One Hour Wargames

 

Played a game with my regular opponent Anthony today.  Still feeling a bit under the weather so I went for One Hour Wargames and the "Unfortunate Oversight" scenarion we have played a couple of times before (though not with the OHW rules).

This time used the OHW Rifle Age rules on a 4' x 4' table with my Franco Prussian figures.

I took the Prussians and rolled up a 6 unit force of 4 infantry, 1 Skirmisher and 1 Artillery

The French had 3 Infantry, 1 Skirmisher and 2 cavalry.

The Prussians have to get across the river and capture the hill in 15 turns.  Not having cavalry made that task slightly more difficult.

As with a lot of OHW scenarios and games it came down to the last turn and last die roll...

I had lost several units (mostly due to Anthony's excellent dice rolling and my habit of rolling 1's) but I finally forced the town and cleared the hill of all but one of the French Infantry.

On the French's last turn the french could have shot at my unit that had advanced from the town and onto the hill and would have automatically killed it (it had 13 hits already) but that would have been a draw as he would also not have a unit on top of the hill.  Or he could charge with his cavalry where he needed to roll a 3-6 in melee and kill me to win or he would fail to kill the unit and he'd bounce off the hill and I'd win.

He chose to charge and killed the unit, securing the victory for Anthony and the French.

Very close game as always with a lot of tactical thought going into unit positioning and how to take (or keep) the town.

Also both decided we would possibly have tackled things slightly differently with hindsight.  I would probably have put most of my troops over on the right with the gun and crossed the ford in order to shell the town from the start.  Then held back two units to attack on the town once the occupants were reduced in strength.

Anthony felt he would have been better to send his cavalry through the town and across the Bridge to threaten my rear and to keep the town free.

54mm Punic Wars

 

Been completely knocked out by a virus thing for the last few days which meant I didn't get to Warfare (first time in over 20 years) and now have a year where I won't have attended any wargames shows (first for over 25 years!)...  Too foggy brained to paint or concentrate on anything so I decided  to sort out some of my Punic Wars 54mm figures for the Command and Colours project and get them based.

On the right are all the Carthaginian Infantry needed barring 4 more light infantry(ordered), 12 slingers ( they are already painted) and some bowmen (ordered from Irregular Miniatures).

On the left are all the Roman Infantry needed barring the velites (already painted) and some bowmen.

I am planning on undercoating one side grey and one side white and doing the bases and painting the base edges the appropriate colour for light, medium, etc

Then I'll try a test game and get them painted gradually.

Next I need to assemble and base all the cavalry and the 4 elephants (I have 2 already based and painted) and the 3 commanders per side.

Basics of Dendermonde finished

 

Finished cutting and then assembling the Bastions and an extra piece of city wall.  It is all starting to look quite big now!  The city will eventually cover 4' x 5'.

I need to replace the longer piece of wall with one with a gate in it.

Next up will the demi-lunes, one with a road through it...

Bits and pieces

 Haven't done much over the last month.  We took delivery of our first caravan at the end of September so time has been spent sorting that out and we went away for 6 nights as our first trip back in October.

I have finally managed to get around to some painting and scenery building.

These are the Space 1889 Adversaries set that I painted for Anthony.  They are apparently used as characters in a Space 1889 boardgame.

I also finished cutting and assembled the 3 Ravelins for Dendermonde today.  They will need texturing with tissue paper and painting.

On to the 3 bastions which are partly cut next.

Frostgrave Campaign: Game 2 - The Mausoleum

 

Played the 2nd game in our Friostgrave campaign using the Mausoleum I got painted this week.  Was a close game with skeletons proving strangely hard to kill.

Judicious use of the Fool's Gold spell that lets you steal a treasure from someone carrying it and move it 4" let me steal 2 treasures off Nick and get 3 treasures off the board. 

Need to play more often to remember the rules better...

 

54mm Napoleonic Game

 

Anthony and I played a 54mm Blucher game on an 8'x 5' table.  I took the  French vs Anthony's British (as usual). 

We played through 16 turns (8 each) before having to stop as we ran out of time.  The game was  still pretty even at that point - I'd lost a light cavalry unit but his light cavalry was pretty spent and his allied infantry was starting to be worn down.

We were able to resume the game 3 days later and play it through to a conclusion.

My left flank ended with the mutual destruction of both sides Light Cavalry with me losing 3 units to the British 2.

But, I was able to apply pressure to the weaker Dutch Belgian allied corps on  their Right  wing and that forced Anthony to use his command to slowly withdraw them as they were in danger of losing 2-3 units.  He also concentrated his main attack on the his left wing heavy cavalry who were facing the French heavy cavalry.

This meant that he was unable to manouevre the higher quality, stronger British corps in the centre and it was left to exchange skirmish fire with my weaker french/allied troop corps.

His concentration on the heavy cavalry was his undoing as he was convinced he could win the combats and I managed to consistently throw slightly better dice than him which meant his units were worn out slightly faster than mine.  Also, he didn't withdraw any units as they neared breaking point and I kept enough of an upper hand to break all 4 of his heavy cavalry with the loss of 3 of my own units.

This put us on 6 units lost each - the British break point was 6, the French 7, so the British army broke and ran givng a French victory.

It was a very close and quite tense game at times - we got a couple of things wrong but that didn't change any outcomes.

More laser cutting for Dendermonde

 

Spent some time today cutting bases for the Ravelins and bastions and working out sizing for the Demi-lunes.  

I have decided to redo the Ravelin without a hexed base as it is too hard to get them to line up correctly with the bastions without a lot of fiddling.

I also started on cutting the extra base tiles need to complete the 8' x 5' table.  The pictures show roughly what it will look like, the green area runs up to were the glacis will be, beyond that will be the ditch and behind the walls will be the city streets.

I am starting wonder about using removeable tape to stick the tiles down to the boards so I can move them on and off the table without having to pack them away each time.  Anyone worked with any removeable tape - I know you can get it for temporarily hanging pictures.

The glacis is proving a problem to design as it is so large and the bases for it will have to be made is several parts as will the grass slope.  I am wondering about laser cutting the back wall and covered way and firing platform and then making the rest out of foam board cut by hand.