Skirmish for the Pitzer’s Wood 2nd July 1863 ACW

Two battles so far this week with another in the diary for Saturday. First up another trip down to George to continue our Chain of Command campaign. If not ready I’m sure George will post on this battle so really just a couple of photos from me and the broad outline.

The British must try and blow the two fuel dumps next to the road using engineer teams. The Germans must stop them, not a very promising scenario setup for the Germans as they only get 3 points of support more than the British defenders and the way the patrol phase is set up the British are guaranteed the majority of the cover.

Anyway the Germans get stuck in as best they can, both sides have a tank and after many misses the the British A4 goes up in flames

The British in the orchard as the German attempt (foolishly) to approach across the open ground

The British manage to blow one fuel dump, in fact it turns into a very close battle, ruthless German shooting targeting the British commander who mistakenly found himself isolated and out in the open brings their morale right down to 1 giving them only 2 command die. The Germans are clinging on with a morale of 3, but in the end the British turn the tables killing a German senior leader and the rest of the Germans are forced to retreat. The butchers bill was high though with the British taking very heavy casualties we’ll find out soon what this means for the campaign ?

Next up another remote game with Jon, to mix things up I set up an ACW scenario using R&P. This is broadly based on the fight for the Pitzer Woods early on 2nd July at Gettysburg. The main reason for choosing this of course was I thought it would be fun to get my Berdan Sharpshooters onto the table in a skirmish game and with R&P it is easy to give them the appropriate stats.

I found this map on the internet and used it for the basis of the skirmish

My terrain, the Staub Farm to the right.

The 3rd Maine advance quickly to support the Sharpshooters, their objective is to scout five markers before they are beaten back.

They are up against the 10th  and 8th Alabama support by a strong screen of skirmishers

Initially all seems to go well for the Rebels who advance to shooting range and try to close the distance to negate the longer range of the Berdan sharpshooters.

The fire fight kicks off across the table and especially in the open ground

Forces trade colleges across the Staub farmstead where one of the objectives is situated

Somehow things gradually started to go wrong for the Rebels, initially they fail a couple of morale checks and a couple of units become disordered. But with the Union forces keep rolling above a average and suddenly the Rebels start to fail all their tests.

Things quickly go sideways and the whole rebel forces breaks and flees back to their main line.

A fun game despite the disappointing result for the rebels, I had thought it would be a tough ask for the Federals but in the end with the complete collapse of the rebel morale it was almost a walk over, I think I failed at least 6 morale tests rolling less than 3 on two dice ! So there is no scenario design that can cope with that.

As seems the trend we have been busy over the last couple of weeks …..

Berwick upon Tweed the beautiful 16th century defences around the town.

Plenty of cycling out in the lakes

Dunbar where the restored 18th Century gun bastion over looks the two historic harbours and the very dilapidated  Dunbar castle, seen here in the distance where the flag is.

More hot weather encouraged me to spend a day walk a chunk of Hadrians wall, luckily there was a nice breeze.

The views really were stunning.

Well that’s it for now, unfortunately since I started this post it looks like my battle tomorrow has been postponed, but another game is planned for Monday anyway. Then in a weeks time I’m off on my travels again across Europe gorging on military history.

Thanks for checking by

Matt 🙂

Battle of Platea 479 BC

After all the muskets and smoke over the last few weeks it felt like time to throw some spears. With the weather set fine on Saturday a big game was in order. We have played a Platea scenario before and as it gave a good close game I thought it would fit the bill. The benefit over some other famous Persian battles eg Marathon is Platea allows a much wider range of troops (sadly no elephants though) and has the huge bonus of getting all the various Greeks on the table. So on Saturday we went big in the shed. 

The Persians on the left, split into three groups, in the distance the main Persian army led by Mardonius are facing off against the Spartans who have become separated from the rest of the Greek forces. In the middle mixed Persian allies and troops from their many satraps, these face mixed Greek allies. Finally in the foreground Greeks who have sided with the Persians including the Thebans are facing off against the Athenians and their closest allies. Pausanias is the Overall commander of the Greeks and specifically the Spartans. The Spartans are unable to move until the correct omens have been received from the gods. Whilst the forces are broadly equal in infantry, the Persians have significant cavalry as well, the Persians as to be expected have a different balance of forces focussed mainly on archers.

The Persians and their allies advance to get into bow range

The Athenians push upto the river

And both sides skirmishers engage in frantic fighting 

All along the line arrows are ranging down on the Greeks, 

Finally after sacrificing six sheep the gods say the Spartans can join the battle (I had a simple mechanism for this the Spartans needing a double six but getting an extra dice each turn)

The Persians have been firing at the Spartans who have just been hiding under their shields

With the Spartans now entering the battle, the Thebans decide to get stuck into the Athenians, but the attack falters crossing the river

The Spartans push forward but have several more rounds of arrows before they can get to the weakly armed Persians

Blocks of Hoplites thrust at each other over the river

Ouch…eventually the Spartans crash into Persians this is not going to end well

After some really tough fighting the Athenians get the better of the Thebans in a very close fight

In the centre the Persian allies are winning have beaten back the bulk of the Greek allies

And not surprisingly, now they are stuck into the fight, the Spartans are making fairly light work of the lightly armoured Persians. So overall the battle has gone to the Greeks. History has been repeated and the future of western civilisation has been saved. In 2500 years we will all be able to sit and watch Love Island thanks goodness 😂 a fine and very fun battle which played out very close.

Well that’s it for now and no planned battles for this week so a rest at least and a chance to tidy up a bit.

Thanks as always for taking the time to pass through the blog.

Matt ❤️

Battle of Germantown 1777 : Part 2 American War Independence

After a hiatus we returned to our AWI campaign this week with the second part of Germantown. Keen followers may remember we played the Battle for the Chew house as a separate skirmish. Given the size of Germantown and the restrictions of remote gaming and R&P rules this battle focussed just on the main American assault by Sullivan and Wayne. Fog played a part in the battle so visibility was reduced but gradually increased. 

With our experience of the rules and given the forces are fairly equal without the addition of reserves (I would like to play a bigger version of Germantown some time when I have enough forces painted up) I gave the Americans a number of advantages. The British would take time to activate as they were caught in camp, some of the Americans would have first fire, we reduced the movement restrictions over fences and gave the Americans two commanders improving their morale. They also had a numerical superiority in artillery 4 to 2 which normally doesn’t make much of a difference !

The church and town square of Germantown, the British lights are running back from the initial contact with the American attack around the Chew House

Sullivan advances on the American right 

The British are disorganised and in camp, their left wing is particularly slow to activate

The American right advances quickly over the fences dragging their artillery with them, but at this stage the fog is still limiting visibility

On the American left Wayne’s troops push into the woods

The fog lifts slightly and both side immediately start to open up, the American cannons are now in a good central position whilst the British have failed to activate and move their guns in the square !

On the British right they are in a strong position and concentrate fire into the woods, no rebels are coming through that route

But on the American right the tables are reversed and supported by their artillery who can now see the enemy the British are struggling

The British have finally worked to the danger and rush to form a defensive line

The American pounding away ! It’s bloody work this day

The central cannons prove really effective

The British do have some luck when two double six activation bring on reinforcement, would you believe it two units of grenadiers !

The British right is holding well

In desperation the British light cavalry charges across the table to try and take out one of the American cannons, dramatic maybe but ultimately a failure 👎

The British pull back slightly to regroup but the Americans just keep pushing forward

It’s already looking like a bad day for the British so in a desperate charge the grenadier rush forward to attempt to drive the rebels back

The battle breaks down into a series of bloody fire fights….but the Americans are gradually winning the day

The British guns having been pulled back are now firing but it is too late to impact the outcome

The British are gradually being driven back and they need to call it a day giving Germantown and their camp to the Americans.

A fun game although it did turn into a bit of a slugfest with little chance for manoeuvre. I probably gave the Rebels slightly too many advantages, but they failed very few activations (apart from their skirmishers) and the cannons were devastating as they were able to concentrate their fire. As mentioned I plan to run a larger Germantown scenario when I can paint up a couple more units as I think it makes a fine battle with reinforcements arriving for both sides. 

Last week I also visited George for a resumption of our Early War WW2 CoC campaign. He has already blogged the battle in some detail so just a couple of shots from me.

The wily British deploy in the woods and capture one of my JOP

Despite my abundance of tanks the Germans make a complete hash of things, giving the British a good win. We discussed at some length some of the problems with CoC and the games it seems to generate. The rules which I do like seem to have many devotees but I question why none of them seem to discuss the problems we seem to encounter ?

Several problems I would identify, firstly it rarely gives close games I would estimate on average out of 10 games only 2or 3 would be close. The rules can excessively punish a mistake, which I would liken to chess where a single blunder and you may as well pack in. This encourages very cautious gaming. Don’t get me wrong I actually like the rules and love much of the detail that has gone into them. But I can’t get over thinking there is something not quite right either in the rules or perhaps the scenarios? 

The game above was a good example. The game ended after about 3 hours of play I didn’t count but would estimate about 8- 10 turns per side. Both sides had deployed less than half their force, in fact only two squads on each side actually got involved and my PzIV which actually had no effect. the German morale by some unluckily rolling had dropped to 3 the British remained on 10, I think the Germans had actually only lost one Machine gun team and about 4 Riflemen, but because I had two junior leaders wounded, one senior leader wounded and then killed and lost a JOP the game was over. Hard to square this really as the campaign we are playing would now suggest the Germans get an additional 4 points and having discussed this we both feel if the Germans played in a  different way they would effectively be unstoppable so we are skipping this scenario and moving to the next one. All of this reminds me why a do quite like Bolt Action !

Anyway enough cogitation , thanks for checking I have another game to post from Saturday when I get a chance.

Thanks 

MAtt ❤️