VBCW - BATTLE OF WIGTON GAP

This weeks gaming has been dominated by the VBCW. On Thursday night at the SESWC we tried out a game of Brigadier 38 as a preparation for a big VBCW game that Simon from Solway Miniatures had arranged for the Saturday/Sunday at Carlisle. Four of us from the SESC went to the Saturday of the big game.

This game was a follow up to his big game of last year which saw a massive Albertine invasion fleetfrom Canada landing on the Solway coast of Cumberland. In that game my plucky West Cumberland Royalists held the beaches and art deco cinema at Siloth for a few moves before being driven inland to defend the approaches to Carlisle.

WEST CUMBERLAND BATTERY IN ACTION...

Here is Simon's scene setting for the latest game.....
In the pitch dark the slow, steady mechanical chatter of an army on the move can be heard in the facility of Wigton. Dawn tomorrow is likely to bring an accelerated tempo of activity as forces go about their preperations for an inevitable clash.
The Royalists of Cumberland and Westmoreland have been reinforced from both the east and south, accents from Yorkshire and even the Black Country mix with geordies and cumbrians
Carlisle has been threatened, supplies from the south periodically disrupted, and still the entrance of the solway is in rebel hands. As shortages take a grip the Royalist commanders decide bold action is required before things get completely out of hand.
Beyond Wigton are the camps of the Albertine and allied brigades. They too know a battle is coming. With the sea at their back they have been able to bring in reinforcements from Cheshire and volunteers from Scotland. Periodicaly they have ranged through the royalist lines cutting their communication , building steady pressure on the county capital. There is a rising confidence, that this is their time, a clear victory tomorrow could put Carlisle in their grasp

MY MASSED ARMOUR EXPLODING...

On the Saturday we had 11 players plus Simon acting as the umpire. We had 4 tables representing north to south Abbey Town, Wigton, the A595 and Calbeck. The Albertines deployed one brigade in Wigton and one in Calbeck and awaited support. We the Royalists committed a brigade to attack on each of the tables whilst also hoping for reinforcements from Northumberland.

My Royalist Brigade attacking the bridges at Calbeck were annihilated very quickly. I expected an encounter action but found the Albertine's deployed in all the housesof Calbeck - I lost 12 figures in the first turn to their priority fire! After much struggle all of 3 figures got to the first bridge but with no ammo.

MY LUCKY SAVING THROW - 5 ONES

A reinforcing battalion of BUF provided by Simon lasted 3 turns before they broke. Abysmal dicing - 5 saving throws needing 4,5,6 - threw 5 ones. Next 5 saving throws - 3 ones and 2 twos! Photo of my saving dice for troops behind the wall.
Final ignominy - artillery fire on my BUF battery misses and blows up my brigade supply truck.

MORE FORTUNE - AMMO TRUCK EXPLODES

The BUF Brigade advancing to take the road junctions on the A595 also met with defeat when they were assailed by 2 mixed Albertine Anglican Brigades including gamekeepers, postmen and AA recovery men.  Only at Wigton did we have nay success were our initial Brigade supported by the reinforcemnt sfrom Northumberland were close to securing Wigton at the close of the day.

BUF BRIGADE COMMAND WATCHING UNFOLDING DISASTER AT A595

The game continued on the Sunday at a reduced level with 6 players and the Royalists had some success in finally securing Wigton.

My thanks to Simon for organising everything and to the other players who made it a great day.......despite my appalling luck!

Link to FlickR photoset with more photos and descriptions

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bill26048/sets/72157629079541571//

REVIEW OF LASALLE PAGE ADDED

Following our test game of Lasalle last week at the SESWC I have now added a specific page with a full  review of Lasalle.

My summarised conclusion.  Some players may find there are issues with there being no command/order or morale systems in the rules.  They are simple and easy to play.  They are a really well written set of rules.

With the clear text, numerous diagrams and examples - this to me is a perfect example of how a set of Wargames rules should be written.
 
Bill

28MM NAPOLEONIC PENINSULAR WAR LASALLE TEST GAME

This weeks game at the SESWC was something new for us. A 28mm Peninsular war game using the Lasalle rules by Sam Mustapha. Dave Paterson who is an inveterate buyer of new rules has had a copy of Lasalle for over a year and had never tried a game so we decided to give the rules a test outing.



Dragoons charge home on Lt Dragoons - RHA prepare canister

 I put together a scenario using the army builder section of the rules to give a French Division attacking a British Division with each side supported by a cavalry brigade of 2 regiments and a HA battery. I gave the attacking French a Dragoon regiment and a Hussar regiment which are superior to the British Light Dragoons.

The objective for the French was to take an enclosure in the British deployment area. The French deployed with cavalry on their left the Swiss veteran infantry in the centre and the French conscripts on their right. The British who deployed second faced the French cavalry with their own, the centre of their line being held by the elite battalion and the HA battery supported by a line battalion in reserve, while 3 line units held the enclosure and extended their left flank. We diced as per the rules for the vigour of the subcommanders. The British cavalry subcommander was poor and the infantry subcommander was good. The French veterans had a good subcommander and the conscripts a poor one.

Here is a link to the Flickr set with all the photos and descriptions.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bill26048/sets/72157628954118129/

On the French left the Dragoons charged the British light dragoons who met them supported by the fire of the RHA battery. They drove back the dragoons and in their next turn followed up with a charge which the Dragoons in turn drove back. The French HA battery peppered the 2nd British Light Dragoons and steadily disrupted them. The poor British cavalry commander supported by the CinC completely failed to remove any of the disruptions on the Light Dragoons. The French Dragoons charged their opposing Light dragoons a 2nd time and were driven back by a drawn melee. The French Hussars stayed near their HA and took no real part in the action. At the end of the battle the other 3 cavalry units were all exhausted and could no longer charge - they all had 3 disruptions.

British CinC calmly watches Swiss close on his elites

In the centre two of the Swiss veteran columns closed and charged the elite British unit - they had already taken disruptions from musketry as they advanced and they both bounced of the British line with one of the columns breaking and fleeing. The British followed up by charging the recoiled Swiss unit which managed to drive back the large British unit! The 3rd Swiss battalion moving up to support was broken by the fire of the HA battery.

Swiss meet cold British steel and falter

The French conscripts attacked the British line holding the enclosure with 2 battalion columns whilst their other 2 battalions supported by the divisional battery engaged the 2 flank British Battalions. The battalion holding the enclosure drove back both its attackers and their comrades on the flank shot up the other conscripts. The superior quality of the British units, their better skirmish ratings and their subcommander meant that they out shot the French and recovered their few disruptions whilst the poor conscripts led by a poor subcommander just became more and more disrupted and unable to continue the attack.

Battered conscripts in front of the enclosure

One notable feature of the game was that no attacker ever won a close combat. They were all won either by the defender or were draws which also count as defender wins. This meant the hand to hand combats were relatively indecisive as only an attacker winning decisively automatically breaks an opponent.

The rules worked well - we both enjoyed the game. The game mechanisms are relatively simple and very well explained in the rules. Every section of the 4 page QRS refers to the relevant page number in the rules. The command mechanisms are every simple. The quality of the troops and their ability to recover from disruption is the key to the game. One of my next projects it to write a review of Lasalle and try to compare it with Black powder which I use a lot.

Here is the OB for the game
PENINSULA 1810
BRITISH ARMY DEFENDING

COMMANDER directly commanding
1 ELITE INFANTRY BATTALION a LARGE UNIT
1 INFANTRY BATTALION
1 RA BTY

SUB COM +1
3 INFANTRY BATTALIONS
2 SKIRMISH BASES these were added to 2 of the line units skirmish screen

SUB COM -1
2 LT DRAGOON REGTS
1 RHA BTY

BRITISH UNIT RATINGS
INFANTRY - REL/EXP/SK2
ELITE INFANTRY - VAL/EXP/SK 3
LT DRG - REL/EXP/PURSUIT

FRENCH ARMY ATTACKING

COMMANDER

SUB COM +1
3 VETERAN BATTALIONS

SUB COM -1
4 CONSCRIPT INFANTRY BATTALIONS
1 DIV BTY

SUB COM 0
DRAGOON REGT
HUSSAR REGT
HA BTY

FRENCH UNIT RATINGS
VET INFANTRY - REL/EXP/SK2
CONS INFANTRY - REL/AM/SK 1
DRAGOONS - REL/EXP/PURSUIT/SHOCK
HUSSARS - VAL/EXP/PURSUIT

WWII Reinforcements

As I said before I had 2 main projects in 2011 - continuing to add units to my AWI collection and building up my Russian and French forces for the 200th Anniversary of the battle of Borodino in 2012. I have largely finished my collection for Borodino and I have already taken part in my first Borodino refight at RAF Leuchars. I am still collecting extra troops for the AWI and I have ordered some of the excellent Perry Miniatures. The other major part of my collection to which I continue to make additions is my 20mm WWII collection. Here are some new reinforcements.

T35 LAND DREADNOUGHT.....

In a previous post I put up photos of some models that my stepson that Alex brought me from Moscow. The models are ready built 1/72 models from the Russian Tank magazine collection which is sold in Russia. At that time I had not decided what to do with the most impressive of the models - a pair of T35 land dreadnoughts. Approximately 50 of these giants were built in the 1930s for the Red Army. They were great in parades in Red Square but most were lost broken down in the first days of the German invasion. I have now dry brushed the models with sandstone and mounted them on bases made from oilpaint board.

IS-2 - GREAT FOR DRIVING THRU BUILDINGS IN BERLIN

In addition I have been painting up models for a projected Battle of Berlin 1945 game which Colin Jack, Hugh Wilson and I have been planning to put on as a display this year. It was our plan to get it ready for last year but we made no progress. These are all Red Army tank models from Pegasus Hobbies. Modelzone have been selling some of these kits - IS2, ISU-122/ISU152, SU152 and KV-1S - in their New Year sale.  The ISU-122/152 box comes with the mountings and guns for both versions. They are relatively easy build kits except that they have more parts to their suspensions than the Armourfast and Italeri easy build kits.  I have mounted them on the pill shaped mdf bases from Warbases.

ISU-122 - YES A VERY LONG MODEL WHEN YOU ADD IN THE GUN

Excellent Russian book on big SUs - Sverboi Tiger Killers

Pharaoh's Tomb adventure game

This year our New Years game was held at Hugh Wilson's house and it was a game of his Pharaoh's Tomb adventure game. Hugh took this game to the last Partizan show at Newark where it was much admired.

Tomb - surface view with with top still on

Here is a link to the full FlickR photo set with descriptions.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/bill26048/sets/72157628719487231/

Since our play tests last year Hugh has radically simplified the combat system and this has considerably speeded up play. We had 8 players this time with 4 teams of 2 players entering the tomb at each corner with the objective of reaching the Pharaohs sarcophagus in the centre of the tomb and then exiting via the opposite corner. Along the way you find treasure, scrolls, combat monsters, secret passages and get beset by all sorts of other random events. The important factors for the players are how many of their 6 lives are left and how quickly their torches burn down.


Tomb partly open showing treasure and superb wall art

 Ian Carter won the game by getting to the sarcophagus and exiting the tomb. Ian's last 6 moves were unbelievably lucky finding not a single monster barring his way to the exit. Colin Jack won the wooden spoon as his unlucky adventurer did not even get half way to the centre before she was cut down.

Famous last words - it is very unlikely that I will meet another of those terrible giant spider in this tomb......

Yes - it is another giant spider!

My thanks to Susanne for proving the excellent catering on the day - Moroccan lamb tagine and Nile mud pie cake!