Perry Miniatures Spanish Guerrillas

Here are fifteen Spanish Guerillas from Perry Miniatures' plastic box set which I painted for our Fistful of Lead: Horse & Musket games. They required some filling to assemble, but as usual are a delight to paint.

TMWWBK - Getting Away with It

The British camp by the Nile

For our April game, we played another game of The Men Who Would Be Kings, this time in Epic (13.5mm) scale using Rafael's beautifully painted figures, and this time using measurements instead of grids.

The genesis for this game came when I learned that Rafael has an Epic scale Napoleonic Ottoman army, a British army, but not a French army. I wanted to run a game using his armies, and recalled a scenario from Battlegames' Tabletop Teasers compilation that featured the French army looting an Egyptian site and the Ottoman and British trying to stop them - well, who's to say the British couldn't do a spot of looting themselves after seeing off the French?

I floated the idea to Rafael, and he got onboard, printing, assembling, and painting a ketch (that would end up doing sterling service in the game) just for the scenario. I made a few simple river barges (from wooden boat models bought off Shopee), tents, painted up a half-buried sphinx (snapped off an aquarium decoration also from Shopee), and based some palm trees (again Shopee) onto cork sheets, to which I added tufts to represent reeds - I thought they didn't look half bad placed against the river terrain piece.

Ottoman forces surge towards the British camp in the middle of the table

The British started the game divided into two parts, one in the centre of the table at the dig site, from where they must drive two wagons loaded with loot to the riverbank, where the other half of the British forces are. Docked at the riverbank are barges, and a ketch with howitzers.

The Ottoman forces are also divided into two parts, with one representing the professional and household troops of the local lord, and the other the local tribal forces.

To add randomness to the game, I forsook grid movement and returned to the tape measure, giving the wagons a move of 2d4 per turn. The random movement distance, coupled with the activation rolls and random move distance when units move At the Double, added suspense to each turn.

Ottoman Irregular forces

British forces hold off the Ottoman

Home stretch!

It was a close game, with the British successfully loading both wagons of loot onto the barges with the Ottoman Janissaries just one move away.

This is definitely one scenario I would like to run again.

Conquerors & Kings: Battle of Dorylaeum

The Turks block the Crusaders' march

Earlier this month we played the battle of Dorylaeum using Peter Pig's Conquerors & Kings rules. We had play the same scenario many years ago using (I think) Warmaster Ancients rules, but it's an interesting scenario that bears replaying.

I needed 20 bases of light cavalry for this scenario, so I took the opportunity to finally get some Turkic light horse from Khurasan Miniatures and had them painted just in time for the game.

Clash of cavalry

I had done the maths beforehand and expected the Crusaders to deploy themselves in a compact formation and wait for the Turks to close before delivering a charge. wahj, playing the Crusaders, had a different idea. He charged straight at the Turkish line before Rafael had a chance to get organised, and quickly threw them back.

The knights became isolated as a result, and became surrounded. To make things worse, the Turkish scouting party had returned and now threatened the Crusader's left flank. Fortunately for them, their armour saved them from actually taking casualties, and they knights managed to fall back behind the safety of the infantry.

The Crusaders were able to hold their own until the arrival of their reinforcements later in the game, when the Turks decided to withdraw.

Having played this game in my mind for several weeks while preparing for the session, I was surprised that both players used their forces very differently from how I imagined they would. I would certainly like to try the scenario again with new players when I have the chance.

Garrison Miniatures Villagers and more Gripping Beast Arab Infantry

To add to my collection of 28mm figures for skirmish games, I ordered some villager figures from Garrison Miniatures via ebay. I chose this specific set because I felt the clothing of the figures were generic enough to allow them to do double duty: for our Ruckus Reconquista games, and our Fistful of Lead Peninsular War games.

To provide our Barons' Wars figures with more opponents, I also bought and painted a sprue of Gripping Beast's Arab Infantry. This brings my total "Saracen" force to 20 foot and 6 mounted figures, which will be sufficient for most skirmish scenarios.

I have also ordered a box of Perry Miniatures' new Spanish Guerillas, which will give us more options for our Fistful of Lead games.

Battle of Znaim

For our game in February we played the Battle of Znaim.

The battle saw the French coming upon the Austrian army as their baggage train is making its way through the town of Oblass.

Fg and I, playing the French, initially planned to send two divisions across the river to our left and capture the town of Oblass, while the other divisions on our right screened the rest of the Austrians.

However, the Austrians moved their right wing up, and fg decided against crossing the river, and instead tried to capture the town of Tesswitz in the middle of the table instead.

The struggle for Tesswitz became the main focus of the battle, as fg sent two divisions to try to push the Austrians out. But the Austrians put up a stout defence, sending in their heavy cavalry to spoil the French attack - they were successful, but were in turn destroyed by the French light cavalry sent in a counter-attack the next turn.

Meanwhile, I pushed the French right wing forward to engage the Austrian left, and positioned the corps artillery so it could bombard Tesswitz.

But it was too late - the Austrian baggage train cleared the town, allowing the Austrian reserve to come onto the table. The French made one last effort to capture the town, but failed.

This was once more a tight game, with the clock being very unforgiving to the French. The Austrians started the battle dispersed, which gave the French a narrow window of opportunity to capitalise on their concentration.

We are planning another Napoleonic game for the month of March, so stay tuned!

TMWWBK - Siege of Delhi

Sabzi Mandi, the village from where the mutineers will launch their attack

For our second game in January we played a game of The Men Who Would Be Kings. I chose the Hindu Rao's House scenario from the Colonial Conflicts scenario book, but modified the scenario rules to fit the figures I had, and to make things more interesting for the players.

One major change I made was to convert the rules to grid-based for this scenario. I reasoned that for the mutineers, there were really just three points of interest, which formed their victory objectives. For the British, I gave them the primary objective of defending those three points, and a secondary one of capturing a "spawning point" for the badmash, which could be "recycled" indefinitely. The spawning point was a temple (represented by a mosque building in the game) which was located in the built-up area, which I decided could be represented by a number of grids which could be used to determine combat. This gave the British player an option to try to capture the grid to stop the endless flow of badmash units, instead of just sitting at their positions and shooting throughout the whole game.

The mutineers mass for their attack on Delhi Ridge

The battle started a bit slow as, despite their numbers, the mutineers rolled poorly on the activation rolls and could hardly threaten the British. At the same time, the British could pick their targets tactically, choosing the unpinned units while ignoring the pinned ones, which again had difficulty rallying.

By the end of 12 turns, which was the planned game length, the mutineers were far from achieving their objectives. We decided to let the game play on, and the weight of numbers begin to tell. This prompted the forces on the far side of the table to sally forth to support their beleaguered comrades, and indeed the Gurkhas to sally forth from Hindu Rao's House. With no turn limit, it was a matter of time before the mutineers were victorious.

The Sirmoor Battalion sally from Hindu Rao's House

In retrospect the activation roll of 8+ (7+ if a general was in the same grid) proved too punishing - one sepoy unit did not make a successful roll throughout the whole game! At the same time the stacking limit of two units per grid meant that the mutineers suffered a congestion at the foot of Delhi Ridge, which available units unable to press the attack as pinned units were occupying the grids in front of them. If we were to replay this scenario, I will probably increase the stacking limit to three.

Conquerors and Kings - Battle of Idistavisto

For our first game of the year we played a mid-week game of Conquerors and Kings earlier this month as Martin was back for a break. I seized the opportunity to field my Tribal Germans against his Early Imperial Romans. The two armies last met in a game of Infamy! Infamy! five years ago, and now, with my army expanded with the help of a painting service, I decided it was time for a pitched battle.

The scenario I chose was the Battle of Idistavisto. FG and I took the Germans, while wahj and Martin commanded the Romans. I gave the Romans a "At my signal, unleash hell!" rule, which gave them the option to perform a flank march.

The Romans deployed wide, hoping to use their auxilia (and cavalry in the subsequent flank march) to flank the Germans and sweep up our right flank. On our side, I decided to deploy narrow and deep, anchoring our left flank on the river, and refusing our right flank.

To buy time for their flanking manoeuvre to arrive, the Romans similarly refused their right flank and gave ground. which caused me some concern. But the German line eventually hit the Roman line from the front and their right. Twice the Germans won the combats, but twice the Romans suffered no losses as their armour protected them and their Keep Order strategy warded off pursuits.

In the left hand corners you can see the widgets I made to aid in the calculation of combat dice

At the same time, their flanking attack was disco-ordinated, and FG's forces on this flank launched a spoiling attack, taking some casualties but giving us enough time to move more forces for the attack in the centre.

We ruled that the Romans we driven off the field, but had enough auxilia to prevent an effective pursuit.

Once again I enjoyed the game, and have plans for another one soon, and perhaps a massive one at the end of this year if we can get the players together.

Have a happy new year ahead.