Battle of Cabra 1079 and Smolensk Campaign

Two battles this week to report on. First up a remote ‘hex’ game returning to the Reconquista. The battle took place in 1079 between the Islamic states of Granada and Seville with each side supported by Castillian mercenaries. On the side of Seville El Cid lead in his Christian knights with the Granadian force led by Count Garcia Ordonez. Having searched quite hard I was unable to find anything other than the very thinest of details about the battle. This means I have pretty much made up the forces to create a balanced battle !

The two forces arrayed against each other

Both sides are predominantly Arabs light troops with a small number of Christian mercenary knights.

The Granadian force has slightly more light cavalry on both wings

The Cid impetuous is at the frown on his battle line but will he charge into the fray ?

I didn’t take too many photos of the battle but I did need to capture this one, having chosen to charge in El Cid is thrown back and he retreats back through his own lines !

After several turns of long range shooting the armies are balanced both sides looking for a weakness

Count Garcia also takes the battle to the enemy, eventually breaking through the Sevillian lines and winning an advantage on their right.

But then……..from nowhere the Granadian force falls apart, the enemy knights break through regroup and cause chaos

And in the centre eventually the enemy ‘black guard’ break through butchering the enemy as they go. Literally within two turns the battle went from being close to a massacre ! Such is the way of things, a very enjoyable battle despite the demise of my force !

Next up delayed from last week I went done to George’s to play the next battle in our Smolensk Campaign.

Here is the lovely table setup, the Germans are attacking from the far side against my Russians. The Russians have managed to setup in cover and await the expected German onslaught. Luckily and perhaps mirroring history the Russians surprise the Germans by deploying a single KV.

The Russian infantry cower in the woods whilst the KV rumbles out into the open

The Germans deploying in cover and organising their troops before kicking off the attack. Now at this stage those that have played Chain of Command will know that just occasionally battles don’t go as you expect !

The shock and power of the KV seems to throw the Germans into confusion, having taken a number of casualties amongst their infantry and then having their only armour blown to pieces the Germans decide to pull back. A famous if slightly unexpected victory for the Russians. A fun battle although possible not one the Germans will want to remember. As the campaign approaches its end the Russians now have a chance to put the campaign beyond the Germans but that will require some more luck ?

More gaming planned in for the weekend with another run out of the Peninsular collection.

Matt

A battlefield, a battle, a bus and more ………

In fact a mixed bag of stuff hobby related 😀 . So at the back end of last week I was up in Edinburgh visiting my Dad and took the opportunity to head across to the Battle of Bannockburn visitor centre. I had been to the battlefield a long time ago but don’t ever remember going round the visitor centre.

Is was a suitably cold and cloudy day

From the high ground around the main battlefield monument you get good views and there are several displays boards etc…

Robert the Bruce monument meant to mark the site of the Scottish camp 

The visitor centre has a pretty informative and enjoyable organised ‘tour’ and it gave an excellent overview of the battle

It includes a few modern computer generated displays including this one which attempts to put you into the heart of the battle ?

There is a nice wall display of what the chaos of battle probably did look like before the British broke and fled back across the Bannock Burn.

This weekend we had our first remote Hex based game of the year. Another trip to the Reconquista, deviate quite a bit of hunting on the internet it is remarkable how little is known about most of these battles. That of course is helpful in some ways giving me freedom to balance the forces. Here we have the Battle of Consuegra in Toledo. The Almoravids had been besieging the town itself when AlfonsoVI arrived to break the siege. The battle which took place outside the town is perhaps most notable as El Cid had not been able to come in support of Alfonso, instead he sent some of his best knights under the leadership of his son Diego Rodriguez who managed to get himself killed in the battle. Historically the Christians outnumbered the Almoravids but managed to over stretch themselves losing the battle, although Alfonso got away with his life ! With only limited historical details the setup is one with some balance, the Christian’s have slightly more troops but a generally weaker.

The Almoravids initially advance on their left.

But Diego counter charges and gets the better of the encounter.

In the centre the two infantry lines draw closer together neither quite ready to charge in where they may lose the advantage

With the Christian cavalry pushing through on the right the Arabs advance on the opposite wing

Here the better Arab infantry led by their commander Muhammad ibn Al-Hajj are close to breaking the Christian left flank.

Suddenly the battle started to become very closely contested and winning initiative became critical. 

Both sides have their break point/morale slowly broken and having trailed behind for most of the battle the Almoravids claw things back to level

Both armies are now shattered and badly mauled, the Christian’s have broken through on their right the Almoravids on the other flank, and both are close to capturing the enemy camp which will cause the win.

Some of the Christian right finds itself with little to do but watch !

In the end having started at 22 & 21 break points each we ended up at 2 & 1 left each, so literally the next combat would decide the battle. The Almoravid cavalry did have a slightly dodgy way into the Christian camp to claim victory but this felt slightly underhand after such a close battle so they chose to charge the peasant folk guarding the camp who somehow managed to save the day for Alfonso

As the very next activation was for Diego and his knights to capture the Almoravid camp. Technically then a Christian win but really a draw with both armies exhausted. A splendid battle which once again went right down to the wire both sides looking to capture that last final point for victory 👍

Next up the Bus , picked up for a charity shop in town a nice little model and pretty much 1/56 scale it has a slightly more worn appearance and I see this as some terrain for up and coming Mediterranean WW2 battles ? It probably needs a coat of paint but I will leave it for now.

Next up in discussions last weekend over the possible use of the M3 spare parts it came to life that the British often cut the top of these when damaged and used the chassis as tracked command or transport vehicles. A quick search on the internet and I found these two pictures to support the idea. Above a command vehicle 

Here used as transport

So with a lot of fiddling as you don’t get all the bits in the kit to make these from the leftovers I made this command vehicle

And three transports….I had some spare stowage so put as much of this on as possible, don’t look closely as there are some key bits of the tanks actually missing, but at 15mm they will do. The 0.50 cal machine guns were spare from the Sherman’s in the Tobruk starter set.

Sorry it has been a bit of a ramble but thanks for checking in

Matt ‘KBO’ 👍

The Battle of Plataea 479BC

With the recent painting of Persians I had hoped to have a full Battle of Plataea, but this didn’t happen before the weather went cold so this will have to wait till next spring. In the meantime and to get a better feel for the scale and complexity of the battle we played it as a remote hex based game.

This was significantly larger than our normal hex battles with a full 6x4 table and over 20 units per side. We were using Jon’s amended Impetus rules which  I am now becoming more familiar with speeding up play.

As per my usual lax approach I will only give a very brief overview of the history of the Battle, it is well described in this useful Osprey Publication for those wanting more or wiki

Plataea was one of the largest Greek/Persian battles and perhaps most significant as the Greek victory brought to a close the second major Persian invasion of Greece. For those that don’t know this is the battle right at the end of the ‘300’ Film where, having delayed Xerxes at Thermopylae, the main Spartan army has joined with the Athenians and other allied Greeks to turf out the Persians. Of course history is much more complex as many Greeks fought with the Persians as allies. After sacking Athens and the Sea battle at Salamis in 480BC Xerxes headed home leaving his General Mardonius to complete the subjugation of the troublesome Greek states. After resting during winter there was some chasing about the Peloponnese until the two armies came together, As usual the Spartans delayed joining the Athenians for quite a while. When they did the Spartan General Pausanias took over command of the allied army. However, neither General wanted to attack too early the Persians wanting more favourable ground for their cavalry, the Greeks not wanting favourable ground for the Persian cavalry. For about 2 weeks the two armies faced each other across the Asopus River and only skirmished. The Greeks then finally made a blunder becoming disorganised during a night movement and the three main elements of the Greek army becoming separated. The Persians seeing their opportunity attacked the isolated Spartans. The Stehnains ended up fighting the Theban and other Greeks supporting the Persians and a third phase of the battle took place when the Persian camp was eventually sacked.

The battle set up then translates onto the table, three distinct ‘blocks’ for both sides, the Spartans separated from the rest of their allies by the Asopus Ridge. Although I set up the battle without really thinking about specific balance between the two sides as it happens when the ‘points’ were calculated for both sides they were almost exactly equal. The Persian greater numbers matched by the more expensive Hoplites. We weren’t sure how long the game would take but as it happens it was about 3 hours. I will confess now I didn’t take that many photos the action was far to frenetic and exciting so I’m afraid not a blow by blow account. Jon may be able to add some flavour as the Persian General ?

The Persians had the initiative in the first turn, but in subsequent turns it was rolled for. Mardonius immediately advanced his main army towards the isolated Sparatans who edged forward to meet them. Despite the Sparatans getting the first charge the shear size of the Persian Sparabara infantry blocks including two blocks of Immortals immediately knocked the stuffing out of the Spartan line. And of course due to their isolation they weren’t going to get any support for a while

The central Greek units have started to move towards the Asopus ridge but already some of the Persian infantry has broken through to block any support having wiped out the weaker left wing of the Spartan line. 

Closer to Plataea the Athenians are advancing towards the Thebans.

In the centre the Greeks are now badly disorganised

Devastation on the Spartan wing. In a matter of two or three turns the Persians have effectively wiped out the Spartan army. The Greek army is already trailing far behind and things are not looking good

Finally the Athenians and the Thebans are closing to combat

and in an almost mirror image of the other end of the battle the Thebans simply crumble in the face of the Athenian hoplite attack

What Spartans ? Somehow the elite right wing has been wiped out, only Pausanias and his bodyguard remain !

So the battle at this stage is almost lost for the Greeks as the devastation of the elite Spartan troops equates to much higher victory points than the Thebans.

Unfortunately I have to admit the battle became incredibly engrossing at this point with very tense combats on both sides, I simply didn’t take photos of this section I think at this point the Greeks only had 5 remaining breakpoints to the Persian’s 12. It was almost lost………..

Somehow the Greeks won the initiative and the Athenians drove the remaining Thebans from the field and as casualties mounted we found ourselves in the tantalising position of both armies with only a single remaining breakpoint each. This was after three hours of gaming and with both sides starting with over 20 breakpoints each.

The Persians almost grasped victory in the centre but couldn’t grasp that last point

But in a desperate attempt to take the win the Persian (Greek) light cavalry attempted a charge, catching the Athenians in the flank but foolishly they had not realised they were charging an almost intact unit with one of the Greek generals Aristides attached. The cavalry are forced back and the Greeks take the win.

Exhausted and isolated it would take some time for news of the victory to reach Pausanias who was on the far side of the battlefield.

So there you have it, sorry for the lack of photos, but it was an extremely close and absorbing battle. After the Spartans were wiped out I gave them no chance but somehow they clawed it back. In our after battle discussion I did think the Persian could have won or at least given them selves a better chance as the light cavalry charge was a long shot. We will definitely be trying to play this one again sometime. Although I might have a go at Marathon if I can develop a balanced scenario ?

Thanks as always 👍

Matt