Battle of Maida 1806 - a Wofun day.

 The Battle of Maida was fought on 4 July 1806 was a battle between the British expeditionary force and a French

force outside the town of Maida in Calabria,  Italy  John Stuart led 5,236 Anglo-Sicilian troops to victory over about 5,400 Franco-Italian-Polish troops under the command of French general Jean Reynier, inflicting significant losses while incurring relatively few casualties. 

A detailed account of the Battle can be read on Wikipedia and most probably the best book on the Battle is The Battle of Maida - 15 minutes of Glory by Richard Hopton. 

It’s a great battle to play as both armies are about equal in size, the British have more artillery but the French have cavalry.

I decided to give my 18mm Wofun Peninsular War collection a run out, I haven’t textured the bases yet and I haven’t used their artillery pieces I find them hard to assemble - I’ve broken more than I’d made so resorted to using some Blue Moon pieces I had. 

Due to the size of the game I used a scale of 1 base to around 100 men and decided to try Andy Callan's rules for the period. 

I did make a few tweaks which I will make available once typed these centred around an element of variable movement, allowing troops to rally from failed panic tests, introducing panic tests for troops suffering a base or more loss to firing and removing the rule where 1st class troops don’t need to take panic tests but giving them a +1 when taking.

The orders of Battle 

British

C-in-C - Major Gen Sir John Stuart

Advance Guard - Col John Kempt 

Battalions	Unit	Strength
1	Combined Light Bn	550
2 coys	Corsican Rangers (dressed like Rifles - with Red facings)	200
1 coy	Sicilian Volunteers Additional detached lights	100 150

First Brigade - Col Lowry Cole

Battalions	Unit	Strength
1	Combined Grenadier Bn	542
1	27th Regt - Inniskilling (Buff facings)	723

Second Brigade - Col Acland

Battalions	Unit	Strength
1	78th Highland Regt - Ross-shire Buffs (Buff facings - Kilted)	574
1	81st Regt - (Buff facings)	766

Third Brigade - Col Oswald

Battalions	Unit	Strength
1	20th Regt - East Devonshire (Yellow facings) not part of brigade.	550
1	58th Regt - Rutlandshire (Black facings)	624
5 coys	De Watteville's Swiss (Black facings)	312

Artillery 10 x4pdrs + 1 light howitzer

French

C-in-C - Gen de Division Jean Louis Reynier

GdB Compere's Brigade

Battalions	Unit	Strength
2	1er Regt Inf Legere	1500
1	42e Regt Inf Ligne	750

GdB Digonnet's Brigade

Battalions	Unit	Strength
2	23e Regt Inf Legere	1500

GdB Peyri's Brigade

Battalions	Unit	Strength
1 2	1er Regt Inf Suisse Le Legion Polaroid-Italien	750 900

Cavalry

4 Sqns

Chasseurs a Cheval

300

1 Bty Horse Artillery (4 guns - 112 men)

. . . . .

Both armies advanced onto the field of battle in echelon the British leading with the right flank and the French with the left as I was fighting this solo I intended to follow the same deployment and orders .

The stream is easily fordable the banks and ground to the South is broken ground 

The 20th Foot arrived some time later having marched to the sound of the guns I will shake for these to arrive as a random event.

Interesting thing with Andy’s rules is that shooting comes first in the bound and other than skirmishers if you shoot you can’t move. It certainly puts a different perspective on the orders you issue and I thought it worked well.

The early bounds saw Kempt move forward with the light battalion and sending the skirmishers to counter the French lights advancing down the flank. Likewise Acland and Cole advanced with Oswald arriving behind to move up in the centre.

From the French perspective Reynier moved forward with the two battalions of the 1st Leger, Compère attaché himself to the 42nd Ligne. 

The other Brigades arrived and deployed moving towards the advancing British.

Reynier decided to keep his left battalion in column and deployed the second into line his thinking being that the column could strike the British lights and the second battalion would offer fire support, the 42nd were racing for the ridge where they would then deploy into line, elsewhere troops continued to advance.

Kempt managed to get off an early volley causing casualties to the French column, the 78th Highlanders won the race to the ridge and fired a crippling volley onto the 42nd.

In one volley the 78th scored 5 hits from 6 dice! The following bound the had an almost equally devastating volley and Compère fell.

Reynier attacked with one column of the 1st but Kempt repulsed the attack and the supporting fire from the second battalion proved ineffective .

The French were attacking along the line now, the French were losing the firefights but a glimmer of hope surfaced Peyri’s brigade performed beyond all expectations the Swiss battalion caught Oswalds guns before they deployed and the two battalions of Poles charged the 81st Foot, one battalion of Poles having already taken casualties were repulsed and failed their panic test, however the second battalion threw exceptional dice forcing the 81st back a 1 was thrown and the 81st broke! However the victorious Polish troops had taken heavy casualties and were almost at 50% strength.

The French Chasseurs had charged the 27th forcing them into square and although repulsed the French horse artillery succeeded in causing casualties on the 27th before they could reform into line.

Pressure on both sides mounted, the 23rd Legere broke Cole’s combined grenadier battalion, the second Polish battalion broke under musket fire, the British 20th foot arrived on the British left forcing the Chasseurs to withdraw and then disaster struck the French army, with the 42nd ligne broken the Highlanders began to wheel in order to bring extra fire to bear on the 1st Legere, the supporting guns opened fire with canister and the French Commander Reynier fell, with Kempt’s battalion starting to take heavy casualties from the 1st Legere the supporting fire from the Highlanders brought a much needed respite. Elsewhere the Swiss broke under musket fire from Oswalds brigade. This brought the French to their break point and game over. 

Throughout the whole battle the voltigeurs and Allied lights had been exchanging fire whilst the Allies had gained an early upper hand the exchange settled into a lot of shooting but few casualties.

A great game and a battle worthy of a rematch now I have a feel for the rules and my minor tweaks they seemed to work well and provided an enjoyable game.

In closing I know the Wofun pieces aren’t perhaps as good as having 3d minis on the table but as I’ve said before for gaming in a period I haven’t the time to paint armies for they’re an excellent alternative.

Steel Fist 15mm ECW for sale

I’ve decide to sell most of my Steel First miniatures Kickstarter as I managed to pick up a large collection painted ECW from Lee who is continuing to add regiments for me so these are now surplus to requirements.

Packs of Cavalry contain 12 figures - 10 troopers, musician and cornet.
Infantry 30 figures 22 privates ,2 Officers, 2 Musicians, 2 ensigns and 2 Sergeants.
Cavalry packs are £12 
Infantry packs £14  or the whole lot (10 packs infantry and 5 packs cavalry ) £180 excl postage which is at cost.
Cav packs 

H2  Horse trotting with pistol
H4 Horse Harquebusiers
H5 lifeguard charging with Sword
H6 Lifeguard standing
H7  Mounted Dragoons
Infantry packs
F1 Pike shouldered pike x1
F2 Pike charge your pike x2
F3 musket shouldered musket x3
F4 musket giving fire and reloading.
For photos of the figures check the Steel miniatures website

Just shout if interested, Friday I’m going to refight the battle of Maida with my Wofun minis - battle report will follow.

 

Partizan part 2 ‘Loot and a few more thoughts’

 I shall try and keep this fairly brief and give some more thoughts not so much about the quality of the show but of attending it etc under the current climate.

But first the purchases were modest 

The ancient rules were both show special £5 each and were bought due to their focus on slightly different game mechanics and periods covered -Spartan to Successors is dice less and uses playing cards and grid movement, different coloured cards allowing different classes of units to perform different actions etc. Limited command and armies designed to be around 12 units. Not fully read or digested.

To Ur is Human! Not read yet but as well as Classical Greek the Bronze Age is my next favourite ancient period. 

Rapid Fire Reloaded also £5 is a quick play version of the Rapid Fire rules and appear to be very popular. I loved Rapid Fire and whilst I sold all my 20mm collection when Lee died I still have a few 15’s and a colleague who has a large collection of 15mm stuff I just need to convert him now.

Now a few more thoughts on the show this isn’t about the quality ( which was excellent ) but more about attending in general. When I saw the photos of the Falkirk show it was clear that the majority of people who attended wore masks when moving around and perhaps I naively thought this would be the same. 

Laurence and Richard the principal organisers and thoroughly decent sensible chaps had advertised for some time that they asked people to be sensible, wear masks when moving around, don’t attend if you feel unwell and use the sanitisers etc around the hall. They didn’t wish to enforce the restrictions and relied on people’s common sense.

Unfortunately that failed big style, posters on the entry points reinforced the requests together with asking people to use the NHS checking in scan. Whilst a lot of people wore masks as they entered within an hour or so the vast majority of people weren’t. I met a couple of people I know who attended and who were full of cold and no masks why? Where was there consideration for others, I’ve also seen comments by some that they were unaware of the requests, pretty hard to miss if you came in the main entrance.

I can’t quite fathom out the difference between to the two shows in that respect. I’ve also seen some kick back now that the Salute organisers have announced that the Excel require people entering the facility to show they’ve had both jabs, are exempt or had a recent negative test with some people saying they won’t go as they will not be dictated to?

If by next year we are still in a similar position then I hope there is a rethink regarding entry to the event.

I briefly mentioned the York show in February next year, I know they are not having a bring and buy and have moved the downstairs games to the vacant spaces upstairs however if they decide to just ask people to be sensible rather than insist on mask wearing I won’t be going, the show is always busy, crowded and uncomfortable.

It’s a difficult decision as the hobby has supported me over the last 45 years through some difficult times and the shows have been an essential part in that, providing inspiration and an excellent way to meet with friends socially. 

Once again there is no criticism of the organisers who did everything right except putting their faith in the attendees and bearing in mind the age profile of the majority of attendees it’s a bit like Turkeys voting for Christmas!

Partizan 2021

 Well after what seems an eternity the time has come to venture out and attend a Wargames show. Partizan has always been my favourite show and attending this year as a punter with no time pressure was going to be different. I treat myself to an overnight stay in the Premier Inn about a mile and half away from the venue. 

The evening meal in the adjoining beefeater was novel in that you were presented with a list of food not available due to food shortages and supply problems! So if quorn sausages, truffle burgers, lasagne and fillet steaks are your thing then you better stock up. But the staff were friendly and I got fed and watered, later in the evening I met Stuart Insch and Graham Hilditch for a couple of drinks, they’d set up Graham’s 40mm SYW game which as you will see later was most impressive.

Refreshed and relaxed I arrived at the show ground about 9.45am and a pretty long queue was already formed. The weather was nice and a fresh breeze made the queuing ok and the Partizan organisers had asked people to wear masks whilst moving around and to be fair on going in most people put their masks on but by lunch time it was apparent most people had chosen not to wear them. I found that a little unsettling and so I left at 1.30 and did a small detour by Marston Moor.

Before posting the photos I have to say it was good to meet up with people I haven’t seen for two years and catch up, of course Duncan was missing and at noon a number of others gathered to offer up a toast to him drinking the Port ‘Tricks’ had bought for Duncan’s birthday but which he never had chance to deliver.

The show itself was busy and the guys had opened the two large doors at the end of the Hall to allow air to circulate and it was greatly appreciated.

The quality of the games did not disappoint and in my humble opinion if you want top quality demo and participation games this show can not be beaten. As always I didn’t get photos of every game and just because I didn’t take a,photo doesn’t mean it didn’t warrant it so for example I owe David Imrie an apology for not taking photos of his game for some reason!

A 60mm To the Strongest participation game with Simon Millar and friend a most impressive looking game

Durham Wargames with their Dark Age Battle

Graham Hilditch with his absolutely stunning 40mm Seven Years game 

The Perry Twins attended and of course put a display on of their Paraguayan range

A 28mm conversion of Command and Colours Borodino

Shrewsbury Wargames put on a 28mm Seven Years war battle

And a cornucopia f images of just some of the other games that caught my eye

So a return to proper Wargaming with a bang and if I only attended one show a year this would be it.

The lack of mask wearing most probably means I won’t attend the York show in February unless the situation improves dramatically as I always find that show to be very overcrowded and uncomfortable

I will do a short part 2 re purchases other thoughts etc shortly