Battle of Bemis Heights : American War Independence and more…..

Pretty busy week this week out and about gaming and a spot of painting. First up Saturday evening saw the Battle of Bemis Heights on the wargame table. Also known as the second battle of Saratoga. Burgoyne has pulled back to his defensive position and for once the Americans are on the attack. This wasn’t played against Jon as part of our series and for a change was played using V&F rather than Rebels and Patriots.

The scenario I used was pretty much straight out of the Black Powder Rebellion book a

Though I changed the map around a bit.

The British are already occupying the two redoubts, Breyman’s seen on the left and in the distance Balcarres’ Redoubt. The British have three brigades, Fraser’s light troops in the fields, beyond them Riedesel’s Hessians and in the distance Philips. Three American brigades arrive turn one with their reserves dependent on capturing one of the redoubts. All the ground is wooded except the fields and the hills cleared around the redoubts. We kept the woods as fairly open as we had slightly limited time to complete the battle.

The British in Balcarres Redoubt beyond them Philips Grenadiers.

The Americans arrive en mass

The British cannons open up

Poors brigade advances through the woods but starts to take casualties

The American close from three directions on the outnumbered British

Learned’s brigade drive form the SW

Form the west the British lights are driven back and Fraser throws forward his Native scouts in a desperate charge

The Natives are also driven off leaving the road open to the redoubt

But in the East the American advance through the woods is stalling, the British grenadiers bide their time then charge into the Americans driving them away at the point of the bayonet !

The Americans are now struggling on their right

But making good progress towards Breymans redoubt

The Hessian Grenadiers are ordered to charge out of the redoubt to break up the attack, this succeeds but they are now in the open and come under heavy fire

The leading Americans start taking canister fire from the redoubt ! Ouch 

Not surprisingly they get heavily shaken, fail their test and flee the field

At this point we reached our time limit for the battle, broths sides might try to claim a victory but really it is with the British who have held both redoubts. That said with a bit more daylight I think the Americans might have taken the first redoubt. They just needed a bit more time.

A fun battle and hard fought, valour and fortitude worked well, although we are still using the older version. It is likely we’ll see this scenario again soon against Jon.

Also this week some painting first up I’ve completed another Spanish Napoleonic unit, nothing very spectacular but nice Perry figures and a nice range of poses, thats 4 units now so close to. Brigade and I have prepped up a command figure for the brigade.

Spanish infantry 🙂

I also painted up a first regiment of Scottish Lancers for the ECW, these are not the best sculpts in the Epic range but you get them on the same Scottish sprue so I have enough for at least 2 or 3 units.

I also thought it was time for a Scottish parade…….i have several more pike blocks but I’m not sure how many I really need. I have another irregular unit which I do need to get painted up and then some commanded shot/musketeer units. I need to plan out a suitable battle as this will encourage me to complete the force.

Finally for last week a game down at George’s which he has posted already, a fine run out for his ACW cavalry the battle of Brandy Station. Just a couple of photos here to show the lovely collection.

rebel cavalry under Jeb Stewart 

Union cavalry ‘hiding’ in the woods !

We have the numbers but just need to get to grips with the enemy

No point hanging about so as soon as we can we get stuck in charging in all over the place, the rule of averages mean our extra number mean we ultimately win out

A decisive win on the right helped by some Union cavalry running out of ammo !

 A fine game although the cavalry battle wasn’t perhaps as open as expected 😀

That’s it for now, thanks for checking by more to come soon

Matt ❤️ 

Battle of Littlebourne : Operation Sealion

As the title suggests we revisited my Sealion Campaign at the end of last week, the Germans are pushing on Canterbury from the SE, as their armour is focussed on attacking from the SW the Germans have chosen to advance with infantry from the SW looking to capture the Bridge over the Nail Bourne at Littlebourne. The British must try to stop them or if possible blow the bridges to slow the advance ?

The village of Littlebourne sitting on the north side of the Nail Bourne, there are already some Home guard units deployed and an anti aircraft Bofor gun in the village.

The Germans are not hanging about seeking a speedy capture of all theee of the potential crossing points. They have air support as well !

The British regulars move into the village to contest the main bridge 

By some fluke the Germans get an extra bonus activation, they brutally charge forward wiping out the leading Home guard unit and then occupy the pub.

More infantry is running for the farm bridge to the left

The British have limited support but push forward the trusty Beaverette, they are being followed by one of the two British demolition squads who may try to blow the bridges

As the infantry cross the river, the Beaverette gets caught out in the open, the Germans surprise the British  an a shell from the Panzerjager literally blows it to pieces, this has a serious effect on the British morale ! (The Beaverette being the British generals favourite model !)

The German infantry march pass the burning wreck

In the centre the regular Germantown infantry is support by German mountain troops brought forward in trucks. The first wave of German infantry who had captured the pub were wiped out early on.

It’s all about the bridge so a very fierce battle ensues around the bridge with burning vehicles, the building on the left is also burning from heavy mortar fire

The British are pinned down on the left

Everything from both dies is being thrown at the bridge 

From the village side the British are still holding the main road North

The British have a 2LB antitank gun in the orchard but is does little damage

The third and final wave of German push for the bridge objective

And in the end phase of the battle they capture it and just need to hold on now with mortars raining down around them

The village is a scene of devastation with burning vehicles, buildings and craters, but the Germans have captured the bridges intact and can claim a win.the British must pull back, will they attempt to hold Canterbury or must they now pull back further ?

As always a fun game with the Sealion collection. A real tough fight with no quarter given by either side, they was a whole fight to the right which I forgot to photograph. I’m sure we will be returning to Sealion before long we need to complete day two at least !

George has already posted this one but we played another CoC battle to ‘blood’ his American force.

As always a wonderful set up with his extensive WW2 collection.

My German force of Fallschirmjager would be defending. I took a PZIV to add some fun and guessing the Americans would have at least one Sherman.

The Americans advance using cover……..

As always a very tough fight with both sides laying down significant fire power. In the end the Americans get the better of the dice rolling and the German morale starts to fade. A fine battle but the rules always seem to give us a fairly static battle which becomes a fire fest until one side breaks. I feel the rules need some adaption to provide a more engaging battle, they encourage overly cautious play in my view. ‘Realistic’ perhaps but not always much fun.

After the storms and the rain the weather has been kind…….

Cycling in the Westmorland Dales

and walking today out in the sun.

Thanks as always for  checking the blog out, if the AI a come ts start to increase I may need to think about changing the way comments work. We’ll see, I’m finding blogger increasingly annoying with time as I seems to have lost some of the previous control and am unable (my poor IT skills) to fix problems, I don’t have the patience. I’m still struggling to load photos as well. It is just manageable at the moment ?

Back to some painting this evening hopefully finishing some more Spanish Naps.

Matt ❤️

Middle Earth Skirmish

I had a chance this week to entertain an old friend and his son in the dungeon so I rolled out my LoTR collection almost always a favourite with less regular gamers. A simple scenario sees the forces of Mordor fighting Gondor across a river. The armies were equal sized and I allowed the players to set up as they saw fit.

The forces of evil were more spread out while the Gondorians remained mainly focussed at one end of the table, we had agreed that all troops could cross the river at the three fords but only trolls could Wade in other areas.

Some initial flanking movement to right 

One of the enemy trolls repeatedly charged across the river eventually wiping out the Gondorian cavalry

Next the Wrgs were sent over to join the track but were picked off by ranged attacks

After plenty of fun and a battle which swung both ways, the Gondorians are surrounded, but somehow they cling on and eventually with the Black rider killed by Eomer the evil forces are wiped out. A fun battle and both players went away happy 👍

A bit more painting I finished off the last Greek Medium Mortar

A second unit of Highland warriors for the ECW

…and despite some wet and cold weather I managed to get out on my bike

Thanks as always for checking in, two more games planned this week so likely some more posting at the weekend

Matt ❤️