Tank and Infantry Battle on St James Road, Battleground Show and other stuff

Keeping fairly busy this week and the hobby mojo remains pretty high. As some of you will know I was a child of the ‘Featherstone’ era and his Wargames book has significantly influenced me as a child and ever since. As my 15mm collection has grown I realised I had enough to recreate his Battle on the St James Road from his original book. 

For those not aware this is the opening shot of the battle report, airfix figures and a mix of homemade tanks. I spent many hours looking at these pictures as a child, nice to see WW2 described as modern.

But this is not an exact replay, firstly I have Americans rather than British and our ruleset of choice would be Bolt action. The table is slightly larger and I reduced the forces slightly to ensure the game didn’t last over 4 hours ! However, it is close enough for me and brings me great pleasure.

The Americans dug in on Copse Hill and around red farm.

The Germans arrive across the embankment, past the plantation, but one of their transports are hit immediately causing the occupants to jump out

Panzers advance straight towards red farm, with infantry disembarking at the base of the hill

Long range fire from the rear by the plantation

The Americans lost a Sherman early on to an advancing Panzer behind copse hill

As they break through the barbed wire the tanks duel at close range but ineffectually

American infantry reserves push forward to block the gap ?

Germans transports are hit and burning, but the Americans have been unable to knock out any of the panzers

Eventually the Germans break through to St James Road, two of the American Sherman’s are burning 

…and the infantry on Copse hill have been outflanked. Time for the Americans to pull out and a victory to the Herman Goering Panzer Grenadiers. A really fun battle with a different outcome to the original but that is no bad thing.

On to Battleground Show, busiest that I can remember, so much so that I didn’t get a chance to look at any other games, or visit the bring and buy (probably saved some money then)

The Whitstable Harbour setup in situ at the show. All the games of which I think there were six were very enjoyable creating a good amount of fun and entertainment, everybody seemed to enjoy themselves.

I managed just one close up shot during the day ! The feedback was incredibly positive and I spent a lot of time between games talking to people genuinely interested in the game, the setup and of course the U-boat. Thanks to all those who took the time to play or just catch up.

I did purchase a couple of things, mainly french heavy cavalry. Having collected a couple of free Scottish epic sprues. I pick up another for 50p. Then Leon ran a raffle and I won the pike and shotte epic Scottish Battlion box set, wow from no where I have a Scottish Covenanter army. I’ll paint a block up to see what they are like 😀

When I got home I packed away the game and was looking for a location to store the Kreigsmarine and found a space in the ‘mixed’ German box along side these. Keith I took the photo just for you 👍

A couple of bits of painting, although most of my time has been planning up and coming battles.

Passing through town I popped into the secondhand bookshop and found these two books

Aly you will be proud of me 

That’s it for now couple of games coming up and hopefully a first run out for the peninsular collection 🤞

Thanks as always

Matt 😀

Battleground, painting and bits and bobs

A bit of a general update this morning. Yesterday I went to the Battleground Show over in Stockton. This is a regular for us and I put on another small participation game. I tend to keep things simple and focussed mainly around younger players giving them an introduction to gaming and some fun. This year a Lord of the Rings battle between Gondor and Mordor Orcs.

Here is the game in situ, having put on similar quite often it is a fairly swift setup.

The scenario is for the Gondor forces led by both Boromir and Faramir to stop the Orcs getting across the table. The ‘player’ always takes the good guys.

Without giving too much away the scenario is designed to look really difficult from the start, how can such a small force defeat the horde of orcs coming from the dark woods ? however, the forces of good are much stronger and unless the player has some absolutely terrible dice rolling they should win…..making them feel like they have had a gaming challenge but won through 🙂

 I played through 4 or 5 times during the day, with each gaming 30-45 minutes it felt busy enough. As predicted the forces of good won out, although one young lad managed to get all the Gondor Knights killed off and one nearly got Faramir killed 🙂 everybody had fun ! Also spent a lot of time talking to people about the figures etc….. I did manage to whizz round to a couple of other games here were the pick for me

Wellington in India…….finding it hard not to start this as a new project and this didn’t help !

WW2 desert warfare

This massive game was at the last show I attended as well….it is very impressive but nothing much seems to happen ?

A beautiful ACW Vicksburg battle 

Pavia 

Medieval 

Of course a bit of shopping

Very unusual for me I pick up some painted figures from the bring and buy. As I am already working on a Celtic Dark age army I bought these cavalry. I wouldn’t normally pick these up but they were significantly under priced for metal figures. They need some rebasing and a little fiddling but they will be fit for battle very quickly.

A perfect book as I am looking at French forces for Norway and had actually been looking at the pictures from this book on the internet the evening before

Some mixed spruces which were literally a couple of pounds to lot

A couple of German transports

And some winter trees

After the Lillehammer battle I was putting away my German forces and decided to check how many squads I can now field, turns out five complete squads with a command figure and a half squad so as I had a few odd figures I have made them up to bring it to six.

I painted a few extra LMG

Separately I had a German Early war ATR team by Warlord so this can cause them as much frustration as the British now 🙂

Also completed a couple of German 15mm Nerbelwefer with a spotter

The last few metal Panzer Grenadiers I had, I do have some other German infantry but I’m not in a rush to complete them.

And finally some Jacobs sheep….well why not for a dark age village sometime

So lots going on, thanks for checking in

Matt 😀

Battle of Lobositz 1756 : Seven Years War (and some other stuff)

Not sure why I am so busy at the moment, partly another week on holiday, more of this later, and the final days of my working life, more on that next week. Also the weather has been great so I have been doing plenty of cycling and walking……..oh and a trip to Claymore Show last weekend as well 🙂

Anyway hot on the heals of our Teplitz battle at Pendraken. Another SYW battle Lobositz, not sure this needs any introduction as I know the majority of you loyal followers are keen a knowledgable SYW gamers. Just in case though, Lobositz was the first significant battle of the SYW between the Prussians and Austrians, having invaded Saxony Frederick had the city of Pirna under siege. The Austrians looking to relieve their allies despatched a force and in a somewhat arrogant response Frederick moved with part of his army to attack the Austrians.

The battlefield for Lobositz was famously quite restricted by the high ground of the Lobusch Berg the Elbe River and boggy ground around Sulowitz. Despite the thick fog Frederick rashly threw his forces on the attack only to find he was facing a much larger force of Austrians than the thought. The Prussians gave it a good go but were ultimately beaten back.

For this battle matching my collection to the forces required I used the scenario in the Honours of War rule book, this is simplified but gives a fun representation of the challenges of the battle.

There are plenty of maps of the Battle, one of the key factors was fog on the day which prevented the Prussians from seeing the majority of the Austrian forces

This then is translated onto a 6 x 4 battlefield (really nice to have enough figures now to cover this size of engagement)

In the foreground the Prussian right wing under Bevern is pushed towards the heights of the Lobusch Berg. 

Austrian light troops await the assault dug into vineyards and the difficult ground covering the higher ground

The rest of the right wing of the Austrians under Lacy are lined up to the right of Lobositz itself

The Austrian left wing hidden behind the boggy ground around Sulowitz

The Austrian cavalry massed in the centre, historically this was what Frederick saw and thinking it the retreating Austrians pushed forward into a full assault

General Bevern’s infantry assault up hill to clear the Lobusch Berg

Musket fire opens up all along the battle lines

Prussian cavalry is pushing forward, whilst the Austrian artillery opens up

The Prussian artillery opens up in response

Forward !

A significant cavalry battle in front of Lobositz.

The Prussian reserve division has failed to get moving due to a failed activation

Here they are slowly marching past Wchintz

Having clashed with the Austrians the rest of the Prussian cavalry gets counter charged in front of Sulowitz

The Prussian reserves finally get moving but they may be too late

The Austrian right wing has been pushed back beyond Lobositz, but they aren’t enough Prussians to capitalise on the situation

After a fierce cavalry fight the Austrians get the better of it and push the Prussians back out of the battle

The Austrians are then able to bring their extra numbers into the battle and turn towards Lobositz

The final push by the remaining Prussian infantry but they can’t make any headway

and the battle comes to a close with the Austrians remaining in control of the battle and Lobositz itself

An excellent run out for the SYW collection, rules continue to work well an Austrian victory but I suspect that is often the case when re fighting Lobositz.

What else have I been upto you might ask.

Some excellent cycling in Derbyshire on a family holiday

A walking adventure 4 days walking across the Lake District visiting Roman forts (I will blog some more details of this walk sometime soon)

Plenty of lovely views in the Lakes

We also went upto Claymore wargame show in Edinburgh here were the pick of the games, this one has featured in WI

A splendid large scale battle

A lovely Arab assault

I did slightly more shopping than I should have picking up quite a few bargains from the Bring and Buy, a complete mixed bag but mainly dark age figures.

Some other stuff to blog up as well  but that will have to wait.🙂

Thanks for popping by 👍