The Troubles......

Spyros has always had an eye on trying to recreate the confrontations in Northern Ireland on the table. It is difficult for obvious reasons.

But using the basic Force on Force ruleset, with a few nuanced modifications, we think we may have got a reasonable facsimile of the problems faced by the security forces- and the actions and reactions of the local population......

The Fog of War cards gave a great deal of colour to the game. Throughout the game - as extreme pressure was put on the security forces at the three checkpoints, hostile crowds assembled as security forces attempted to stop and inspect every vehicle.

One Fog of War card allowed an IRA sniper team to begin taking pot shots at one of the checkpoints. 

One introduced an IRA four man gun team who fired at the crew of a Humber Pig and another card introduced a team with an RPG who fired at a Land Rover and badly damaged it, wounding a crewman.

The cards also inserted a BBC camera crew with the HQ of the Security forces.....and they captured some action on camera that would lead to a political storm.

Downtown Belfast

Armed group.......these guys would take some shots at one of the checkpoints, seriously wound a soldier, but take fire that killed two, and the rest vanished into the back streets.

Robert 'Guiscard' Hauteville defies the balance of probability........and William 'Iron-Arm' Hauteville fights the battle of his life.

 We are at this point in our Normans in Italy campaign:

1)  The Pope is about to attack William 'Iron-Arm'
and
2) Robert 'Guiscard' has landed safely in Sicily. 

So in our campaign Year 1048 Anno Domini Pope Leo IX raised an army of Lombards, Byzantines, Italians and Swabians and went south to rid the Italian Peninsular of the Norman menace: primarily William 'Iron-Arm'!!
(Historically this happened in 1053 and the battle was fought at Civitate....our campaign is running ahead of the historical version!)

But before we could sort out the Pope and his campaign, our first engagement was Robert's invasion of Sicily and his attack on the Ahlgalabid Muslims.

Seven Years War - Prussians and Russians

Well my SYW Russians were finally ready - 18 months in the making and they were looking to do some damage. Of course, Rossco's Prussians coincidentally just happened to be ready too...funny that how we both manage to get them ready at the same time!

So we picked a scenario from THE BOOK and played it out one afternoon. 

THE BOOK!

THE SCENARIO

Terrain- 3D and otherwise

 Over the past few years the quality of terrain that has become available, whether it is kits to be assembled, or with 3D printing, has just been astounding. 

I was just setting some of my Boxer Rebellion stuff out on a Saturday afternoon, so I could admire it and plan for a future game.
Some is from Sarissa, some from Knights of Dice, some Adrian's Walls and some Pandem Wargaming. 

There is no way I could ever have scratch built this sort of thing. But using spray cans and dry brushing- even someone with my limited ability can make them look good!

Laying some of it out is a real treat..and on 6' x 4'....I can't fit it all....hmm...need a bigger table!! There is still a couple of boxes!

William "Iron-Arm" at it again, causing trouble in southern Italy.

Our campaign was back on!
In the next move, after successfully conquering the Duchy of Amalfi ( in the colour Burgundy below) William launched his reinforced and rested army against the Duchy of Benevento (white). The Lombard Duke of Benevento was having none of it and a battle was fought in the province of Benevento. 

Lombards on the left - Norman freebooters on the right.

Battle of Fraustadt, Great Northern War 1706.

 The battle of Fraustadt, fought in February 1706 is a battle that's fascinated me and sooner or later I was going to give it a try on the table top.

A Swedish army of approximately 9500 men took on an army of double its size.   The Swedes had 3700 infantry and 5700 cavalry.

The enemy force, a combined Saxon and Russian force numbered around 20,000 with 4000 cavalry and the rest infantry.

The Swedish infantry.
Under our rules classed as Veteran Shock Foot.
Very deadly.
And so they should be!!



The Swedish Horse! Veteran Shock Horse. Even Deadlier!

The 7th Cavalry Saves the day!.....only just

Two troops of the 7th Cavalry were tasked with reconnoitring a hostile village- and found themselves in big trouble. They formed a defensive position ......and sent a rider off post haste to get help.

The Mission for the 7th - get to the survivors! The Indians had to stop them!

The handful of survivors....Custer style..... on a small hill holding out.

The nearby village and the relieving troops.

The advance to Vienna

 I thought I'd play a couple of small scenarios before I put on the big Vienna game- to make sure my rules are sound!
In this case an Imperial vanguard contacted a force of Ottoman infantry with a gun at an important crossroad....somewhere north west of the besieged city.

The imperial force of three infantry regiments and two squadrons of imperial cuirassiers lacked artillery, but the commander decided to engage the Ottoman force.

The key three objectives- The hill, the crossroads and the ruins 

The Ottoman strongpoint.

Robert 'Guiscard' Hauteville takes on the Byzantines ...again....

 In the next phase of our Normans in Italy campaign,  Robert 'Guiscard'  decided to hit the Byzantines again after his disastrous defeat. He regathered his forces, called on reinforcements from Norman freebooters from Normandy and went after the Byzantine province of Rossano again. Another defeat could see him facing serious trouble - ( 3 defeats in a row and I'm out of the game).

Robert's Norman psychopaths.

William 'Iron Arm' is the Green pins. Robert is the yellow pin.

Rebasing- World War I figures

 I had been looking at these for quite a while. 

They are over 30 years old all, Wargames Foundry, and at the time I painted them I was never happy with the fact that I just took some dirt and sprinkled them over PVA on the base.

So I decided to at least repaint the bases and highlight......

SEVEN YEARS WAR- Russians this time

 With the enjoyment we've had playing Austrians vs French, Ross and I decided to expand our collections and splash out on some other figures. Ross chose Frederick's boys and I went for ( what I think) were his most formidable opponents (not the most consistent): The Russians!

Flags from Maverick Models ( Hi Stuart), Infantry from Crusader Miniatures, Cavalry and guns and officers from Front Rank.

The Infantry Regiments- seven down- five to go.

Robert 'Guiscard' Hauteville takes the field against the Byzantines....

 In his first action to begin carving out his new fiefdom, in imitation of William 'Iron Arm', Robert 'Guiscard' sent his rampaging Normans to the south and got into a big fist fight with the armies of the Roman Emperor...the EASTERN Roman Empire.....or the Byzantines if you prefer.

The first line of the Guiscard's force.....lots of Norman cavalry..hard charging, hard fighting lunatics!!

The opposing byzantine left flank.

William "Iron Arm" strikes again.

 Well William did it again......got his butt kicked ...but managed to pull the fat out of the fire...

In his second move he launched his army deeper into Lombard territory (Duchy of Capua) to fight a 'step 2' battle. In this case, after defeating the main Lombard army in a (step 1) encounter battle between 'equal forces' he advanced and had to fight a Lombard army in a defensive position.

The defending Lombards. The Lombards anchored their flanks on two large woods and had a row of hills in front of their position. A solid defensive spot that was going to be a tough nut for William's army to crack.

The Norman line. On the far left all the cavalry.
In this battle William had a lot less cavalry. He dismounted much of it as he needed the extra 'punch' to smash the Lombard defensive line.

Normans in Italy - Move 1 - William 'Iron Arm' Hauteville

 Game 1 has been played! 

Ross has taken on the role of William Iron Arm and has launched his first attack on the Duchy of Capua - attacking the province of Amalfi. 

The Lombard defenders ( played by yours truly) were waiting. 

As a 'Step One' the battle is an encounter battle with 'equal' points forces. 
William weighted his cavalry on one flank- the sight of 8 units of Normans on one flank was intimidating!
Naturally they came forward in an attempt to swamp my right......

The Lombard center- spearman and archers holding a hill

This was one of the toughest and closest fought games I have played in years.  By turn three it looked like it was going to go one way.....but the game finished on a very surprising set of die rolls!!

Normans in Italy

 After our last Norman vs Norman punch up I was reading the book by John Julius Norwich about that other Norman conquest; the conquest of southern Italy in the 11th Century.  Ross and I both had Norman armies, I have the core of a Lombard force, he has Byzantines and we both have Arabs that can easily be used as the emirates of Sicily at the time.

I came across a website dedicated to DBA campaigns and borrowed the map (with a few small changes) and realised that all these things had the making of a great little campaign. Rather than have every 'side' represented, our campaign was to focus on both regular players being Normans competing to conquer areas. They don't fight each other, but various opponents in an attempt to conquer 'the fastest with the mostest'. This way it can be run as a two player campaign, but able to accommodate other players who can pop in to play the Normans' opponents. 

Battle of Kalamata September 14th 1685.

 As part of my WIP for the battle of Vienna I have the forces for many of the conflicts of the same time. Looking at "A Taste of Victory" from  Barry Hilton, who is one of my favourite 'dealers of product', I realised could play one of the games described in the book.  One of the scenarios is the battle of Kalamata, fought in the Peloponnese during the Morea War when Venice took the region from the Ottoman Empire. 

My layout- the picture is not a good one as the Saxons aren't included and the Ottomans facing them are not in it either!

The scenario book!

WIP VIENNA 1683

 

I have got the figures ready, the objective markers are done,  the scenario is clear.....just need to give the rules a run. I have a home grown set that are fairly brief and bloody that I have used consistently for the last 10 years for my big games in the period 1680-1720. There are tweaks for specific battles and in general they work ( it wouldn't be worth all this effort of they didn't!)
With this dry run, I learnt some valuable lessons.

I think it's ready. Time to gather All the Brothers.

The Relieving force- From the Right: Imperial Foot, Imperial cuirassiers, Bavarian cuirassiers and Dragoons, Saxon Cuirassiers and at the far end with all those flags, the Bavarian and Saxon foot.

The Turkish command tent- The Turkenschanze! An Orta of Janissaries in front!

Fraustadt- testing the rules.

 So I had some Saxon battalions out and the Swedes charging them- to see how they game could possibly progress.

Four Veteran Swedish battalions vs 6 Raw Saxon Battalions and 2 guns

The whole Saxon line behind field defences.

WIP - SAXONS Great Northern War

 

I had the opportunity to take all my GNW Saxons out the other day and put them on a large table. I have been planning the Battle of Fraustadt 1706 and I now have enough units to do it,  along with the Russians. I was experimenting with the frontage of the allied army and its deployment. I won't be fielding the complete order of battle ( see below) but a scaled down version.

The Saxons all laid out- 9 Regiments of Foot , 1 regiment of Dragoons ( 2 Squadrons) and 4 Regiments of Cuirassiers ( 8 Squadrons) with three guns. 

Saxon Foot with chevaux de frise

QUEBEC 1759

 I had cut the article describing this battle from an old Wargames Illustrated a long time ago and had it filed away in my 'scenarios' folder - yes..PAPER....not an electronic copy.

I always thought it would make an interesting, if fairly straight forward, table encounter. Ross had his SYW French. We didn't have Wolfe's Redcoats ( but I had the Osprey book!!) but I had more than enough AWI British troops that could double up. Now I can hear the screams about accuracy and purity of representation - total poo of course. The figures are nice- they look about right so I used them!

The cover of the issue!

The Redcoats on the left. French on the right. Indians and Coureur de Bois in the woods on the British flank.

                    

   The original article was for WRG Horse and Musket rules which is one of my most played and favourite rulesets of all time. We have moved on from it ( sadly I guess) and translated it across to the rules we currently use, Honours of War.