Angus  Konstam's Edinburgh Wargames

Edinburgh Wargames Journal             

      Issue 30  - January 2009  

Periods featured in this Issue: 1938: A Very British Civil War, Seven Years War, "Napoleonic"

& "Back of Beyond" (all 28mm),  and Spanish Civil War (20mm)

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A Skirmish on the Border - A Very British Civil War, 1938 (The Great War) 28mm

I'm not going to explain the background to this nonsense, apart from saying the game is based on an alternative history, where Britain was plunged into a Civil War in 1938. You can read all about it on the Gentleman's Wargame Parlour - or at least you could if their site was back on line. Colin Jack - the man who got us all into The Back of Beyond is the guy behind this 1938 game - he's a sucker for quirky periods, exotic units and miniature women in uniform.

Well, the game actually followed on from one we played late last year (see Journal 28), which ended when the right-wing Duke of Northumberland flew off in a Nazi plane, bound for a meeting with Herr Hitler. Well, the plane was damaged during the fighting around the airfield, and consequently it crashed on the English-Scottish border - just north of Berwick. In this alternate universe Scotland has declared independence and formed a Republic. Scottish regulars and Territorials (reservists) mobilised to secure the plane and its passengers. At the same time a column from the British Union of Fascists (BUF) headed north to do the same, while another group led by the Bishop of Durham (a leader of the liberal Anglican League) also appeared from the south  - but of course on a different road. The scene was set for one of those strange games that Colin loves to stage...

The Scots turned up first, the Territorials crossing the border and taking up a blocking position astride the A1 (the main north-south road), while the regulars debussed from their Bren Carriers and sent a patrol to inspect the plane. Both groups soon became embroiled in a firefight with the German aircrew, which the Scots won fairly convincingly. However, there was no sign of the Duke. At that point the Fascists appeared. While one platoon deployed across the A1 and began a firefight with the Scottish Territorials, the rest drove across the table to an isolated farmhouse - the most likely hideout for the Duke and his entourage.

Sure enough he was there, and after a Dr. Livingston and Stanley type moment he clambered in the Fascists staff car and drove off to the south, escorted by the remaining Fascist troops. I say remaining, because the ones who had been fighting the Scots barring the road north were badly chopped up, and forced to flee, despite the support offered by a Fascist armoured car. As the game drew to a close the Bishop of Durham appeared (that's him with the purple surplice under his uniform below). He arrived too late to capture the Duke, but he enjoyed the support of an aircraft - Gladys the Gladiator - which strafed the Fascists as they exited the table.

Technically the game was a victory for the bad guys - the BUF - who escaped with the Duke. However, the Scots performed well, and the next game might well involve a larger border clash between them and the right-wing English Royalists who occupy Northumberland. There the Scots allies would be the Anglican League, and the men of the Durham Union of Miners, who hate the Fascists with a passion. In other words, this nonsense will continue...

We played the game using Warhammer's The Great War rules. I'm no great fan of Warhammer, and I'd prefer our usual "Back if Beyond" rules, but I suppose this system worked better for this kind of low level skirmish. However, all this malarkey with saving throws, and rolls to wound means you have to roll an awful lot of dice to actually kill someone.

1938: A Very British Civil War  - Source Book available from Solway Crafts (an E-Bay page)

1938: A Very British Civil War  - Background  and Yahoo Group listed as   ECW3 

There's also the Gentleman's Wargames Parlour , which is currently off-line.

Note: All these links take you off-site.

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Blowing the Bridge, Seven Years War, c. 1757 (Die Kriegskunst) 28mm

The aim of this game was to introduce new players to Die Kriegskunst, so we kept the forces very small - just a brigade-sized force per side. The premise was that while French engineers were desperately trying to prepare a bridge for demolition,  a mixed force of line infantry, light troops and hussars had to keep the Prussians at bay until the engineers were ready. One of the hardest things in this period is manoeuvring your troops in the face of the enemy, so it was a real test to see if the French could hold off the Prussians and withdraw in good order. "JP" commanded the French, "Ken the monkey-hanger" led the Prussians, while Dougie Trail and I sort of umpired, and drank lots of beer.

The French began by deploying their two regular battalions into line, facing the approaching Prussians. The French skirmishers tried to make it to the cover of a small wood, but the Prussian cavalry fell upon them before they reached it. Half the skirmishers were promptly ridden down, while the rest ran away. The dragoons were then forced to retire, due to casualties caused by a French gun on the far side of the river. Meanwhile the Bercheny Hussars were deployed to cover the open flank of the French line, where they were attacked by the Prussian Black Hussars. Thanks to some exemplary die rolling the Prussians routed their more colourful French opponents, which left the French flank open to attack.

"JP" pulled his battalion of the Conde Regiment back towards the bridge, refusing his flank in the process. By this stage the Prussian infantry had come up, and a general firefight began. At first the French got the better of it - which is when the commander was told that the bridge was ready. It all went wrong when he tried to move the Conde regiment back over the bridge. As they reformed into march column they were charged and broken by the Prussian foot. That only left Dillon's Irish regiment in good order, standing between the Prussians and victory. At that point the French player conceded, and a veil was drawn over the whole unhappy affair.

Still, the game could have gone either way, and the scenario was a real teaser for the French player, who needed both luck and perfect judgement to win the day. Even better, "JP" was inspired, and now plans to build up his own French army. We'll certainly do something like this bridge scenario again - if for no other reason that I want to get more mileage out of my French bridge-blowing stand!

Die Kriegskunst and the Seven Years War page

Die Kriegskunst playsheet

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The Battle of Quatre Bras, 1815 (Revolution to Empire playtest) 28mm

There's always something spectacular about large "Napoleonic" games, where the table groans under the weight of the lead. Well, this was one of them. The excuse was the playtesting of the forthcoming Republic to Empire rules, produced by Barry Hilton. The plan was to refight the Battle of Quatre Bras (16th June 1915) - which as you all know was an encounter engagement fought between the Duke of Wellington's Anglo-Dutch army, and the left wing of Bonaparte's French army, commanded by Marshal Ney.

Well, we didn't have nearly enough figures of the right type, so most of the British were wearing "Peninsular-style" shakos, Americans were doubling up as Dutch, Portuguese and Poles as Frenchmen, and I'm sure there were even some Prussians there, pretending to be Brunswickers. Still, the aim was to put on a large game, not to satisfy the "Napoleonic" purists!

To win the game the French had to capture the Quatre Bras crossroads, which  at least at the start was just thinly held by a small Dutch-Belgian division. The French came on in three large divisions, one heading straight up the road towards the crossroads form the south, while the rest of the army hooked round to hit the Allied position from the east. My force was the 6th Division - one of these flanking groups. Unfortunately the terrain and the timetable of reinforcements didn't work in our favour. Although we saw off any blocking forces with relative ease, by the time the large French columns reached Quatre Bras, the Allies had been heavily reinforced, and the crossroads was firmly held by British troops.

 After some five hours of gaming (which was roughly fought out in real time) the French finally reached the line of the Quatre Bras to Ligny road, and were in a position to storm the flank of the Anglo-Dutch army. However, by that time night was falling (outside it was 7.30pm on a cold, drizzly Edinburgh night), and the time had come to pack up. In other words, my damned troops never got to roll a dice in anger all game! Grrr...

On the French left, Bahelu's 5th Division had been suckered into an unsupported attack on the crossroads from the south, and consequently had been chopped to pieces. A ragged line of Dutch-Belgian and Nassauer militiamen then advanced towards the left flank of the remaining French force, but despite claims to the contrary by the Allied players, this never came close to a grand sweeping hook. Militiamen don't really do "sweeping".

However, it did demonstrate that the French were no longer masters of the situation. The Anglo-Dutch army had been reinforced, and by dark it  enjoyed parity in numbers. With the dispersal of the 5th Division it had the numerical edge over the French attackers. Faced with the inevitability of a doomed assault (and the fact we'd been playing all afternoon and into the evening), Marshal Ney decided to call it a day. That means that Wellington and his chaps won a rather convincing defensive victory.

As for the rules, they worked well, and the system of allocating command pips (a bit like DBM) made the rival commanders think hard about what they wanted to do, and how to do it. Similarly the orders system (a bit like General de Brigade) prevented the units themselves from acting implausibly. The firing system was a little dice-heavy (a bit like Warhammer) for my tastes, but it seemed to do the trick. The only quibble came through the fact that while infantry plod, cavalry races around, and light cavalry can charge up to 42" if they want to, without having to declare a target when they launch themselves forward. This makes them incredibly effective, and difficult to counter. Barry aims to tinker a little more, and he may well change the rules between now and the next playtesting session.

 More importantly, all the players were impressed with Republic to Empire, and think that by the time they're published, they'll be a very good set of rules; highly-playable, reasonably fast-paced, and enjoyable. They might even be as good as - if not better than - General de Brigade!

French Revolutionary and "Napoleonic" page

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The North-West Frontier, 1919 (Contemptible Little Armies / Back of Beyond) 28mm

This was a Colonial game with a difference - a merger of a typical "North-West Frontier" game with "Back of Beyond", our long running campaign system for the Russian Civil War. In this scenario, a small Bolshevik expeditionary force was attempting to cross Afghanistan and reach India. Somewhere in the Khyber Pass they met a British Field Force sent  to stop them. In between lay a Pathan village, and a mountaintop held by the Afghan Army. The Afghans had little time for either group of invaders, nor were they particularly fond of the troublesome Pathans. In other words, this would be a four-cornered contest!

Both the British and the Russians started with small forces - just their respective advanced guards - and rolled for reinforcements. In the end it the British managed were steadily reinforced, while the poor Bolshevik player had to make do with three units - two of infantry and one of cavalry.  The British Field Force consisted of British and Indian regulars, Ghurkhas and a machine gun. The Afghans had their own regulars, supported by poorly-armed militia, a field piece and a n obsolete machine gun. As for the Pathans, they had tribesmen, and old field piece, and  a unit of cavalry.

Bizarrely, the British began the game by assaulting the Afghan-held hilltop. They made the assumption that their Pathan guides were trustworthy, and could hold the Russians until the British had seized the dominating high ground. Well, this was ambitious - but foolhardy. Although they saw off the first line of Afghan defences (a unit of militia guarding the lower slopes), casualties mounted, and the attempt was abandoned.

By then the Bolsheviks were halfway up the valley, and as the British redeployed they launched a ferocious cavalry charge against them. Fortunately for him, the British commander had just set up his machine gun, and reinforcements arrived. The cavalry were duly mown down. The rest of the small Bolshevik force was really too weak to do anything more, so it spent the rest of the game loitering in the middle of the valley, as the Russian player hoped for a miracle.

It almost came. Just when the British were becoming complacent the Pathan cavalry swept into them from their flank, and a furious melee began. Meanwhile the Pathans had begun to outflank the Russians, but stopped when they came under artillery fire from the Afghans, who didn't want the tribesemen to win all the glory. In the end the British saw off the Pathan horse, and both British and Russian forces held their ground, both sides too weakened to take the fight to the enemy. The Pathans were bloodied but unbowed, and they still held their village. The Afghan regulars also still held their heights, and ended the game as the strongest force on the table.

In the end, victory was awarded to the British. Despite heavy casualties they stopped the Russian force from reaching India - which - after all, was their mission. The objectives of the two local forces was to gather plunder, but the Bolshevik and British player had guarded their supply trains too well to allow any plundering.

Once again, the "Back of Beyond" system produced a rattling-good game, helped by the fact we used such as strange collection of figures, deployed amid Colin Jack's spectacular mountain terrain (sculpted last year by Hugh Wilson). I look forward to our next return to "the Frontier"...

Back of Beyond  page  

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Zaragosa, Spanish Civil War, 1936 (Guerra Civil Actions) 20mm

A colonial game we'd planned was cancelled at the last minute, so instead we returned to Spain, as we've been tinkering with the Guerra Civil actions rules, to try to make them work a little better. Well, actually Bill Gillchrist was rules tinkering, while the rest of us were festively over-indulging. This game was designed to try out the new mechanisms.

This time I had the "good guys" (the Loyalists, Government Forces, or Republicans - call them what you will), and we were on the attack, trying to drive the "bad guys" (Rebels, Fascists or Nationalists) from two small villages, on the road to Zaragosa. The game was very loosely based on an engagement which formed part of the Republican drive on the city in September 1936.

In our game, my wing - the Durutti Column of Anarchists, supported by the Asaltos attacked one village, while the POUM Militia attacked the other. My opposition consisted of some Falangist militia, and Carlists. On the other side of the table the Nationalists were a mixed bag of regular army, supported by the Guarda Civil. We assaulted fairly cautiously, using firepower to pin the Falangists while the rest of our forces tried to split the enemy, and storm the villages. It almost worked too. I managed to gain a foothold in my village, but when the game ended the last of the Falangists were still holding on. The Asaltos charged and broke a unit of Carlists, and were doing pretty well against the rest - mainly because we had some tank spport - an antiquated FT-17.

On the other flank the POUM stormed the village, only to be thrown out at bayonet point by the Guarda Civil. When the game ended it was pretty clear that the result was a draw, albeit one with the Republicans in a slightly better position than their opponents.

More than anything else this was a playtesting session, and it all went pretty smoothly, playing much faster than had our previous scrap. Some of the quirks of the rules had been ironed out, shooting was more effective, and the morale system started to make more sense.  We'll certainly give the rules another go some time soon, and someone even suggested trying them out in a big all-day game some time soon. It also might tempt me to dig out my unpainted 28mm Spanish Civil War figures, and start painting them up!

Guerra Civil Actions!  Playsheet  (Word File - modified since the last game!)

The Perfect Captain's Red Actions Rules

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