Hurrah for the union!

A Johnny Reb battle at Willie's garage, superb blast from the past for us

A Bridge Too Far

Alan was commuting back over the pond and as his farewell battle I thought up this little Scenario.  Livi's Undead (Paras) had be raised (parachuted in) behind the Dwarven Bridge Guards.   The White orcs of the North and the Men of the North had to clear the way (British Armour up a narrow road) to save the Undead.  Each had a bridge to cross.  Willie had the Dwarves out numbered 2:1 in points.  with two bridges he was stretched out.  However his Dwarven Hero proved to be my undoing fighting off six attacks over the bridge. The Dwarves lived up to their ethnically challenged reputation and gave my Orcs a right doing.  Jp had the Back fortress line with an army of the West, he had one bridge to cross to get at the Undead and the help of two towers counting as light archers (flak towers)  and fields of toadstools where no undead could be raised (and anti glider obstacles) on his side of the river.

I tested this with buildings but there was no way to shift the Dwarves or other tough fighters so no Arnhem 

White Ors in the second assault

The Dwarf hero had three casualties by this stage but was still dishing it out

Undead face Men of the West

 The Undead were assaulted by the Men of the West promptly here in the background left is a unit of damaged Dwarven heavy infantry.

there are some great figures I think from Copplestones Alan used as his Men Of the North.  his archers fielded as Heavy Archers had some great shooting while his warband soaked up the Dwarven attention

Men of the North Storm their bridge

Archers of the North 

Orc Camp

More carnage on the Bridge

A victory for the good guys.  Maybe next time I will try an accent I got one spell to work in the entire game!

The Red Sun Rises

I had the pleasure of being able to use nearly all of my 20mm figures to play Bolt Action with Young David and Sparkie (both playing Japanese).  The Red Sun Rises is one of my favorite periods for WW2 with the Japanese being the Underrated Enemy.   Uncle Robert who had served in 1st battalion of the Cameronians Burma told me masses of first hand bloody, gruesome and heroic stories of fighting the Japanese.

We played Scenario 4 Airfield Defence from the Empire in Flames book with the proviso that the attacking Japanese had to take the Airfield by 3pm and who ever held the airfield would then be subject to a night attack, after recovering D6 casualties for each until.

I initial battle was fast and furious once the Japanese players got a hold on the Banzai rules.  The inexperienced Sikh troops held up much better than I expected and fought in the tradition of the FFP.  However just before 3pm the Airfield had been taken.

First some pictures of my Britannia Figures post battle.

Here are some pictures of the Dawn Attack Scenario from turn 2 when the Sun came up revealing the Sikhs to the Japanese who were in the main now on Ambush orders.  David P lent me a crusader tank to give the attack a bit more punch and all my troops were considered Regular.

David Ps crusader

Knocked out

 Crusader did manage to Knock out it's Japanese counterpart which was the only high point of the Sikh Dawn attack.

My scratch built model fordtrucks

Covering fire!

Sikh s face a  Banzai charge

Dug in Japanese

Slaughtered like water buffalo!

550AD Pictish Wicker Man

2019 saw Livi sacrificing to the Pictish gods, with some muttering from the Pictish King that his wife's screams was finally doing some good. The Picts were invading the Saxons and I rolled up a marshy terrain.

We were using armies from the excellent Shieldwall supplement for Hail Ceaser.  Some of my Saxon figures are now 35 years old and veterans of many battles

 I must say the screaming did discourage the Saxon warriors on the left right off advancing towards the  burning tower of wicker. Only the one unit of gesith was able to go forward on its own initiative.

burning in the dawn

The Sacrifice Revealed!

Pictish battleline

The Pictish King had placed the wickerman in his centre his chariots out on my left overlapped me. I had stacked up my left "in column of companies" with the idea they would move forward with some of the light infantry going into openorder and slipping into the marsh.  They were having none of it only the Gesith went forward all the light infantry consistently rolled 9 for command roles and stayed  frozen in horror to the spot.

Saxon left

The highpoint of my battle saw Gesith heavy infantry advance from the centre to support the saxon right, punched a hole through the Pictish battleline suffering only one fatigue and complete a sweeping advance ended by crashing into the last Pictish unit on the table.  My oat takers wrecked that lone unit but didnt break it.  The Pictish King then did a follow me with a foot unit to take them in the rear in turn.

Saxon oat-takers

Saxon left being crushed

The centre had its own problems with moving, a bit sticky in this supplement, eventually they got into action, thes farmworkers are my newest troops Peter Pig Germans.  Here fighting as light infantry.

Saxon farm workers

The left just about to implode, all threee commands had been soundly beaten although my lord was able to race back to his meadhall and ruminate on this disaster.

Before the implosion

Battlegroup Bunkers1941

Willie had got some new fixed defences which we had to try out here are some of the pictures I took. it was a good battle for my Soviet defenders.  The German players each had a platoon (one pioneers),  then split up 4 panzer 3s, a sniper team two mortars and a tripod MG team in support. In points terms for Battlegroup two to one for the Germans.

I had 

FHQ in a dug out and well out of sight

2 Platoons of Infantry in trenches  each 1 sqaud in deep bunkers

2 Maxim machine guns in reinforced bunkers

Single 45mm AT Gun with a loader team

This was a massive 15BR with three officers and one dice of orders.  However they fought like Soviet heroes.  The plan was not to go onto the firestep until the fascists had crossed the stream 20" away then the AT Gun would move up to fire.

Tip of the spear closest point to the Germans

Two soviet squad in some trenchline

An improvised deep bunker out at the end of each trench line each held a squad and the platoon commander

The bunker

Willie has some great 15mm Germans that we hardly see on the table.  the germans rolled up to the stream after they had sent in the infantry to cover the Panzers.  Of course they only had 37mm VL guns

Panzer 3s led the Fascist onslaught

Repeated area fire from my soviets pinned down the fascist advance and they had to dig deep into the chit box to get mobile again.  Sniper team picked off the maxim gun in the dugout but I picked a MINE STRIKE counter rolling a six to knock out a panzer3!
 German mortar fire started to rain down but with no effect.

Bunker front on

I had to step up the infantry squads who died like heroes, one squad wiped out to the last man by German fire, but rolling a 6 followed by a 6 .his Beyond the call of Duty saw him kill two of the enemy squad which became pinned down.  Meanwhile the AT gun under tripod MG fire Knocked out all three of the German Panzer threes over the next two turns. Wille had to use his one tactical co ordination to boost  his firepower on the last MG Bunker even so one man survived.  MG bunker still had a single crewman who pinned done the squad below.

Tip of the spear

Just over teo hours and the Soviet BR was exceeded at terrible cost to the Fascists. Two hours closer to the Winter Snows

Battlegroup Sniper

We wanted a straight forward infantry fight in a urban landscape, 1943 lists we used but no specific scenario.

The goal was to have a long battle over two nights.

Soviet 400 point army List (me)

• FHQ, NKVD Team, Forward Aid Post
• Rifle Company with 4 Anti Tank rifle Teams
• 4 Sniper teams and 2 foot Patrols

Fascist List (Willie, JP and after turn 6 Sparky each with a platoon)

• FHQ
• 3 Rifle Platoons 1 medic
• 1 Tripod MG34
• 2 82mm Mortars

In the town square we placed Willie's destroyed Panzer IV, a nice piece of work, we entered from an opposite  board corner each, with the Soviets getting the first move on a dice off.

I deployed my First Aid Post right in my corner, the table was laid out with JPs destroyed buildings, the next two shots show it, these building have been used repeatedly in our WW2 battles.  Inside I placed the sole battle chit I got in the first six turns.

This is my twelfth urban fight with the Soviets. I had a prepared plan based on the management of the 2D6 with six officers and not using the "Ura Ura" rule which has ended in massive casualties in the past. The snipers to fight the firefight their ability to hit targets early on with long range fire critical.  The rifle company to provide the attacking push with fire and move tactics once within 10".

Turn One was devoted to getting the Snipers in position protected by the scouts and to move a platoon of infantry over onto a flank.  I rolled high and was able to get a second platoon too.  I had an outstanding start. The Fascists were able to get two platoons moving and set up a pair of mortars.

The tone of the first 6 turns was set with German squads suffering sniper casualties and being pinned down.  this slowed their advance tremendously. 

Getting too cocky this team advanced and was spotted 

Female Sniper Nina and Spotter Vera

She was shooting over 30"

By that stage I had moved a whole platoon onto the right flank of the battle bumping one German platoon spearheaded by a sniper team and a foot patrol.  One German squad was wiped out but my " Patriotic factory workers"  ended up pinned down in cover unable to push further forward.  The building in the picture below was contested by Willie's platoon all the way to the end of the game but I had committed the bulk all of my Rifle Platoon to either fire or movement it drew in some of the German reserves as well'




Action in the centre of the table wasn't as good,  the focus for me was the Sniper battle two teams firing on JP and one on Willie.  The key position for me was the Church on the plaza.  Holding was proviiding security for the rifle company, but the sniper team in the tower had been spotted early and killed by JPs machine gun fire.  The foot patrol had crossed the plaza but were spotted by Willie and wiped out close to the Panzer IV.

Willie made an attempt to widen the assault but couldn't get my "factory workers" cleaned out in time.  JP went to ground waiting to return fire and then advance after the NKVD team had been finished by him and my cocky snipers. on top of this the third German platoon was spread out to support Willie flank attack their tripod MG had been set up in a second storey building specifically to kill those snipers.  The last six turns saw less intelligent play from me as I had strayed off the plan.  based on 1943 it was a good battle.

The hated Fascists advancing under sniper fire

The battle resulted in a Fascist victory on battle rating in had drawn four 4 BR chits but my total was 31 to a mere 23 for the Germans. The German lost most of the BR to sniper fire with a lot of tactical co ordination from Willie to keep the lead squads in the fight and stopping the steam roller of the Rifle Company.