15mm Hundred Years War with Hail Caesar.

 It was just Ian and I battling it out today so we opted to play Hail Caesar with our 15mm Hundred Years War armies; borrowing a scenario from a recent magazine but converting it to our medieval era. Using dice to help us, it was decided that my English Army led by Henry Vth himself would enter the table one division at a time whilst Ian's French army would all deploy facing my one division. 

The numerous French Army look across at the one English division and decide to do a rapid advance before help arrives. 

A view along the French line, we both love the colour of all the livery and flags. 

Henry Vth wondering where the rest of his army is? 

Ian's French army is certainly very colourful as shown on these pavise and spear units. 

The view from behind the small English army.

The French Knights advance, quite a worrying sight for the English. 

At last, the rest of the English army arrives but is beset by blunders preventing them from getting into position alongside Henry's division. 

Boom! English guns fire at the French line but were not very effective apart from squashing some Bidet's. At 50pts for the guns I may opt for a different unit choice next game.  

Finally the English get into position and their longbows start to wreak havoc in the centre and on my left flank. We also deployed stakes where we could which helped deter the French mounted troops.

Here come the French Knights, my medium guns only managed to dent one of them. 

Henry Vth orders his hobliars forward and for his Knights to charge the right most unit of French Knights, only for them to Blunder and withdraw instead. The Hobliars rode into a storm of crossbow bolts and were destroyed. 

The longbowmen behind the stakes do so well they force a unit of French Knights to withdraw. The central unit of knights smash into the billmen only to end up in a prolonged melee. 

The English Knights recover their pride and charge a unit of French Knights and both units caused equal casualties and were both Shaken in one mighty clash. 

Ian withdrew the French Knights whilst Henry quickly rallied his Knights and went charging into some French crossbowmen who were swept aside with ease but then Henry charged his knights into some French spear who not only won the melee but managed to kill Henry. 

With Henry dead and his division now forced to withdraw due to units lost the French were dominating my right flank and as we were running out of time the rest of the English withdrew and conceded the field of battle to the victorious French but until Henry's untimely demise it was a close one. 

A French commander surveying some of the English dead.

Yet again we had great fun playing Hail Caesar and it was another very close battle. But did Henry Vth really die today or will he ride again next week? 

6mm Hail Caesar, battling in the desert again.

 For today's game I adopted ideas from some of the scenario's in the HC 'Age of Bronze' supplement, tweaking things a bit to suit our collection of figures and terrain. 

I randomly set up the scenery and then allowed the players (Ian and Nigel) to dice for who deployed first, highest chose. The first player to deploy also had to place the whole of one of their divisions within 6" of the oasis which was  in the centre of the table. 

Then each player chose a card with their battle objectives and scenario specific rules on. These were as follows...

Player A: Ian

1: You must try and get one of your chariot units off your opponents table edge as it is carrying important messages. Please mark which chariot unit it is. 

2: You must be in control of the Oasis (the only water supply for miles) by the end of the game. 

3: Assign a baggage base to one of your divisions. The baggage represents the baggage and several hostages belonging to the enemy. It is vital that you are still in possession of these hostages at the end of the game. 

Player B: Nigel

1: You must be in control of the Oasis (the only water supply for miles) by the end of the game. 

2: The enemy has several important hostages, (sons and princes) which are being kept by their baggage. You must try and capture them back. 

3: The enemy is trying to escape off your table edge with important messages, you must prevent this from happening. 

So with Ian as first player he had to deploy a division by the oasis and 'lucky' for him the dice decided I as on his side and he put me in charge of the left most chariot division of Elamites and the infantry division in charge of the Oasis. Ian placed the army general  mid-table and another division on the right flank. Nigel then placed his tough, 5 unit strong Assyrian chariots division left of centre from our viewpoint with infantry divisions either side. I should also point out that Nigel was using the Earlier Assyrian list today as that is more compatible with our armies. 

Elamites on the left, Assyrians to the right. You should be able to make out the oasis top centre, now surrounded by Elamite infantry. 

Assyrian Cavalry which hardly moved all game? Forward a bit, back a bit!

In the centre, Nigel tried to charge his chariots into our General's division but an amazing round of 'closing shots' from the Elamite archers halted and dis-ordered the attack on my left and then the other chariots drew their combat. We won the next round. 

At this point it became clear that today was never going to be Nigel's day as he twice threw a double 1 on break tests so the units involved broke and fled. 

A shot along the battle lines, note the red disorder counters still on the Assyrian Chariots. 

The non-disordered Assyrian chariots charge in again only to be repulsed by the Elamite infantry. Withdrawing, Nigel re-grouped his chariot division and came after my chariots who opted to evade as they were outnumbered. His left most division (from my side) finally broke and had to withdraw. By this time it was looking bad for Nigel and his troops and none of his game objectives looked achievable so he nobly conceded the game and was last heard muttering about useless dice and the need to order some new ones!

Great fun as always. Next week we move forward to medieval times. 

Another 6mm Biblical battle using Hail Caesar.

 Ian and I met this week for another game of Hail Caesar using our Irregular Miniatures 6mm Biblical armies. With Ian taking on the role of King Shutruk the First of the Elamites I opposed him as King Suppliluliuma of the Hittite Empire. At 500 points each it was quite a large game and a quick dice throw decided that Ian had outscouted me. We then used a dice rule from General de Brigade v2 where I placed dice where my divisions were to deploy including one dummy. Ian chose well, his scouts spotting my main chariot division and that my extreme left was empty of troops. 

Initial deployment, Elamites on the left and Hittites on the right. 

The Hittites deployed in all their glory. 

The Elamites try to out manoeuvre their enemies. 

Taking the first turn I tried to do a rapid advance but my command rolls let me down. My right most division, (my chariots) did not move for the first 3 turns Ian fared better and his Elamites surged forward. 

Elamite scouts spying on the Hittite deployment. 

The Elamites soon take possession of the oasis.

With the Elamites taking up a strong position on the hill (lower part of the picture) I opted to back away on this, my left flank. 

The Elamites marched up a hill, and as I then retreated they marched back down again. 

First big clash, I thought my Hittites were well supported but again the dice did not favour me as well as they might. 

The white dice are Ian's saving throw!

Elsewhere I scored 6 hits on this archer unit and Ian saved 4 of them. 

From this point on photographs were forgotten about as a tense battle ensued on my left flank but eventually the Hittites broke the Elamite left most division and looked to be in the stronger position. On the right my slow withdrawal away from the advancing Elamite divisions was helped by Ian failing some important command roles. As we once again ran out of time we assessed the state of play and Ian nobly conceded the game as we both felt I had the upper hand. Our 6mm biblical games are always great fun and closely fought.  

The Battle of Michmash, 6mm biblicals.

 After a couple of weeks holiday it was back to wargaming today and back to Hail Caesar in biblical times. A recent issue of Wargames Soldiers and Strategy was a Chariot Wars special and one of the battle covered the Battle of Michmash. Now we don't have the armies of Israel or the Philistines so we adapted the scenerio to suit our armies. 

Thus Nigel in his new role as Nigelath Alespic, King of the Assyrians led his army down onto the plain below his camp to do battle with King Ianhep Ratep and his Elamite army with a few Hittite allies led by Instu Shushinart (me). 

It was a good scenario but we had to be careful that it didn't deem too loaded against Nigel. With roughly equal armies but most of the special events usually being bad news for Nigel. 

Assyrian Deployment

Elamite deployment minus their Hittite allies who arrived after a flank march.  

Ianhep urges his army forward. 

The two forces soon clash in what was to be an epic battle in the centre. 

As both sides started to take casualties there was a chance that some of the weaker Assyrian vassal spearmen could defect to the Elamites but sadly Ian fluffed the dice throw so the two units of spearmen remained loyal to Nigelath. 

Initially the Elamites seemed to be getting the better of the battle with Ianhep bravely becoming personally involved in the fighting. 

The Hittite flanking force arrived on turn 3, chasing off a weakened unit of Assyrian chariots, but then they met the Assyrian cavalry who proved to be a very tough unit, possibly unit of the battle? 

Over on the Elamite left flank the two forces were involved in a face off, mainly as both armies kept failing their orders to charge, so it became a shooting match for a while. The Assyrians had more missile armed troops but their missile dice throwing let them down. 

Ian always likes to get his skirmishers safely into rough ground, see top of photo. Look also at the damage counters as the two forces on that flank finally clashed. It was now a close fought battle.

As usual, at this point the game became so involved I forgot to take any more photo's. Both forces had one of their three divisions broken and a second very close to being broken. As we entered the final turn I thought that Nigel and his so far unbeaten Assyrians were going to grab the victory but in an amazing round of melee Ian managed to win a multi units combat and slay the opposing general Nigelath and break the Assyrians chariot division granting the Elamites a hard fought victory. What a cracking game. The biblical era really suits the Hail Caesar rules as we always have closely fought games with them. 

General D'Armee v2, game concludes.

 Back to Nigel's house today for the conclusion of our General D'Armee v2 game. Nigel had set an excellent scenario of a withdrawing French force (commanded by Nigel) trying to delay or stop the British and Prussian army (me and Ian) from getting over the river. 

Here is how we left the game. You can see the bridge over the river behind the first village section. Ian had already captured this section once but had been driven out again.  

This photo also shows what a great looking game it was. 

Over on the left flank my British infantry brigade was tasked with getting over the river. This proved very hard as Nigel's light infantry were making excellent use of the riverbank and it's cover.  

The British slowly forcing the French back, both sides were taking quite a few casualties. 

Over on the right flank Nigel was able to advance his French Infantry as Ian was wrapped up in trying to eliminate the French Heavy Cavalry that are just the other side of the windmill. 

By the left side of the bridge that section of village had been recaptured by Nigel and then taken again by Ian; this became our only gain by the end of the game. 

As my British infantry managed to get across the river, they were so heavily damaged they opted to withdraw from what seemed a no win situation, there were just too many French line units to deal with.

My brigade of British Hussars went on one last hurrah, charging around the woods towards the river.

Smashing into a French line unit on the river bank. At first I thought the cavalry were going to break through as depicted in the photo. But this was a learning game and we had forgotten to give the infantry the chance to form into a square. Sadly for my cavalry, the infantry duly formed square and repulsed the attack. With the afternoon wearing away, Ian and I decided upon a strategic withdrawal and awarded Nigel the game as we just could not get across the river. 

All three of us enjoyed this scenario and we also feel we learnt a lot about the rules so our game play should speed up next time we play. 

Trying 'General D'Armee' v2 in 15mm

 Howard, Ian and Nigel have been playing a few games of the new version of 'General D'Armee' and this week I was able to go along to Nigel's house to try them out too. Nigel had adapted a scenario where the British and Prussians were attacking, needing to secure a village and a hill with a windmill on it and the French who were withdrawing had to defend them and slow the Allies down. Nigel took on the role of the French with Ian and I dividing the allies up between us. 

Looking along the Allied line towards the village.

The French on the defensive.

Nigel had set up a lovely looking table, ideal for this scenario.  

My British Light cavalry brigade supported by the RHArtillery (turned to the rear to show they are limbered up as I haven't painted the limbers yet) go on the attack.

Turn two and the British Light cavalry smash into the flank of the French artillery deployed just outside the village and wipe them out. 

With the French artillery destroyed the Light Cavalry then withdrew. 

Inspired by the success of the British Light Cavalry, the French heavies aim for Ian's British Foot Artillery.

The result was the same, and the French heavy Cavalry also opted to withdraw.

A view of the French defending the village.

The Prussians advance against the first part of the village and after a couple of turns of intense melee force the French back. 

We had to stop play here as we ran out of time but happily we have left the game set up to hopefully continue next week. 

The game played really well and all three of us felt that the rules have been refined and improved to provide a smoother, quicker moving game. Finally we think we have found the set of rules for Napoleonics for our little gaming group.