This week we had another go with skirmish rules Songs of Drums and Shakoes. These are by Ganesha Games so it was appropriate our game was set in India.
The weaponry of the Indian Mutiny was not particularly too far advanced from the wars fifty years before and using More Drums and Shakoes supplement we used the ambush and guerillas rules for much of the mutineers’ action.
The theory goes that Songs of Drums and Shakoes (SDS) are such a quick set of rules that a mini campaign of four or five games is easily completed in an afternoons play. We now know that due to banter, beer and our very own C.O. General Incompetence two games is going to be our limit.
So the scenario was that the British and their allies need to battle their way along the high street of an Indian rural village and rescue their mates from the prison at the far end of the street.
Scenario 1 Ambush in the High Street
Indian mutineers have an clear field of fire to the giant hand of Krishnapur. Sepoys, Highlanders, Ghurkas and loyal Sikhs advancing towards the village are about to be frightened by a loud bang.
Up and at’em chaps.
The Highlanders are ambushed but being graded “strong” prove to be indominatable foes and easily break the rebel formation who scatter back to the walled compound.
The Sikhs too advance into the village finding little resistance.
The Sepoys find the going a little tougher as the rebel fire begins to take it’s toll.
The rebel artillery eventually reloads and fires but to little effect.
The mutineer cavalry makes a desperate charge to cover it’s valiant but outgunned infantry and cut a swathe through the sepoys.
Scenario 2 Assault on the prison compound
The brave cavalry charge gave enough time for the remaining mutineers to redeploy inside the prison compound - even the ineffective artilley piece.
With the big man charge how can they possibly fail?
The Highlanders charge home on unloaded rebels as defending fire is ineffective.
A vain charge by the remaining rebel cavalry was brought to a halt by cannister from the naval gun.
Ultimately numbers and firepower win the day every time and the remaining mutineers await their fate before the barrel of their own gun.
Unfortunately they won’t be able to throw the dice!
A 6mm “Napoleonic” game using our own simplified rules based on BlackPowder.
One of Richard’s excellent architectural features.
The Scenario
With typical daring and élan the Russian General Suvorov, with Austrian Allies, swept down from the Alps and destroyed Moneau’s Army of Italy in April 1799.
Annoyed, but also seeing an opportunity, General MacDonald marched his Army of Naples north from Rome. Unwilling, for political reasons, to join Moneau and the remains of his army around Genoa, MacDonald instead fell on the scattered Austrian formations in Modena and Parma. This brought Suvorov marching back from Alessandria in order to save his supply lines that flow along the main road.
Victory Conditions: The objectives for both sides were:
1 the destruction on the enemy army. Two points are granted to the opponent for each enemy division broken and an additional three if the corps/column is broken.
2 Control of the main road across the board. No side can claim overall victory if there is an enemy division within 12” of the road at end of play (between San Antonio and Rottofreno).
Only Rottofreno(Allies) and San Antonio, (French) are controlled at the beginning of the scenario. The Piacenza and Alessandria road was the major supply line and route of advance for both armies.
Scenario Setup:
Terrain:
The marked area around the rivers represent sandy river bottom and shallow streams and counts as rough going, unless bridged. The Po is impassable.
Much of the terrain was cultivated and all fields/orchards/vineyards count as rough going with visibility of 2” in. Other woods are impassable to formed troops.
Not quite sure how Napoleon got here to inspect the ammunition wagons.
French troops mass around San Antonio.
Austrian forces appear on the northern flank distracting the main French attack.
MacDonald’s Premier Corps prove unwilling to move forward.
The light cavalry screens meet with a clash of sabre and dice.
Heavy horse race forward in a blur.
Finally the French infantry move towards the Russian threat.
The battle rages in the centre. Russian heavy guns prove very effective at close range but the French press on.
Austrian forces advance from the north against a very ineffective French grand battery.
Colonel Frederick Gustavus Burnaby was a larger than life character standing 6 feet 4 inches in his stockinged feet. A noted explorer and balloonist he was the first man to cross the English Channel by balloon.
He entered the Royal Horse Guards but finding little opportunity for action he became a correspondent with The Times reporting on the Carlist War 1874, Gordon in Sudan, and the Russo Turkish War 1877. Disappointed at missing the action in Egypt in 1882 he joined the Suakin campaign of 1884, without official leave, being wounded at El Teb. He ultimately met his death in hand to hand fighting at Abu Klea. Henry Newbolt’s poem “Vitai Lampada” is believed to refer to the colonel’s demise.
….The sand of the desert is sodden red
-Red with the wreck of a square that broke;
The gatling’s jammed and the colonel dead,
And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.
The river of death has brimmed its banks,
And England’s far, and Honour a name,
But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks -
“Play up! Play up! And play the game!”
Possibly Peter Pig’s interpretation of Colonel Burnaby.
… and still in the US for the final game of the year - Antietam, a Fire and Fury game for half a dozen players.
Spring and summer of 1862 had brought Lee and his army great success and he wrote to Jefferson Davies that one more successful campaign would force Europe to recognise the Confederacy.
In September Lee led an army of forty thousand into Maryland. The obvious target was Washington but the real intention was to take the Federal rail centre at Harrisburg. On the 13th McClellan had the great fortune to intercept Lee’s orders but still the Union commander hesitated. On the 15th Lee and 18,000 Confederates took up positions on a three mile ridge east of Sharpsburg and to their front ran a little creek, the Antietam. McClellan forces began arriving on the opposite side, 95,000 strong. There was a chance to end the war, there and then. Instead he waited.
The battle that began on 17 September was really a number of battles in one –we played the northern end in the afternoon.
An oddly angled picture showing Jackson and Gordon’s intial deployment south of West Wood with Hooker’s brigades lining up to attack.
Dunker’s church and the “cornfield of death” can be seen in the centre.
The battle surged back and forth all afternoon with charge and countercharge in and out of West Wood.
To the south the Union forces were having more immediate success as an apparently impregnable sunken road was taken by the first assault and they came in sight of Sharpsburg before Confederate reinforcements threw them back.
Whilst in the centre the Union pressed forward under great battery fire.
In West Wood the Confederates are reinforced by Hood’s Texans and gain the upper hand.
Throwing the bluecoats back from Dunker Chapel and over the dead of the cornfield.
Confederates break through.
An exciting game that could have gone either way right up to the last move.
Not forgetting however that this had been the bloodiest day. The Confederate invasion of the north had been stopped but it was far from the end of the war.
Another good game today, loosely based on Germantown.
The initial set up and American deployment:
Some of the British troops at the beginning of the game:
Bypassing Chew House two American commands raced up the left flank coming to grips with the Scots Fusiliers, some Hessians and Jaegers. Having seen off a couple of German battalions the rest of the Americans formed columns and headed up the right flank.
The first to close on the enemy on the right was the cavalry. Once in position it continually refused to take out this artillery battery that was enfilading the other American flank. It was left to the Indians to take care of matters:
Eventually, the American right fell upon the Brits as the left flank saw heavy casualties caused on both sides. In the end both sides had suffered too heavily to claim an outright victory. As I said, a thoroughly enjoyable game. Good enough for me to promise to paint up a box of these when they come out: http://store.warlordgames.com/pre…ulus-plastic-boxed-set-7557-p.asp
Something a little different today as four CS players attacked 3 Union players defending a series of low hills with stone walling and scattered woods. Each had a division that were deployed using cards, including with some dummies. The forces had to deploy within 12” of each other and could be in contact if they wished.
Once the cards were revealed and the troops placed on the table a d4 was thrown for each one, a base being lost for each pip on the dice. Another dice was thrown for each unit with a 50% chance of it being disordered. Finally the guns were given a one in six chance of being silenced. Some divisions lost 50% of their troops. The start of the game looked like this:
The Rebels swept forward and were on the point of breaking through the middle when they were thwarted by the timely arrival of a reserve Union division. This steadied the line and threw the Confederates back:
Finally, with their own reinforcements reaching the front line the rebels attacked again with success in the centre and right but night fell just an hour too soon to decide the matter:
Hello from Birmingham Wargames Society (that’s Birmingham England not Alabama). We play games with toy soldiers on Sunday afternoons and will be posting reports of our games here.
Firstly we are in USA 1781 -Guildford Courthouse.
The table on turn one from the Courthouse looking South towards the British lines.
First line Rebel dross;
Which were quickly dispatched by a British force with Hessian and Loyalist units.
In wait, in the second line were the more reliable militia units;
While the Continentals raced to form a third line:
In the course of forcing back the second line of militia my troops had advanced 5’. As this usually takes me a year of wargaming to achieve Ade very kindly took this picture as a memento:
The Brits drew up their troops for an all out assault against the Continentals and surviving militia units::
By now the writing was on the wall and although all the Hessians were routed the end was never in doubt.
