Napoleonics. Game at NBHW.

Friday night saw another Napoleonic game at New Buckenham using one member's 25mm collection for a fictional encounter engagement using Black Powder rules at 2/3 distances.

The scenario was a small town full of supplies had been discovered by British and French scouts who now called in all their nearby forces to secure the supplies. Brigades would appear in a random order at random locations each turn with the winner being the side in control of the town at game end or the side that hadn't broken.

The battlefield

Once again I played the British with one other player while three players took control of the French. The British had two brigades of infantry, one of light dragoons and one of heavy cavalry including household troops. The French had five brigades, a grenadier brigade with guard, dragoon brigade inc foot dragoons, infantry brigade, mixed cavalry brigade and guard cavalry brigade.

Location and Turn of Brigade arrivals.

A bit of a slow arrival for the British saw the French almost get the positional advantage near the bridge although we did manage to get a tiny unit of rifles into one half of the central objective.

About turn three

The arrival of both sides heavy cavalry saw some sharp engagements with initial success going to my household units before they started to come under french artillery fire and my recent poor run of save and break test rolls reared it's ugly head again.

British heavies arrive

The heavies get stuck in

In the end both sides heavy brigades ended up broken which left the French guard cavalry brigade and it's lancers free rein on this side of the table.

The final British infantry brigade to arrive also did so slowly but use of the "Follow me" command allowed us to get a light battalion into the other half of the objective.

The French grenadier battalions made short work of the British lines to their front, eventually, and together with the arrival of their dragoon brigade in the British flank soon saw this brigade break. This was despite a line battalion surviving three rounds of melee, alone in line, against supported charging French dragoons before withdrawing. This left the Grenadiers free to turn their attention to the objective. Initially they were forced into square by the British light dragoons and two battalions were destroyed by artillery and rocket! fire before they shook out and assaulted the tiny unit of rifles who found themselves evicted from the town into the path of some Red lancers.

The objective under assault from both sides.

At this point the game was called, the British had two broken brigades with a third, the light dragoons, hanging on by the skin of it's teeth. The other infantry brigade was intact but it's light battalion was now cut off in the town.

The French had one cavalry brigade broken and the grenadier brigade was close as well but that still left them three intact brigades.

So overall another French win.

A fun game with the random entry points giving some tactical problems, especially for the British.

As usual more photographs in the club's Facebook Album

Tony.

Vimeiro 1808. Game at NBHW.

Last Friday at New Buckenham seven players plus an umpire got together for a refight of the Battle of Vimeiro in 1808. This time 15mm was to be the scale and Black Powder at 50% distances the rules.

The table was laid out as per the picture below.

Battlefield

The British started with Hill's brigade on the ridge at top right, south of Vimeiro itself. Anstruther And Fane's brigades on the hill in front of Vimeiro. Acland on the end of the centre ridge and the cavalry in the centre in reserve. Ferguson, Bowes and Nightingall's brigades were hidden behind the ridge between Acland and the buildings of Ventosa on the northern end of the ridgeline. These three brigades would remain hidden unless they moved or the French crested the ridge. The buildings of Toledo can be seen left of centre.
Trant's Portuguese and Craufurds brigades were due to arrive at some point during the game.

The French start with the brigades of Charlot, Thomieres and Kellermann facing Vimeiro with the cavalry division of Marraron in support. The brigades of Brenier and Solignac out of sight on a flanking march to the northern, near end of the table.

As usual I played on the British side and as the experienced Black Powder player of the three commanders I was given the role of Wellesley as well as command of Anstruther and Fane's brigades.

The south of the field with Vimeiro centre. There was a bridge in front of Wellesley by game start.

The rest of the AAR will be from my / Wellesley's point of view.
The first thing we did was to garrison Vimeiro with two battalions from Hill's brigade leaving one battalion and his combined lights to hold the south western ridge and allied right flank.
The brigades hidden behind the ridge were to remain stationary until the French flanking manoeuvre was visible and then occupy Ventosa and defend the ridge line.
After a couple of grazing shots from french artillery the line battalions of Anstruther's brigade pulled back to the reverse slope leaving the lights and artillery to contest the approaching French columns.

Unfortunately unlike historically the French were well coordinated and soon pushed hard against the British centre.

The French centre advances.

After a few refusals the french cavalry finally charged Anstruther's right battalions forcing them into square.

French cavalry finally charge.

Whilst the centre columns shock out into line.

A theme was beginning to emerge at this point in the game, whilst I was rolling wonderful attack dice my opponents were throwing equally good saving rolls, whereas my saving, and break test throws were terrible.

View from Vimeiro

At this point the first of the French flank attacks, Brenier's, arrived on the road right next to Ventosa, fortunately their command roll was poor allowing the leading unit of Ferguson's hidden brigade to occupy it first. This occupying force, a small unit of combined light companies, immediately came under accurate French artillery fire and soon broke, this started the almost separate battle for the northern ridge line.

Action around Ventosa, light dragoons about to charge.

Solignac's flanking force then arrived on the road through Toledo and some rapid moves saw them throw their weight into the ridge battle. The 20th Light Dragoons, saw a chance and charged a unit of French dragoons narrowly losing the subsequent mele and fleeing the battle after another poor break test roll, seemed to be contagious amongst the allied commanders.

Some good news for the allies was the arrival of Craufurd's brigade on the hights overlooking Ventosa, but this was tempered by poor command rolls that saw them hardly move the rest of the game.

Things in the centre were deteriorating badly for me by this point.

Not looking good for Wellesley

Continued pressure and continued good save rolls from the French players, whilst mine were still terrible, saw first Fane's brigade and then Anstruther's break. Fane's remaining units fell back  under continued French pressure. Whilst Anstruther's battalion in square was allowed to stand it's ground the other remaining battalion had to withdraw. A quick reshuffle of Hill's garrison in Vimeiro opened up a space for this battalion to move into a defensible position allowing it to stop withdrawing whilst Hill's battalion together with Nightingall's brigade attempted to manouver to plug the centre.

Over on the left, French cavalry forced several battalions into square only to then pull back allowing their infantry columns to advance and charge home against the British squares.

Column vs Square?

The first square collapsed and was destroyed as expected while the second survived a couple of rounds of mele against two French columns before grudgingly withdrawing. Some good dice for the allies finally.

With the french cavalry from the centre now threatening Hill's right flank battalions, the centre a mess and the left needing to reform the game was called. It was decided Wellesley would have had no option but to stage a fighting retreat back to Porto Novo and the Royal Navy, ending British involvement in the Peninsular, oops.

Another great game at the club, and nice to see the 15mm naps out again. Shame about the result but that's the way the dice roll.

A load more photographs as usual in the club's Facebook Album

UPDATE: Have added a scenario map plus army rosters and a few notes to the Scenario download section. Link in right side bar.

Tony.

15/18mm American Civil War: Update 6, More troops plus some Terrain.

Another update on the ACW project.

Finished another seven base unit of Union troops, so another brigade for Fire & Fury. This time the figures are all Blue Moon ( US here, UK here ).

Figures by Blue Moon

Seven bases so either 1050 or 1400 men depending on scale being used in Brigade F&F

Also completed are the hasty fieldworks from TimeCast. These resin castings were primed with Vallejo Grey Surface Primer before base coating with a Crown Paints tester pot from their Period collection called Gramophone. This colour is the same as I used on my riverbanks and bridges as the closest match I could find to my Hotz mud tracks. The logs were painted Vallejo 872 Chocolate Brown with the cut surfaces Vallejo 929 Light Brown, before everything was washed with Vallejo Sepia Wash. Any rocks were painted Vallejo 992 Neutral Grey then washed with Citadel Nuln Oil. A bit of flock and they were finished.

TimeCast Hasty fieldworks.

With some figures for scale.

Next the fences from Ironclad Miniatures. Once again these are resin casts and were primed with Vallejo Grey Surface Primer. The woodwork was painted with Vallejo 929 Light Brown and the earth with Crown Period Gramophone. An overall wash with Vallejo Sepia Wash was applied before the earth was dry brushed with the original colour and the fences with Vallejo 886 Grey Green. Two sizes of flock was applied and almost an afterthought the gate hinges painted in Vallejo 863 Gunmetal Grey.

Ironcast Miniatures' fences.

With figures for scale.

So with these completed my Union force now looks like this.

I have a few casualty figures primed for using as disorder markers and then comes the decision, more infantry or swap periods and get my British Napoleonic Heavy Dragoon regiment painted....?

Tony.

15/18mm American Civil War: Update 5, River and Bridges.

So update 5, more terrain. At the end of the last update I showed the terrain from, amongst others, TimeCast that I had bought, now it was time to get it painted.

Terrain items bought at Hammerhead.

The three bridges, two wooden, one stone, are resin whilst the river sections are latex rubber. The resin items had their bases sanded to level them and then they and the river pieces where washed and left to dry.

The bridges were under-coated grey, areas block painted, washes applied and then dry-brushed. Muddy track parts of the castings were painted to match the felt tracks I had got from Hotz Mats, seen below with Hotz Mats fields and some troops for scale.

Hotz Mats felt tracks and fields.

Bank areas were flocked and finally the water areas were painted, more on the colour later. They were then matt varnished and after drying the water areas were given a coat of Humbrol Clear Gloss varnish.

Finished bridges

Bridges with troop stand for scale.

So now the rivers and what colour to paint them. I knew I didn't want bright blue as these would be used mostly for ACW games with lots of wooded areas nearby in most cases. I tried a sandy colour with a blue wash, didn't look right. A sandy base with a green wash, again wrong. Dark centre with lighter sides? nope. Grey green? no. Finally settled on a single colour, that being Vallejo 887 Brown Violet, the same colour I use for my WWI british aircraft. The only variation was the centre of the ford sections which I painted a sandy colour before washing with a thinned brown violet and adding a few small rocks.

I didn't prime the river sections as the TimeCast website said this was not required. The banks were base-coated the same colour as that used to do the mud track and bank parts of the bridges before getting an Agrax Earthshade wash then dry brush with the base-coat. I then painted in the river itself before applying a couple of coats of brush on acrylic gloss varnish then a coat of Humbrol Clear Gloss (applying the gloss varnish at this point was stupid in hindsight). I then flocked the banks before realising that to seal these with spray matt varnish I was going to have to mask all the gloss water sections or spray the entirety matt and redo the gloss, see previous comment about hindsight!

In the end I sprayed the whole thing and when dried reapplied a coat of Humbrol Clear Gloss to the water areas, plus a little on the crossings of the fords to give a wet effect.

Finished river and ford sections, light gives a helpful reflection.

I'm not entirely happy with how the river came out. My error with the varnishing order has meant there are possibly too many layers of paint/varnish on what are very flexible pieces and some very fine crack lines can been seen in the river surfaces. I may have to strip these back at some point in the future an redo applying the lessons learned. If they had been non flexible river sections or a larger scale I probably would have approached them completely differently and used some form of water effects. Hopefully if I store them correctly they will survive for a while.

One last thing I knocked up quickly were some markers to denote Heavy Casualties for Fire & Fury. As I haven't got any suitable miniatures I decided to use a simple flag on a base indicate this. A bit of research led to discover that both sides utilised a plain yellow flag to identify field hospitals (a green edge was added late in the war by the Union) so this is what I went for.

Heavy casualty markers.

Next, finish those seven bases of infantry before tackling the earthworks and fences.

Tony.

White Plains - Chatterton Hill 1776. Game at NBHW

On Friday night I took part in a American War of Independence game at New Buckenham. The game was played using an in house set of rules and was based on the action around Chatterton Hill in 1776, part of the Battle of White Plains. For information on the battle see Revolutionary War US article.

The initial set up saw Continental regulars and militia defending walled field enclosures across the top of the hill with some rifles forward towards the Bronx river. The initial units of British had just crossed this river at a fortuitously discovered ford and were advancing towards the hill.

Initial set up, Bronx River on the left , Chatterton Hill down the centre.

I will concentrate on my command in this report, for more details on how the whole game played out and a shed load more photographs see the club's Facebook Album

My British command having just crossed the Bronx River.

My command consisted of the leading elements of General Leslie's 2nd Brigade, the 28th and 35th Regiments of Foot together with two 12lbs of the Royal Artillery. I immediately advanced the infantry towards Chatterton Hill with the 35th on the right drifting slightly further right to open up the arcs of fire for the artillery. The Continental rifle men to my front closed up and stood laughing as once again, becoming a bit of a habit when playing these rules, my infantry refused to charge. I blame the artillery fire from the continental 6lbers on the hill.

The rest of the 2nd Brigade arrived and deployed, with the 5th forward, 49th supporting, to my left and started advancing towards the centre of the hill.

5th and 49th advance on my left while General Leslie gives the 28th a bit of a talking to.

The Continentals chose this moment to abandon their defences atop the hill and advance down towards the British, good news for the Royal Artillery who started inflicting casualties as they came.

The 5th and 49th inexplicably stopped their own advance and traded musketry with the 19th Continentals whilst also now becoming the target of the 6lbers.

My 35th advanced to the right to engage the rebel left flank while the 28th dressed to the right of the 49th. The 35th soon found themselves engaged by over five hundred muskets of the 1st New York and Delaware regiments.

The 19th Continentals now charged the softened up 5th Foot who routed and fled back across the Bronx River. The jubilant rebels careered on into the steady lines of the 49th, who under General Leslie's personal command saw them off  before they were hit by artillery fire into their flank as they retired from distant Hessian guns, routing them.

The 3rd New York that had charged down the Hill with the 19th ran into my advancing 28th Foot and were routed in turn, with the 28th continuing their advance behind.

The 35th however decided to give ground and pulled back to enable the Royal Artillery to deal with the 1st New York and Delaware regiments who also started to pull back to their original positions.

Events to the left of the British flank plus the time resulted in the game being called at this point.

In the overall battle the Continentals suffered 243 casualties to the British and Hessian 237. More tellingly the Continental right flank had collapsed, so with the impending loss of Chatterton Hill it was called a British and Hessian victory.

Once again another great, close game with these rules played with some superb figures from other club member's collections.

Tony.