Kent 52BC

Digging out old armies from the past is always a treat for me, we were fighting a battle in Willie's garage using Hail Caeser.  Romans marching to the fort are ambushed on the way there.  Four players two Roman's tao hairy Woads

Caught on the Road, those hairy socks are itchy

Dont you dare kill those mules!

British Cavalry

Charge the fort, woads swarm the walls

The British Superstars

Hundreds of them!

JPs handiwork

Romans ready to deliver the counterblow

The Front Gate

Heat and Dust

Sudan 1886

Mahdi forces invade Egypt, we were playing the" To the Last Bullet Scenario" with restricted ammunition.

JPs Beja

River arab shooters

River Arab Swordsmen

Egyptians falling back

Highlanders first volleys

My highlanders are over 20 years old, true veterans!

Beja driven back by Highlanders take another volley

 first game saw a win for the anglo Egyptians, we turned this around rolling a gain for commanders and ammunition I rolled a double 1 giving me an incompetent commander and rolled 1 for ammunition.  I was all for forming square and fighting it out toe to toe, however I was quickly driven back then outflanked.

Beja commander on left

Buildings are close to 30 years old

Creepy Beja

River Arab Gun pounds the square

River Arab shooters pin the square

River Arabs smash into the square!

Banjaxed Day of Battle

Saturday came and we had three players, one panzer grenadier  and two british, we chose to play a delaying action the panzer grenadiers would use 650 points but deploy completely on table, against two 450 battlegroups. A 50% point advantage.  The British would play as two separate Battlegroups given their propensity to suffer from command chaos.  Starting will all their recce on table and getting 1d6 reserves each a turn

Battlegroup Preston

Bettlegroup Midders

 Midders had lost all the support vehicles, no comms team, recovery, ammo, 6pr, off board mortars, FAO Dingo had gone and the FHQ was back in their Jeep.

Sherman Platoon commander

 I had two scout carriers and Jp had three Stuart Tanks to wrinkle out the Germans on the 4x10 table, the germans chose the direction of attack and we were playing up the length.



German recce on the hill armed with a 37mm picked off the lead Stuart

From the half tracks we could see this was a well supported pair of Panzer grenadier platoons but could only see one tank a Panzer Ace Tiger with an armoured ammo wagon

 The Tiger 70" away. in this picture it is a coloured blur just to the left of the farmhouse on the far wooded hill , takes out its first kill Stuart no2

One Stuart does make it spearheading the Shermans of Battlegroup Perston onto the flat hill and out of the Tiger firing line this triggers a charge by panzer grenadiers forward and into the attack.  Most of Battlegroup Preston's dying was on this hill

Scouting carriers gets taken out by a panzerfaust 

 Now working my way around to the left I had tried to got right up the middle but changed my mind after the panzer grenadiers flooded the buildings in the centre and then tried to pick off my forward HQ.  20 -30 inch Mg fire from the houses had hit them as they pushed up through the woods however af ter the first shot I rolled a successful Beyond the Call of Duty and hastily drew back to the jeep.

The carrier platoon was formed up the engage the panzer grenadiers in the houses while I hoped the Shermans with the Rams scooted up the left.  the attack on the left knocked out  a hanomag but paid for it in Shermans.  A single survivor of a panzerscheck team blighted by a low ammo counter still put a single successful round into the Sherman Firefly.  in turn he was killed by the bren carrier survivors

Battlegroup Preston battling the Tiger, 17pdr brews up

Rams get into action, the Platoon Command Team is pinned after failing a close assault order

Time was called and the British had lost 25 BP(Preston) and 21(Midders)  The Panzer grenadiers held all of the objectives and had lost 40 from 42 BP

Banjaxed by the Panzer Grenadiers pre battle

 re configured my British this time for a 600 point battlegroup, I was inspired by this garden in Moffat,

ex RAF pilot has his own Spitfire in the Garden

My own mark IX

FAO in Dingo with rocket firing Typhoon

In the battle they didnt appear

Recce Carriers

Sherman tank troop with a n ammo truck and a wrecker

Carrier platoon

Rams

a 6pdr with a llyodd carrier

I was expecting this to be a hard fought attack/counter attack scenario battle and to be mauled by panzer grenadiers.

Attack/Counterattack Normandy

With the release of the hardback rule book we have been getting back to Battlegroup Overlord.  We played three Attack counter attack scenarios which saw the US Paras defeated twice in a row by the Germans inside the time it took me with British and JP with Panzer Grenadiers fight the same scenario over four hours. everyone was using 600 point lists.  this gave me

FHQ in jeep, FAO in a dingo

3 Recce Carriers

1 Sherman platoon with 2 extra Shermans

2 Infantry platoons on with a 81mm Mortar

I toyed with the idea on RAMS and should have did it learning the lessons of Normandy.

German startline, this house was an objective

German view brown strip represents a stream this was an objective

 I knew what I had to do take those objectives but I had a long way to go with the British infantry

This carrier became pinned down by MG fire from the hose and the Panzer 4 in Turns  4,5&6 but them rallied and got to the base line dying duelling with a panzerscheck team in turn 10.  The other two carriers survived the game and were a terrible nuisance to the germans as mortar spotters

Britsh lateral advance

Rest of the platoon

The panzer grenadiers came forward and cut down about half this plaoon.

JP won a marginal tactical victory but this was a fantastic game possibly the most enjoyable WW2 game I have ever played

C'est La Guerre!

Prussian Fusiliers Advance

This was a fast hard fought Last Argument of Kings battle in Willie's Garage on a cold snowy night. The Prussians had to cross the river via a ford and two bridges and take the town held by the French.  Equal numbers but the the Prussian had some lower quality troops(for them).  I tried to plough most of the foot into Willie in the centre with Sparkie leading the Dragoons.  Livy had the command of a brigade of Hussars fusiliers.

Dragoons join battle

The Dragoons suffer serious set backs in the first wave then second wave suffers sever casualties and are forced to retire massing up on the bridge to rally, all the Prussian infantry were committed with little chance of bursting through the French

Infantry try to blow the french defenders to pieces

Rally the dragoons!

Cinc in the distance moves to call up the Hussars

A combination of disjointed command rolls resulted in a Prussian Defeat, French Victory. Victory for JP and Willie.  The brigade commanders went with the plan.  However I need to remember make the hussars into big units, it keeps the list legal and gives them better battle potential.

"C'est L'guerre"