Some Puritans

I have been looking for some figures that I could use as Witch Hunter aligned militia for Devil in The Wilderness. I found these figures in the Brigade Games: King Philip's War line. As is usual with Brigade Games miniatures, these were quite impressive. I am trying to use up my Citadel acrylics (excellent paints but sick of their pots), I am down to about 20 pots now and most of them are muted colours so excellent for the late 17th century. I am not sure where I could use them playing Muskets and Tomahawks, but if pressed I am sure I could work it out. I believe, I could have done a bit more prep work on them but I am quite happy how they came out.

These are extreme close-ups, so they look a little rough, but for the table top I am quite pleased. I usually do not take close-up but I was intent on showing what great miniatures they are, rather than to demonstrate my painting ability.

 

No Escape-KmH

Last night we had another game of Kiss me, Hardy. Still learning the rules but decided to go with multiple ships this time. This is a historical battle that took place after the Battle of Tralfager. A British squadron of four 3rd Rates (there were actually 3 frigates as well but for scenario purposes the frigates were dropped) giving chase to four French 3rd Rates. 

British Squadron-Strachan

HMS Caesar, 80 guns, Elite Jolly Jack Tars

HMS Courageux, 74 guns, Elite Jolly Jack Tars

HMS Hero, 74 guns, Average Jolly Jack Tars

HMS Namur, 74 guns, Elite Jolly Jacks Tars, Foul bottomed

French Squadron-Dumanoir

Le Formidable, 64 guns (down from 80), Average Sans Cullottes

Le Scipion, 74 guns, Average Sans Cullottes

Duguay-Truion, 74 guns, Average Sans Cullottes

Le Mont Blanc, 74 guns, Poor Sans Cullottes

The wind was blowing east and all 7 ships were "on the bow". The HMS Namur started off table. 

I was playing the French so I started off making a starboard turn to get my ships "on the quarter". Unfortunately, one of my ships was a poor sailor so out line was almost immediately broken, the HMS Namur entered the table at the end of the 2nd move and appeared to be crewed by good sailors and very soon got caught up to the rest of the squadron.

Here are some photos, apologies again for lack of rigging and you will see that I used Scandinavian ships for the British squadron aside from the Hero, which was RN flagged. I used Spanish ships for the French aside from Duguay-Truion which carried French colours. The 80 gun ships were 3rd Rates and the 74 gun ships were 5th Rates from my collection.

British Squadron

French Squadron have swung to their starboard and are running on the quarter, aside from the trailing ship  which has the wind to the stern.

The French squadron had the luck of the cards at the start of the action and were able to pummel the Caesar, as they were able fire 2 broadsides as well as a bow rake early on. It was looking good for the French but the cards turned and the British were able to get some close in short and point blank range shots off, with the extra dice provided to the Jolly Jack Tars due to their superb gunnery they were able to rain hell down on Le Formidable, the ship caught a fire, and lost 2 of it's 3 masts..........

............and then the wind failed (this was in error but it added to the fun) and all the ships became becalmed! At this point 3 of the 4 British ships had targets at close range while the French had only 2 ships with targets and one was at long range. Le Formidable was captured. The conclusion was forgone....A British Victory, history repeated itself. Well played Pierre-Yves!

The Summing Up

British Squadron-Strachan

HMS Caesar, 54 DP left at 7 cm speed. Steering damage

HMS Courageux, 58 DP left at 11 cm speed. Boats destroyed

HMS Hero, untouched

HMS Namur, 61 DP left at 10 cm speed. Foremast Destroyed

French Squadron-Dumanoir

Le Formidable, Struck and captured

Le Scipion, 49 DP left at 8 cm speed. Boats lost

Duguay-Truion, 70 DP left at 12cm speed. 

Le Mont Blanc, 71 DP left at 12 cm speed. 

The more I play this ruleset, the more I enjoy it but I have to say there are some challenges to playing it virtually. I will look forward to getting to play in person. I believe P-Y is planning to work on some templates for the game which will assist with deciding if where a ship is in the wind and more importantly when a ship has a full broadsides.

Normandy Campaign- Hermanville-sur-Mer

 

We played our next game in the Normandy campaign yesterday, in game 1 the Germans had failed to defend Lion-sur-Mer and had retreated to Hermanville-sur-Mer. The British platoon (A/1) decided to follow up their victory by pursuing the German platoon (10.Kp.IR.736) into the town. In this case they were trying to capture the main crossroads where the Marie and Eglise Sainte Pierre were situated. Rather than going up the main route through Hermanville-sur-Mer, they were commanded to advance on their right flank through some bocage lined fields. We set the game up as an "Attack on an Objective"

The British approach from the left of the photo with the crossroads to the right being the objective. 

Forces

British 3rd Infantry Division/ Company A-Platoon 1

FM 10

Supports 10

Standard British Rifle Platoon (less 4 men)

Supports

Sherman

German 10.Kp.IR.736 (zug #1)

FM 9

Supports 5

Standard German Grenadier Platoon (less 5 men)

Supports

Adjutant

MMG team

The Game

I felt that Jur got the better of me in the patrol phase, getting his 3 JOP's fairly far up the table. I would have liked to get a JOP on my left flank but one was unable to place one there. I decided not to take my 4th JOP at the crossroads as the area was already well covered.

Jur placed his yellow squad behind the bocage on his right flank with the 2" mortar team and a SL. He also placed his green squad in the woods on his left flank.

As the Brits had excellent LOS, they were able to lay down lots of smoke to cover their right flank, difficult to see in the photo but I had presumed that the main brunt of the attack was going to be through the forest on my right flank so I placed the MMG team, as well as my yellow squad with an SL to cover the woods.

I was surprised to find that the British attack was clearly going to be on my left flank as Jur had placed his blue squad on his right and advanced his yellow squad up the open field under the cover of the smoke.

I moved my yellow squad to my left with 4th MMG team to cover  this attack but unfortunately the Brits were able to deny my centre JOP to me. The Germans were in a bit of trouble now but since the British squad was now on the stone wall, they were in LOS and I was able to bring to fire a squad and MMG team to fire on them at close range and although they were in hard cover and the Germans were in light cover, it was a losing battle for the Brits. Jur brought up his blue infantry squad in support. I also deployed my blue squad to the table and started to send them around the church to buttress my left flank. The tide was now turning, I had 2 CoC dice.

The pounding from my MMG team and my yellow squad took out the the British yellow squad and they broke. By now I had my blue squad within charge range of the British blue squad. Just before they were about to charge Jur played a CoC dice and moved back out of charge range......

.......back to the Germans, I placed my yet underplayed green squad behind the wall from the now released JOP and then played a CoC die to end the turn. All the smoke lifted, by now it was too late for the British and I was able to wipe out the blue squad with my newly deployed infantry. The British FM was 3. Time to withdraw.

Unfortunately the Sherman was deployed a little to late to support the advance.

Butcher's Bill

This was a very bloody game, and the Brits paid dearly. They lost 14 figures and a 2 JL's. The 5 figures lost by the Germans were not counted as there was a 6 point difference in FM at the end of the game. I should note that this is quite a complex campaign and the British companies have at least 2 platoons each. We will track each platoon individually in respect to CO and MO but the Platoon Commanders out look will be the over all Battalion HQ Out look. 

British Platoon #A1 (3rd ID)

FM 3

7 dead 4 missing (total dead now 9 with 4 missing the next time they are in action)

2 JL reduced to 1 CI for next game.

CO +1

MO -5

HQ Outlook Happy

German Platoon 10.Kp.IR.736 (zug #1)

FM 9

no loses (2 men ded in the platoon for next game)

CO +1

MO 0

HQ Outlook Affable

Tactical Decisions

10.Kp.IR.736 (zug #1) to hold Hermanville-sur-Mer

5.Kp.IR.736 (zug #2) to hold Sainte Auban-sur-Mer

12.Kp.IR.736 (zug #3) to stay in Douvres-la-Délivrande

Attack on the Settlement

 

Last night myself and Pierre-Yves got together for a FIW game using Muskets and Tomahawks. I had planned to have a game of "O" Group but I forgot to bring the terrain to Montreal! I did not have a whole lot of time to plan nor do I have a lot of terrain for FIW here, but I made do.

All the photos were taken at game end, my deployment edges were the near and far  ends of the table. P-Y had to place one deployment point in the settlement and he placed one on the hill on the near left of the photo. Once the red clock card came up I placed the 2 withdrawal points, one being next to a deployment point in the right foreground and one being on the right edge.

We decided on a 400 point game with the scenario being set in a civilised area. I won the toss and decided to play the French Attacker. My goal was to occupy the settlement with no opponents within 4" while P-Y had to get half the civilians off the table.

French

Compagnie Franches de la Marines Officer

Compagnie Franches de la Marines-2 units of 8 men

Sachem

Indian Veteran Warriors-2 units of 6 men

Milices Canadiennes- 1unit of 6 men

British

British Infantry Officer

British Infantry-2 units of 8

Ranger Officer

Rangers-2 units, one of 8 men and one of 7

Elite Indian Warriors-1 unit of 6 men

Civilians-10 and a priest.

We struggled a bit as we had not played the rules for sometime but after about an hour things got going and we played for about 3 hours in total with P-Y getting a clear victory. The weird thing about the game is although we have played quite a few games it is the first time we actually played in person!

Anyway it was a lot of fun, the ruleset gives a good and challenging game. I will not bother to do a report but here are some more photos taken at the end of the game.

These civilians were well escorted by a large unit of Rangers

Really did not do much with my infantry

My Indians got thumped by the British allied Warriors

Desperate attempt near the end of the game to get my milice in the settlement.

Normandy Campaign-Saint Auban-sur-Mer

This past week, we had our 2nd battle in the Normandy campaign at Saint Aubain-sur-Mer with German Kp.5.IR.736.ID.716 (zug #2) defending against a platoon from the British 3rdID/2.

Here are some photos of the table set up, we played the 3rd scenario from the CoC main book "Attack and Defend".  In this game the Germans are tasked with defending the regimental headquarters of IR716 just on the outskirts of Saint Aubain-sur-Mer in a walled chateau. This is bocage country, so lots of hidden movement possible as well as hard cover all around. 

Gestapo officer, Colonel Puntanesca

Bocage Alley

Overview

British attacking from the left

We played the patrol phase on P-Y's ap, this worked very well.

I felt Jur got the better of me in the Patrol Phase

Forces

British 3rd Infantry Division (platoon #2)

FM 8

Supports 6

Standard British Rifle Platoon

Sherman

German Kp.5.IR.736.ID.716 (zug #2)

FM 10

Supports 3

Standard German Grenadier Platoon

Sd.Kfz. 250

The Game

The Brits advance is rapid, they make excellent use of their smoke and advance their green squad through the field with support from their blue squad behind the bocage in hard cover. The Germans counter by placing their yellow and green squads behind the stone wall of the chateau.

The Brits also deploy their blue squad to advance on their right flank, unfortunately the Germans can not get their third squad on the table to counter as the Brits have had multiple back to back phases. They have also deployed their Sherman to the centre.

The Germans move their yellow squad to counter this threat on their left flank but as you can see their green squad is taking a pounding.

The Germans finally get their MMG armed Sd.Kfz 250 in close range but it does little to the British blue squad behind the hedge that has now denied the German left flank JOP to them.

The German green squad beats a tactical retreat, this is a campaign after all.

The Brits have brought up their Sherman behind the bocage , they can now rain HE on the German blue squad that has deployed behind the charteau wall to counter the threat on their right flank. But the Germans have 2 CoC dice and spring an Ambush with their Panzerschreck team. They are pretty close but the Sherman is obscured, they need a 8 to hit, they roll 2d6.....two 4's. The ATW makes quick work of the Sherman with their 13d6 AP against the Sherman's 6 armour. Jur rolls a 6, the Sherman blows up....the British FM is plunging. 

The German blue squad JL has taken a hit, the German SL runs to get in command range.  They fire at the depleted British green squad in the field.....

.....they break and fall back interpenetrating the blue squad behind the bocage , shock piles up. The British FM falls to 4 while the Germans are at 8 still. The players have lost 11 figures per side, it has been a bloody battle. The Brits withdraw to fight another day.

Butcher's Bill

British Platoon #2 (3rd ID)

FM 4

5 dead, 3 missing

CO -1

MO -2

German Kp.5.IR.736.ID.716 (zug #2)

FM 8

3 dead, 2 missing

CO +1

MO +1

Tactical Decisions

yet to be decided!