Battle of Leominster 1052 (no dogs hurt during the refight of this battle)

We moved back to the Welsh borders for our next battle. The Anglo Saxon chronicles have a fairly brief entry identifying that Llwellyn ap Gryffydd brought an army across the Welsh borders to raid. This force sacked Leominster in 1052 but was then attacked by an Anglo Saxon force led by Ranulph Earl of Herefordshire, supported by ‘mercenary’ French troops from a nearby castle. The welsh often employed Dublin Vikings in his raiding forces. Almost nothing seems to be really known about the battle although apparently there is a marker in the town of Leominster indicating the battle took place near to a bridge possibly over the town defensive ditch ?

The location of the battle from my recently purchased Anglo Saxon atlas (I knew it would come in 🙂)

The Normans in their castle, possibly Comfordt Castle ?

Dublin Vikings with some loot 

Llewelyn with his main force of welsh

The Anglo Saxons have positioned themselves to block to road back to wales, nominally the scenario was for the Welsh and Vikings to escape with the three items of loot, in reality both sides sought to slaughter the enemy !

The Vikings on the left are hampered by the ditch which is effectively a stream

The Norman’s with crossbows push out of their defensive position

Everybody rushes forward 😀

The Saxons head for the high ground to try and take the small wood

The Dubliners unleash packs of wild fighting dogs but they have little impact against heavily mailed Norman knights who unceremoniously dispatch them with axes 🙁

The welsh have the numbers but as to be expected are generally lighter troops

The Vikings advance is constrained by the stream

Welsh light cavalry get up into the woods and exchange missile fire with the Saxons

In the valley the two armies come head to head

Overkill by the Normans as their heavy cavalry chase off some more fighting dogs

The welsh have managed to break though the woods and threaten to outflank the Saxons

The Norman cavalry is restricted by the terrain so they send in their infantry who are bad treated by the Vikings 

Saxons and welsh, in this case one of the few mail armed welsh units protecting the baggage clash

The Norman cavalry looking for some space choose to cross the bridge

Crashing into some of the light welsh troops holding their left flank 

The slog of battle continues, in the distance on the hill the Saxons are retaking the woods

Eventually the Vikings ferocious of course beat back the Norman infantry claiming a victory on the left

But on the right the Saxons have pretty much overwhelmed the welsh and captured the baggage. The battle ends with almost nobody left to tell the tale !

A fine run out for the Dark age collection and an entertaining period we will return to in the future.

I’m still behind on posts but have done some painting……

Finally completed an army command stand for the British in Spain.

Thanks as usual for checking in

Matt 😎

Back of Beyond ?

Slowly catching up on games we have played. This from a couple of weeks ago when George visited the dungeon. I rolled out a small Back of Beyond battle. Both sides seeking to capture three objectives. George posted a run down of the battle a while ago so I’m just really sharing some photos. Both sides Russians and British have employed tribal mercenaries who need to roll to activate each turn and if they fail run the risk of changing sides on a D6 roll.

The setup, Russian ps advance from the right, they have already captured one objective in the scenario but are slightly outnumbered by the British

Russian Tachanka 

British come on in the centre heading for the station building

Russians move over the hill in the distance

The British move in force towards the third objective

More Russians arrive in the centre

Bengal Lancers gallop down the road and wipe out the Tachanka, well I guess they kill the driver or horses, whatever it takes no more part in the battle !

The Russian milita have been driven off and the British consolidate around the train truck, only for the Afghan mercenaries to fail an activation swop sides and shoot their British masters in the back. Not surprisingly the British quickly turn on them to finish them off !

The lancers charge in again !

The other objective is left while the Russian make a beeline for the cross roads

Russians make a dash for the train 

Fierce hand to hand fighting with both sides taking a lot of casualties, eventually the British win through though, not helped by a couple of failed activations by the Russians on the hill.

The other truck is now contested. The turns ran out at this stage with the British in charge of two with the final objective contested. So a British win this time.

A fun game and nice to give this little collection a run out…..

And finally some painted wargame figures, with and up coming Napoleonic battle agains the Russians and needing some more light cavalry I dug into the plastic mountain and found I had a small (seven figure) unit of Chasseurs a cheval so these got painted up in anticipation.

Four are warlord plastics with three Perry metals as the command figures. I have swopped the annoyingly thin warlord sabres out for some spares from other figures. The standard isn’t the correct one but you can’t really read it anyway 🤔

Well that’s it for now, several more battles under my belt this year so I need to post the others soon. Unfortunately some are quite big, including the Battle of Corunna played out yesterday !

Thanks as always for checking by

Matt ♥️

Rocherath - Krinkelt : The twin villages Ardennes 1944

For our next battle we headed back to the Ardennes. As the Germans pushed west in the first few days of the offensive the Germans were held at the twin villages of Rocherath and Krinkelt. This allowed many American troops to escape the German advance and to pull back to the Elsenborn Ridge to the North west. The delay caused by the holding action like many others ensured the offensive failed in its objectives. A number of American units form the 99th Divisin were involved in the defence holding back the 12th SS Panzer and the 277th Volksgrenadiers.  A very complex battle taking place over several days so the best we can do is a scenario ‘inspired by’ the historical events. 

The Americans have dug in across the two villages, they have managed to mine a number of areas. The Germans objective is to break through to the ridge beyond the villages the outnumbered Americans must attempt to hold them back. At least this time I remembered to put out my smaller winter trees 👍

The Germans have a phased arrival , starting with the 277th with their heavy support weapons.

The 12th SS panzer sends its tanks along the road directly towards the village of Rocherath and target American anti tanks guns knocking them out

After a couple of turns more Germans arrived further west and head towards the villages

The Americans holding buildings on the edge of the villages

Some of the leading panzers are pinned back and the leading German infantry are hit hard as they push forward to the edge of the village

But the Germans target buidlings on the edge of the village with both artillery and mortars and eventually the defenders are knocked out, the panzers then break into the village itself

Lots of tank on tank firing in the village often at close range. 

Two Sherman’s holding the southern edge of the village can be seen burning, the American infantry are regrouping being the village

German Grenadiers are now pushing into the village but they too take heavily casualties

They then turn north and try to outflank the American position

The German artillery is very effective at knocking out some of the defenders behind the village

American tank destroyers have been deployed to the west of Krinkelt but they are facing the might of the 12th SS panzer

The Germans (foreground) are outflanking the village and the defenders beyond the hedge can be seen heavily pinned down, another burning Sherman lies in the road put the ridge

We reached the end of the battle at this point, a German win as they have effectively broken through the villages and are pushing up the flank of the Elsenborn ridge.

The Americans have not been wiped out but are now only holding Krinkelt and have very little armour, they will have to rely on artillery dug in on the ridge ?

As always a fun battle, hard fought the German artillery was very effective early on knocking out the defenders and neutralising their antitank guns before they were able to have an impact, this allowed the German armour to push into the villages too easily. We may return to the Ardennes sometime later in the year ?

And now for some other stuff

Catching one of those beautiful winter days I managed a walk near the Langdales

Winter colours like nowhere else

We had a day trip out to Kendal where one of the charity/thrift shops had these two excellent books. They were well above the bar massive amount of detail and scenario for ECW

We had our trip to Vapnartak yesterday met loads of friendly wargamers, I actually took a load of bits and pieces to sell which I had collected and made a very respectable amount. On the show itself it seemed very busy, but there were less games on display and definitely less traders with quite a few spaces. But those there did seem to be selling stuff. Anyway it was nice to catch up with friends, chat about projects etc and quite fun to sell some stuff. This provided more money to spend on stuff

Loot pile one, mainly secondhand but I did try and buy a couple of bits from the traders as well. A few more little winter trees !

A few more walls to match the ones I have

Bargain of the day a gentleman was selling off his Perry samurai I wasn’t interested in the painted stuff but picked up his lead pile for a song 👍

Finally I have been trying to take some small videos of the railway in action and have put these together in a silly little montage if you don’t like model railways don’t click on the link if you do it is only a couple of minutes in total 🙂

That’s it for now gradually catching back up and back to painting figures yippee 

Thanks for checking by

Matt♥️