Greetings one and all and welcome to my first AAR of the new wargaming season - hopefully I will get in more games this year than last, which was a bit of a dead loss for two or three months but of course nowhere near as bad as most of the rest of the world!
The report may appear in two parts as I have around 50 images and my protagonist and host Nick took a lot too and will send me copies later!
The game was quite a small level affair - Nick was a French force (substituting for catholic Irish from the actual scenario) evacuating guns and supplies over a wide river using rafts. He has a small force of around four cavalry and five infantry units to delay me.
I was the Dutch/Danish Williamite forces and had four cavalry and eleven infantry units - some of rather poor quality but including two elite units.
The basic idea was that I had to enter at one end of the table and advance as rapidly as possible to the far end where Nick was moving the guns and supplies across the river at quite an agonisingly slow rate. The scenario allowed ten turns for me to get to the river and prevent the guns being relocated - to be honest, I am not sure how that would ever have been possible, but we ignored that part anyway and carried on well past ten turns.
The rules were version 2, so my in depth preparation of watching a You Tube interview with the author Barry Hilton, another Jock, did not really help, although an attempted read through of the100+ page book had at least informed me that each player rolls for orders at the beginning of each turn and so, not every unit can automatically do something every turn, which I did quite like.
I had a bit more luck than fellow blogger Mark from "1866 and All That" and also today, more luck than Nick, who frequently rolled a 1 and was only able to move one or two units of his small force.
The game took some time to get going, with the first eight to ten turns being mainly marching on and manoeuvre but still made a grand spectacle (thus the 50 images). We did come to blows eventually with my first brigade exchanging volleys with the vanguard Nick had positioned in the farm en route to the river and a cavalry melee developing that eventually saw Nicks two Elite grade units destroy my three Raw grade - but not before one unit won an initial melee and inflicted significant casualties on the Elites!
We played for about two hours in the morning and two after lunch and could easily have carried on although Nick had achieved the aim of stopping me getting to the river by move ten before we even broke for lunch!
I enjoyed the rules and they were pretty simple to understand, so hopefully this wont be our last game - I am not sure how well they would work for larger battles with multiple players but as mentioned, I am finding smaller numbers of troops more appealing at the moment - this was just about right.
Right, lets load the images....how long will fifty take I wonder?! Well, it was around 30 minutes, which isn't too bad, 30 secs each is about what I expect them to take.
The Rules
The Scenario
The Table in Nicks garage
The evacuation of guns and supplies
A great looking river Nick created himself
My new herd of cattle in their first game!
Farm maid and chickens
The farm defended by Nicks vanguard
Williamite infantry advance - Ebor WSS from my collection
A couple of the purloined guns seem to be missing....
My troops advancing up the road towards the farm
Head of the column
Meanwhile, the cavalry went hell for leather towards the river
My commanding general and his staff consult their map
The second cavalry brigade advances adjacent to the entry road
Cattle scatter as the cavalry charge forwards
One of squadrons of raw cavalry - figures are plastic by Wargames Factory - now been swallowed up by Warlord
Some of the evacuated guns set up on the far side of the Shannon and ready for action
What's that! Nicks concealed troops are revealed
One of Nicks beautifully rendered infantry units
Two squadrons of Nicks cavalry
The columns of Williamites relentlessly advance
The leading brigade deploys near the defended farmstead
The brigaded grenadiers move up
The position from Nicks point of view
Above and below - the first brigade deployed in line to give fire against the farm
The stout hearted defenders wait
The first melee - two squadrons of Nicks elite cavalry charge a single raw unit ...what could possibly go wrong..?
Wargames factory infantry
Above and below - two different Front Rank units
The brigade attacking the farm gets into position
Columns of Williamite infantry advance towards the site of battle
A general view of the table
One raw cavalry squadron gone but two remain and each elite squadron is carrying one casualty marker
A general view of the farm and its environs
Most of the guns are gone.....
A French/Jacobite line confronts two raw squadrons
The initial charge was just one squadron to one squadron. My raw unit beat the elite unit but they passed their morale test so were able to continue the melee and both sides could feed in reinforcements....
Close up of some of Nicks beautifully painted troops - cavalry above,,
... and an infantry unit
These are my combined grenadiers
The Ebor unit blazing away at the farm
The cattle scatter as the cavalry clash in their paddock
Meanwhile, the ladies are still gossiping
And the drama queen has arrived too!
The result of the third cavalry melee, both raw units were caught by Nicks cavalry and wiped out
Another general view of my end of the table
Last shot I took of the game - another two squadrons lined up ready to charge
The view on the way home from Auckland's North Shore, looking across at the CBD - very light traffic as most people are still on their summer holidays in this part of the world!
Overall, I enjoyed the game and I liked most of the mechanics. Some might not like the fact that if you roll a 2 or 3 for activation, you can only give orders to 25% of your units, but I don't mind it. I would like to try the version where you use different dice for different quality troops eg D6 for raw, D8 for Drilled D12 for Guard etc - but Version 2 was fine. We played for about four hours and could have gone on for another two if we had wanted to.
This is a beautiful collection, no doubt, and the modeling of the river amazing. Good to see you beginning the year in fine fashion with a game and F2F no less.
ReplyDeleteThanks Jonathan. I have a few real close up images of Nicks paintwork that I have intended to share at some point, so that will probably be my next post.
DeleteLovely collection and table, I think I have seen a couple of AAR’s of these rues played out in just a 4’ x 4’ space or at least one of the follow on modules.
ReplyDeleteCheers Norm. Yes, you are correct - a lot of the scenarios are quite small an easily fit in a 4 by 4 table
DeleteLovely looking game and collection, the river particularly nice 👍 a colourful period but I can’t start another one just yet !
ReplyDeleteThanks Matt...yes, I was particularly impressed with the river...I think it's the nicest one I have seen - "in the flesh" at least! What's one more period between friends?!
DeleteThat's a lovely looking game Keith and certainly an attractive period to game, which is on my to do list as I have the figures. I agree that certain scenarios are almost impossible to achieve in the Turns alloted and I've found this across a variety of rulesets over the years. I simply ignore this limit and play until it is obvious if either side had won or not. As for playing with fewer units, around 12 per side, give or take, gives a nice game that can be finished in a reasonable amount of time.
ReplyDeleteThanks Steve, I recall your comments on Marks blog that you have a pile of unpainted League of Augsburg lead! Nick definitely won, as he got most of the guns across the river and I was still nowhere near reaching it. I did suggest if our roles had been reversed, he might have done better as he is definitely a more aggressive player. We ignored the ten moves and just carried on but if we had gone on indefinitely, my superiority in numbers surely would have won the day.
DeleteA very nice game! Miniatures and terrain are terrific, civilians and animals are great decorations as well.
ReplyDeleteThanks Dmitry. Nick actually requested I bring along my civilians to and some character to the table, I didn't just bring them as an excuse to take more pics of them. The farm animals I expect will be appearing in a lot of my games going forward! Nicks scenery is really very nice and the table looked great.
DeleteLooks a fantastic game Keith. The figures and terrain all look superb. Well done to all involved!
ReplyDeleteThanks Ray! Your name actually came up yesterday...version three of the rules adopts a lot of mechanisms from Donnybrook... I said to Nick that you seem to be constantly painting troops for Donnybrook but I don't recall seeing a game report....so there is a challenge for you in 2021 mate...even if it's just a small solo affair!
DeleteSome lovely figures there Keith, and nice to see your livestock out for a run as well. Four to six hours is a nice length for a game.
ReplyDeleteThanks Lawrence - yes indeed, with travelling time from Pukekohe to Albany, I was out of the house from 0830 to 1630. Traffic was very light as I indicated - at that tome of day in normal conditions, it could take two hours each way! The cows did not suffer the usual bad luck of newly painted figures and survived the game unscathed!
DeleteLovely looking models! I especially like the river. Got me humming the Lilibulero.
ReplyDeleteGreat to see some face-to-face gaming going on somewhere! Glad to see NZ is still relatively free if this blight.
Thanks for your comment and yes, I agree, the river is fantastic! FtF gaming is a great privilege for us at the moment. We are more than relatively free - we only have a handful of cases here and they are all returnees from overseas who are in Managed Isolation and Quarantine Centres (hotels) - we have ZERO cases in the community and have not had any since around Sept!
DeleteHere are the NZ Covid stats as of right now:
Confirmed Cases
2,188
Deaths
25
Recovered
2,100
Nice AAR! Great pics I am really enjoying your writing style as well. Congratulations on getting a game so early in the year and face-to-face in person even! 😀
ReplyDeleteThanks Stew, appreciate your kind comments! Yes, we are very lucky here in New Zealand at the moment...I am off to another friends house today for lunch then a game, or possibly two. Plus, we managed to have an election where our Labour Party won an unprecedented outright majority fir the first time, and everyone just accepted it, instead of playing out some real life zombie apocalypse on the steps of our government building....lets hope 2021 brings some normality back to th US and not only around Covid!
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