Battle for La Hermandad-GdA

  

A little less than a week ago myself and David got together for another GdA game. I again picked a scenario from the GdA Vitoria supplement. As usual I can recommend it's purchase. This was a bit of an unexpected game as it had not been planned so I had to use a mousepad mat rather then a cloth mat (which I had left in Salem). This precluded any scenario which required hills, and although there is a small hill in this scenario I could not see how it was important to the battle. 

I again took the Anglo-Portuguese while David took the French, unlike our last game the Allies were the attackers, so I put together my plan. 

The 52nd and 2/95th

Allied Order of Battle

The French position is in the foreground and the Brits are attacking across a ditch that stretches along the full table. The ditch does give cover but all units except skirmishers have to pass a discipline test to cross it. The French have yet to assume their Order of Battle, but the Allies are all set. From left to right are two veteran brigades which are mostly light troops including the 52nd and the 95th. In the centre, is a Portuguese brigade with a British line brigade on the allied left flank. In the centre is a BUA that I presume represents La Hermandad. The French deploy 40cm in while the Brits deploy 20 cm in. I should note that the French have 4 brigades with one reserve brigade arriving in Turn 5, The Brits also have 4 brigades but one less ADC. For game play, I added an ADC to each side.

For some reason, I have difficulty ever getting the initiative, maybe I should change my dice. I believe this was the third game in a row where out of 8-10 turns, I might have had the initiative twice!

The French Centre

The French Right Flank with the artillery attached to the centre brigade.

The French left flank, where they had the initiative they rapidly advanced this brigade to attack the  52nd and the 2/95th who had quickly advanced to the ditch with their skirmishers swung to the centre, I felt with the cover it would be a safe move to try to fire at the advancing French flanks. The French were a brigade of Étangers, so I was not to concerned as they were facing off against an Elite and a Veteran battalion. 

I have to admit, I was a little flummoxed  by David going on the attack, I had not expected that he would do this, I was hoping to get across the ditch quickly and now my 2 battalions although superior were facing off against 4 battalions. 

My centre made up of the 43rd and the 1/95th. I attached my sole  artillery  battery to this brigade.  Two units of skirmishers buttressed by the rifle-armed Chosen Men are out front.

Little action in the centre, I sent out my caçadores to threaten the artillery.

The Allied right flank

David issues an Infantry Assault order to the Étrangers, I manage to get the 52nd over the ditch but unfortunately the supporting 2/95th held back. Now looking a little touch and go, the French voltiguers have been driven back but 4 units on 1 is going to be a little tricky.

The 52nd are being pulverised......

.........and as you can see the 43rd and 1/95th are not doing well!

So by now it was looking pretty grim for the Allies and although they still had a strong right flank, time was running out, it was just turn 8 but we had been at it for 4 hours so we called it a day. the final positions are below.

The French left flank, as you can see the Allies have been cleared out!

The French right flank, still quite strong on both sides, considered a redeploy order but time was running out, so a marginal French Victory was declared.

I forgot to mention at the beginning that we went with all the rules for the first time, including skirmishers. Things went quite smoothly, we did have a couple of doubts but we made decisions which later proved to be all correct. We need to work on tightening up the orders for the Infantry Assault tasking but all in all, I feel much more confident with the rules.

David again played well, with a 2nd victory. I will really have to change up my game plan or get new dice (although I think the game plan is the problem). Another great game of GdA!

Fangs of the Wolf-Game 3 (4 sessions)

 

We finished Game 3 in our Fangs of the Wolf campaign in the last week of September. Eero has just released the Action Report that I will link here. Each of our games is played over 3-4 sessions and in this game we see the White Devils attacking Ahola Farm (Table J) in attempt to cut off another group of Soviets as they were strung along the road north of Suomussalmi. 

This game took 4 sessions and I have to say the game was touch and go through out each of the sessions. The Soviets had yet to gain a victory and time was running out so myself and Janne really pushed hard in the fourth and final session to try to gain a victory. Well I will let you read Eero's usual excellent reports which can be found as follows:

Session 1

Session 2/3

Session 4

Here are a few photos but many more can be found in Eero's reports which are truly a visual feast.

The Table

Lots of Soviets

The White Devils

Trying to hold them off

They have Maxims

Time to get close

The attack from the east

Detail

Soviets on skis

Uraaaaahhhhhhhhhh

The Finns withdraw

Soviets armour seals a Soviet Victory

We have now started Game 4, already having one session with our next this coming Monday. But more about that in the future. 

Pulp Alley

Last Sunday night, I went to Luis's for a game of Pulp Alley. This was my second game, but the first was a virtual game with P-Y so I was looking forward to pushing about the figures myself. It was also the first game that I had a chance to get some of the multiple figures on the table which have never seen action.

I am not sure of the actual scenario we played but as you can see the game was set in the sands of Egypt. Luis's terrain is really quite amazing and the gaming aids he has were really well done. I am not 100% sure what league Luis was using, but there were a lot of women and one automaton, his leader was from a French Graphic novel. He also introduced horror into the game which was a lot of fun.

I put together a Baker Street League but also added Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde for a bit of fun as I wanted to see how a shapeshifter worked. 

Holmes

Dr Watson

Inspector Lestrade

Hell Division

Dr Jekyll

Mr Hyde

I am sure a lot of you will recognise these figures from the Empire of the Dead collection from Westwind. They are great figures and I have quite a few more which I can use for Pulp Alley. I have a lot of the Villains from the Victorian Age, as well as a nice collection of Tong leaders and gang members. Here is my league sheet.

I took Long Range as my perk, so it is a 10 point league.

So we set up the game and off we went.

The table with 5 plot points, the major plot point was in the middle . The left side is west. You had to capture one plot point before you could go for the major plot point. I started in the lower right corner while Luis started in the upper left corner. On each turn a creature spawned on one of mid points on one of the edges. These all had  a horror characteristic.

Turn 1/2. I was the director.  Image from the south. I moved Dr Jekyll to the middle and shapeshifter into Mr Hyde, there was a creature guarding the major plot point, so I thought this would be a good distraction. I moved the Hell Division Gang to the centre, while I got Holmes who was hidden to get into position for the centre while I got Watson to take the first plot point. He failed! Not a good start. It was especially made bad as I had used Lestrade initially to try to take this plot point, I learned this was a big mistake as he was an ally and really had no ability to pass challenges....he died!

Looking from the west, same turn.

Looking from the east. You can see that Luis has moved two of his characters into the centre of the table where the major plot point is. He has also moved the automaton towards the right upper plot point. Mr Hyde has engaged the creature, in the centre. Watson is still wasting his time with the plot point in lower right of the table, but now has to think about it as a creature has spawned. Luis has 2 of his charters including is leader at the top of the photo, out of sight. I moved Hell Division up my left to the west.

Not much happening here, but Luis has moved another of his characters towards the plot point with the automaton standing guard.

Turns 4/5; lots of action here. One of Luis's characters was able to take the major plot point after his other character took the minor plot point. Mr Hyde however was able to kill the creature with the help of Watson and then were able to move onto the middle of the table, Hell Division was able to move up in support. Luis's character was wounded by Hyde and dropped the Plot point. Hyde picked it up.

Turn 6; a Baker Street Victory

I really had a great time with this game and it was nice to win. I might need too make some adjustments to my Character's Abilities, but I thought they over all worked well. I will definitely use them again. I should also say that Luis made some excellent tacos, I will look forward to my next game of Pulp Alley.

Attack of the Old Guard Redux

 

I had my third game of GdA in a couple of weeks yesterday, this was with another new player (I am pretty new myself), so I again left out skirmishers. I think I have a pretty good understanding of the rules now and when I reviewed our game this morning, I only found one error (dispersed units cause the parent brigade to falter) and I have had to ask one point of clarification online.

I met David through the Stratégistes FB page, he had commented on one of my previous posts that he had an interest in playing some Napoleonics so we set up a game yesterday. We had initially planned to play at the Abyss but there was an enormous Age of Sigmar tournament planned for yesterday which we found out about 2-3 hours before our planned game......quick change of plans had David coming to my place. It actually worked out because I had the table set up before he arrived (Napoleonics is pretty complex and I find to set the table as well as to organise the troops takes over an hour), so we had more time to get introduced and play the game. David is mostly a skirmish player but had played grand tactical Napoleonics using the L'aigle ruleset as a boy with his grandfather.

I had used the Attack of Old Guard scenario from the 1815 source book as I had with P-Y. The only thing I changed aside from the skirmishers was to make all units line and to remove the casualties. This again worked well and the game went quite quickly, David grasped both the tactics of the Napoelonic Age as well as the ruleset quite naturally. So well, that he actually gained a marginal victory in the game. My third loss in 2 weeks to novices!

I took the Allies and David took the French, we got in 8 turns and had lots of action. I will not bother to post the OB, but I can highly recommend you purchasing the source book from TFL to get all the details. Some photos to follow to document some of the action.

The Set-Up

The battlefield, with the Allies to the left, with most of the troops out of LOS on the reverse slope.

The Emperor's daughters

The Brunswickers

The French  centre

French cavalry brigade on their left flank

Halkett's Brigade with attached RFA

The Nassau brigade 

The Game

A wholesale French advance.

Crumbling French brigade.

The Brunswickers smash into the Old Guard.

These 2 cavalry regiments wrecked havoc on the Allied right flank.

Successful Infantry Assault

Ending positions, I believe the French had 2 brigades on Infantry Assault and 1 brigade on Forwards Tasking, while the Allies had 1 brigade on Infantry Assault. we had been at it for 4 hours, we got in 8 turns which is quite good for a teaching game. The allies had lost 3 battalions, while the French had lost 2 battalions. A marginal victory for the French!

Another enjoyable game of GdA, I will look forward to the next with the skirmishers.