The Battle of Sabugal 1811

After the Tallarn jungle adventure, time for something historical. The battle of Sabugal 3rd April 1811 Wellington was driving the French out of Portugal and the Light division caught the French rearguard under Jean Reynier near the village of Sabugal. Bad wether, mainly Fog meant the french were caught and heavily outnumbered. 

The starting positions, the light division coming on from the left, the French on the slightly higher ground. The french brigade on the hill can’t activate until the leading brigade of Pictish 3rd Division crosses the river. The British need to try and pin the french in place, the french need to try and save as many troops as they can and get off the battlefield to the near edge, where the British light cavalry is outflanking their position.

The French position

The 2nd brigade under Drummond advances to support the rest of the light division. Lots of green coated riflemen thrown out in front.

The french open fire, Portuguese troops are sent to cut the retreating french off but are menaced by the french light cavalry

The French light cavalry

The British attack the french right flank which starts to fold back on itself

Ouch Pictons Division starts to arrive, one turn late after the french played a dastardly fate card 

After a failed charge at the Portugese the french light cavalry is forced to pull back and regroup

The British assault through the light woods on the french right

In the centre the french are starting to pull back to buy some time

Finally the rest of the French see the advancing 3rd Division and are activated to move off the ridge

A second charge by the french cavalry has wiped out the Portugese who were caught in the field,

The french right wing has managed to extricate itself despite every unit in the brigade being shaken. The fresh troops can hopefully now hold the position long enough

The British are now in the driving seat pushing up onto the higher ground driving the french before them

The position of the light division, it has been badly beaten up and at one point was on the verge of collapsing completely but it held on just, with the rest of the 3rd Division arriving it is a British win as they have forced significantly more Brigade Fortitude tests out of the french.

Lots of fun and a surprisingly tight game, the British really were on the point of collapsing, it didn’t help that the French rolled pretty badly, especially early on.

The ECW painting has continued with a planned battle later this week.

These are lovely Peter Pig command figures to use both for army and Batalia commanders. I like the fact that each is named on the base so thought I would highlight this, they do a couple more figures which I’ll get next time I order something. For now I have been completing units of dismounted dragoons.

Well that’s it for now , hopefully two games this week.

Thanks for checking in Matt ♥️

A brief flight of fantasy……

As a brief interlude from historical gaming we decided to throw my Tallarn force into the deepest jungle on a planet far far away……. Sadly the jungle was infested with all manner of lizard creatures !

Although there were technically five objectives the lizards and their thralls appeared more intent on killing  the fine human warriors who had inadvertently entered their jungle. The scene was set could the fire power of the Tallarn kill enough lizards before they got into combat !

Multi coloured lizards race across the table

They appear to have dinosaurs as well 

The men folk dig in and let lose with their supporting artillery

We were using xeno rampant as an easy ruleset, the Tallarn as light infantry get quite a lot of free movement and some free shooting, the lizards foolishly haven’t invented long range weapons other than a few rudimentary blowpipes. 

The Tallarn have tanks too. I thought I had taken more photos than I did, anyway, anybody who deployed on the left of the river got eaten pretty quickly, but the Lizards really struggled to break into the tank. The heavy support weapons in the centre killed lizards in their droves.

On the right a titanic struggle took place which in the first phase went to the dino, who knew they were so tough ! luckily the warriors were able to call in support weapons who drove the dinosaur back and then eventually brought it down.

A lot of blood was split in the jungle but in the end a Tallarn victory, firepower winning out, but it looked pretty sketchy for a while. Those warriors that fell in battle will be mourned, this small portion of the jungle is at least clear for now. 🙂 (no actual lizards were hurt during this battle)

As the weather has been rubbish I have contented myself with painting 

Commanded shot for the ECW

Finished off some penal colony imperial guard to support my Tallarn, these are Wargames Atlantic figures with some kit basing using GW stuff

And just this morning I finished off some smaller ECW cannons…..nearly there for the ECW

Another game planned for Friday which will hopefully get the Naps back on the table.

Thanks as always for checking by Matt ♥️

Cruel Seas and a painting update

Another mixed bag this post. First up I had painted up a number of Warlord Cruel Seas 1/300 WW2 boats about a year ago, with a short game planned for Saturday afternoon a chance to get them out for a first time. After reading the basic rules through I needed a few bits to help run the game mainly the stat cards required for each boat, these I was able to find on the web suitable for our purpose.

Our scenario had the British Navy attacking the Kreigsmarine somewhere off Northern France to knock out a U boat, 4 MTB’s against 2 German E boats supported by a shore battery.

The MTbs split around the small island, and you can see some of the stat cards to the right

The Germans move out of their harbour

One of the things we discovered during the game was the ineffectiveness of torpedos and most gun firing at long range and with the boats moving at high speeds both sides needed to get in close. The cotton wool represents plumes of water where larger caliber guns have missed their target.

After several turns the British Navy manage to knock out one of the e boats 

The British are then able to target the U boat and with some lucking rolling they were able to knock it out. A fun run out with the boats which gave us a good idea of how the game works. Hopefully we’ll get another chance to play it again sometime.

I mentioned in the last post I would do a parade of my ECW mainly to check what else I might need to get the collection ready for a battle. The photo above shows it all set out, six infantry and six cavalry regiments for each side. A couple of things are now needed….so here they are hot off the painting table

Some more generic command figures 

And some artillery 

I have now completed pretty much all the plastic cavalry I had so I decided to try some Peter Pig figures to complement the collection these arrived and are being moved into the painting queue. Together with some more command figures.

I have also finished another infantry unit which didn’t make the parade

A few Warlord American command figures have also been painted while I waited for other figures to dry etc…. These are mainly resin although the General Patton is metal. All these for Sicily battles.

Finally on the painting I finished this sleeping/dead Spartan who strangely sat on the painting desk for ages

..and yet more secondhand books, I just can’t help myself at the moment.

The battles book is basically fantastic with maps of numerous famous battles with appropriate details I wasn’t going to miss this one.

Even I am nearly worn out by this post, lots going on more battles next week and no doubt some more painting to come.

Thanks of course for taking the time to check through this post Matt ♥️

A mixed bag of painting……

 As my cold very gradually improves I’ve managed to get some more painting done between the coughing. As this morning saw a return to gaming and a trip to George’s. First up the painting, I had a short break from ECW as I awaited some more bases.

This fine metal standard is I think a warlord figure possibly the one who comes with the rule book ? Anyway I put him with a couple of spare figures to create an extra command stand for the peninsular

This bad boy has been sitting waiting to be constructed for ages, again a warlord model the standing crew can all be removed if needed, I guess the Germans need an 88 but I’m not sure how often it will get onto the table ?

I guess all British Napoleonic Peninsular armies need a Rocket or two, again a metal warlord model, they do a second version which I might pick up one day ?

Then back to ECW here are two units of dragoons

And hot off the painting table this evening another Royalist unit marches out of the depot, I think a parade is needed in the next few days

Due to my cold last week I had to cancel George coming to the dungeon but we managed to rearrange our next early war campaign for this morning. A tough scenario for the French (George) who have to try and demolish the two culverts to delay the German advance. This is tough with the Germans getting additional support points.

Looking to delay the Germans brought along a Stuka bomber which wasn’t very successful last time. However, on this occasion the bomber proved very effective, hitting a key building close to the french objective, it turned out this left an unexploded bomb in the building which might blow at an end of turn ?

Some good dice rolling from the Germans, and the french were struggling from the start getting pinned down as they deployed.

German firepower drove the french back from the objective and then to cap it off the UXB exploded. As always a pleasure to play with George’s lovely collection and a fun game greatly enhanced by my win 🙂

Finally for this post I found this rather splendid book in a secondhand book shop for a couple of quid.

Thats it for this post, hopefully another game later this week and if I can cope some more painting.

Thanks as always for taking the time to check in

Matt ♥️