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Second World War: The Fight for the Pont d'Eau, 1944 (Triumph & Tragedy) 28mm
I've railed about skirmish games before, and how they're almost universally unsatisfying. They don't seem to have much purpose. One exception is usually a skirmish game run by my friend Colin Jack, who invariably cooks up some fiendish plot, throws in a mix of competing factions, and tops it off with conditions of victory that often only one player knows about! Even with all this help, this little game was still underwhelming, although my view might have been coloured by the fact that the good guys lost!
The idea was that the Americans and their French allies had to capture a bridge over a river, held by what we expected was a thin force of Germans. Like all true commanders we encouraged our allies to do most of the fighting - leading the advance with our Moroccan ghoums, backed up by the local French resistance. We winkled out the snipers and other German advanced guard forces on our side of the river, but were still left with the problem of how to cross it. There was only one bridge, and from turn three it was covered by a Tiger tank, that spent the game dominating the centre of the table. A frontal assault was out of the question, and so the game bogged down a little, as my rather lacklustre Americans advanced from behind their dwindling screen of French allies to regain the initiative. Morale was bolstered by the arrival of a single Sherman tank, which manfully manoeuvred within range of the Tiger, and began a brave but ultimately unsuccessful duel with it, from the cover of a building on our side of the river. Another party of French resistance tried to attack in from the far bank of the river, only to be mown down and dispersed by German machine guns.
Rather inevitably it all ended in tears. The Americans tried to ford the river, only to find that the far bank was defended by German paratroopers and SS troops, lining the hedgerows and hiding out in a gasworks that dominated the enemy left flank. Still, the Americans fired back with their support weapons - machine guns and mortars - and saw off the Fallschirmjagers, but it was all too little, too late. The game fizzled out when it became apparent that for that day at least, the Germans were going nowhere.
Colin's secret victory condition involved the SS in the gasworks. They were busy loading some undefined mystery cargo onto a truck, and needed 40 points of loading time to do it. Each turn the SS player rolled a D3, and got to 38 by the time we called a halt to the game. Therefore, he would have been able to spirit his evil cargo away - whatever it was. Yes, it was an underwhelming game, but at least it involved ghoums (who are pretty cool), and Nazi SS guards, who are distinctly not. I've played more enjoyable games, but at least it passed the time quite nicely, on an otherwise nondescript autumnal evening.
Second World War page
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First World War Naval: The Battle of Dogger Bank, 1915 (General Quarters - Fleet Action Imminent) 1/2400
It was 21st October - Trafalgar Day - and the 205th anniversary of both that stunning victory and the death of history's greatest naval commander. That meant we had to play something naval - and a game involving the Royal Navy, rather than other lesser fleets. We came up with The Battle of Dogger Bank, the debut game for our nascent First World War naval collection. The battle was an encounter between two forces of battlecruisers - five commanded by Vice Admiral Beatty, versus three and an armoured cruiser led by Vice Admiral Hipper. Both battlecruiser forces were supported by light cruisers - we decided to keep the destroyers off the tabletop, as they played little or no part in the real battle.
The German 1st Scouting Group was outgunned and outnumbered at the start of the game, and in the real battle the British approached them from astern, and picked off the tail-end German ship - the armoured cruiser Blucher. As the German commander Colin Jack had read his history, and knew the Blucher was something of a liability. Consequently he detached her, and turned the rest of his fleet to the north, to give battle, and to buy time for the Blucher to escape off the table. In the end the Blucher was harried by British light cruisers, and subjected to some long-range fire from a pair of British battlecruisers, but although knocked about a bit she made it to safety, and therefore fared much better than the real ship!
The main scrap was fought out between the two lines of battlecruisers. Strangely though, Dougie Trail commanding the British elected to use two of his battlecruisers - New Zealand and Indefatigable to engage the Blucher at long range, which left the three ships of the 1st BC Squadron - Lion, Tiger and Princess Royal - to take on their three German counterparts - Seydlitz, Moltke and Derfflinger. While the British had better guns, the Germans had better armour, and the British had also wasted their superiority in numbers. Worse, in General Quarters - Fleet Action Imminent the Germans fire using regular D12s, while the British battlecruisers use D20s, to reflect Beatty's lack of gunnery training amongst his squadrons. The result was that British shooting was erratic, while the German fire was more accurate. Then, when the British did manage to hit the enemy, the shells either failed to penetrate the German armour, or they didn't manage to inflict a telling hit. In the real battle the Seydlitz was almost blown apart when her forward magazine was hit, and she was saved by luck and quick thinking, although she lost two turrets, and had to limp home with her decks awash. In our refight she lost a couple of secondary guns, but nothing more serious.
By contrast the 1st BC Squadron took a bit of a pounding, especially when the range closed to less than 10,000 yards (5 nautical miles). Beatty's flagship Lion suffered a steering hit, and when she veered out of line she was hit again, causing flooding and engine damage. Tiger had "Y" turret knocked out, while on Princess Royal three of her four turrets were silenced - a real battering. On the other side Derfflinger was unscathed, but the Moltke had a few hull hits, and her speed was reduced. At that point the German commander broke off the engagement and headed for home, and a somewhat relieved British commander decided to let him go. All in all it was a bruising draw, but the Germans probably came off the best, largely thanks to the Beatty's D20 rule, and the splitting of the British force. While the D20 rule was historically accurate, it really didn't make the game as much fun for the British as the players would have liked! Without it, the Germans would probably have suffered a lot more.
We'd played General Quarters 3rd edition before - the Second World War set - and these were very similar. They worked well, although we wasted too much time on the light cruisers, which with hindsight could have been dropped from the order of battle for the scenario, as they achieved nothing apart from slowing down the proceedings. The rules worked well though, and did the job of providing a fast and playable simulation, without resorting to the acres of charts so beloved of naval wargamers! As the British commander, Dougie declared he planned to buy the Queen Elizabeth fast battleships next - ships which not only pack the punch of 15-inch guns, but fire using D12s. I can see another naval arms race afoot - only in miniature.. GHQ will be loving it!
First World War Naval page still under construction
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Seven Years War: The Bridge at Beeskow, 1760 (Die Kriegskunst) 28mm
The premise behind this little game was that a Russian raiding force had crossed the Elbe, and burned down a gun foundry on the outskirts of Berlin. It was now trying to get back to the Elbe and safety. This was loosely based on Totleben's Berlin Raid of October 1760, which took place almost exactly 250 years ago this week. Well, the Russians were being pursued by a larger Prussian force, and somewhere to the south-east of Berlin they reached a fork in the road. Both roads would lead to a bridge over the River Spree - one at Fürstenwalde, the other at Beeskow. Beyond these bridges lay open country, and a clear route to safety. First though, the Russians had to get over the river. The Prussian player (Dougie Trail) had secretly sketched the environs of both bridges, and deployed a small blocking force at each one. Of course, the Russian had to make the decision on which bridge to cross without knowing what opposition might lie ahead.
As the Russian commander I opted for Beeskow. My column was headed by two Sotnias of Cossacks, while the main body consisted of a regiment of grenadiers, and a small secret howitzer detachment. The rearguard was provided by the Kargopolski horse grenadiers. When the Cossacks neared the village in front of the bridge they found it was defended by a small force of Freikorps, and a detachment of hussars and jaegers. After some prevarication (Russians don't change orders very easily) the decision was made to fight our way into the village, before the pursuers entered the table. Unfortunately, Cossacks can't launch frontal charges against formed opponents, and the hussars kept their flanks protected. I had no option but to deploy the infantry and the howitzer, and try to blast my way through.
It took two turns to drive off the hussars, who failed in their attempt to charge, and consequently were shot out of their saddles until they fled the field. This happened in the nick of time, as the first of the Prussian pursuers - a regiment of hussars - entered the table just as their counterparts at the far end of it were turning tail. My Cossacks simply bypassed the buildings and headed for the bridge, taking a few casualties as they went. Faced with the Russian grenadiers the Prussian Freikorps took refuge in the houses. At this the Russians simply marched past them, taking their guns and baggage with them. The battle degenerated into some desultory musketry, and as the rest of the force crossed the river the horse grenadiers withdrew in good order, keeping the Prussian hussars at bay until they reached safety. Once again the Prussian hussars didn't manage to charge, and with the rest of the pursuers too far behind there was little they could do to prevent the Russians from escaping. All told it was an enjoyable little game - just the sort of tabletop teaser that makes for a challenge, while being highly entertaining at the same time. It also gave us a chance to re-acquaint ourselves with the rules, just in time for a winter of tabletop campaigning with them!
Seven Years War page Die Kriegskunst page
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Napoleonic: The Battle of Vittoria, c.1813 (Black Powder) 28mm
West
table
The first problem with Vittoria is how to spell it. Many modern histories drop the second "t", as that's the way the Spanish spell the place. I'm afraid I stick with the "old school" spelling...
By any standards this was a big refight. Apparently there were upwards of 3,500 figures on the table, although at times you were hard-pressed to see where they all were. As you all know, this was the last major battle fought by Wellington in Spain during the Peninsular War, and involved a two-pronged attack on the French - the main one from the west, and the other from the north. Our refight was the same, with one very long table covering the western sector, while the attack from the north was played out on a second table. In theory, one "battlefield" was close to the other, but of course in our refight they became two separate battles, linked only by a grand strategic plan.
North table
The onus was on the Allies to attack on both tables, which is exactly what they did, even though the balance of troops wasn't as favourable as it might have been, with few Allied troops on the table at the start, and reinforcements marching onto the field as the battle progressed. By contrast the French pretty much had everything on the table at the start - or so we Allies thought. I was given the job of playing Wellington, but to keep me amused I was also given a small command in the Allied centre. On the right General Hill's troops and their Spanish allies tried to winkle the French defenders out of a string of fortified villages (even though I don't remember reading about them in the real battle), while on the left flank General Picton was doing the same, supported by the British Light Division. Defended villages also dominated the battle being fought out to the north of the River Zadorra, where General Graham and his Spanish allies were trying to threaten the French rear.
I swear this battle seemed more like Stalingrad at times, with French and British troops locked in dozens of little struggles over buildings! Still, at the end of the first day of play (the Saturday) the Allies were making real headway, and the French were clearly on the ropes on both tables. After a reasonably debauched drunken evening the battle resumed again on the Sunday morning, and things started to go wrong right from the start. First of all, the French began to flood the western table with reinforcements - whole divisions of them. Everything I read about Vittoria had the French outnumbered by the Allies, but by Sunday lunchtime it was obvious this wasn't a straight refight, and the French had seemingly unlimited reserves! Hill and Picton were thrown onto the defensive, and were hard-pressed to retain control of their hard-won villages in the face of this fresh onslaught. In the centre it went even worse for the allies, as after a stout defence a Portuguese brigade was finally broken (after seeing off two brigades of French), and a French Cavalry Corps poured through the gap. Call me a stickler, and please don't correct me if I'm wrong, but I always thought the French only had one provisional regiment of cuirassiers in Spain. The hapless Portuguese faced an entire cuirassier division! By Sunday afternoon the Allies were split in two on the western table, with no centre, and the two flanks holding on as resolutely as they could.
It was only on the northern table that things still went according to plan - and history. The French were pushed back to the River Zadorra, and with this watery defensive line breached the Allies were poised to capture the lucrative French baggage train that lay just off the table, and more importantly cut the rest of the French army off from their supply lines back to France. At that point the game came to an end, with both sides claiming victory. The crowing French commander claimed to have won the battle on the western table, although his infantry were now facing the "meat grinder" of winkling troops out of the strongpoint villages. Giving him his due, his mass of cavalry did rule the roost south of the knoll of Arrinez in the centre of the tabletop, where the British still stood firm, and maintained a link with Hill's troops to the south. Poor Picton was thrown onto the defensive, and what remained of his command would have been hard-pressed to hold on much longer. The Allies of course claimed victory because of their strategic position, athwart the French lines of communication. Even the French commander admitted his army would have had to retreat, which in my mind was tantamount to him admitting defeat!
We used Black Powder for the refight, and the rules worked reasonably well, allowing us to move thousands of figures around, and complete almost two dozen turns in the day and a half of gaming. While I much prefer General de Brigade for Napoleonic games, I have to say we would never have got through so much, or been able to use so many troops if we hadn't used Black Powder instead. Of course, it would be nice to refight Vittoria historically some time, without the Francofile changes to the order of battle, and a more neutral umpire (ours also commanded the French cavalry)! Still, everyone had a great time, and it's always a pleasure to take part in a multi-player game with so many nice toys on the table.
The Napoleonic War page Black Powder review
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