Battle of Germantown October 1777 Part 1 : The fight for the Chew House

Back to our AWI campaign yesterday with the first part of the battle of Germantown. Given the rules we are using and the challenges of remote gaming I felt it sensible to split Germantown into two smaller battles and I was keen to see if we could have a skirmish focussing just in the fight for the Chew House.

A painting of the fighting around the Chew house.

The overview of the battle histprically. This part ‘one’ would effectively cover the highlighted area.

A second map of the battle from a wargame scenario perspective. The battle for the Chew is quite hard to balance as the British really are completely outnumbered. So the scenario sees a delaying action by the British with units of Pickets and the Light battalion trying to inflict as much damage as possible before the 40th Foot with Colonel Thomas Musgrave will try to hold the house. We had a number of specific scenario details. The battle starts in fog so range is limited until the fog lifts. We extended the movement rates for the first few turns as with R&P it could take a long time to get to the House itself. The British are all veterans. The Americans fire cant effect the troops in the house itself, effectively this reflects history as  even though they brought up cannons they had no impact. We also had a slightly amended combat result so the British even if they lost a combat wouldn’t flee the house until they actually failed a test. Col Musgrave who is in the house would also provide a plus 2 leadership, making the 40th Foot pretty tough to shift.

Our setup at the start of the battle

General Sullivan with his force march through the fog up the main Germantown road.

With an early lifting of the fog the British pickets open fire and start to pull back. They have little effect but the British light infantry use their First fire to knock the leading skirmishers back, the Americans are pushing forward their artillery along the road. Sullivan is slow to get moving.

Quickly the Americans drive forward and a sharp fight occurs around the church

The Americans are able to open up with their light cannons and this cause a real problem for the British light infantry

After an initial wobble the external portion of the 40th move forward to contest the advance knowing that every casualty caused before the Americans reach the house will help.

Ouch despite the fog lifting some Americans friendly fire into the rear of their own infantry. Sullivan is lucky the damage is not too great

The pickets are pretty much wiped out now, but the British infantry outside the house open up, they will be a tougher nut to crack

On the American right, the British light infantry are still holding just and causing casualties 

The 40th form into line they are not going to give ground !

Some tough fighting across the front, as you can see the British defenders are almost lost, but just clinging on, every minute will count

Finally the external defenders are driven back and Sullivan advances towards the House knowing that it can only be taken in hand to hand combat.

The Americans surround the house and charge in…….

Given that Musgrave had been given a key role in the defence with a 2 plus leadership, I was not too happy when in the first round of combat, with only one casualty caused Musgrave was killed ! Suddenly it was far more likely the British would fail a morale check and be forced to withdraw.

The Americans charge in again and again are driven back …..

But with Musgrave dead the inevitable happens and the British defenders finally fail a morale check forcing them to flee the building…. An American win arrghhhhhh

So despite the casualties a win for the Americans as they have forced the house, musgrave’s leadership might have made all the difference, but he died a hero much too early in the fighting. A fun battle full of twists and turns and challenge for both sides. Everything worked well and balanced apart from the Colonels untimely death. Were we to replay I might reduce this risk and give the occupants in the house the 2 plus so they can’t lose it so quickly. Nice of course to get my Chew house on the table 🙂

Next up I have been thinking about terrain for my Greek/Italian 1940 project. Much of the fighting took place in the mountains and in winter in quite desolate areas. Specifically I felt I needed more rocky terrain and more winter-looking trees. First up the trees…..

I picked up a packet of these railway type trees off eBay

These were then stuck to heavier bases to make them more stable and painted before I set about twisting the branches into suitable shapes, I then cover the base in some leaf type debris which I had in my terrain box.

The results are quite pleasing and give a sense of ‘winter’ trees obviously these can be used in other theatres eg the ACW when we fight battles in winter. I didn’t want snow as this makes them just a little too specific. In total I have about 20 of these and plan to make the  other slightly smaller trees into olive/fruit trees as I need some more of these.

As a final thought I put some autumn type lichen on the armatures and I guess they could also be used like this?

Well that’s it for now, we played a CoC battle down at George’s this morning but I’ll let him tell the tale before I share a couple of photos.

Thanks as always for passing through, you are most welcome

Matt ❤️

Somewhere in North Sea : 1/3000 Naval Battles

Regular followers with have spotted I picked up a few secondhand Dreadnoughts over the last few months and painted them up. After searching for some suitable rules I picked up a copy of “When Dreadnoughts rules the Seas” by Brian DeWitt and available through Amazon via Little Wars TV. The rules are only 4 pages and you can download ship cards and the booklets comes with background info and several scenarios.

Anyway having played a number of more traditional battles we thought we would give these a run out for fun, see if we like the rules etc….

Pretty easy terrain to setup this is my ‘sea’ cloth for our planned Cruel seas game in the spring. The rules come with some turning templates and the ship cards can be downloaded and printed off. There is as to be expected some record keeping, and we soon discovered we could simplify the speed into five steps rather than a complete sliding scale which is hard to keep track of.

Our initial battle sets out, one dreadnought, a light cruiser and a Destroyer squadron each side. The destroyers can deploy smoke so why not !

After some manoeuvring and with both the Cruisers and destroyers sent to the bottom of the sea the Dreadnought pound it out.

Despite being hit and damaged the Derfflinger scores a critical hit on the Queen Mary with their poor fire control the crew are unable to put it out and she explodes !💥💥💥 unexpected but I believe this is exactly what happened historically. We had lunch and pondered a bigger battle in the afternoon.

The added complexity of Mist now drifting across the North Sea, two pretty equal fleets now faced off against each other. We were probably too ambitious and should have limited the number of ships to about six ! Lesson learnt.

Anyway the two fleets steam towards each other

The Germans attempt to cover their attack with smoke but a couple of the British Battleships break through hunting the German fleet.

As I guess is probably the way of these things both fleets swing around attempting to get the advantage and use the mist and smoke to hide any attack. The British got the better if the encounter and although the British had taken quite a pounding by the end the Germans had lost two Battleships and were forced to flee back to port.

A fun day gaming and nice to try out the ships. The rules worked well and are pretty quick to pick up, we had a couple of questions on things which weren’t quite clear (like the number of Torpedos each ship carries) but we sorted these out as we went along. We were over ambitious with the number of ships in the afternoon and would have been better with a smaller but focussed scenario. When we play it again (sometime) we will focus down a little. But as a change it was quite fun and I have always wanted to give this scale of Naval gaming a try out. Huge benefit is the storage space and the speed a battle can be set up…..

Thanks for checking by…….back to AWI and WW2 in the next few days 

Matt ❤️

Battle of Nantwich 1644 : and other stuff…..

The run on battles continues, this time the Dungeon hosted a refight of the battle of Nantwich to introduce George to my ECW collection and rules we have been using.

The battle of Nantwich, the Kings forces had been besieging the town which had a substantial protective wall. It was I understand the last town in Cheshire holding out. Fairfax arrives to break the siege. But attacks across difficult ground which is broken up by hedges, ditches and fields.

Our set up the Church at Acton on the right with the Royalist artillery. The scenario is broadly historical, although from my brief reading on the battle the Royalist had no cavalry, this being stuck on the other side of the River Weaver which is in the line of trees in the distance. To give some balance we would allow some Royalist cavalry across the weaver on D6 roll.

The Parliamentarians begin their advance through the broken ground. The Royalists are slightly unsure what to do, they open fire where they can but the enemy use the cover to their advantage.

Quickly Fairfax sees the opportunity to out flank the enemy with his cavalry, the Royalist infantry begins to fold back to try and prevent this, in the distance a unit has also been detached to deal with the threat from Nantwich !

Arghhh if only they were Royalist cavalry ! But they are not the Royalist left flank has been turned ! It’s going to be a struggle now for Byron the Royalist commander

The Royalist cavalry make it cross the bridge, but the path is block , they charge in and a swirling melee ensues 

Quickly forming into a defensive position, in the middle distance the Royalists are on the attack hoping to link up to their cavalry ?

“We are undone” the cavalry charges the rear of a second unit and the artillery in the church yard

The royalists bravely fight on but it is really only a matter of time now, in the distance the Nantwich reinforcements have been thrown back into the town by accurate musket fire. But the main Royalist line is close to breaking 

In the far distance the Royalist cavalry has broken through literally wiping out the Parliamentry horse, but they are too far away to save their infantry. And instead spend time looting the Parliamentary baggage, this forces a morale check for the Parliamentarians but they pass easily

With all but one infantry block fleeing the field the Kings forces surrender the ground and the siege is lifted of Nantwich. A good job for the parliamentary army as their baggage has been looted and they will need supplies from the town.

A fun battle and a good introduction for George, the rules worked well, the disrupted terrain didn’t help the Royalists enough to hold back the tide. The flank being turned so early was devastating and rightly so. Seeing off the Nantwich contingent was a bonus but it had tied up an infantry unit which was needed elsewhere. The Parliamentarians didn’t quite have it all their own way……..just most of it ! I’m really enjoying the ECW setup and the scale is giving the mobility which I was looking for plenty more mid scale battles to stage, but I would play this one again…….

A change of scale ….

Some painting this week so SYW artillery horses, rather than have full limbers I have gone for horses and a spare artillery figure to hold them. Simple but nice to add to the collection

Look what the postman (well Evri delivery driver) brought, I had been pondering these for a while, not my favourite but they came up at a bargain price on eBay. We’ll see what we can do with them

With the rugby on TV (Ireland/wales) not that enthralling I set to to paint the HYW infantry from Wargames Atlantic. They took about 3 hours start to finish.

I chose simple colours and painted them the same way I do the ECW. The only difference being a grey undercoat rather than brown, given the armour on show. I then picked three colours to see what they would look like and mixed them up. Some Agrax stain and then pick out some details/highlights.

I think I have missed a bit on some figures as I have now referred to some pictures which show all the figures in surcoats a few of mine don’t have them painted, hey at this scale it makes little difference. I think the bases are a 30x40 which bunches them up a bit, I tried various different bases but this seemed to give the most attractive result. Not too regimented and with another set you could have quite a lot of variation brining the individual figures to the front rank. Quite happy with the overall effect. What takes the time is the variation in coat colours, the more variation the longer they would take.

Scale wise here they are compared to a unit of Pendraken SYW infantry and some Epic scale ECW. I guess the photo shows they are much closer to 10mm, but as previously shown the ECW are really small 15mm. Food for thought anyway, we’ll see how the cavalry turn out when I get a chance.

Another game planned for today and then I need a rest 😂

Thanks as always for checking in

Matt ❤️

The Battle of Polotsk : Russia 17/18th August 1812

Like buses my games are coming thick and fast at the moment. Next up a rescheduled Napoleonic battle at Martins. The battle of Polotsk, we would be focussing on the Bavarian defence of the Spa/convent, the Russian attack and then the larger French counterattack. The Russians were really looking to delay the French advance and shouldn’t have got engaged but historically the outcome was a bloody nose for both and a draw.

Martin has been painting Bavarians so it was a first chance for them to get on the table.

A search of the internet provides some useful ideas for the battle, but also a very wide range of differing OB’s we went for something reasonably balanced although even then when the French arrive the Russians will be outnumbered. The challenge is for the Russians to defeat the Bavarians quickly and then go on the defensive ?

The convent sitting in the centre which for V&F will be a defensible feature, the woods will provide some cover, the stream is difficult terrain.  It only slows movement. The two smallish Bavarian brigades on the left. We would be using the free downloadable V&F sheet for these, who actually rate them pretty high !

The Russian columns advance using the woods as cover and deploy their artillery.

The fight for the convent quickly kicks off, even though it is only held by a battalion of light infantry they get the advantage of the defendable terrain and hold on the leading Russian columns are badly mauled.

In fact the leading Russians are driven back from the convent

On the Bavarian right the Russians are coming under heavy volley fire, whilst light infantry contest the woods

On the left the Bavarians are threatened by Russian Cossacks so are forced into square at the edge of the woods. The Bavarians are holding but only just.

Just as they are about to break the drums are heard as the French arrive from the south.

To counter the Russian reserve cavalry arriving the French bring on their cavalry !

The Bavarians are pretty much out of it now, the Russians have finally made it into the convent and a Russian reserve brigade can be seen advancing from the rear. But the French have the numbers

The Russians are thrown back on the right but the French advance is constricted by the stream

On the left of the convent the French initially fail to seize the moment and spend two turns redeploying in the woods, but then they charge forward in column to drive the Russians back.

The Russians are not giving up though and contest the convent to the end

The fresh french infantry has the advantage though and they are able to retake the convent, and drive back the remaining Russians. Time for Wittgenstein to withdraw…… somehow I missed taking any other photos of the cavalry battle. Not completely decisive but the cuirassiers eventually chased off the Cossacks, whilst the Russians dragoons sent my French hussars and chasseurs fleeing the field 🙁 honour even on the cavalry front I guess ?

A splendid set to, wargaming at its best. We might revisit this some time but give the Russians more time to finish off the Bavarians ?

On the painting front I have been painting up the WW1 warships, these were mainly picked up secondhand for a bit of fun to try them out, I have rebased them and at this scale it is a pretty simple paint job.

Finally with some improving health and a sunny day I got out in the hills not too far but the views were spectacular.

That’s it for now as George is arriving in a bit for an ECW battle down in the dungeon 👍

Thanks as always

Matt ❤️