Author: World2Dave

A Couple of Punic Battles – part 1

In the end I played two solo Rome vs Carthage games on Friday evening, finishing off on Saturday morning.

The first was a 100 point game (100 points per army as per the rules I was using). I played it as a standard attack-defence game, having previously rolled to determine that the Carthaginians would be the attacker. The game set up gave the Romans a handy hill in their deploy area, and provided for a couple of woods towards the flanks. There would be plenty of open space in the middle for the infantry to come to grips, and just enough open ground to either flank for the Carthaginian cavalry advantage to be a factor.

The Roman commanders have a quick pre-battle pep rally:

The deployment and battlefield:

 

The Roman infantry (2 lines rather than 3, but I think most rules and wargames have some compromise here):

The Carthaginians:

The Elephant brigade:

Spanish and African infantry:

Cavalry:

True to their mission, the Carthaginian army advanced, pushing cavalry ahead on the flanks and skirmishers into the woods to fight their Roman counterparts. The Romans used more velites in an attempt to delay the crunch of elephant on hastati, but couldn’t hold them up for long and soon the battle was in full flow as the front ranks crashed into each other. Gauls and Spanish charged the Roman wall and heavy cavalry closed in on the weaker Roman left.

 

 

 

 

 

The fighting was tough everywhere, and the Roman cavalry in particular fought back tenaciously despite the odds.

 

The elephants, having swept aside the velites (who did at least cause some casualties and disruption) got stuck into a unit of principes, pushing them back in disorder.

A freak result for some of the Spanish against heavier Roman infantry!

The battle lines surged back and fore and each side had their share of triumphs and disasters. After 8 game turns though, the Romans had dealt with the nellies and held on despite their vulnerable flanks, winning a close victory (15-10) and forcing the enemy to retire from the field. There would need to be a re-match, but in the meantime it was definitely beer o’clock..

 

Game Decision for Friday

Although I hadn’t intended to run a public referendum on what game to play on Friday evening, there’s been a landslide vote in favour of the Punic Wars in 15mm. Or rather Count Belisarius said he’d like to see it, so lacking a better reason to do something else, how can I refuse?

Rome vs Carthage then, with the usual assortment of allies for the latter to keep the Romans on their toes. I’ll set up a standard sized game of 100 points per side, using my house rules (By Force of Arms, written by my friend Jase, and which have seen plenty of action over the years).

I’ve already selected the armies, and a dice roll has determined that the Carthaginians are the ‘attacker’, meaning that for strategic reasons they need to get their skates on and win decisively before they run out of time. Good job they’ve got a cavalry advantage and, of course, some nellies to throw at the enemy!

More soon..

 

Time For a Game

I have an evening to myself coming up this Friday and rather than waste it watching TV or an old film, I reckon it’s too good an opportunity to miss to have a solo game. Now I just need to decide what to play..

Without giving it much thought yet, my initial ideas include:

Something in 15mm (which I’ve not trotted out for a while), maybe one of:

  • Caesar at the Battle of the Sambre, for which I’ve got a scenario written up and ready to go
  • A 2nd Punic War clash
  • Rampaging Goths and Huns against the late Roman Empire
  • Or, a fantasy game – Dwarves vs Orcs as I haven’t really given the Dwarves a proper run out since painting enough for a decent game
Alternatively I could stick with 28s, and perhaps give the 18th century another go. I fancy re-fighting John Ray’s scenario ‘Attack on the Garrison at Tilsit’ which looks like a very interesting, compact encounter.
I’ll mull things over for a couple of days and probably decide on Friday. It’s too easy to view getting all the terrain, scenery and figures out just for a solo game as too much bother, but if I don’t make the effort from time to time, what’s the point? It’s always rewarding and I always feel it’s time well spent – so roll on Friday!
I’ll be sure to post, whatever the game ends up being.

Legion de Fleurie Grenadiers – first figures

Following on from my previous posts about my Fleurian mid-18th century Legion ( here and here ) I have now completed the first small batch of Grenadiers to go with them. These were actually painted a couple of weeks ago but I wanted to base them before posting.

These are RSM figures (Austrian Grenadiers) painted in the same colours as the light infantry. The uniform was inspired by one of John Ray’s gorgeous Spanish regiments. White gaiters aren’t much fun to paint, but do look the business when they’re done.

I have the rest of the battalion to do of course, which will take it to a strength of 30, so lots more work ahead! This unit will be the core of the Legion, with lighter troops in support. The rest is made up of light infantry, hussars and a light gun. I aim to have it complete somewhere around the end of the year.

 

 

Now back to painting those remaining 19th century Chasseurs!

Chasseurs for Fleurie

Despite having a week away I am maintaining momentum with my Fleurian 19th century forces, and have finished the next group – a dozen light infantry Chasseurs to fight alongside the Voltigeurs from the previous post.

These are very nice figures from Perry Miniatures – early ACW militia in capes/greatcoats and full kit. With the shako they look nicely European so I have pressed them into Fleurian service. The colour scheme is basically the same as the Voltigeurs; green and red, with brown and grey kit.

I have another dozen of these to do including some command figures, some of which will be based as Big Men for Sharp Practice. I’ve made a start already so they should be the next finished figures I post.

Combined with the Voltigeurs they’ll give me a regiment of light troops for next year’s big multi-player imagi-nations bash at Ayton. I think that being able to form up (on their sabot-type bases) as well as operate in skirmish order will be very handy in the desert where ambush could lurk behind every bush or wadi!

 

 

 

 

 

Finally Some Fleurians

Last weekend’s game of Sharp Practice reminded me of my plans to paint the opposing side for my early 19th century Medetians. I’ve got most of the figures, I’ve just been busy on other projects and hadn’t made a start. This has now been remedied with an initial batch completed.

These are a dozen Fleurian Voltigeurs, ready to take the fight to Medetia’s Bersaglieri in the hills and forests of the borderlands. I have used the key Fleurian colours of dark red and light grey, and gone with dark green greatcoats. The line infantry will be in the same grey and red, with rolled green greatcoats on their packs, so things should tie in well.

These ‘Voltigeurs’ are actually Perry Isabelino infantry from their Carlist War range, which is great to delve into for post-Napoleonic imagi-nations armies. They were nice to paint but pretty awful to prepare and clean up. The number of small ‘worms’ from the casting process is pretty bad on many Perry figures it seems, and there’s always at least one left that you only find when you start painting!

 

 

 

 

I’ll be doing more Fleurian light infantry next, a couple of units of Chasseurs. Then it’s leaders (Big Men), line infantry and artillery. Cavalry will generally be hussars borrowed from the 18th century armies and deliberately single based for this very reason.

More Desk Space Recovered

Another on-going project finished! The Games Workshop Fortified Manor kit has been part-done on my workbench for several months now (since my earlier May post). All that remained was finishing off the painting, which I’d been putting off due to the amount of fiddly bits it involved. So this week I decided to get back to it. A couple of hours of painting later, and it was done. I guess I shouldn’t have left it so long!

I decided to go for a yellow-with-blue-roof look, which would be toned down a bit by the use of grey stone and my usual sand coloured final dry brush. For simplicity I didn’t bother with things like rust on the metal fittings, I just gave them a brown wash to add a bit of depth. All in all I’m pleased with the result. It’s no model painting masterclass, but rough and ready as it is it should fit in well with my other buildings in this scale. I’m just glad I didn’t stick on the other 100 bits included in the box, or I’d still be painting!

All the component buildings and wall sections are still separate, for storage and on-table flexibility, although I can see the walls being a pain during games with the smaller sections easy to knock over. I may decide to stick them together if necessary but I’ll keep them as-is for now. The pics show the full complex on the one paved board I have, which I’ll generally use with this model. Now I just need to dig out some swashbucklers and have a game with it!

 

 

 

 

Finally finished – a few more 6mm buildings

Following on from a recent post about clearing up part-finished projects…

I put together a few more 6mm buildings over a year ago (June 2013 it turns out) to go with my existing scratchbuilt scenery for the Medetian Wars of the 17th century. They’ve needed finishing off and painting since then and following on from the other 6mm scenery I did earlier this month, I’ve finally got them done.

The buildings are fairly generic and I tend to just use a small cluster to represent a village or town. As my armies had grown, I’d decided to increase the number of buildings I had so that a bigger battlefield with several settlements could be represented.

They’re simple card constructions, with card doors and shuttered windows (for ease of painting, and because if war’s coming to town I think most people would close up their property!) Applying sand on the bases (and some patches of wall) and painting didn’t take all that long in the end, and I added a poplar tree to the church and the farmhouse.

Here they are from last year, in production and next to some older finished ones.

 

And here they are finished. I’ve now got about 15 so I’m good for 3-4 villages or small towns. There’s also a windmill (Irregular Miniatures, not my own work) and the watchtower I finished recently too. I think they’d work for the 1859 war in Italy too, if I ever decide to do some Austrians!

 

 

A Very Eventful Skirmish – part 2

So, up went the first pair of rockets…. and down they came… about halfway to the target! The rules for them certainly made things interesting and unpredictable, and we soon agreed that the safest place on the table to be was the target they’d been originally aimed at. Simon had some nice explosion pieces containing flickering lights which really looked the business.

 

As my units struggled forward over the rough terrain, I was beginning to feel that I was at least as likely to hit my own troops as the enemy. It was a good premonition, as the very next rocket mischievously decided to turn hard right and plough into one of my rifle groups (which had just failed by 1″ to charge the voltigeurs). Lovely. I’d been aiming at the village again, so as you can see from the next pic, this was a significant miss! One dead and a few shock (disruption) points. It could’ve been worse I suppose..

 

Still, the rifles rallied and after 1 more shot I ordered the crazy Major Brock to desist for a while, and let the enemy take a turn shooting at us. That last rocket came down short of the target like all the rest, but at least evened the score by killing a voltigeur! We were beginning to close in on the village and the fire from the rifles and the light infantry’s muskets was causing Simon a growing problem in casualties and shock points. His earlier sortie, which had caused me some concern, was recalled or forced back, and his voltigeurs somehow made it back to their own lines by routing faster than my men could catch them. With 26 shock points on a unit with only 5 men left, they weren’t going to play any further part in the action, and about time too.

 

Getting back to the mission, the church was still a long way away and there remained a lot of French infantry between me and it. Despite the deadly fire my units were now pouring into the defenders, time was running out and with a flurry of unhelpful (to me) cards and turn ends, the French cavalry finally turned up. As I’d feared, my rifles were too spread out and were vulnerable to being ridden down, even on the rough hills. As fate would have it, the turn ended suddenly again (those damned cards!) which freed up the newly-arrived cavalry to launch an immediate charge.

The first group of riflemen fought well, but were killed or sent packing, and over the next couple of turns the horsemen slaughtered another group, killing the rifles officer and the Irish priest who’d led them by hidden paths to the village. Although my speed-bump rifles did finally manage to stop the cavalry, and cause enough casualties and shock to dent their effectiveness, the game was up. We reviewed the table and agreed that despite the losses and disruption among the French, a successful assault by the remaining British would have had little hope of success. In retrospect I should probably have tried to focus on moving faster and ignoring the temptation to stop and shoot. That said, there’d have been a lot more enemies left to face an assault if I hadn’t wittled them down as I did, so the outcome would still have been in doubt.

The final positions, with the rifles major and the priest lying dead on the hillside as the cavalry pull back to re-group, and the remaining attackers still too far away to achieve their objective:

All in all this was a very enjoyable game with lots of fun and surprises, and a believable outcome at the end. Simon was an excellent host, and played his position well, holding on for the cavalry to thunder to the rescue. The rockets were amusing and completely hopeless at the same time, but added extra flavour to the game. The rules are very good, but are vague in places and we were understandably rusty a year on from game 1. We certainly speeded up once we got going, despite grappling with cavalry, artillery and rockets for the first time. The card-generated turn sequence, with all its uncertainty and swings of luck, makes for great entertainment and a real challenge. Roll on the next game!