More Bolt Action in the desert.

 For this weeks game we opted for a scenario from the Western Desert book which was initially aimed at Italians defending against the British; for our game we switched my Afrika Korps in for the Italians. The British had 25% more troops than the Germans who were defending a fortified camp. 

I enjoyed last weeks game so much that I sent off for a desert mat (as an early birthday present). Here you can see the entrance to the German camp. 

The Panzer 111 and the Sdkfz 222 actually started the game off table.

 

Ian opted for a rapid advance on the entrance to the German Camp whilst hitting the German's that were manning the defences with lots of HE. 

German Pak 38 got off just one shot before being taken out by HE fire. 

Overhead shot of the British advance. The German defences were a mix of wall, sandbags and barbed wire. You can see the red 'pinned' counters on some of the Afrika Korps units caused by the British pre-game bombardment. 

My Pz 111 advanced to counter the threat of the Matilda. 

The Matilda got brewed on the Pz 111's second shot. With the Matilda gone, Ian's plan of attack floundered as he had little left to counter the Pz 111. 

A view from the rear of the Afrika Korps position as the Sdkfz 222 armoured car enters the battle. 

Ian had sent some infantry across the wire defences on my right. With the Matlida gone my vehicles chased them off. With the British attack faltering Ian started to withdraw troops to avoid getting shot.  

The Pz 111 advances through the defences towards the retreating British Infantry. 

(the rest of my photo's turned out so dark I have opted not to use them).

By the end of turn 6 the British attack had been successfully repulsed but the dice decided we should play a final seventh turn which only helped the German victory as we scored more victory points. 

Next week it it the turn of the Afrika Korps to be on the offensive!

Back to Bolt Action

 I haven't played Bolt Action for at least three years but Ian has been busy painting up some 8th army so it was time to have a game. We opted for smallish 750 point armies to make it easier to learn the rules as the others had not played before. The simple objective was to take control of the buildings in the table centre and destroy as many enemy units as you can. . 

It was time to get some of these back on the table. 

So with Ian and Nigel in charge of the 8th army and me leading the Afrika Korps we started the game. Action was slow at first as we got used to the rules but soon speeded up. 

8th army on the left, Afrika Korps on the right.

A mortar hit first turn took out the 8th army MG

Nigel's Matilda only needed one shot to reduce my armoured car to scrap metal. 

A view from behind the 8th army lines.

 The German 'buzzsaw' MG's were very effective and perhaps gave the Afrika an edge in this battle, especially against the enemy infantry.   

It took a few shots but the Pz111 finally managed to KO the Matilda.

By the end of the game (6 turns) the 8th Army only had their Rolls Royce AC left.

 With seven out of 9 units left and both buildings under their control the Afrika Korps were clear winners; first game I have won for a few weeks!

Ian and Nigel both enjoyed their first game of Bolt Action. We probably got a few things wrong but the rules give a fast moving and fun game with plenty of time for banter and laughter at each others poor dice rolls etc...

We play again next week. 

Finally, I just finished a couple of bases of 15mm Knights (PSC siocast figures) for my Hundred Years War English army. All heraldry was painted free hand. I cheated a bit on the main two banners as these were printed from a free resource on a facebook page then painted over to get a good colour match with the rest of the figure. I need to paint at least two more bases for a decent sized unit. 

Battle of Cravant, 1423: 20mm Hail Caesar

 Today Charlie invited us round for a game of Hail Caesar using his 20mm plastic Hundred Years War collection. He had devised a scenario based around the Battle of Cravant in 1423 where a combined French and Scottish force were besieging the Burgundian town of Cravant and an English and Burgundian force came to relieve the siege. 

It was decided that Charlie and I would command the English/Burgundian force with Ian and Nigel controlling the French/Scottish force. Initial deployment was set up by Charlie as per the actual battle. The more numerical French/Scottish is on the left side of the river with the walled town of Cravant in the background. On the right are the English/Burgundian units. The town of Cravant also has a garrison which may do a sortie at some stage of the game. 

Charlie's wargames room is part of an outbuilding and is a great space, we were all very jealous. 

The French deployed outside Cravant. 

The English Burgundian army needed to get across the river and defeat the French/Scottish forces and lift the siege. This was to prove to be a difficult task. 

Part of the English force.

Charlie's armies are all 20mm plastic and were painted aprox 20 years ago.  

The bridge over the river which was fiercely contested all game. 

My knights force their way over the bridge. 

Our longbow's were inflicting quite a few casualties on the enemy units on the other side of the river. At this stage it looked like the battle was going our way. 

English bow fire had forced back Ian's mounted and dismounted knights. But...

My dismounted Knights melee with with Ian's mounted Knights - I lost!

Meanwhile Charlie and Nigel were caught in bitter fighting across the river. 

This was proving to be a very close and hard fought battle.

Nigel's Scottish spear wobbled in the melee against one of Charlie's longbow units. 

At this point we ran out of time with the French/Scottish forces slowly but surely whittling the English/Burgundian forces down so we called it a narrow win for the French/Scottish army. 

Sadly Charlie and I never met the set conditions for the town garrison to do a sortie which would have really helped us so the French/Scottish greater numbers gradually ground us down. 

This was a great game, really closely fought and our first battle in Charlie's great wargames room. Ian and Nigel had managed to reverse the historical outcome of the battle, so well done to them.   

Two Games in a week

 On Monday Howard invited me round for an afternoon of 15mm 'General D'Armee. He had created a scenario based around Papelotte (to show off his lovely new mdf building). Howard was the French whose objective was to take Papelotte and also get at least one unit off the board along my deployment zone. As the British and their Allies my objective was simpler, stop Howard achieving his! 

Papelotte with the French advancing from the left.

Lots of French were on the march.

More French.

(as usual we put too many troops on the table to get the game finished).

One of a few unsuccessful French assaults on Papelotte. 

Howard did manage to damage my unit in the BUA to the extent that I swapped a fresh unit in mid game. 

Huzzah, Kempts Brigade arrive to help the British and their allies.

Sadly they were unable to move from this spot so had no influence on the game. 

Look at those dice scores for this mid table melee!

Look at my cavalry run!

 Howard really enjoyed this moment as his newly painted lancers ran riot. . 

His cavalry decided to continue and charge my guns, but they didn't quite reach. 

My guns enjoyed this moment more than Howard!

Sadly this was the last action that we had time for. It seemed that the French were slowly gaining the upper hand but we called the game a hard fought draw. 

A great game as always and played in the usual friendly spirit. 

Wednesday saw us move back to Medieval times with a game set in the Hundred Years War using the Hail Caesar rules. Our armies are still growing so we needed a scenario that suited small forces. The idea was the English had landed at Brest in Brittany and gone off on a chevauchee (raid). The local French forces had to confront them and also get to the top of a nearby hill to light the warning beacon. The English of course wished to fight off the French and prevent the lighting of the beacon. The English had to deploy next to a small village they were currently raiding. 

Just under 200 points of English in two divisions, Ni and I took control of a division each. gel. 

200 points of French in two divisions led by Ian. 

English deployment, we got this so wrong as it turned out. 

French Foot

The glass bead represents the beacon and Ian supplied the pile of dead, modelled from broken figures. 

Ian's, cavalry division on the march. These guys proved to be battle winners. 

I tried to get my division across the board to protect the beacon. 

The order dice were not good to me. 

Nigel needed to swing his troops round to face the French foot.  

Overhead view of the two forces approaching each other. 

Ian threw some good order dice and soon managed to out manoeuvre my hobilars which he soon destroyed. 

Ian's mounted Sergeants were very effective in this game. 

Ian's peasants claim the beacon and get it lit, victory to the French. 

This game was over so quickly we re-arranged the terrain and set about a second game with more or less the same forces. This time, the French were pursuing the English who were trying to rally around another village. 

Nigel set his division up amidst the village.

Ian continued with his good order throws and sent his cavalry around my flank again!

We had a good fight on this flank but Ian gradually gained the upper hand. 

On the other flank Nigel defeated two of Ian's foot units causing Ian to withdraw the others.

End result, a draw but all good fun. 

For these games we were play testing generic army lists for Hundred Years War English and French  that I had cobbled together from the HC2 rulebook, some we had found on line, a spot of reading up on the subject and also the lists that Charlie shared with me. We made a few tweaks as we worked through the game but overall I think the lists will be ok after another few games.