Opening games in the 1940 Fighting Withdrawal campaign - Part Two; Holding the line at Risquons Tout

Last night Tom and I played the next game in the 'Fighting Withdrawal' campaign. In this scenario, the Germans had one objective, as per the 'Probe' scenario.. get at least one team off the opposite side of the table.. very Blitzkrieg!

The scenario map, Germans attacking from the left

I actually gave a little thought the night before as to how to spend my generous support points. In this scenario the BEF have a pretty good defensive line along an Anti-tank ditch, with barbed wire and concrete bunker.  I opted for more firepower than speed, reasoning that it was likely that a roadblock would impede a wheeled or tracked dash for that end of the table. I chose a pre-game barrage to try to delay some deployment, along with an IG18 gun, some engineers and an off-table mortar battery.

The line of defence, German infantry pushing on the top

We had a cagey patrol phase.. neither of us too sure of our intentions and I definitely lucked out, Tom cursing his angles!

A Jump Off Point on the flanking edge, followed by a double phase and some good dice throws, found an infantry section rushing hard up on the one weak point in the British line. Tom managed to get some infantry deployed just before the 80mm mortars opened up, but the german gun crew put some fire into a section in the house, wounding the Junior leader there.

Despite the fact that the British Force morale was holding very well, some more lucky dice rolls ran the german section off the table and ended the game.

As it happened, the road had been left clear, and maybe deploying a 221 and gunning it might have yielded the same result? the Probe scenario is a tricky one to defend.

This was a really quick game, but it wasn't really a disappointment in that this is one chapter of the story. The British didn't suffer any losses and the next game sees them in a much tougher defensive position.. I suspect that I'll be hard-pushed to win that one on the first run!

See Tom's page for more photos and his account of the battle: 

http://tomstoysoldiers.blogspot.com/2021/10/chain-of-command-fighting-withdrawal_01007570048.html

Opening games in the 1940 Fighting Withdrawal campaign - Part One; Counter Attack at Avelghem

Tom and I have been planning for some time to play this 1940 campaign which we found in the 2016 Lardy summer special. Rather than a 'typical' pint sized campaign, where both sides track their losses and successes, this is much more of a narrative, a series of linked scenarios that follow the withdrawal of C Company of the Beds & Herts as they are pursued by the advancing Germans across Belgium and into France. 

Tom has taken charge of the BEF forces and I'm looking after the 'NPC' German forces (I don't need to track any losses and just need to keep piling it on to push the British back to Dunkirk).

Game One was the 'Counter Attack at Avelghem', where a small group of Germans had made their way across a demolished bridge, and Tom needed to push them back to prevent them forming a bridgehead. The table is quite open, drainage ditches providing some light cover.

German section on the bridge ramp took heavy aimed bren fire

British lined the ditches

Despite my initial doubts, the Germans managed to put quite a bit of damage onto the British and crucially manage to bring more forces over the river, although their morale was falling steadily.. Eventually Tom pushed forward, making really good use of smoke from his 2" mortars, and despite taking losses, managed to over-run a JOP. 

The assault goes in on the weakened German section

Shortly afterwards, I remembered that the Germans had a special rule; 'Handgranaten!'.. without hesitation, I decided that sounded like a great idea and soon learned that charging an enemy, even a weakened one, when your Force Morale is at 2 is really not a good idea! 

Game One, although a costly victory, went to the BEF. This will determine the number of games that are played. 

See Tom's write up and pictures here: 

http://tomstoysoldiers.blogspot.com/2021/10/chain-of-command-fighting-withdrawal.html

Partizan.. an actual show.. in real life! (El Cid battle of Bairen 1097)

On Sunday I had the great pleasure of joining James and the chums (Scrivs and Tom), to 'help' in putting on a beautiful El Cid demonstration game at the Partizan show.

I've been going to Partizan for many years (Grove sports centre .. so 1980-something!) and it's always been my favourite, so it was great that this was the first 'proper' wargames show in England for a very long time.

My contribution was small.. I performed my usual function of Tshirt designer (quite like this one) and I've been 3D printing some rulers for the 'Midgard' rules, which we used on the day.. but really when you look at that gorgeous table and the spectacular armies.. small potatoes!

Anyway, as well as enjoying playing the game (James rules work very well even on this epic scale), it was great to meet gamers old and new again and we're all very grateful to Laurence and the team for arranging the show and taking care to make sure we felt safe

Many more pictures and information on the rest of the crew's blogs:

James Morris (mogsymakes)

Scrivsland

Tom's Toy Soldiers

The team sporting the El Cid T shirts; James, Tom, me, Scrivs. (we 'masked up' soon after this photo, and stayed that way for the day)

setting up

And some pictures from around the hall. Typically, I miss half the games at the show and spend the next week viewing blogs and Youtube declaring "I didn't see that!", so not a very representative collection!

Simon Miller and pals 'To the Strongest' scaled up!

the participation game zone always has some oddball treats!

HUGE Zama battle

A couple of gentlemen looked to be playing Rapid Fire with 54mm figs

The Perrys gorgeous South American game

I really like this idea of raising the table.. in model railway circles there is often debate over the height of a layout, but wargames tables tend to all be pretty standard

I didn't really get any good photos of this neat 1870 game from the Stonewall group

I'm still not sure of the value of the Blog.. whether anyone reads it, but I had to share ;-) Off to Tom's tomorrow to play Chain of Command and make a start on our 'Fighting Withdrawal' campaign.

Frostgrave.. the rivalry begins

Not managing to arrange a 'proper' game for various reasons, I had finished off a few more scenery bits recently and thought I'd have another solo bash at Frostgrave. Rather than play one of the solo scenarios, I rolled up two warbands - Zaleus the Summoner and Brankus the Enchanter and thought I'd just play a 'standard' game.. I may try a little series, taking these two warbands in head to head 'campaign'.. we'll see.

It was a fairly close fought affair, with Zaleus coming out on top with 3 of the 5 treasures. Although his apprentice was struck down by Renauld's crossbow (a natural 20), she survived. Both warbands escaped any 'serious' losses in fact.. Brankus lost one thug, but they don't count!

During the game I realise that I had picked a few of the same spells for the two opposing wizards, so that could have been better planned, but we'll see. Brankus has gained 1 level and learned a new spell from a Grimoire they found, whilst Zaleus jumped up 2 levels, improving a couple of existing spells. 

Stan and Cnut investigate an alleyway

Brankus in sullen mood

Zaleus commands a zombie to join Astrogoth fighting the skeleton

Izith about to catch a crossbow bolt badly 

Stan and Cnut encounter two wild dogs

Aggie, Brankus' apprentice, looks over the scrapping bands

Having dealt with the dogs, Stand and Cnut are jumped by thugs

A snow troll wanders into the street, must have heard the fighting

Lucius and a construct are outnumbered by Zaleus' men

New britches for Ulf!

A Napoleonic bash - General D'Armee

Last Saturday Scrivs hosted a pretty spectacular 100 days game of General D'Armee.. all of the 28mm figures and terrain were from his collection and he acted as GM/host for the day, taking Tom and I through the game as neither of us had played before.

I took charge of the British, facing Tom's French.

You can see a good account of the game on Scrivs blog .

My movement was limited to pushing out skirmishers and swinging out the right wing of my infantry (both forces held their cavalry in reserve off table).

Tom advanced his French in columns, bring up a battery on to a central hill. Lucky for me, some crucial failures to retain command caused Toms left Brigade to halt and delay their advance to contact, giving me a chance to fire and eventually drive off that battery.

In the centre, Tom spotted a weak spot and pushed hard against the Hanoverians who held on grimly, seeing off repeated assaults and replenishing their line with fresh troops. Meanwhile, my guns kept up a steady barrage on the advancing columns.

On my left the French made steady progress, whilst Toms most rearward battery failed to score any real hits (apart from on themselves!)

Sensing a chance to break through as a couple of British units on the right softened up, Tom's cavalry arrived. I anticipated that and brought my own dragoons on to see if they could counter that threat.

By this point, our time was up.. both Tom and I having to take our leave, so we called it a 'winning draw' for the French (although of course, like any good gamer, I could argue that it could have gone either way!)

All in all, good fun and spectacular game. The rules emphasise command friction and choices, and although there were a few more lookups / modifiers than we're used to these days, it didn't feel like one of those old rulesets from the gold old card cover days :-)

Do I regret selling my Prussian army? maybe.

The armies deployed

British right wing advance

British centre and left wing

The French advance

French columns close on the British left

British guns did sharp work all day

Infantry close and exchange fire on the British right

View from the French left

View of the French right

A view across the table as the forces closed

The British centre under some pressure

The Hanoverians give a good account

Clash on the left

Across the table the smoke thickens

British dragoons arrive to counter the arrival of French cavalry

As we left the day, French bruised but still pushing