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 ❤️

Norway WW2 : the Battles of Dombaas 16th/17th April 1940

After the hot dusty weather in the Peninsular I cleared the table off for some snow. Norway 1940…..

We have played a number of scenarios from this excellent book. A couple of the scenarios based around the activity of the 324th Fallschirmjager Regiment are quite small, with a small number of German Paratroopers attempting to capture and hold the strategically important Dombaas Crossroads. There are two scenarios as the battle lasted over two days. We thought it would be fun to played the two scenarios as a linked pair in the same session.

We modified the forces to work with Bolt Action and set to…..

The central key objective is a Barn located close to the road junction. Some light woods but also a lot of open ground. A small ruined building can be seen to the left of the barn which will provide cover if needed. 

The small Fallschirmjager  force deploys from the light woods beyond the ruined building. The Norwegian troops arrive from three other directions , this includes at least one unit of Norwegian ski troops seen here coming over the low hill.

As expected the Germans dash for the bar and the strong defensive position it will 

provide.

With the Germans in the barn, Norwegian infantry approach from several direction opening fire, but ultimately they only have six turns to get into the barn which will require them to assault.

Norwegians closing in on the backyard of the barn, but with limited cover they get pinned down.

The Norwegian HQ crosses the road to lead the attack

The first infantry unit, carries out the first assault on the building, they wipe out the first unit in the building but as we agreed the building could hold two units they can push in yet.

After several tough rounds of hand to hand combat and right in the last turn the Norwegians are able to secure the Barn and a win in the first battle.

Now they must hold the area against a German counterattack

Both sides have some additional reserves for this scenario. The Norwegians setup in and around the barn.

The Fallschirmjager attack from two sides using the light woods and the hills as cover for their advance

The defenders dug is as best as they can, they keep their ski troops in reserve in case the Germans break cover

Germans can be seen assaulting the barn through the ruined building but they have also broken cover from the woods the elite ski troops swoop in to finish them off.

They only need some 5’s …arghhhhhh !

The paratroopers win and cross into the yard. From the left you can see some ‘French’  reserves arriving (don’t look too closely as they are actually Polish infantry 🙂)

The Germans force there way into the barn from the back

So it is upto the French to clear them out, after several further tough rounds of combat

The last of the Germans are driven out but it has literally taken all of the Norwegian force to complete the objective.

Two excellent and fun battles/skirmishes very close and brutal with nowhere to hide for either side. I’m sure we will be returning to Norway some time later in the year. But I do need to paint some French for the Battles around Narvik.

Thanks as always for taking the time to checkout the blog. More to come soon…..

Matt ❤️

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 ❤️