melees set in.

Out on the Eumenid right the big fight was about to happen and as can be seen the Antigonid veterans (top left) are delayed. in the foreground both of Eumenes infantry commanders have joined a battalion, Antigenes with the Silver Shields on the left and Teutamus in the centre. Antigonus himself, seen on the hill to the rear, didn’t commit himself and that would prove problematic.

After a couple of turns of bluster (also known as failure to charge rolls on both sides) it was the Eumenids who surged forward and the fight was on!

Back at the bridge the fight was in full swing as both sides fed horse and elephants into the fray. The action was favouring Demetrious but the killer blow was yet to be delivered.

On the hills the killer blow had been struck and the central Antigonid pike battalions collapsed and fled. The presence of Antigenes & Teutamus had kept the Eumenids in the fight at the critical moments.

There was still some fighting to do. The third Eumenid pike battalion was making hard work of finishing some hoplites but the inevitable would not be long and the Antigonid veterans were free and clear but alone.

At the bridge Demetrious was still battling away as Eumenes fed more troops into the fray but with his dad’s forces on the run we concluded discretion would be the better part of valour. The great Antigonous/Eumenes contest would continue for another season.

And that was the month, another fine one. Not much on the painting/modelling front, spare time has been spent on completing the rules for my Timurid forces and rebasing for the third (and last) time, hopefully they will see the table in a trial run next month. Until then, play nice and enjoy the weather.

July 2025 Report

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Two shows and five games, a pretty reasonable month.

Our first game was WWII desert skirmish using our own tried and tested rules set. On this occasion a daring rescue attempt by SAS squads of two captured officers held at an Axis camp before transfer to the Gestapo for questioning.

The bulk of the Axis forces were asleep in their barracks while Askari patrolled the perimeter. The British were divided into 3 squads supported by an armoured car each, approaching from the cover beyond the main gate. Various scenario rules were in place for noise and and whether the guards would be alerted and how long it would take for sleeping soldiers to tumble out of bed.

The British de-bussed at a safe distance and advanced on foot with the armoured cars rolling on behind.

Impatience got the better of the British and before everyone was set the Rolls Royce opened up on the guard house eliminating the Askari inside. Now it was time to get a move on.

With the hornets nest duly disturbed the Axis troops began to tumble out into the square with the Italian tank crews leading the way into their fearsome tankettes 🤣

Unfortunately the lead tankette quickly went up in smoke and the Italians became a little more circumspect.

It wasn’t all wine and roses for the British however when the one tankette with an actual gun dropped a shell into one of the squads and downed two. Things were getting serious now!

As the British advanced into the compound the armoured cars gave very effective support fire.

It was starting to look like bullying now 😂

It was not all British hoorah though as once the Afrika Corps troops managed to push the Italians out of the way some serious fight back started to take place.

However it was all a bit too late by the Axis and with all the armour destroyed and most of the Italians & Askari dead or wounded the Germans had no choice but to surrender themselves and the prisoners.

Next was an interesting Successors game whereby Antigonus and his mighty host took on the western satrap Alcetas with both sides obscured by a belt of woods.

The Antigonids were pike heavy with 5 battalions ranging from Veteran to Levy supported by hoplite mercenaries. They were also heavy in horse with 6 units of formed cavalry. Where they were weak was in light troops, fielding only 1 unit of light horse and 3 of foot, but they did of course have elephants.

Alcetas on the other hand was falling over himself with light troops and that dictated his style of play. His heavy troops were 2 pike battalions and 2 hoplite battalions which he positioned opposite one of the breaks in the woods heavily screened by psiloi while his left was protected by 3 units of Psidian peltasts planning to take advantage of the woods opposite and his by some Thracians and more psiloi. The satrapal heavy & light horse was held back on the left to await orders to be committed to plug any holes that appeared.

The battle opened with a strong advance all along the Antigonid line but a far more cautious one from Alcetas – jibes about dragging his feet had no effect whatsoever 😂

The first serious action was the psiloi annoying the elephants which thy did very well and in due course we had panicking elephants and then dead elephants.

The early cavalry action was on the Antigonid right where Demetrious and half of the cavalry were massively outnumbered by the opposition and were ground down and eventually surrounded – lesson, don’t’ split your cavalry.

The other half of the Antigonid cavalry had a far better time beating up the Psidians.

And disappeared in a wild chase from which they never rallied.

At the two thirds point the game very much looked like it was going the way of the Antigonids. Demetrious was still holding his own on the right and the Median horse on the centre right under Peithon were making headway. Alcetas admitted he was worried.

The woods however were starting to become a bit of a pain in the arse – not least in trying to make sure weapons didn’t break off!

Eventually the heavy stuff got into contact with both sides mercenary hoplites slogging it out and both Antigonus and Menander (commanding for Alcetas) joining their troops to keep the combat going.

Then in a startling development the two Pantodapoi pike battalions, who had previously been protected by the Median horse, found themselves on their own, outflanked and showered with javelins and broke leaving a great big hole in the Antigonid centre.

Some consolation was gained when Antigonus’ veterans punched their way through but that just left them in a sea of enemy troops.

At game end Alcetas had the numbers and we called it a victory to him by a narrow margin.

Our next encounter was the final one of our Napoleonic north Italian odyssey, the battle of the Raab, 1809.

A much bigger game than our previous engagements (well for the French anyway 😉) the result was never really in any doubt, despite some early French efforts to completely cock it up, and it was all about how well the Austrians could do in defeat.

In an early effort to cock things up the French cavalry commander threw Guedin’s dragoon division across the Pancza stream and promptly lost it! Off to a great start.

A more circumspect approach was then adopted by the French and Laureston, supported by Sahuc, scored an early success on the French left.

This then led to a rapidly developing and fiercely fought contest on the Austrian right.

Meanwhile in the centre the French attack had gradually built and holes started to appear in the Austrian line.

Austrian grenadiers were desperately thrown in to plug the gaps but it was all a bit piecemeal.

French mass assaults turn the day.

Total Austrian collapse – every division is exhausted (Volley & Bayonet parlance). History does indeed repeat itself although our French paid a higher price.

Our final game was a GNW piece that stretched into two days. For this battle we had the table split by a major river, only crossable by a bridge leading into a town. A Russo Danish allied army was advancing up either bank of the river to contact a Swedish force reported as coming their way. The Russians and Danes had to deploy either side of the river although who took which side didn’t matter, the Swedes could deploy on either side or split to deploy on both sides and the split didn’t need to be even.

In the event the Russians took the right hand side with two brigades of foot, one of horse grenadiers and one of dragoons and the Danes the left with one brigade of horse and two brigades of foot. The Danes had the advantage of being on the side where the town was and maybe could beat the Swedes to it.

The Swedes opted to split their forces placing two brigades of horse and two of foot on the side facing the town and one each of horse and foot on the other bank facing the Russians.

In the opening moves the Danes won the race for the town (just) and this would prove to be a crucial event giving the Danes the advantage of receiving the forthcoming Swedish attacks at the halt.

Over on the Russian bank their horse (Kroptov and Tiernishov) splashed across the tributary stream to take the fight to the Swedes who lumbering forward.

The Swedes responded with their horse under Torstensson

The Russians were stopped but not overwhelmed and the Swedes fell back to regroup and the Russians realised they had got off lightly mixing it mounted so dismounted and started peppering away with muskets to keep the Swedes busy while their infantry hurried up.

Over on the other side of the river the Swedes threw in their first wave of cavalry under Hard but found that Danes weren’t quite so brittle as the Russians they were used to and so bounced off. No problem there’s another brigade to throw in.

In came the 2nd wave under Armfeldt and still the Danes held. Phew! The Swedes are now carrying some significant losses.

Back over the river the Russians are making a good show of it.

The Swedes have made a hole. Can they exploit it?

The Russian realise that they have more than enough troops to contain two Swedish brigades and so release Golovin’s brigade to march over the bridge to support the Danes – this will prove crucial.

In the town the Swedes and Danes slug it out. First with volleys and then with the Swedes trying to carry it with the pike & bayonet. Ultimately this is a failure and the Swedish brigade breaks with heavy casualties, ultimately rallying back at the table edge but spends the rest of the battle recouping its losses. The Danes now have the town and the Russians the bridge, its going to need a major Swedish effort to turn this around.

The Torstensson’s brigade breaks from accumulated casualties. It will rally but will need to recover losses.

The Swedes facing the Danes are now starting to gain ground so the Danes throw in their cavalry to stem the tide (see top corner). Sparre’s foot brigade is coming up behind the horse.

This is not good! The losses on Hard’s brigade reached critical mass and it only took one morale test for the brigade to crumble, The Danes breathed a sigh of relief.

The Danish line is finally breached by Sparre’s infantry but it has been an effort and they are not in a cohesive formation.

With the absence of Torstensson the infantry under von Liewen are being surrounded.

And breaks.

Golovin has shook out into line with 5 battalions of fresh troops and his right resting on the securely held town. His left is slightly in the air but about half of the Danish brigade has rallied and they are filtering in. The infantry under Sparre are too scattered to do anything in concert, Hard and Armfeldt are still recovering and Torstensson and von Liewen are lost. Emphatic Russo Danish victory.

In other news shows were attended! I’ve already spoken about Joy of Six but I also went to Attack! in Devizes.

The last time I went to Devizes I said I wouldn’t go again. Not because of the show but the distance, it is way too long a journey from Coventry in one day for what is an OK show, but circumstances meant I had to go so there I was.

My take on the show is that it is very old school and that has some charm but my impression was that numbers were low and two days is a stretch.

I did however manage to get some stuff done. This church and rectory for 6mm Cold War.

A power station for the 6mm.

A cypress grove for the 10mm Iran Iraq.

A copse for the Iran Iraq.

Acquired some pylons for the 6mm. Need a dark wash I think.

Another hill – because I haven’t got any of course 🙄

East Germans ready for action.

And I’ve chucked 3 years of work on a set of rules for my existing Timurid collection in the bin and been energised into doing something based on existing lines but different enough, hopefully!

And that’s it. Long may the summer continue. Be good and enjoy your gaming for as long as you can.

A Joyous Day Out

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Just back from my first visit to ‘The Joy of Six’ oop north in Sheffield and a fine day out it was too.

Now as any readers of this blog know, we are primarily a 28mm gaming group and it has only been in the last couple of years we have emerged from our comfort zone into smaller scales such as 15mm and 10mm. The even smaller scale of 6mm is more recent and only used for our 1980’s Cold War games so the need to go to an exclusively 6mm show was a fairly low priority but this year the weather was good, I had some extras to pick up from Heroics & Ross and it’s only an hour and a half run from Coventry so a couple of us thought we’d give it a go.

Just to be clear, this isn’t an in depth show review, Big Lee and Alex Southeran were both there so I’m sure they will go into detail on their respective channels. This is more of a first time visitor’s impression, positive and negative.

‘Small and friendly’ is definitely the phrase to apply to this show. Three modest sized rooms in Sheffield Hallam University, a dozen odd traders serving the scale specifically or generically – paints, books etc, and surprisingly twenty something games both participation and demonstration. The numbers through the door didn’t seem high, but this is a niche within a niche hobby so as long as it paid its way I guess everyone was happy.

The games were an eclectic mix, classic takes from Napoleonic, SYW, Franco Prussian, ACW and WWII along with some more eclectic offerings, Some games were well presented and showed off the scale to its best advantage; for me the top three were, Lobositz, Bastogne 1944 and Lens 1643, I’m not going to do a worst three because ‘eye of the beholder’ and all that but in some cases it was like going back to the 1970’s with an awful lot of detritus on the playing surfaces which given the small scale of the figures was far more noticeable than in say 28mm.

Earlier I used the phrase ‘small and friendly’ and that was the general vibe but again it was like going back in time at some of the tables where the experience of standing and being studiously ignored was in play. Now I’m not a pushy kind of guy so maybe that was it but I’ll be interested to see if Big Lee picked up on it given that it is one of his pet peeves. That said, the guys at Total Battle Miniatures were very chatty – I learnt all about polyurethane moulding in 20 minutes 🤣

Trade wise, the major figure/vehicle manufacturers were all there, Baccus (obviously), Heroics & Ross, Scotia Grendel, and Rapier and very friendly – Andy from Heroics and Richard from Scotia were particularly helpful. The award for most friendly trader however has to go to Rob of Rob’s Scenics, what a lovely guy and great terrain; I’ve watched his videos on Facebook and always thought, “ooh, they look nice” but when presented with them for real I’m afraid Gerard and I went a bit mad 😂🤣 Thank you Rob.

And that’s it really, an impression. Not for the general gamer really but if you do play 6mm than why aren’t you there? Off to have a more detailed look at my purchases now 😀

June 2025 Report

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Wow! It’s been a hot one but we have ‘soldiered on’ undeterred by the heat 😎

Our first game of the month was a re-fight of the battle of Oriamendi, 16th March 1837, in the First Carlist War.

In the actual battle the Carlists under Sebastian de Borbon attacked the Liberal Government forces the Liberal Government forces under General de Lacy Evans and routed them, including the sizeable British Legion who occupied the strategic hill of Ormiamendi.

Details are sketchy but we managed to scrape together enough information to put up a reasonable representation. The Government left was held by the British Legion supported by mountain guns and rockets and the right by the main government army. The Carlists had three commands, a force marching on from their right, an infantry centre in front of the town of Hernani and a strong left wing of mixed horse & foot on rising ground.

The main Government attack started on the right and in fact finished on the right. Throughout the game this mixed body of horse and foot slogged away against the Carlist left in what at times seemed like a doomed venture. Battalions routed and rallied but with the help of some well placed artillery shots they eventually stormed the high ground and turned in on the outskirts of Hernani.

On the hill of Oriamendi the British were in pretty good shape at the start of the battle and fired away unhindered.

But as the Carlist flanking force got itself into action that hill didn’t seem quite the greatest place to be.

The guns were in a pretty precarious position at one point but counterattacks saved the position enough for the Legion to hang on while the main army did the heavy lifting.

Our next effort was the first in a hoped for series of naval battles representing the Guadalcanal campaign, first up the battle of Savo Island.

We represented Mikawa’s force ship for ship and the Allied Southern Group and Northern Group ship for ship including the ill fated Canberra.

Our resident expert, Gerard, put in place rules adaptations and constrictions to represent the fact of fighting at night and the lack of co-ordination between the two allied fleets.

It was just as confused as the real battle and the Canberra went to the bottom in a re-run of history along with the Chicago.

The rest however was a bit of a divergence from history; the Japanese lost the Furutaka and the Americans came away with more of their ships intact than their historical forbearers. Looking forward to the next one.

Next up was a big one! We planned a 2 day Cold War gone hot game, an encounter battle between a Bundeswehr Panzer brigade and a Soviet Tank Regiment somewhere in Germany.

We planned a 10,000 point per side game using the Cold War Commander rules with 5,000 points coming on table on the first day, but without air or artillery support, and the other 5,000 on the second day.

I wont say it wasn’t hard work, we fought both games during the intense heat, which I think affected our ability to think properly on occasion and it was a lot of stuff to keep track of.

Conditions not withstanding we had a fine game. The Soviets arrived a broad front on the first day with three tank battalions, the elite T80 battalion entered the town at the northern end of the board and remained there for the bulk of the first day. The two T62 battalions entered in the centre and toward the southern end of the board, the centre battalion advanced as far as the main autobahn (on a raised embankment) and the southern advanced on a hill with a church on top for a splendid view.

The Bundeswehr had formed into four combined arms groups, copying cold war doctrine, and on day 1 deployed two of these, one to the south and one to the north. Each group comprised two company’s of Leopard 2’s, one company of troop carrying Marders and a Gepard platoon.

Day 1 was a day of jockeying for position. In the north the centre T62 battalion took on the northern combat group, who had coalesced around a wooded area, and came off worse, retreating out of line of fire. The combat group then got themselves into a shooting exchange with the T80’s in the town which then came off badly in.

At the southern end of the battlefield the other T62 battalion got itself onto the hill and the as the day drew on on exchanged shots with the Bundeswehr below them who were slow to advance – reflecting afterwards the Bundeswehr player saw this as his major error in not pressing the attack (he would pay on Day 2).

Day 2 dawned with the arrival (or not due to the vagaries of the dice) of both sides reinforcements heralded by the dreaded HINDs.

The Soviets came with a motorised infantry battalion who headed straight into the already busy town – everyone getting in some duty free shopping 😂. The rest was off table artillery – mortars and rocket launchers, some self propelled on table guns and air cover in the guise of the HINDs plus Frogfoot and Fitter ground attack aircraft.

The Bundeswehr came with two more combat groups and some M109’s being directed off table. One of the combat groups came on to the south to beef up the push for the hill and a planned sweep up the flank of the Soviet positions and the other came on in the centre planning to push through and link up with the flanking move – it didn’t work out 😒

Although not battle winners in and of themselves the HINDs and air were a substantial threat. The Bundeswehr centre thrust got caught and slowed enough to prevent it making the progress needed to split the Soviet positions. A consolation was shooting down a HIND and forcing it out of the battle area.

The additional southern combat group did turn the tide on the hill and even overran the Soviet command post but it shouldn’t have needed 16 Leopards to take out 9 T62s. In reality this was a bit of a hollow victory because the Germans were now exposed to ATGWs being slung at them from the T80s in the town.

As we progressed it was increasingly obvious the Bundeswehr were on a bit of a hiding to nothing and when we looked at the mandated rules breakpoint check the Germans were well over it and so we called it as a Soviet victory.

A good game but hard work in the heat, The perennial problem for the Bundeswehr player is whether to follow doctrine and counterattack whenever possible or be a sensible wargamer and sit back in cover with better armour and better guns – tough choice.

Our final game was a Wars of Religion game, Spanish v Dutch.

The deployments were pre planned, players just needed to dice for sides.

Both sides had a single massed cavalry wing conveniently placed opposite each other 😁

Elsewhere across the table the Dutch had a strong right wing of English allies/mercenaries and Sea Beggars under Sir Francis de Vere facing off to the lesser Tercio’s – Brabant and Walloons while in the centre the ‘good’ Tercios faced the Dutch centre holding a village and hill.

Not surprisingly the bulk of the action was taken up by the cavalry. The massed regiments came at each other in a rush (mainly 🤣) and then settled into grinding melee, retreat, reform and come again for the whole of the battle.

Initially the Spanish had the edge and saw off a cuirassier regiment and a Reiter regiment but the commitment of the Dutch lancers stabilised the line and the conflict swung in favour of the Dutch ultimately leaving them the battered victors.

In the infantry engagements the Dutch had an early stroke of luck when the colonel of the Brabant tercio was killed and the regiment had a catastrophic reaction, routing back to the camp. Their fellow infantry didn’t really care but the lack of numbers told when they got into harquebus range of de Vere’s command and the shooting started, they simply didn’t have the firepower to sustain the fight.

In the centre the Tercios rumbled forward supported by artillery fire but it was a long journey and the Dutch were in no hurry to come and meet them!

Ultimately the Lombardy tercio got into contact sweeping aside it’s first opponent but held by Zealand, mainly due to the slow attrition faced by Lombardy as it advanced and Zealand being fresh as a daisy.

With night drawing on and 10 colonels dead on the field we called it. From the Dutch perspective they had regained the initiative in the cavalry maul and nothing was going to change that now, on their right de Vere was wearing down the Walloons and the Germans with little loss to himself and in the centre the tercios were being held. A good day to be Dutch.

Holidays and the heat have meant that not much has been achieved on the painting table although I have got some more Iran Iraq command stands done. What time has been available has been spent on my renewed effort at sorting rules for the Timurid collection so stay tuned. In the meantime, enjoy the sun and enjoy your gaming.

May 2025 Report

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Two refights, two conventions and a campaign game, it’s all happening in May!

Our first game of the month was the first on table clash in our Iran Iraq campaign.

In order to facilitate some battles that weren’t of the equal points variety I set up a campaign based around ‘Operation Howeizeh’ the Iranian counter attack of January 1981. Although we have a goodly amount of kit for a small group a certain amount of ‘creative accounting’ had to be done to make what we had fit the general historical setting – frankly this wasn’t a problem, the idea was to create a different way of getting models on the table and have some off table decisions to make. The excellent Helion soft backs on the conflict were invaluable for maps and forces involved.

The initial manoeuvring gave us our first big battle when the Iranian 92nd Armoured Brigade approached the town of Dub-E-Said defended by the Iraqi 15th Mechanised Brigade. The 92nd were constrained by a single highway approach between a large marsh but confidence was high with 2 battalions of Chieftains leading the way.

As we were using our rules of choice, Cold War Commander, we decided to use the optional weather rules and the optional air superiority rules and boy what a difference it made!

First off the air superiority roll was decidedly in favour of the Iranians which resulted in the Iraqi’s struggling to get any of their air assets off the ground – I liked this as a rule mechanism and will use it for all our games going forward.

The weather rules were wild! Basically we had a raging storm throughout the battle and despite many umpire rolls it never abated. In game terms this reduced visibility and negatively affected individual command rolls which for this particular battle favoured the Iraqi’s as in a straight fight they were going to be hard pushed to do much against the Chieftains.

The game turned into quite the slog with the Iranians never getting off the end of the highway by the time night fell and they fell back with zero casualties having inflicted some losses on the Iraqis. Full marks go to both the commanders for playing the game through with all the disadvantages rather than saying ‘screw it, we’ll delay the attack for the next day’. Personally I really enjoyed it, the game was completely different and the tactical problems posed a real challenge. What will happen next remains to be seen, it sure as hell can’t be stormy two days in a row 🤔

Next was our first refight of the month and our first convention when we refought the battle of Sagrajas1086 at Partizan.

The battle was a decisive in stopping what had been a steady advance by the northern Christian forces of Alfonso VI down Al-Andalus picking off the disorganised Muslim emirates one by one. It ushered in a century of Muslim recovery spearheaded by the Almoravid dynasty of Morocco.

We set our game up with both sides advancing from their camps heading towards the slight rise in the ground between both forces.

The Almoravid ace in the hole was their Black Guard infantry which were held back as a reserve should the Christians break through.

Our refight was a tale of two wings. On the Christian left the Andalusian cavalry facing the Christian knights fled after a brief melee and their fear spread even to the Black Guard who halted in camp. On the Christian right however the reverse result appertained and the victorious Muslim cavalry started turning into the centre to cut up exposed crossbowmen and archers as the Christian cavalry fled to their camp with tales of disaster.

You never get to finish a game at a show and this was no exception but all the kind words and conversations that halted proceedings were gratefully received and we thank everyone who made the effort to stop by.

As to the show itself their were some fine efforts on display, my personal favourite was the 6mm Wagram game – and I don’t even like Napoleonic’s 😂

There were some not so fine games (in my opinion) so I didn’t take any photos of them and perhaps too many which were essentially a static display which for me is not what wargaming is all about and doesn’t do much to promote the hobby. Of course this is just an opinion and has no more validity than the next persons.

Many thanks to Lawrence and Richard for organising and we look forward to a return visit – we might even get our Minden effort on the table!

Next was our second refight and the second in our 1809 north Italian campaign refights. This time the battle of the Piave whereby Eugene raced to cross the river Piave before flood waters swept away his crossing points and his opponent Archduke John could consolidate his defence.

Our rules of choice for Napoleonic’s have become Volley and Bayonet and we followed the layout for the battle contained in the scenario book. In the actual battle Austrian losses were between 3,600 and 3,896 and the French between 2,000 and 3,000 – remember these figures for later.

A lot of the early moves were spent by the French in traffic management (and as it turned out managing the wrong traffic 🙄) which meant the Austrians were able to get up to the edge of the dike and stream further in from the main river.

First across were Grouchy’s cavalry who should have spurred on to threaten the Austrian centre as the French infantry attacked. Instead they went off on a magical mystery tour on the extreme right flank and were of no use for several moves. When they did get into action they redeemed themselves against the Austrian cavalry but it was too late an effort.

On the French left and centre it was hard going and it was late in the game before holes began to appear in the Austrian front.

Eventually the sightseeing French cavalry made a difference and the French crossed the stream in a couple of places where Austrian numbers were weaker.

Ultimately the Austrians gave way before their entire force was surrounded but the butchers bill was high; French losses equated to 12,750 and Austrian losses to 8,750.

Our penultimate game was Republican Roman v Later Seleucid as I trialled some more amendments to the core rules. This game, just like the previous one featuring Romans, served to confirm my view that representing the intricacies of the early Republican formations is dammed difficult and I was right to cut off the rules prior to serious Roman/Macedonian interaction.

Be that as it may, we’ve got some nicely painted Romans so we will persevere until we get something that works well enough.

The Romans significantly out scouted the Seleucids and so got the pick of the terrain but unfortunately didn’t make the best use of it.

The Seleucids opted for a ‘different’ strategy. On the left they deployed their 4 pike battalions fronted by skirmishers and gave the whole division orders to hold. The elephants & Tarentines deployed in the centre aimed between two vineyards with their right covered by 2 regiments of line cataphracts while out on the far right the Agema cataphracts and the royal hetairoi deployed.

The Romans had 3 legions, 2 Italian and 1 Roman. One Italian legion and the Italian cavalry were deployed out on the left behind a ravine which ran from a hill back to the baseline effectively cutting off this third of the battlefield, the only way out was over the hill – after the battle the Roman overall commander couldn’t offer a good reason for this deployment other than ‘it was there’. The other Italian legion and the Roman legion held the centre and the Numidians and Roman cavalry the right.

The first serious action was on the Roman left where the Italian cavalry took on the Hetairoi and the Agema, predictably they lost and lost badly, both units being destroyed.

In the centre the elephants and Tarentines clashed with a unit of Cretans who did remarkably well given the disparity in strength but eventually the Cretans fled and what was left of them died in in the ravine. Out on the Roman right the cavalry realised there was nothing to fear from the pikes for a while and so joined in the developing action in the centre.

Returning to the Roman left the Seleucids played to their strength (high morale) and threw themselves against the legion. Actually it was the Hetairoi who did the heavy lifting as the Agema spent 5 turns trying to rally from being Shaken (and therefore unable to charge) – Gerard worked out that the chance of failing that particular test 5 times in a row was 1 in 1024! Oh how we laughed 😂

Ultimately the Hetairoi were successful, the Hastatai routed, the legion commander was killed and the legion was paralysed. The action had no bearing on the rest of the battle and was almost pointless but it did allow us to play out the rule amendments which facilitated the legion rotating troops in and out of the fighting line which worked fairly well.

Back in the centre the elephants made their habitual mess, one panicked and ran into the back of the Italian legion, all 3 eventually died.

The Italian legion saw off attacks by the line cataphracts and by the end was battered on top of a hill.

The Roman legion so nearly broke the pike battalion it eventually ended up facing off to, it just didn’t quite get the full effect of it’s pilum volley thanks to some clumsy positioning. What we saw of the mechanism changes seemed to point in the right direction, a one on one across less restricting terrain will be the real test.

In other news the Roman cavalry sacked the Seleucid camp.

The second convention was the annual visit to Games Expo, this time spread across 4 halls at the NEC. This event is huge and is a fantastic look into the wider gaming world.

This was my 6th visit and I did teeter on the edge of not bothering but I’m glad I did, the vitality of gaming in the wider sense gives a real buzz and lets you know just how many people are into gaming in all its forms.

For me the fun of a visit is the taking part in the myriad of 20 minute to half an hour pick up games demonstrating new products, forthcoming kick-starters or just pushing an established game. I’ve learnt now to stay in my lane when it comes to being tempted to purchase something I’ve just played, I’ve got enough distractions on the figure front never mind card games, board games, horror skirmish games, etc, etc.

If you want to have a look at what do all those other types who we call fellow gamers do the take a visit next year.

Final game was an away day with some once every now and then local gamers, this time a mass modern skirmish somewhere in a fictional African state.

The rules were Wars of Insurgency. Simple and effective, these aren’t designed for detailed play or catering for weapon differences and for the scale of game we were doing worked perfectly ok.

The game essentially revolved around stopping or assisting the President getting to the airport and/or killing him. He survived despite the best efforts of 6 different factions. Dice were rolled, beer was drunk, sometimes that’s all you want 😀

So another month draws to a close, Holidays next month so the volume of games might be down a bit but a report will follow as always. Thanks for reading and have a good June.