Naps on the Table : Valour and Fortitude

The first of a flurry of games to be played over the next few days. Erik came for his first visit to the dungeon with a desire to test out the Valour and Fortitude rules with Napoleonics. Well that’s not a problem 😀

Rather than a historical battle the British and French forces, fairly balanced in size, would meet to contest an important village spread along a valley. There are three designated strong points along the road which would act as objectives to force both sides to get stuck in.

The french are able to activate slightly quicker with their light infantry capturing the Cross roads quite quickly.

As the battle unfolded it became clear the British were focussing on the other two objectives so the french gradually moved their artillery to the cross roads and then beyond to outflank the redcoats.

British light infantry capture the second objective, but are then assaulted by two Battalions of Swiss infantry, beyond them are two attack columns of French infantry driving the rest of the British light brigade backwards, but they are about to be flank by the British light cavalry !

After a few turns both sides receive reinforcements

The British reserves make it to the church, whilst beyond them French dragoons chase off the British Hussars.

The french cavalry takes a pummelling from the British horse artillery.

With time catching up the dragoons charge the artillery and are able to drive it away, but the french centre is beginning to struggle as the third British brigade including the Foot Guards and highlanders advance on the central objective. The Swiss put up a fight but are ultimate knocked out of the battle.

We had great fun and it was a close battle, hard to call a victory, the British had two of the three objectives but had lost a lot more in the process. That said the french cavalry was pretty much blown and their first brigade was done for. We called it a draw in the end.

Always fun of course to get the Naps on the table. If you look closely you will see the recently painted shaken markers getting plenty of use !

Thanks as always for popping by 👍

Matt ❤️

The Tirpitz sets sail…….

Those keen followers will know I picked up a bargain at the recent York wargame show. The Tirpitz in 1/350 scale, the plan was to potentially use this in the summer in some Cruel Seas games or perhaps as an objective for my WW2 aircraft game. Anyway to achieve this I had to convert the model to a waterline model, that done the model was quite easy to put together.

Then onto painting, now as a wargamer rather than a model maker the painting is a bit rough. Technically the red waterline was I think removed when they moved to the blocky camo scheme. But painted just in grey it is a bit boring. I’m also not sure about the deck colour but lots of pictures show it in the 

Light brown and I went with this as it simply looks better. Of course you don’t get a sense of the scale….

Here she is against one of my Cruel seas MTB’s !

and she dwarfs the USS Delong destroyer I made (I might go back and paint the Delong deck as well) any thoughts welcome on this ? It will probably be a while before she gets some table time unless we play a game with my WW2 aircraft.

In other news……

People might be aware Wargames Atlantic have recently brought out a range of HYW figures specifically focussed on Agincourt. The figures are 12mm, I picked up a sprue off eBay to see what the figures are like and if they were something I might like. I plan to paint these up sometime although they are clearly smaller than the Warlord Epic figures but very nicely sculpted figures.

Also off the painting table some ACW shaken markers

And a couple more Napoleonic markers

 

I have several games planned over the next few days so hopefully my health will hold up

Thanks as always for checking in…

Matt❤️

Battle of Roundway Down 1643 : ECW

A couple of weeks of Radio silence as I recover from a winter illness. A couple of games postponed due to the real world. However, plenty has been going on in the Dungeon.

First up we managed another ECW battle this time the battle of Roundway Down July 1643. A really interesting battle with the Royalists split, their Cornish Infantry in Devizes, their Cavalry attacking the main Parliamentary force under Sir General Waller.

There are lots of different maps of the battle on the internet, this one perhaps the most useful depending on the scale of the battle to be played. 

My 8x5 foot table allows plenty of space. The Royalist cavalry on the left. Regular readers will know almost every battle we play is a bespoke scenario and I always try and blend some elements of the historical battle to create further interest. In this case the accounts of the battle seem to indicate that the Royalist infantry held up in Devizes thought the ‘battle’ was a Parliamentary ruse to draw them out of the town. So they only left the town after the gun fire and noise made it clear a real battle was under way. This means the Parliamentary force has a limited time advantage to tackle the Royalist cavalry. Spoiler alert : I goofed in this battle with the timings of the Royalist infantry arrival !

The parliamentary force look out towards the Royalist cavalry

As the Royalist cannons open up the Parliamentary force decides to take decisive action and they carry out  a full assault, seeking to wipe the Kings cavalry from the field before any reserves can support them.

The Royalist cavalry have some slight advantage in numbers and on both flanks close range pistol shooting begins the engagement

Cavalry supported by dragoons

After the initial pistol shots the cavalry engage in hand to hand combat

The Royalist cavalry are holding their own but they are gradually being pinned down

Finally Horton and his infantry arrive on the battlefield marching to the sound of the guns

Despite their robust defence the Royalist cavalry is struggling to hold and the Parliamentary infantry is now breaking through in the centre

All is not lost for the Royalists who have effectively won the cavalry battle on both wings…..

Unfortunately it has taken too long and they are pretty much blown themselves, added to this their infantry reserves have arrived too late to influence the outcome of the battle. It was a well fought battle, and fun even if the scenario didn’t quite work out as planned. We need to run this one again sometime and amend the arrival time for the Royalist infantry to give Waller some real challenges.

Some painting I have managed to complete….

French light infantry, this are Fronk Rank figures, mainly bought secondhand but bulked out with a couple of new purchases to fill the unit.

Completed one of my Christmas presents a Carden Loyd carrier, this probably sits alongside the Beaverette as fun but slightly under powered British armour to defend against the German sea lion invasion.

I have also been painting up some shaken markers, these for my Napoleonics

In our AWI campaign we have reached the battle of Germantown. As a large battle we have decided to break it down. Famously this involved the fight for the Chew House

I realised I didn’t really have a suitable stone house

Whilst I didn’t want an exact model, so I could use the house for other scenarios and periods, I thought this war bases house would be a good start

All the bits painted before construction

Then I set to with milliliput modelling clay and some extra cardboard, I also found I had some pillars from a previous project. A slow process but as I wasn’t doing much else it was fine.

Then onto painting with plenty of dry brushing

Happy with the result 😀

Well that’s it for now, my health is not ideal but I managed to build my Tirpitz model over the last couple of days.

Thanks as always for popping by 

Matt ❤️

Battle of Olustee 1864 : ACW

This weekend saw us return to the ACW. Having discussed with George his latest game I thought we would try converting it to 28mm and using Valour and Fortitude.

The details of the scenario and published and available in these Potomac Publications

Historically the Confederate force had were looking to throw back the invading Union force, having built entrenchments the Rebels sent out a small force to entice the Union force into attacking. Not taking the bite both sides ended up feeding addition troops until they were fully engaged. Although the terrain is quite open it is constructed by swamps and a small pond.

A nice picture of the battle but inaccurate as this shows the attack at the entrenchments. The battle was also famous as it involved a number of Black American troops including the famous 54th Massachusetts Regiment made famous by the film Glory.

I squeezed the battlefield onto the L shaped battlefield in the dungeon the Confederates on the left.

The battle kicks off with a skirmish between light troops, the main challenge for the Union force is where to stand and can they hold before they are overrun ? V&F does give a bit of an advantage here with the ability to ‘at the double’.

Union reserves rush to the sound of the guns.

In the distance the bulk of the confederate force arrives and the Federals still have a lot of ground to cover

The Rebels push forward but fail a critical early activation before their commanding general has arrived this delays the advance of their largest brigade for one turn, this could prove critical later

The rebels get moving while the Federals try to build a coherent defence line

Inevitably the two lines draw closer together the Rebels taking the initiative 

The rebels chose to focus their attack on the Union right where they have the advantage of numbers

But the rebels on the left are already fairly exhausted, the red counter mark units which are shaken, but somehow the brigade manages to hold its position 

Locked in brutal hand to hand combat, both sides now close to breaking, somehow the rebels continue to hold

And eventually break the Union right

They continue to advance taking out the final Union artillery. But as you can see the Rebels are pretty exhausted.

On the right the remaining rebel cavalry having been bolstered by late arrivals and having rallied from the initial skirmish battles charges in against the 54th Massachusetts Rgt. In an unlikely result (the dice gods favouring the rebels) the 54th flee and are cut down.

At this point we called the battle to an end with night falling, both sides and generals exhausted. It was a very tight battle, we played a couple of extra combats through just to see if one side could get an advantage but no, neither side would break. In the end it was probably a tactical draw, but after some discussion given the context of the battle we gave it to the Rebels as they had achieved their objective of holding back the Union force, they had captured all of their cannon and given them a serious bloody nose. A tough but enjoyable battle for both sides.

A bit more completed painting…

Here are the two Half tracks I picked up at York, they are very rough casts so I’m happy with the way they came out, ultimately they are only going to be used as transports

 And I mentioned a parade of my french cavalry ! Next on the list might be some Polish lancers ?

Thanks as always for checking in on the blog 

Matt ❤️