Freeman's Farm - 19th Sept 1777


After the success of Guildford Courthouse (see previous blog) I decided to give Freeman’s farm a go. This saw the Americans under Benedict Arnold on the attack in an attempt to beat ‘Gentleman’ Johnny Burgoyne. The British had one Brigade in the middle of the table ( Hamilton’s- Richard), one brigade in the earth works on the left flank ( Fraser’s- Ralph ) and one brigade ( Reidesel’s Hessians- Richard II ) to arrive with a randomised dice throw.
The Americans also had three brigades and two ( Morgans  -Phil and Poor's -Chris ) were on the table. The third ( Learned’s- Liam ) would arrive very quickly to help destroy Hamilton’s brigade and secure the victory. Well, that was the plan….



Guildford Courthouse 1781



Having wanted to refight this famous action for quite some time I wanted to use a set of rules that all the Brothers could use quickly and easily.
My ‘go to’ rules for the American War of Independence has always been British Grenadier! But for a game with possibly 7 players for a Saturday afternoon I took a chance on using a fast play set from the net- Fife and Drum from the ‘der Alter Fritz’ blog:http://altefritz.blogspot.com/2017/08/fife-drum-awi-rules-tutorial.html Now these are truly  a ‘1 page set’ and we decided to play them as they stood, to see how they worked. The really amazing thing that won me over was that by turn two of the game, everyone had a good understanding of the basic rule mechanisms and I could enjoy the game without continually referencing the rules.



The Middle of the table- viewed from the British lines,

War of the Roses Clash

About eight weeks ago, late one cold and stormy Friday night, Paul's Lancastrians made the long march to my garage to challenge my freshly painted Yorkists. Now my Spanish had suffered a savaging at the hands of these Lancastrians and their damned English longbow! That was last year. It's taken me the best part of a year to get the Yorkists ready. So the challenge was on- and uniquely both armies had exactly the same composition. Why? Well why not? Totals: 9 units of longbow, three dismounted Men At Arms, three bill-men, one artillery piece and four units of knights.  I'm very sure that it is very rare that two wargames armies are not only exact in points but in composition as well!! Predictability in wargames??? No way!

My Knights- Heavy Metal!




Army of Louis XIV vs the Allies!

I hadn't had my early 18th Century stuff on the table for a while, so I opened up the cupboards and pulled figures off the shelves so that i had a solid French force with Dutch, Prussian and Imperial opponents.

Nick and Ross were the French and Phil, Richard and I were the Allies. The scenario was a little convoluted. Prince Eugene had given one of his subordinates the task of proceeding down a valley and take a small village at the far end. The subordinate mistakenly  stopped and the first village where a brigade of Irish troops was installed and began to deploy his troops to besiege the village- the wrong village. Eugene arrives and orders the village to bypassed and get through the valley. The local French commander had managed to put a force of dragoons and second rate infantry together to block the advance- this was the starting point of the game.


ZOGO: The Crisis depends and expands. ( PART 7).


DATELINE:  SITREP ZOGO.
More news from the central African nation of Zogo.
See 'No Duff Gamer' Blog down the right hand side for a lot more photos.
Recent developments:
The small African nation has over recent months descended into chaos, violence and bloodshed. The arrival of French and US troops on Zogon soil has set off a series of chain reactions that were totally unforeseen by the relevant parties. In response to the arrival of these forces into the province of Kelwazi (see part 6) the President for Life, T’Mbolo M’Shombou, dispatched the bulk of his dreaded Presidential Guard and the key components of his Zogon African Rifles (ZAR) to contain the French and US forces. These forces, still in place due to strenuous requests from multinational mining companies to protect their staff and assets showed a vote of no confidence in the President by the international (read – western) community.
The western orchard in the President's compound- and his luxury SUVs.



























The President and his Special Operations Force Bodyguards, arriving in his mountain compound.

WORLD WAR 1- The Battle of Villers- Bretonneux April 24th 1918

Nowadays the fighting at Villers-Bretonneux is becoming as famous as the Gallipoli campaign for Australians. This small town in France saw heavy fighting during the opening weeks of the German's Spring Offensive in 1918 as part of the Kaiserschlacht. The village was held by Allied forces and the Australian 9th Brigade held the Germans off during the first battle. The second battle saw the Australian 13th and 15th Brigades AIF (Australian Imperial Force) taking the village back on the evening of the 24th and into the 25th of April in 1918. It was also the first time in History that just to the south of Villers-Bretonneux near the small village of Cachy that the first Tank vs tank battle ever took place.

I kind of liked the idea of refighting the action by the 13th and 15th brigades 1st AIF - and by condensing the time frame being also able to fit in the tank fight. So our game represented the German tank attack with the British tanks fighting to stop them as the Australian brigades began their fast attack to secure the town from the Germans.
The view from the south east- the German tanks - one A7V and a captured MkIV.

FORCE on FORCE- Foreign Legion in Afghanistan

My son decided he wanted a small game as he and I hadn't played a game in a very long time-
"What do you want to do?" I asked.
"Surprise me!"
So I took out my handful of modern Foreign Legion, took out a couple of handfuls of Taliban, set up a small 3'x4' and gave him a scenario. The Legion were all regulars ( of course) and for this game so were their opponents. The mission was for the legion to capture or eliminate a HVT ( high value target); a local Taliban leader who the Allied forces had been after for a while. He had his small body guard with him. There were no further reinforcements- the 10 Legionnaires were up against 24 regular fighters- but they had the element of surprise- and much better ability; D10 vs D6s.
That said Nick and I didn't anticipate the sheer number of failed rolls - '1's -and the use of Fog of War!! This would have more of an impact on the game than all our decision making processes! 
The Taliban had one technical and two requisitioned Humvees- the Legion were all on foot.



Nick's sentries overseeing the safety of their commander.


Bolt Action- Germans vs British

Place- somewhere in Western Europe, autumn 1944.
The vanguard of two opposing forces move into an abandoned French village-
Chris popped in one evening asking me to walk him thru the Bolt Action rules- he had a tidy little force of 4 infantry squads with medic and HQ, three half tracks ( including a Stummel), a sniper team, two MMGs, a mortar, a Sturmgeschutz and a bloody great Tiger tank.
The good guys had two Fireflies, a half track, a Humber armoured car, a truck, two MMGs, two mortars and 4 rifle squads plus HQ.

The dreaded Tiger movers up- first turn!!

More terrain!

I had a few nights when the heat was so bad I couldn't sleep, so out came the paints and more teddy bear fur at 2am- just ridiculous.  I know, it's nuts but I've become a bit obsessive with regards to new look ideas for terrain.
After I finished, I got some sleep and then later in the day, set up some figures from my AWI collection. I pulled out my forces for Cowpens and placed them on the mat. I kinda like the effect.  It's a game I'm going to have to play!!





Pacific Island Assault- Bolt Action

The table was ready, the troops were prepared and it was 'go!' The objective was simple, the combined Australian/US Marine force was to take the two islands. The Japanese just had to survive.
The allies decided to assault only Red Beach ( Red 1, 2 and 3) rather than hit the main island from both sides. This had its pros and cons as it meant that the Japanese who had Green beach covered- several machine guns, mortars and rifle squads- were now facing empty beaches and had to be redeployed. For the allies, they spread themselves across the three beaches, with no critical concentration of force so they found that they did need more troops by mid-game.

Marines come ashore on Red 1

Teddy Bear Fur Terrain!!

Don't be put off by the title- I've got this idea from lots of other blogs ( not least Jay's Wargaming- see down the right hand side.- and he does a brilliant job)  So I thought I'd give this a try- just a small piece to try the techniques. In the end the final piece still needs a little more work- but I don't think it turned out too bad...and it was much faster than my Pacific Island terrain! ( and about 1/4 the size!)

See for yourself. I added a few figures to see the effect.

The final effect.