Edinburgh Wargames Journal

Issue 15  - September  2007

Periods featured so far in this Issue  :  Seven Years War , American War of Independence,

Wild West , the Great War &  Second World War (all 28mm)

This month we had a far more mixed selection of games - less dominated by the Second World War than August. Meanwhile we're painting up Seven Years War figures like there's no tomorrow, ready for a demo game at Targe 2007 (Kirriemuir, Scotland), where we'll be showcasing the Die Kriegskunst rules by laying on a game of Gross-Jagersdorf, 1757 - a 250th anniversary game!

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First World War - Verdun, 1916 (Price of Glory / Disposable Heroes) 28mm

We hadn't played a First World War game for ages, despite building a set of Verdun terrain boards for a display game we put on last year. The real impetus was the Price of Glory, the First World War variant of Disposable Heroes, the Second World War skirmish system. We decided to stage a trench assault - with the outnumbered French holding the line against a wave of Germans. We're used to Second World War platoon organisations, so this set-up takes you a bit by surprise. For instance, the Germans divided their platoon (Zug) into three sections (each called a Korporalschaft), and each of these had two 9 man teams, led by a Sergeant. In other words, a German platoon had over 60 men in it!

Of course, once the French machine guns started chattering you realised that no unit could be small enough. In the end we captured the first trench line, but took something like 50% casualties in the process. Clearly the assault had stalled, and we lacked the reserves to push through to our real objective - the French reserve trench line. Still, it wasn't all machine guns and massed rifles - when the Germans reached the trench it came down to grenades, bayonets and entrenching tools. I just wish I hadn't left my flamethrowers in the box..  Well , not only was this the First World War, but it was Verdun, so we expected a bloodbath. we certainly got it, and I think both sides were a bit shell-shocked by the end of the game. It certainly made me yearn for green fields, waving flags and blocks of brightly-painted troops - a little mud, blood and machine guns go a long way...

As for the rules, this was the first time we tried Disposable Heroes for this period, and despite the carnage we all thought the system worked well. We'll certainly try it again, but we might opt for the sandy wastes of Palestine or the savannahs of German East Africa before we return to the depressing moonscape of Verdun!

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Wild West, c.1880  (Legends of the Old West) 28mm

It was a wasted Thursday. We had a club meeting to sort out business resulting from the Claymore show - mainly the giving of money to charity. I'm disappointed to say that the majority rejected our finely-honed arguments about building up a fighting fund to safeguard the future of Claymore,  and instead we gave a small fortune away - again. As a result - with the axe hanging over the show's home at Meadowbank, and with no fighting fund - the future of the Claymore show is very much in the balance. The problem with democracy is that cretins get to vote .. if I had my way I'd deny voting rights to Fantasy or DBM players on the grounds that they're either too weird or too stupid to be trusted with a ballot! Anyway, rant over. Grrr....

With time at a premium we had to forgo a sensible game, and instead we played with our Wild West toys - ideal for a short, sharp game to let off steam when you've been irritated to distraction by idiots with no eye for the future. Well, Colin Jack's Mexican banditos were pitched against my lawmen, while across town Nikolas' all-woman posse was taking on the local indians. All very silly. This time I lost two of my posse, while we ended the careers of three Mexican bad guys.

Sorry I've only one picture of the game, but I wasn't in the mood to play at being Annie Leibovitz - any anyway, it was only cowboys!

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American War of Independence  (The game that never was) 28mm

I was down to play an American War of Independence game with Dave Imrie this week. I got there, laid out the terrain, set out the figures .. and the bugger never showed. It turns out he had a prang in his car while driving to the club, and so he and his British never arrived. Nobody was hurt, although his figures might have been shaken up a bit!  As the only British force on the table - Dougie Trail's Prussians pretending to be Hessians (again) - lacked the muscle to take on the Americans in a tough river crossing scenario, we decided to abandon the game.

By the way, I stole the basing idea for my American riflemen from Giles Allison, whose blog - Tarleton's Quarter - is dangerously inspirational, and well worth a visit.

However, I thought I'd show some pictures of the setup, just so the evening wasn't completely wasted - along with two games Second World War I watched  - a 20mm desert scrap (using Rapid Fire) and a 15mm Normandy one (using Battlegroup Panzer Grenadier).

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Seven Years War  - The Battle of Emsdorf, 1760  (Die Kriegskunst) 28mm

Well, this made a change from what seemed like an interminable string 20th century games. The idea was to playtest a scenario for Die Kriegskunst, our Seven Years War adaptation of General de Brigade. Actually, it'll be more than a scenario - we'll be using this small engagement  - the Battle of Emsdorf - as our example of play in the rules, a blow-by-blow explanation of how everything hangs together. The battle was fought on 14th July 1760, between two brigade-sized forces. The defenders - a French brigade (which consisted mainly of German troops) was surprised in its camp by a slightly larger and more experienced force of Hessians, Hanovarians and British, commanded by the Prince of Hesse-Kassel.

As our pals with British and French armies weren't around we had to use substitutes. My force - the French - used Russian foot and dragoons, and two battalions of Reichsarmee. The attacking Allies consisted entirely of Dougie Trail's Prussians. Still, this was a little playtest session, not a major photo opportunity!

It all went horribly wrong from the start. While a mixed force of Allied infantry and cavalry advanced against the French front, a sizeable chunk of the Allied army appeared on their left flank. The rules make it difficult to change orders, so reacting to a new threat is something of a problem, especially given the constraints of linear warfare. my only possible option was to throw my cavalry at the problem. the French hussars - er .. who looked remarkably like Russian dragoons charged in, but failed to charge home. Instead they milled around in effective musket range, until they retired from the table. I could see that this  wasn't going to be a day of glory for French arms!

A second Allied force appeared on the French left - a small unit of British light dragoons (disguised as Prussian hussars), where two battalions of Reichsarmee troops were holding the line. the cavalry caught the rearmost battalion before they could react, and they fled in retreat, chased by the Allied cavalry. The only success story came in the centre, where the three battalion of the royal Bavarian regiment (played by Russians) held their ground in the face of an Allied infantry assault. Of course even this was playing into the hands of the Allied commander, as the pincers were rapidly closing in behind them. In the real battle the skilled French commander General Glaubnitz managed to extricate half his force and lead it to safety. By the end of the evening it was fast becoming clear that my wargame force would be mincemeat, so we were forced to concede the day.

However, as a playtest session it worked well, and we'll replay this little battle again soon, taking more detailed notes of what happens. We'll also have to figure out a way of tweaking it to give the French more of a chance - such as making Glaubitz a good quality commander, which means he might have a better chance of pulling his army together before the enemy struck. Oh, and next time we plan to replace the substitute figures with the real thing!

The Die Kriegskunst Project

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Second World War,  Normandy 1944 (Disposable Heroes)  28mm

The first Sunday of the month is "big game day", where we have the use of the Royal Navy Club for as long as we want. This month Jack Glanville staged a large Second World War skirmish game, using Disposable Heroes. It was all loosely set in Normandy, and pitted two British columns against a rag-tag assortment of Germans. Two sets of three 6x4 foot tables were linked together, and at the end lay a town, where two bridges crossed a river. They were the objective. On one set of tables a British infantry force trudged its way towards the town, supported by a scattering of British Paratroopers and some stray armoured units. The other flank consisted of a winding pastoral landscape, which led past several farms and woods to reach the town by another route. That was the line of advance of my battlegroup of Irish Guards - their first outing on the wargame table.

Actually, the term "battlegroup" is a little grand - this being a skirmish game I only had a reinforced platoon of infantry in half tracks, and a troop of Shermans...oh .. and an armoured car. Things started off OK, and when a German LMG opened up the Huns were riddled by Besa MG fire from the Humber, and .50 cal rounds from an M5 half track. So far so good. then came two farms. As Disposable Heroes have no spotting rules, the only ways to trip an ambush are to walk into it, or to fire at everything in the hope that you'll hit some hidden figures. Unnecessary collateral damage was deemed to be too un-British, so we opted for the blundering into ambushes option. This worked to perfection, apart from the effect it had on the half-squad ordered to check out the buildings on foot. Once the Germans opened up they were riddled by tank and machine gun fire. OK, its a costly way to do things, but it worked!

On the other flank the British Paras ran into isolated pockets of Germans, including convoys of light vehicles which were trying to reach the town ahead of the Allies. that revealed another flaw in the rules - only one unit (half a squad or a heavy weapon) can react by initiating "snap fire". Everyone else just lets the Germans drive past! It all came down to who fired first the next turn, which really meant who won the initiative roll. Fortunately for us the Paras won, and the German convoy was shot to pieces! That was when the Tiger appeared, knocking out a Sherman and a Firefly before mortars covered its arc of fire with smoke. By that time I'd lost my Humber armoured car to a Panzershrek team, but was making steady progress up the road towards the town, flushing out more German strongpoints as I advanced. then the Tiger trundled over to my side of the table...

If your troop of Shermans is faced by a Tiger tank you only really have two options. One is to hide, and the other is to charge. I opted for the latter. Amazingly the 88mm gun missed twice, as did a 75mm shell from a PzIV which appeared to support it. then with what amounted to ridiculously lucky die rolls one of my Sherman commanders managed to knock the beast out (that's it brewing up below), and the advance could continue.

At that point I had to clear off home, but the game continued - the Irish Guards losing a tank, but pushing the Germans back into the town. On the other table the British Paras stormed the town, only to be met by a hail of fire from a hidden unit of Fallschirmjagers. that left the British infantry to pick up the pieces, and as dusk fell they still hadn't gained a foothold in the town. All in all the Germans managed to play for time, keeping the Allies from reaching their objectives before everyone had to pack up and go home. However, the Allies had a clear superiority in tanks and troops, and if battle had resumed the following day we'd have taken our objectives without much of a problem. Well, that's my line and I'm sticking to it!

If you want to see the Irish Guards in all their glory, then click on the link.  

Disposable Heroes playsheet

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