Rapid Fire: Operation Epsom, June 1944

 We were at Nigel's house today for a game of Rapid Fire using Nigel's wonderful 20mm collection of models and figures. His terrain looked great too as it was decided that Nigel would play the Germans with Ian and I splitting the British forces between us. Both forces were tasked with capturing and holding the various villages or chateau's spread across the table. 

The British entry point defined by the lolly sticks and you can just see the german entry point in the distance.

Nigel's fast moving German forces were quick to move into and seize the village. 

My British infantry making slower progress sheltering behind my squadron of Matilda tanks. They were aiming to capture the chateau ahead. 

Ian's forces lay down some smoke as his infantry advance towards the village now held by the Germans. 

The Germans enjoying the cover the village provides as they move to occupy the buildings. 

First main casualty of the game as Nigel bags one of my Churchills. A poor morale throw saw the other two Churchills having to withdraw for two moves. 

Ian's British forces tucked in nicely to support the troops trying to assault the village. 

The Pz IV lurking behind the smoke screen was a worry though. 

Here comes the Panzer IV emerging from the smoke. 

Boom! Ian uses an 'heroic action and by throwing two successive '6's uses a PIAT to blow up the Panzer IV. 

My Churchill's finally move back into the action by brewing up a German half track and 4 of the infantry it was carrying. A great turn for the British forces as my infantry also enter the chateau on the right. 

Not to be outdone, Nigel sends forward his flame thrower and brews up Ian's 6pdr AT gun. 

At this point we had to call the game a draw as both sides had made equal gains and suffered similar casualties. It was a very enjoyable game with some enjoyable and memorable moments. We were a little rusty with the rules to begin with but gradually got into the swing of them. A big thankyou to Nigel for setting up such an enjoyable game. 

Lion Rampant: 'the Messenger'.

 Just Ian and myself again today for another game of Lion Rampant. My Normans were tasked with getting a messenger across the board whilst Ian's Hiberno Norse had to try and capture him. We used the terrain chart on p130 to select the terrain for the game and that gave us 4x marshes, 2x woods and 2x hills. A dice was also used to randomly place the scenery across the board. 

The Norman commander, Fulcard meets Friar Edan, ready to escort him on his journey. 

The Normans arrive.

The Hiberno Norse divide to conquer! 

For three turns in a row the Norman crossbow men threw a double 1 for activation. 

These guys always seem difficult to get moving. 

The Norman skirmishers see off the Hiberno Norse bowmen. 

The dice show their courage score. 

Friar Edan urges his unit of light infantry to get moving whilst the Norman cavalry finally decide to get going. 

Norman Commander Fulcard is charged by one of the Hiberno Norse heavy infantry units and is killed by a Leader Lucky blow. Happily, the other Norman cavalry unit leader Halfcard took over. 

Ian sent his light cavalry off on a flanker.

I faced the light cavalry with some Norman knights which soon saw turn and go back. 

The two sides met in the table centre for a messy few rounds of melee. 

(Where's Friar Edan...the Early Medieval version of Where's Wally!)

Happily for me the Normans proved to be quite tough in combat and eventually the Hiberno Norse were worn down. 

The Hiberno Norse light cavalry about to charge the Norman crossbow men. It did not end well for the light cavalry after a couple of rounds of combat. With only half their light cavalry and a unit of skirmishers left whilst the Normans had only lost unit a Norman victory was declared and Friar Edan was escorted safely across the board. 

I am really enjoying Lion Rampant at the moment. Fast moving and fun with a good variety of scenarios. 

Lion Rampant: 'Sausages with Mustard'

 Continuing our run of Lion Rampant games Ian and I played the 'Sausages with Mustard' scenario today. One player has to try and set the buildings in the centre of the table alight, the other player has to defend them. Ian and his Hiberno Norse (Irish) force were the defenders and my Normans were the attackers. 

Ian placed a unit of infantry in the village to defend it. 

The Normans advancing slowly, plagued once more by too many failed activation. 

The crossbowmen failed their activation so often that they failed to do single round of missile fire for the second game in a row. 

Ian's Irish light cavalry. Ian is an expert at using such units so I was a bit worried by how fast these were moving. 

My Norman leader Fulcard actually decided to move in today's game from turn 3 onwards. 

The Irish light cavalry defend the village with their leader just behind commanding a unit of Elite infantry. 

One of the Norman Elite cavalry units had to 'Wild Charge' the Irish light cavalry who failed to evade and were destroyed in the melee. 

The Irish leader foolishly allowed the Norman elite cavalry to charge them a couple of times and were destroyed and the Irish leader was therefore also killed. 

The fast moving Irish were soon in the village to defend it. 

Happily for me my Normans suddenly started to pass their activation rolls and were fighting well. .

Fulcard led his Elite Cavalry into the village destroying the defending Irish infantry. 

View from behind the Irish line with another unit of elite infantry moving up. 

Fulcard and his knights pile into the Elite Irish foot and after a couple of turns of melee destroys them. By now Ian only had a unit of skirmishers left whereas the Normans had only lost one unit. The sneaky crossbowmen moved into contact with a building and soon torched it.  The Irish skirmishers opted to withdraw leaving the Normans to torch the remaining buildings.  

The victorious Normans torch the village. 

Overall this ended up in an easy victory for the Normans. They are a hard hitting force if you can actually pass some of those difficult activation rolls. 

Will Ian and his Irish get their revenge next week? 

Lion Rampant: the Convoy

 For today's game of Lion Rampant we played 'the Convoy' scenario. The dice decided that Ian's later Irish/Norse force would be escorting the 3 wagons diagonally across the board whilst Nigel and I would command the Norman's who were trying to capture the wagons. 

Fulcard, the Norman leader rides past my Viking turn counter on his way to the game. 

Fulcard turned out to be a total waste of time only getting to move twice in a game lasting 16 turns...yes, he really was that bad. 

Ian placed an elite heavy unit of vikings in charge of the wagons. These guys never failed an activation all game and kept those wagons moving. 

Fulcard with some of his men arrive on the battlefield. The normans had to place at least 4 points worth of troops in each of the three other corners that the Irish Norse force. On reflection, Nigel and I could have placed our troops in a much better way than we actually did.  

The start of the rot, a double one to activate the Norman spearmen to move, the first of 4 double '1's I scored during the activation phase of the game.

Over view of the mid-way part of the game. Spot the convoy top left, just off centre. The norman problem of struggling to activate has allowed the Irish Norse to march unchallenged halfway to their exit point. 

Over on the far left Nigel's Norman troops took on a few Irish Norse units left behind to slow us down. We just could not get our troops in place to stall his progress and a few turns later Ian gleefully marched the wagons off the exit point with hardly any shooting or melee having happened. The only consolation for the Normans was that we did manage to finally get into position to prevent any other Irish Norse troops leave the board. 

Ian made good use of his light cavalry throughout the game although we did manage to see them off with Nigel getting the Norman light cavalry to outmanoeuvre the Irish/Norse light cavalry.  

So it was an early finish today but we all enjoyed the game despite some frustrating dice throws at times. 

Lion Rampant, three player game of 'Meeting the Neighbours' scenario.

 Three of us enjoyed a game of Lion Rampant today. We played the 'Meeting the Neighbours' scenario; I used my usual Anglo Danes, Nigel used a Viking warband and Charlie bought his Italian themed Normans. As well as trying to exit the table through the other players deployment zone (to gain glory) I had positioned some villager and livestock bases in the village. Any player who 'collected ' one or more of these along the way and escorted them from the table gained an extra point of glory. However, straight from turn 1 the villager bases would scatter and move d6 inches in a random direction unless captured. 

As we hadn't played Lion Rampant for a while we got a some aspects of the rules wrong in the first few turns. However, from turn 3 all seemed good and the game speeded up. 

Viking Leader, Eric the Red (aka Nigel). 

Nigel played a canny game, sheltering some of his units in the central field, with his archers covering Charlies Norman escape zone. He was also very lucky as three out of the five livestock bases seemed to randomly blunder into his possession. Before the end of the game he captured another livestock base from Charlie. 

Some of Charlie's Norman cavalry. His light cavalry escaped off the board quite quickly but were down to half strength having been shot at by the Vikings. Tancred, the Norman commander spent about three turns refusing to move leaving the units in the photo to do all the work. 

Vikings hold a strong position but holding that position kept Nigel's troops in the centre. 

My Anglo Danish force took up a strong position across a line of hills. From there I carefully ventured forwards encountering Normans on my left and Vikings on my right. 

Charlie sent some heavy cavalry charging through the village but they literally got 'battered' by Nigels Vikings. Elsewhere the Vikings also snatched a livestock base from some Norman light infantry. 

Here the defeated Normans withdraw from the combat. 

My Anglo Danes charged into some Vikings and not only beat them in melee but captured some livestock from them. Over on my right, after a gamelong struggle I finally cleared a path to my table exit zone.  

Having finally got his Elite Cavalry led by Tancred himself moving, Charlie managed to get that unit off the board to earn more glory. Sadly the rest of his force was by now either battered or destroyed. Eric the Red, the Viking leader offered his Anglo Danish rival, Wulfgar the Slayer a truce, allowing both sides to withdraw quite a few units. With the Vikings having most of the livestock allowed Nigel to claim the victory. 

Final scores were Nigel 10 glory, myself 8 glory and Charlie on 3 glory. 

Having now got the rules sorted in our (old and shrinking) minds we aim to play again next week. 

15mm GdA 2, Somewhere in Europe.

 Nigel was hosting today and he had devised a cracking scenario based on a Peninsula battle (I think). As we were using French, British and Prussians we decided it was based 'somewhere in Europe'. The British and Prussians were defending a river crossing tucked in behind two small redoubts (stone walls in our game) with the aim of preventing the French getting across the river and gaining possession of the redoubts.  

Nigel and Charlie were the French, I was British and Ian was the Prussians. 

Deployment, French on the west side of the river, the Allies on the right. 

Both sides were promised reserve brigades, but they were all down to a dice throw. 

The redoubts are the angular wall on the right and the enclosed village/houses on the left. 

Ian's Prussian cavalry got caught in the open and went for it, destroying a whole French battery; thanks mainly due to Charlie's combat throw of a double 1!

I marched some men over the bridge. 

(A few turns later I marched them back again). 

The Prussian reserves arrive. Ian starts to line his men up along the river to meet the French advance. 

It was getting very crowded around the village and it's redoubt. 

Charlie and his French captured this just at the end of the game. 

The French at the top of the photo were delayed in getting over the bridge to the east as they kept failing their command throw. Ian was still busy lining up some stiff resistance. 

A view down the table showing how busy it was all getting as the French reinforcements had also arrived by now. 

My British infantry unit opted to withdraw back over the bridge followed by a Prussian unit with some French Light Infantry hot on their heels. 

This photo was taken just as Charlie sent in a French Infantry battalion and took the village redoubt. That was the last action of the game as once more we ran out of time. 

Nigel and I had both played a holding action on our left hand side so no real progress was made there. Charlie's assault on the village and river crossing had been delayed by the late arrival of his reserve but he was just starting to make headway as the game came to an end. However, Ian had lined up a warm reception for him so not sure how that would have gone. 

Best call this game an honourable draw.