Angus  Konstam's Edinburgh Wargames

Edinburgh Wargames Journal             

                Issue 42  -  January 2010  

 

Periods featured  in this issue:  Seven Years War, English Civil War, Sudan Campaign,

American War of Independence (all 28mm) & Spanish Civil War (20mm)

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The Battle of Emsdorf, 1760  (Black Powder) 28mm

This week's game was another "learning the rules" game using Black Powder, which is fast becoming our rules set of choice for Horse & Musket games. This time we refought the small encounter at Emsdorf (1760), which is the introductory scenario in our Seven Years War rules Die Kriegskunst. It involves an Allied attack on a French encampment - we didn't have tents, but we used the same layout and forces as described in DKK. The game was therefore unusual in that Black Powder suggests using much larger "standard-sized" infantry units - 24-32 men rather than the 16-20 man infantry units we favour for our Seven Years War games.

We were fortunate enough to be joined by a visitor, Graham Knight, who was visiting Edinburgh, and he took charge of the French infantry brigade, while I commanded the Bercheny hussars and jaegers. Dougie Trail and Bob Chapman served as the Allied commanders. Well, the battle began in a fairly straightforward way, with the Allies getting a free move, to simulate taking the French by surprise. On Turn 2 the French infantry roused themselves and formed up into an "L-shaped" defensive formation, with part facing north and the rest facing west, as the enemy were approaching from two directions.

Turn 3 proved disastrous for the French, as Bob rolled very low for initiative, giving Luckner's Hussars a three move turn, which they used to advance clean across the table and hit a French battalion in the flank. It managed to retire in disorder, but the hussars kept going, and broke the next unit in the line. While all this was being played out the Allies advanced on the French position, and engaged in musketry, while the Elliot's British Light Dragoon lurked on the flank.

The Allies fired then advanced, driving the French line back up and over the small hill where the encampment should have been. The only bright spot was the breaking and routing of the British cavalry, scared off by skirmish fire from the Bercheny Jaegers. My own hussars seemed to fail every movement die roll they had, and by the time they reached a position to charge the enemy the French foot were in dire straits. They had been pushed back steadily, and outgunned and outnumbered they suffered casualties, causing one break test after another. One by one the infantry broke and fled, until by the end of the game only a single battalion remained in action, out of a five battalion brigade. The hussars charged, and succeeded in breaking Luckner's Hussars, but by that stage of the battle it was clear that the French cause was lost, and victory was duly accorded to the Allies. fortunately the demise of Dougie's nicely-painted Allied cavalry prevented any unseemly gloating.

Once again the rules worked well, despite their quirks. Graham - who games with the Brussels Club - was impressed by them, and even Dougie and I admitted that we fought the game to a conclusion, but that we'd have been hard-pressed to do the same  using our own rules. Once more Black Powder gets a cautious thumbs up.

For another angle on the game visit Dougie Trail's blog - Cry Havoc and Let Slip the Toys of War (off-site link)

Seven Years War  Page             Black Powder   Review              Black Powder  Playsheet (off-site link) 

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The Battle of Marston Moor, 1664  (Very Civil Actions) 28mm

Sometimes - just sometimes - you take part in a game that really takes your breath away. This was one of them - a game to remember. With over 2,500 figures involved the scale of the battle helped, but it also had a more going for it - colour, the spectacle and the enjoyment. This is what wargaming is all about!

Refighting the Battle of Marston Moor using a set of rules designed for "company-level" actions sound like madness, but it was certainly fun. We used Very Civile Actions, a free set of rules produced by The Perfect Captain. The typical regiment involved in our game was about 50 figures strong - a block of pikemen, two "sleeves" of muskets, and officers drums and colours out at the front. In fact, most infantry regiments had about three or four flags each, which made the tabletop incredibly colourful. Most cavalry regiments were 12 figures strong, and in the end we managed to represent just about every formation that fought in the real battle.

Just like the real thing, the battle began with a Parliamentarian advance. I say Parliamentarian, but half the "Allied" army was Scottish - the Army of the Solemn League and Covenant. On the Parliamentarian side the Earl of Manchester's Eastern Association were on the left, Lord Fairfax's Northern Association on the right, and the Scots under the Earl of Leven were in the centre, and made up a second and part of a third line. Master Cromwell commanded the Eastern Association cavalry on the left, Sir Thomas Fairfax had the Northern Association horse on the right, and the Scots horse was divided up in support behind the two.

Facing them, Prince Rupert and Lord Byron commanded the horse on the right, with just a small cavalry reserve left in the centre,  while Lord Goring commanded the Royalist cavalry on the left - the Northern Horse. Rupert's foot deployed on the right of the Royalist centre, and as the battle began the Marquis of Newcastle's Northern Foot marched onto the battlefield behind the Royalist left. The scene was set for one big battle, fought over two days in a hotel in Fife, Scotland.

The two cavalry wings were soon locked in a bloody little fight that lasted for several hours of gaming, with neither side gaining an advantage. Of course there were spectacular moments, the most notable being the near fatal wounding of Oliver Cromwell while leading a gallant charge against the Royalist horse. The situation on the Allied right was similar, as both sides seemed unable to drive off the enemy cavalrymen. Still, all those charges and counter-charges looked fantastic! 

In the centre of the field the two long lines of infantry fought it out over the ditch - in parts a much larger one than was present on the real battlefield - but although the Royalists were pushed back, their line held until the end of the first day of gaming. Honours were just about even, and the Allied superiority in numbers hadn't had a major effect, mainly because there wasn't the space to deploy the second or third line of troops, waiting to enter the fray. It was still all to play for.

On Sunday morning we started again, and over the morning the tide began to turn. First, most of the front-line regiments were becoming depleted, but while the Royalists lacked much in the way of reserves, the Allies had fresh infantry regiments eager to enter the fray. These began to join the fight, either by replacing "spent" units or by filtering forward to augment the battered troops in the front line. On the Allied left Henry Ireton - having taken over from Cromwell - began to drive Rupert's horse back, and then at a crucial moment - Rupert was thrown from his horse, where he was skewered by a Scottish lancer. A great cheer went up from the Parliamentarian players, and within an hour the remainder of his horse were either routed or isolated, fighting a hopeless battle against the triumphant horse of the Eastern Association and the Scots.  Huzzah for the Cause!  Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not...

On the far side of the field Fairfax and Goring never achieved such a spectacular conclusion to their fight, but at least both sides didn't collapse under the pressure. With the flank battle won Ireton began sending units round behind Rupert's foot, supported by the last reserves of the Eastern Association foot. They fell on the flank and rear of Rupert's foot regiments, and one by one they were forced to flee or surrender. In the centre and left the Royalist had held their own - in fact in the centre they even pushed the Scots back over the ditch, and defied all comers throughout the Sunday fighting. However, darkness was now deemed to be falling, and with the Royalist right in a state of collapse, it was clear that the Marquis of Newcastle would be lucky to pull his troops off to fight another day. Victory was duly awarded to the Parliamentarians,  but it was a surprisingly hard-fought game, and the issue was only really decided during the last two hours of a weekend of hard gaming..

The rules were surprisingly effective. We introduced our own rules to cover regimental cohesion, and we moved units a brigade at a time, but otherwise, apart from increasing the movement and shooting ranges to suit 28mm figures, we pretty much used the Perfect Captain's rules straight out of the box. Plans are already afoot to fight another English Civil War battle next year, and when we do we'll introduce a few more amendments, to help cavalry against cavalry actions move along a little faster, and be more decisive. Apart from that, and a few army morale or brigade morale rules, we were delighted with both rules, and the game they produced.

English Civil War page       Very Civile Actions Review        The Perfect Captain (off-site link)   

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Battle in the Sudan, Sudan Campaign, 1884  (Black Powder) 28mm

The new Black Powder rules purport to cover the period from around 1700 to 1890, and the rules include a sample game set during the Sudan Campaign of 1884. well, we thought we'd give the period a try, using figures from the collections of Dave O'Brien and Colin Jack. The result was this enjoyable and rather strange encounter, between An Anglo-Egyptian force and the Mahdists, somewhere between the Egyptian-Sudanese border and Khartoum. While the Mahdists didn't start with many troops on the table, all they needed to do was to roll for reinforcements, and the table would be flooded with Dervishes and wild followers of the Mahdi.

Of course, as luck had it every roll for reinforcements was unsuccessful, and although the Mahdists caused the British commanders a few worrying moments, the outcome of he battle was rarely in doubt. this was in complete contrast to a practice game fought over the weekend, when the Mahdists simply rolled over everything in their way. This time the thin red line - or rather red, blue (Royal Navy and Marines), green (Rifles), khaki (Sudanese) and white (Egyptians) line held firm. On the British centre the Mahdists launched a furious mounted camel charge, supported by screaming Dervishes, but the British line held them off, although the Marines to their left were overwhelmed and chopped up. Fortunately the Naval Brigade were on hand, and the "Fuzzy-Wuzzy" spearmen came to a sticky end. Even the Egyptians and Sudanese did well - a small unit of Egyptain armoured cavalry charged four times their number of Mahdists and lived to tell the tale - or most of them did - while for once the Sudanese infantrymen held firm, and defeated their opponents through firepower before they reached stabbing spear range.

In the end the game was declared a clear victory for the forces of Queen Victoria, and the chastened Mahdists slunk back into the Sudanese desert to plot their revenge. Once again the Black Powder rules performed well, and produced a fast, enjoyable and thoroughly entertaining game. The system was easy to pick up, and while it seemed casualties at first that casualties were a bit low, by the time units got to within point-blank range the carnage was suitably realistic, and believable. One thing I like about these rules is the way they can be used to reflect the tactics and formations of just about any period, simply by adding or omitting special rules covering things like troop quality, machine guns, rifled-weapons, ferocious fanatical charges and unreliable troops (like the Sudanese). Above all they're fun.

As in last week's game we scaled down the movement and firing distances, using 2/3rds of the distances given in the rules - ideal for an 8x6 foot table.

Colonial page             Black Powder review              Black Powder Playsheet (off-site link)

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The Battle of Saratoga (Freeman's Farm), 1777  (Black Powder) 28mm

Last week we decided to try out the new Black Powder rules (see review), using the Freeman's Farm scenario they described in the rule book. The crowd who designed Black Powder like to use abnormally large tables - far bigger than the largest we regularly game on on a club night. Therefore we decided to scale everything down slightly, and use firing ranges and movement rates that were two-thirds of the ones they listed. It was still quite a big game though, but it allowed us to fight it out on a more manageable 8x6 foot table. Freeman's farm - better known as the First Battle of Saratoga involved an encounter between British and American columns, in a clearing in the woods of upstate New York Colony. The British had more troops, but in this version of the battle the onus was on them to attack.

The assault was spearheaded by two British columns - each of which crossed Mill Creek by a different crossing, to the east and west of a small wood. The historical battlefield was a far more thickly wooded that the version in this scenario, but in Black Powder line troops don't do particularly well in trees, hence the sparse cover. On the British left Bill Gilchrist (playing both General Burgoyne and Brigadier Hamilton) swept over the creek and  past Freeman's Farm. On the right the advance of Brigadier Fraser (played by Ken Pearce) was altogether more cautious, but equally determined. At the start the only Americans on the table were Morgan's riflemen, a few skirmishers and a regiment of  American line, under the command of General Arnold (played by Dougie Trail).  Reinforcements arrived just as the British crossed the stream - Brigadier Poor's command on the right (commanded by Dougie) and Brigadier Learned's on the right, under my own command.

On the British left Hamilton's men fanned out into line, then advanced towards the Americans. For a moment it looked like they might sweep all before them, but the American line held, and as more troops arrived they began outflanking the British left. Over on the other side of the table Fraser launched a charge with the British Grenadiers, but the Massachusetts line regiment they attacked stood its ground, and a hectic melee ensued. Both sides supported the fight, but British attempts to outflank the American left through the woods were thwarted when Dearborn's Light infantry routed their British counterparts. the battle there degenerated into a hard-fought slugging match, with the American's slowly giving ground, while still preventing the British from using their superior numbers to good effect.

At that point the whole battle changed, as Poor's Americans hit Hamilton's British in the flank around Freeman's Farm. Within two turns Bill's command had been destroyed, leaving Dougie free to intervene on my side of the table. The British Grenadiers had been taking heavy casualties, and at that moment they broke, which effectively reduced Ken's brigade to half strength. He wisely decided to pull back, his withdrawal covered by the Hessian troops of General von Riedesel (played by Jim Louttit). Therefore our refight of the Battle of Saratoga ended in a clear American victory. What we all found impressive was the speed with which Black Powder worked. The rules were simple enough for us all to grasp them fairly quickly, but they were subtle too albeit quirky, and it'll take several games before we can really say we know what we're doing. However, we all pretty much agreed that the rules get a thumbs up, and we'll certainly try them again very soon - next week in fact!

American War of Independence page         Black Powder review       Black Powder Playsheet (off-site link)

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The Assault on Badajoz, Spanish Civil War, 1936  (Triumph & Tragedy) 20mm

The year's wargaming didn't get off to a very good start. My own game was cancelled. Britain is in the grip of heavy snow, and our Russian Civil War game set in tabletop snow fell victim to the real stuff piling up outside. Instead I sat in on a large 20mm Spanish Civil War game run by Colin Jack.

It was was based around the Nationalist assault on the Spanish city of Badajoz. Colin didn't seem to mind about the garish-coloured tabletop, the fantasy fields or the lack of olive groves, so I held my tongue and watched the game unfold. It was a multi-player game, with at least four active players on each side. The rules were new - a set called Triumph & Tragedy from Empress Games, which have had a good press recently, so I was interested to see how they worked. One risk with multi-player games is that they often slow down to a crawl, but this one zipped along nicely.

The city was defended by a motley Republican (government) force which included Asaltos, Guarda Civile, various nationalist and political militias, and possibly a few regular Spanish troops. The Nationalists (rebels) consisted of troops from the Army of Africa (Spanish Legionaries and Moroccans), supported by Facist and Royalist militia. There didn't seem to be much finesse on either side - the Nationalists just lined up and charged, but the defenders did show a bit of aggression, coming out of the defences to meet the enemy in the fields outside the city.

In the end the defenders inflicted such heavy casualties on the bad guys that they gave up the assault. The main thing was that everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, and the rules were fast-flowing, easy to pick up, and fairly realistic - albeit bloodthirsty. Of course, we often use Chris Peers' rules, so bloodthirsty is only a relative term! We decided to try Triumph & Tragedy again, this time for one of our "Back of Beyond" games in a few weeks.

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