Wednesday, 2 August 2023

AWI muster.

 As the day has been one of constant rain since 9am I took myself off into the loft room to finish off some basing and painting. Whilst watching the rain fall I thought it would be a good opportunity to see how much of my 10mm AWI I had painted and what needed doing. 

I was pleasantly surprised by how how much I have done. There are lots of bases need finishing, standards to be issued and flag edges to be painted.

I’m tempted to do a Bunker Hill game which I believe I can fit on a 4’x4’ but that does mean I need to paint some 1768 British (started).

I apologise for the photos but poor light interfered I shall do better ones soon.

First up the American ‘rebels’










These chaps really are pretty much done I had far more than I thought! However a battalion of light infantry some continentals in brown coats and a few more light guns wagons etc wouldn’t go amiss 🤣


Now onto the Kings Army










These chaps are very much outnumbered! I need to paint some more regulars both for the Southern campaign and in 1768 dress. I would also like to do Trenton this Christmas if possible! In the past I have used the rules by the Perfect Captain which I found to be excellent, I still use their army organisation charts for campaign games. However I’m quite keen to try Live Free or Die by Little Wars TV which are an adaption of Andy Callan’s loose files and American scramble. Except my one base equates to their two as they use 25mm square and I use 40mm frontage.

I’ve also decided moving forward ( bit late really) to base the regulars in 8 rather than 10 unless early or German.

Anyway that was a pleasant surprise, just need to locate what buildings I have. Fencing has been ordered from Blotz. And the printer will get warmed up for the earthworks for Bunker/Breeds Hill.

Keep safe


Thursday, 27 July 2023

A little bit of touring and some 48 year old rules!

 It’s been a busy few weeks Dawn and I decided to do some exploring to the North of us, other than Hadrians wall we’ve never really explored what’s on our doorstep so we’ve had a few days at the Cheviott Brewery ‘ glamping’ - great fun and that included exploring the Etal estate and the village of Ford.






Etal Castle

We also managed a trip to Flodden battlefield, a well managed battlefield and a great walk, just took me a while to negotiate the climbs 🤪.






Then we had another few days a couple of weeks later and visited Bamburgh castle, most impressive to be sure it also included a display from the Last Kingdom although I was a little disappointed it wasn’t a little larger.






Most enjoyable trips and a lesson learnt that sometimes we forget what’s nearest to us.

On the hobby front there’s quite a bit of painting going on of which I shall post some pics in my next post. Part of the painting has included figures for Never Mind the Billhooks/ Lion Rampant and it was whilst having a drink with my regular gaming opponent he mentioned when we used to use the Lamming Medieval rules at the club.


First published in 1975 they included very detailed campaign rules and a great set of battle rules where figures could take hits and be hurt, wounded, disabled or killed which resulted in figures wearing lots of different coloured plastic rings to signify their disability.

I tweaked the rules when we used them for our WOTR demo games of Bosworth, Tewkesbury and Stoke Field. Getting rid of the rings we brought in that when figures were injured the fell back one move (hurt) two ( wounded) or three ( disabled) the figures count as lost to the unit for morale purposes until they rejoin which means units frequently have to stop to let stragglers catch up or risk poor morale, it worked.

Anyway we decided to give the revised 2nd edition rules a run out and set up a small skirmish each side having two units of Bill, a knight (lord) his standard bearer and a master archer.

For the scenario my boys were escorting Brother Gilbert on his journey to deliver the Holy Relic of St. Barnaby’s hand.

Lord Stephan Whalley had learnt of this and decided the possession of the Holy relic just might bring him some change of fortune and decided to intercept and escort Brother Gilbert himself to his estate for the hand to go on display for a while!

We had a smashing little encounter ( some photos below) in essence my chaps gave Lord Stephan a bit of a kicking killing 8 of his men to my two. Almost killing Lord Stephan as well when he spectacularly charged my Lord, failed to hit and I struck back killing his horse and forcing him to flee!

We then tried out some rules for replacements, campaign progression etc. which I will detail next time once we’re satisfied they work. So I better start adding some narrative to our Lords and where they live before the next encounter.










A most enjoyable couple of hours and I’m looking forward to the next encounter.


Wednesday, 28 June 2023

Mollwitz refight. Wofun style.

 I have mentioned in previous posts that I am quite taken with the Wofun 2d gaming pieces, artwork bu Peter Dennis means the illustrations look really nice. As a means of getting painted pieces on the table at a reasonable price ( around 16-17€ for 2 x 48 figure infantry units) it’s decent value for money. No they’re not as good as fully round figures but I still think they look quite good and open up lots of opportunities to get games played.

So on to Mollwitz, I’ve had the SYW collection for a while and not used them, John Rich a fellow gamer had recently bought the SYW starter set and wanted to try them in a game so I volunteered and thought Mollwitz would be a good starter, a challenge to both armies, ( arguably the bigger challenge to the Austrians) so using C.S. Grants proposed set up from his series of books we were good to go.

We decided to try out Andy Callan’s SYW rules including some of the optional rules and a couple of tweaks. In addition  we decided to use the Honours of War command activation rules which worked well.



The set up complete the Prussian horse is outnumbered almost 2:1 whilst the Austrian infantry who are still deploying is outnumbered almost 2:1. The Prussian battle plan was simple the infantry to push on as fast as possible, destroy the Austrian infantry and push through Mollwitz. Their cavalry was simply to hang on as long as possible.

The Austrian plan to engage and destroy the Prussian cavalry and threaten/ attack the flanks of the Prussian infantry thus disrupting the attack on Mollwitz. The Austrian infantry sought to hold the line and deploy the artillery.
Let battle commence.
The early moves was a slightly faltering start with the Prussian first line at first failing to move for two out of the first three bounds, the Prussian cavalry had advanced in anticipation of the Infantry advance.
Austrian cavalry pushed forward on both flanks whilst the infantry around Mollwitz sought to clear the lines and bring the artillery forward.





The cavalry on both flanks engaged whilst the Prussian infantry continued their advance on the Prussian right two battalions of Grenadiers moved out of line to cover the right flank from any cavalry threat.
The ensuing Cavalry melees didn’t go as Austria planned, on the Austrian right it took 3 bounds to overcome the Prussian resistance but this what at the cost of their Cuirassier regiment who suffered 50% casualties and was forced to cease offensive action.
On the Austrian left their dragoons were defeated by Prussian Cuirassiers but the Austrian dragoons road through their opposite number and a regiment of Hussars and tried to move around the Prussian right flank.
Early artillery exchanges went slightly in favour of the Prussian guns.








As the Prussian infantry steam roller continued to advance their Grenadiers on both flanks were forced to hold back and try to prevent the Austrian cavalry threatening the flanks, on their right the successfully deterred the Austrian Cuirassiers but a regiment of dragoons and their General succeeded in evading them and moving towards the rear of the Prussian lines, the Austrian right flank cavalry also succeeded in moving past the Prussian flank guard and moving to the Prussian rear. 
Whilst musketry exchange was slightly in favour of the Prussians the Austrian artillery drove the 22nd infantry regiment back towards the rear with some devastating fire.








The Austrian dragoons from the left charged the Prussian artillery from the rear and rode down the men manning the three batteries, they then pushed forward and hit the disordered 22nd in the rear and broke the unit a moment of Austrian glory. 
However the Prussian first line were now closing and unleashed some murderous fire driving two Austrian regiments back and destroying one. The threat of the Austrian cavalry caused the Prussians to about face three of their regiments from the second line and it was clear the Austrian cavalry threat was nullified.







With one last push the Prussians broke the Austrian infantry line, despite taking casualties the Prussians over ran the Austrian batteries and broke another two Austrian infantry regiments so that the survivors were surrounded in and around Mollwitz the Austrians had no choice but to concede and seek to withdraw.

12 bounds in 4 hours sent bad for a relaxed battle involving lots of chat, refreshments etc. 
casualties Prussians had lost 16 elements of cavalry, 16 elements of infantry and 3 guns.
The Austrians had lost 10 elements of cavalry, 25 infantry and 3 guns. 18 of the Austrian infantry losses were in 3 regiments that were broken the remaining 7 were spread across the remaining 4 regiments. 
The Prussians had only lost one full regiment (6 elements) and still had 11 on the table.

The rules worked well, a couple of things to think about re panic tests, disorder and rally but no serious problems.
 
A most enjoyable game with more to follow and more Wofun.