General d'Armee Training

 

After our game on Saturday, I left up the terrain for a training game with 2 of our club members. Gabriel had played just one game of GdA, while David had played several games but wanted some practice. We played the Weissenfels scenario but to simplify the game, I made all units in the OB Line Status and simplified the terrain by making the Ripach stream normal rather than deep allowing infantry units to cross at half speed. These changes certainly favoured the French but as Gabriel who was playing the French had only played one previous game I felt this was reasonable.

Some Photos taken at game end:

Summing Up

I was surprised how smoothly the game went, I told Gabriel just to decide what he thought a Napoleonic Commander would do and not worry about the mechanics. This worked well for him. David played the Russian defence in a much different way than was played the day previous keeping 2 brigades in Reserve. Gabriel was able to get his troops over the stream this not causing a major traffic snarl south of the stream as each Reinforcing brigade came on. 

We were able to play 8 turns over 5 hours which was really quite good. The French Cavalry were able to get quite close to Rocken but the Russian Cavalry in Reserve came on challenge them. Charges were planned but oddly enough both brigades went Hesitant. At this point we called the game. The Russians had one Falter while the French had none, there was just one dispersal. So a very marginal victory for the French was called. However, when I looked at the table post game, I felt that with a few more turns the Russians good have pulled off a Defensive Victory. There units were in better shape a din a better position.

I had a lot of fun with this game and I hope both players enjoyed the experience. They both played quite well.

Weissenfels-The Battles for Germany

 

This past weekend, members of our wargaming club had the first turn in our 1813 campaign: The Battles for Germany. We presently have 9 active Napoleonic players in our club. We use the General d'Armee ruleset by David Brown and the scenario was taken from his 1813 source book. As this was a smaller scenario we had just 4 players for the game. The fact that it was smaller allowed us to have it on a 4x6' table, thus we played the game at my apartment. This certainly made set up much easier for me.

Graham and Michel played the Russians while myself and Helge played the French. We are trying to set it up so players play the attackers or defenders alternately. Myself and Graham took the lead and played the pregame over the internet before the actual game, this allowed us to get this game over in just 1 day and in fact we got to a clear Victory over 13 turns and 6-7 hours.

The map above shows the results of the pregame, Graham elected to use no reserves and to place all his brigades in an advanced position. This surprised me. My scouting attempts were unsuccessful, nor did either side gain a Bold Brigadier. As you can see from the map the Russians were restricted to be north of the deep stream while the French Attack zone was south of the same. The scenario allowed the French to have to brigades on the table at the start, while adding the remaining 3 brigades in the next 3 turns. The Order of Battle is shown below.

The French Artillery Battery was attached to Chasseraux's brigade, while the Russian Horse Artillery was attached in the second turn to Lanskoi's brigade.

To gain Victory the French had to reach Rocken. A secondary objective was to capture Gohren thus causing the Russians to had a d6 to their initiative roll.

The initial layout of the troops on the players arrival, we allowed a 30 minute period to adjust the internal organsation of each brigade.

Final dispositions of the troops. The stream and the marsh were categorised as severe terrain.

The Game

As usual I took few photos and I should say what follows is from my perspective. I took the French right flank while Helge took the left, thus I had the light brigade to start while Helge had the Marie Louise's. We did spend quite bit of time before the game in planning our attack. We initially thought that we could reach Rocken with cavalry, if the opportunity arose. We suspected that where the Russians had placed their cavalry on their flanks they would attempt to rush our right flank. As you can see from the above photo, I placed one light battalion in Attack column to hold off the cavalry charge and to assist this effort, the skirmishers moved into the marsh as well as another light battalion being placed in skirmish order. As you will note the Russians deployed their skirmishers in the swamp but we could see within 2 turns we would out number them by 3:1 thus pushing them out. We were able these skirmishers out of range of the Russian muskets in line. As we guessed the French AC was able to repulse the initial Russian cavalry attack across the ford, and could dice actually caused them to withdraw. On our left, the Marie Louises initially hesitated and took a couple of turns to occupy Rippach, the Russians had occupied Gohren on their deployment.

On the second turn, we brought out our Line brigade and assigned them to our left flank (Helge). On the third turn the 2nd Marie Louise brigade was assigned to our right and then finally the cavalry was brought on in the centre. The photo below shows the advance of our attack at the end of turn 5.

As you can see, the French were quite successful in the first third of the game. By now the Legere brigade had reformed into close order and now was advanced north of the Rippach Stream, pushing the Russians back with both Russian cavalry units being forced to withdraw or hesitant. The Marie Louises on the right had advanced in support. On our centre and left the Marie Louises had occupied Rippach and the cavalry had advanced over the Gohren Bridge. The Line brigade on the left was now assembling near the bridge ready to push the Russians out of Gohren. The Russian Infantry on the their right was pushed back as well as the Jagers in the middle. 

We broke for lunch at the end of turn 6 at which time it was looking very good for the French Attack.

Well it is always a mistake to break for lunch in the middle of a battle, but unfortunately I failed to take any photos to document the Russian successes. The next several turns were characterised by multiple Falters (4 aside) as well as dispersal of at least half of the troops on both sides. Initially these loses favoured the Russians but slowly success swung back to the French. The Russians occupied Rocken but with a worn Reservist Battalion. Now it was up to the Marie Louise brigade under General Veran, they slowly pushed forward, the French Cavalry kept the Russian Cavalry on the Russian right at bay. They inched forward and by turn 13 they attacked Rocken, the Russians were driven out and Victory to the French.

The denuded terrain

Victory!

The final positions of the Russians one their right flank

Battered French Cavalry

Chemineau had quite a rough time

Well this was really a terrific game, it went quite well with minimal reference to the rulebook. I believe all the players had a good time.

All is left is to start planning our next game which should take place sometime in January. 

SAGA Night-Seljuks vs Normans

 

Sponsored by SAGA Montreal

We had our monthly SAGA meet-up last night at the Abyss, I believe there were 3 games with 6 players. I played against Michel for the first time. We decided to play the Desacralisation scenario from the SAGA Tournament handbook. This was practice for the Grand Melee which is scheduled for next Saturday. Michel played his Normans and I played the Seljuks.

Normans (6 SAGA Dice)

3 units of Mounted Hearthguards in 2 groups

2 units of Levy Bowmen

1 unit of Mounted Warriors with Javelins

Seljuks (7 SAGA Dice)

2 units of Mounted Composite Bow Warriors

1 unit of Levy Bowman

3 unit of Foot Warriors in 3 groups

Game

Of course I forgot to take photos until the end. We both played quite aggressively so by the end of the game there were very few troops on either side. The scenario required that we place 3 markers each and by taking our opponent's markers we could restrict the number of survival points that each player would get at the end of the game. I was able to capture 2 markers while Michel got one. This restricted myself to a maximum of 24 points while Michel had 16. When we totalled up the survival points, I had a slight edge of 22 to 20 which would have meant a draw, but because of the markers I won by 22 to 16. Certainly a novel mechanism. I should say both of us had several shots at taking out the markers and they were difficult to capture.

Turn 5 was the last, as you can see not much left.

Norman Levy Bowmen

The Seljuk Warriors charging the Norman Levy

I just could not beat these Norman Javelins

It was a fun game and I did learn a few things, this was the 3rd outing for my Seljuks and they finally won.

Belov's Breakin-A CoC Virtual Encounter

MORE TO COME! 

Last week I had my first Virtual Wargaming experience for quite sometime. 

Patrol Phase

Final Positions

Thanks Tom, for inviting me to this game.

Showdown at Los Nachos-Game 2

A couple of weeks ago we got together at PY's to play game 2 in the Los Nachos campaign. This was turn 4 in our campaign. If you remember the Makinens won the first game and captured the Tainted Desert. Subsequently the Makinens were able to take the Rusty River without a fight. They took the next turn to lay some Barbed Wire. So on to Turn 4, the Taverniers have finally seized the initiative and have decided to attack the Rusty River. The Rusty River was placed in a verdant valley. We played the Vendetta scenario. I should note with their increased income the Makinens were able to arm up, while PY had to generate a new character to join the Taverniers......Rusty Nutslinger.......I will live that there.

The Players

Makinens

Matt Makinen-Gunslinger

Justin Makinen-Greenhorn

Bubba Carlsberg-Shootist

Hector el Borracho-Greenhorn

Tuco-Shootist

1 Group of Sheep Farmers

Taverniers

George Marrison-Shootist

Justin MaBoots-Shootist

Billy Bob Jackson-Gunslinger

Rusty Nutslinger-Geenhorn

4 Groups of Cowhands

Game Photos

The Rusty River Valley, as you can see there were lots of sheep. The Taverniers were attacking from the far ground with the Makinens in the near ground.

Half of the Makinens headed in this direction to protect their right flank but trying to remain in cover.

The Taverniers attack on our right flank, while their main characters moved to the centre.

You can see the bosses cowering in the rear!

On our left flank they sent in several more cowhands with their characters hanging out in the middle, they did give us a lot of jip on this flank and it too sustained gunfire to hold them off.

Somewhere along the way one of the Makinen Brothers was able to get a lucky shot off and killed Billy-Bob. The Tavernier attack was crumbling.

The Taverniers had terrible dice in this game and we slowly took out all their henchmen and then we were lucky enough to kill Billy Bob Jackson, the second character we have taken out in our 2 games. Justin Makinen was also taken out but was able to recover. The Taverniers decided to pack it in and ride back to their ranch. Another Makinen victory. 

There might be a bit of a hiatus before our next game as I cannot be in Montreal until the middle of November at the earliest. 

Burma 1943: Chindits at Nankin Station-A Far East Chain of Command Campaign

  

My friend Pierre-Yves is in the process of writing a pint sized campaign set in Burma with the Chindits facing the Japanese. The campaign is set in Burma in March 1943, during Operation Longcloth, Major Calvert's Chindits execute daring raids behind Japanese lines. The campaign focuses on the sabotage of the railway at Nankan Station and the subsequent Japanese counterattacks. 

I am going to leave the rest of the details to PY, as it is his campaign but will document each game we play, also please understand this is the first game we are playing using the new rules as laid out in the Far East handbook. I am playing the Japanese. I should also note that these are one off platoons for the first game, they do not feature in any further games, they will however affect the CO, MO and Platoon Leader's Outlook for the campaign.

Scenario 1: Initial Reconnaissance (The Patrol)

Japanese (FM 10)

1943 Infantry Platoon

Supports

Red Dice 

Chindits (FM 9)

1943 Chindit Platoon

Supports

Sniper

Patrol Phase

I got flummoxed in the Patrol Phase, with most of my JOP's in a tight small area, while PY got a fairly wide deployment.

Game

I am not sure why this happened but all our sections were deployed in a small area on the Japanese right flank. I had several double phases so I was able to get my sections down on overwatch. I found the movement rules in the Jungle a little difficult to appreciate first. You lose dice pips unless you move in single file through the Jungle, I did figure it out after awhile.

The Chindits deploy to counter the Japanese

Japanese fireing line

I used one of my sections to attempt to capture the Chindits JOP on my left flank, this was stupid as I could easily of sent off a Scout Team! 

Summary

Well it was an interesting game but not that exciting in respect to the play. I believe we got the new Jungle Rules down quite quickly, it is too bad that the game quickly degenerated into a long firefight with several sections being firing range but with no tactical movement aside from the Japanese play to capture the isolated Chindits JOP.  We essentially just pulverised each other until the Chindits FM dropped to 0, while the Japanese maintained their's at 4. A Japanese Victory. I did get a lot of double phases while I do not believe PY got any. But my Command Dice were abysmal, I got multiple 4's when both my SLs were out of commission. 

Butcher's Bill

Japanese

CO

MO

Outlook

Chindits

CO

MO

Outlook

SAGA Night-Seljuks vs JomsVikings

On our last club SAGA Night I played against Helge's Jomsvikings. We used the chaos method to set up and Helge was the active player. He placed just 2 forests on the table an left it at that. I am unsure of the rest of the game criteria. We played a 6 point game. Only 1 photo I am afraid.

Jomsvikings

Warlord

6 units of Hearthguard

Seljuks

Warlord

2 units of composite bow mounted Warriors

3 units of foot Warriors

1 unit of bow armed Levy

Well it was not much of a game, I really played quite poorly making a very poor move in my first turn, which essentially wiped out my 2 mounted units as an effective force. The next 3 turns witnessed a painful  and rapid decline in my forces. The game ended in the 4th turn with my Warlord being killed.

I do not believe I have ever played such a poor game, I am not really sure what happened. Helge, I should note played quite well. I was a bit surprised with an all Hearthguard warband, maybe even a little intimidated. The Seljuks are a new warband to me with this being only the 2nd time I have played them. However, their Battleboard really is not complicated. We will just have to see how it goes with them. Maybe a good explanation might be that I fielded a partially painted unit of horsemen. I have never done this in the past and maybe the SAGA gods were punishing me for this!

1940 German attack on French Village-CoC

I got together with my friend Iannick for a Chain of Command game. He had recently painted an Early War German platoon for Chain of Command and also got a friend of ours, Graham, to paint a French Platoon. He used Crusader Miniatures for the figures and they were really very nice indeed. He had put together the basic platoons with some supports.

We decided to play the Probe Scenario from the main rulebook but used the 1940 source book to play. The Germans were the attacker of course and Iannick decided to play them. He rolled a 2 for support.

Germans FM 10

Shutzen Platoon-Panzer Division A

Sniper

French FM 11

Infantry Platoon

Entrenchment 

Patrol Phase

The Game

I decided to deploy early with a group de combat on each flank with my grenadiers in an entrenchment. I usually do not like to do this but the path of the German attack was clear.

and here they come initially on my right.

The group de combats are quite large and maybe unwieldy

Another Geran Squad makes an appearance 

Getting down to the end now, the Germans make a rapid advance to my left flank, the French have a slight advantage.......

.......and do win but it is quite costly.

A badly malled German squad make a run for the edge.

The Germans are inches away from victory but their FM drops to zero. A French Victory!

It was a fun game and it was nice to get Iannick's troops out. It was quite close and a swing of the dice would have given the game to the Germans.