Al Andalus : Encounter battle at the border

For what is likely to be my last game for a while George came up to the dungeon. He had suggested something medieval so I dug out my Al Andalus Arabs. As the table was still covered in the Sicily cloths I was a bit lazy and left them in place having simply reduced the hills to something manageable. So perhaps the battle was being fought in a particularly dry part of Southern Spain between two minor Taifas fighting it out for control of their border district.

The two forces were broadly similar but with suitable variations to give more interest. A dry river bed crosses the battlefield at one end, but the most prominent feature is the high ground which angles across the plain.

Having formed up in front of each other both armies advance fairly quickly looking for a quick and decisive win, my force to the right rushes to try and gain the advantage of the high ground with light cavalry protecting the flank

The enemy have hired some mercenary heavy cavalry and crossbow men to support them !

Well objective achieved we have the high ground but can we hold it. Both sides spend some time exchanging missile fire

Under fire from the crossbows two small troops of warriors run down the hill to sort them out !, my camel riders sweep across the high ground hoping to quickly break the enemy centre ?

Despite the difficultly of charging up the hill the mercenaries charge in against my light cavalry, along the rest of the high ground infantry clash spears.

At the far end of the battlefield and beyond the dry river light cavalry has been skirmishing for much of the battle

Things are not going well ! The mercenary heavy cavalry have driven off my left flank, infantry is still fighting in the centre but the camels have been held and are being whittled down each turn

After a couple more turns it is clear the battle is up as the death toll on my side is rising quickly, and many of the troops on my side are wavering (in KoW this means you miss a turn of combat and is critical at this late stage of a battle) the enemy commander is packing up his dice happy with the land grab !

My camel troops surrounded on the high ground nothing left but to flee for their lives ! Where did it all go wrong ?

A fun battle, for a while it was going quite well, had the camels broken through it might have been a different story. Always nice to get this colourful collection on the table, there are more in the ‘lead pile’ both Arabs and Norman/spanish this battle might just encourage me to prep up a unit to paint ?

Thanks for popping by, this is likely to be my last post for a while as i start my trip on Monday.

Matt ❤️

Sicily 1943 : Mountain village Assault

This week as the game on Saturday was postponed I had too much time on my hands to set up a planned game for Monday. we had agreed on a battle in Sicily to give Martins Americans a rare run out. Whilst this is not based on a  specific historical battle, one of the features of fighting on Sicily as the Americans advanced into the centre of the island was the Germans retreating to the next small village or town atop a significant hill digging in then the Americans having to assault said hill before the Germans pulled out to dig in again at the next hill. So I set to building a village on as big a hill as I could manage in the dungeon.

The result, the photos perhaps don’t quite give the full effect. The Americans will attack across the two bridges and tracked and wheeled vehicles are restricted to roads or occasional backyards, we agreed that tanks could push other vehicles out the way if needed but not the other way round. The Germans are dug in with a number of hidden deployments in ambush. There were technically five objectives working up to the top of the village marked by fuel dumps.

View from the top of the village, the final objective, beyond that one of the hidden deployment markers, although the Germans do have one surprise tank they mainly have antitank weapons, mortars and support weapons, there infantry squads are small to reflect resource issues in this theatre.

Looking down the side of the village you can see beyond the mortar some more hidden deployments, you also get a sense of the hill from here. So onto the battle…….

The Americans are fully mechanised, one of the challenges they had in Sicily was the difficult nature of the roads not suited to this approach.

The burning Tiger was just for show and not playing, I thought it would reflect the impact of the American artillery bombardment prior to the assault. It is fun when a plan comes together and I knew I had things about right when at this point Martin put his head in his hands and groaned unsure how to get his superior force into action up the difficult winding roads. The Americans have a lot of firepower as each halftrack is armed with a .50cal.

But as the Americans advance the German hidden deployments start to open up ! I found the only problem with the 88 being line of sight which was pretty limited.

American infantry start to jump out when mortars start to fall around them and the Sherman’s try to pick of key targets from the bottom of the hill, knocking out my sniper in the tower and machine gunners in the two derelict buildings.

Another view from behind the right bridge. The Sherman on the right makes a break for it up the road…..

Although not destroyed it is set on fire and with all those pins it will take a while to get it moving ?

With the Sherman blocking the other road the focus turns to the left, the Americans have now taken the building in the centre whoch was an objective but there seems to be a hold up ?

The Americans have knocked out another antitank gun on the road but the infantry now out of the building and stuck behind the wall they get pinned and won’t move out of the way !

The German infantry are still keeping their heads down waiting to counter attack

Germans in the village assault the halftrack but are thrown back by the crew, the Germans push forward with their only Pz but it can’t get a clear shot as the infantry are in the way !

Some really fierce fighting took place in the vineyards on the slopes just below the village, eventually though despite German loses the American infantry are driven back

American infantry are now looking to capture another objective but they foolishly underestimate the German defenders (dice gods were on my side) and they are thrown back by a handful of defenders in the building

In the tight confines of the village two panzers blast at each other, neither able to get a decisive knock out hit.

By this point the German infantry has driven back nearly all of the American infantry, in fact the Germans mortars were the stars of the defence , I rolled a ridiculous number of sixes to hit with indirect fire, the dice gods love me again ❤️

With the assault and the battle effectively over the only thing we needed to resolve was the tank duel in the village. We allowed each tank to fire alternating shots until a conclusion. As it happened the PzIII finally got a penetrating hit and the Sherman brewed up. The battle was definitely over, the Americans would withdraw, lick their wounds. Of course the Germans may now move north to the next village where it can all start again.

A fine and very fun days gaming, a really tough nut for the Americans but it never felt one sided and they heroically drove their men and machines forward  in the assault. The  Germans got the better of the dice and were lucky with their mortar hits. One US infantry unit also got caught in the vineyards and were almost wiped out in one turn !

Sadly I’ll need to dismantle the hill later as we have a different game and period for tomorrow.

Thanks as always 

Matt❤️

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 ❤️