A Fighting Retreat - A Napoleonic Sharp Practice AAR

Yesterday, Brian and I played out a variation of one of the scenarios in the Sharp Practice rule book. The one we chose was Scenario Three: Defence In Depth. The map below is from the rules.

The Anglo-Portuguese force was defending the two red zones with the French attacking from the blue end of the table. Here is the view from behind the French entry points.

And here is the view from the Anglo-Portuguese end.

Neither side was able to take the full number of support points because of a lack of suitable models, but both of us chose to raise the Status of one of our leaders to Status IV. Brian took a water cart and I took an extra Secondary Deployment Point and a Marksman.

The French force was mainly Line troops, rated as Conscripts and Volunteers, supported by Voltigeur skirmishers. The Anglo-Portuguese was a small force of Light troops; 95th Rifles and Portuguese Atiradores from the 3rd Caçadores, all equipped with Baker rifles.

I quickly deployed a group of Atiradores in the orchard. I hoped that these would be able to slow the French down before moving back in good order.

French skirmishers were soon on the table.

Followed by a lot of French line troops.

I managed to deploy the rest of my Atiradores around the inn in the middle of the table. Yes, the fences are wrong, but maybe the innkeeper had spent some time in the Americas and liked the simple construction of snake fences? Anyway, these brave Portuguese sharpshooters were soon in action, inflicting shock and casualties on the hated French.

In the orchard, the other group of Atiradores were busily reloading before the French got too close.

Unhappily, the French managed to kill half of this group, who decided that they needed to move, reload and fire, before pulling back.

This they did, but were unable to stop the French advance, losing another comrade in the process.

On my centre right, the rest of the Atiradores continued to fire at the French, whose shock levels were mounting.

Before long the 95th were also in action. I wanted to keep at least one group back, to cover the withdrawal of the rest of the rearguard force. I knew that they would suffer if they were caught up in a fight with the main body of French troops.

My fears were confirmed as the rest of the Atiradores in the orchard were wiped out. The leader would have to move and join up with the rest of the troops.

The French now had a real problem as their line infantry continued to fire uncontrolled volleys, with their leaders unable to get them to stop and obey orders. This would enable me to pull my troops back towards their Primary Deployment Point, once I'd caused as many casualties as I could.

I split the main body of Atiradores into two, and they continued to plug away at whittling the French numbers down.

Eventually, though, they would start getting hit, and at this point, I started to pull back.

The 95th were also now in action, slowing down a flank attack by the Voltigeurs. Unfortunately, a random shooting event meant that one group were low on ammunition and could only fire at close range. I pushed these up as far as I dared, and they responded by giving the leading French troops a bloody nose. Elsewhere, the battered remains of the Atiradores were pulling back towards safety.

I ended the game with all my troops in cover around the farm where my Primary Deployment Point was situated, where they were ready to cause maximum damage to the advancing French.

At this point, we called time, because it was getting late. The French had the numbers, but hadn't made enough ground to threaten my DP. Therefore, the battle ended in an Anglo-Portuguese victory. In many respects it was a classic scenario for Light Infantry to fight, harrying the advance of a numerically-superior enemy to buy time for their main force to retreat to a position of safety.

Dice holders for recording unit shock

Ha! The above has to be one of the most dull titles I've ever written, but sometimes there isn't really an easier way of doing things.

There really isn't a great deal to be said here, but when I was at Colours recently, I picked up some little single and double dice holder cells from Warbases, my Go To people for all things MDF, plus some 7mm D6 to fit in the holders.

I now have 15 double cell and 15 single cell bases which I will be using to record Shock in my games of CoC, Sharp Practice and IABSM.

It was a simple job to glue these in place on some 25mm round bases (also from Warbases) with PVA glue, flock the bases and then give them a spray with varnish.

I've already used them, as shown in this post. This means I can stop using the little red plastic markers for Shock and can go back to using them for marking Pinned units and other unit statuses.

Freyja's Wrath - armoured Shieldmaidens and more

Well, I've made excellent progress with my lovely Bad Squiddo Shieldmaidens and I am really happy with the results. If I use these for Saga, they are all going to be classed as Hearthguards. I've tried to stick to a relatively simple colour palette, with the same few colours being used across all the figures, including on their shields. 

First, here are four Shieldmaidens with axes. I really love the one with the chainmail veil over her face. She looks like she is ready to dish up some serious trouble to someone.

Next, here are four Shieldmaidens with spears. These make a nice contrast, being bare-headed.

Next, here are the rest of the armoured Shieldmaidens. These are brandishing swords.

So, these 12 figures will probably be my default 3pts of Hearthguards for Saga, but I also have the option of fielding a group of four Berserkers, and here they are, wild women clad in animal skins and waving some big choppers about. I really love these figures, really dynamic. I suppose they could also be used as a Reduced Unit of Bellicose Foot in Dragon Rampant, with each figure having 3 lives.

Finally, here is my other Thorrun mini, painted to fit in with the colour palette of my Shieldmaidens, together with Morgana, who I see as a magic user, but who my partner described as "that weird nature priestess". I think that Morgana is a really terrific figure. I love her staff, and I've tried to paint it as though it contains some kind of captive Green Man spirit entity. To keep the nature/fertility theme going, her base has actual tufts plus a lighter green flock with coloured bits that (to my eyes, at least) looks like a carpet of young grass and tiny flowers.

Back to the Russian Front - a Chain of Command AAR

Yesterday at the club, Brian and I continued our occasional series of 15mm games of Chain of Command with another game between my Germans and his Soviets somewhere on the Eastern Front. The scenario chosen was Flank Attack (Scenario Five in the rulebook).

I was the attacker and Brian was therefore the defender. This scenario gave me 2D6 of support points and I was pleased when I rolled 9. This gave me a lot of options but I really liked the idea of an extra squad of infantry, and for five points I could have a squad of regular Panzergrenadiers with a Junior Leader, which meant two teams with MG42s. Impossible to resist! That left we with four points, which meant that I'd be taking along a FOO for an off-table 8cm mortar battery.

I wouldn't know what Brian had as support, but his -3 force rating did give him seven points.

Anyway, on with the battle. Brian's deployment zone was inside this village clustered around a road junction.

I was able to move my Patrol Markers from the opposite table edge to the village, and also from my left-hand side edge.

Brian clustered his Jump-Off Points in the centre of the village. I realised that to win I'd have to get his troops out of the buildings. Hopefully the 8cm mortars would help with that.

My JoPs were in the rolling wooded country. This, I hoped would allow my troops to get close without being shot at, assuming they could actually deploy, because the Soviet "Wrath of the gods" was remarkably efficient at stopping me get anything on the table. I fixed that as soon as I had a CoC dice, which I used to end the turn. After that, I quickly got my squads moving.

It didn't take long to find out what Brian's support choices were; a minefield, which was placed to his right-hard end of the village and a KV-1 tank. Luckily, I had a Panzerschreck team in my platoon HQ, plus a Panzerfaust in each of my three regular squads. I hoped that would be enough to take on the beast, if required.

I had a squad on my left moving tactically through the rough ground, which offered light cover.

I had the Panzergrenadier squad on my right. I wanted to get them into a position where they were threatening the Soviet right flank. Unhappily, the were spotted by the KV-1 on overwatch and a round of HE caused some shock.

I'd have to do something about that tank. Luckily, my FOO managed to call down some mortar fire, which only shocked the Soviets in the church, but it did cause the tank commander to pull back from his position in the village. Unhappily, Brian played a CoC dice, which ended the turn and canceled the barrage.

Elsewhere , I moved my left-hand squad quickly through the rough, but they took fire from a Soviet squad in one of the houses, which cause casualties and shock. Not good. However, they had already inflicted some shock and casualties on the squad firing at them, so it wasn't a disaster.

Rashly perhaps, I sent another squad running across the open ground towards the house full of Bolsheviks, which also contained the Senior Leader and once they were within 4" engaged them in some hand-to-hand combat. This proved to be extremely bloody, virtually wiping out my squad and sending them back whence they had come. However, despite winning the combat in terms of kills, the Russians were wiped out, apart from one man and the Junior and Senior leaders, who were both wounded and had more shock that figures, forcing them to flee the field. Russian Force Morale absolutely plummeted from this one combat.

You can see the decimated squad on the left of this picture, with the red Pinned marker. My FOO was able to eventually call in more mortar fire, this time calling in a ranging shot, the puffs of smoke showing where the barrage would fall on the battery's next activation. In the meanwhile, Brian sent the squad in the church out across the road and into hand-to-hand combat with my central squad, hiding behind the house opposite.

This was another nasty combat, but worse for Brian, who lost the fight and ended up with a wounded JL. His force morale was now down to a precarious One. Unluckily for him, the FOO called in the barrage and as a result the JL was killed and his morale was down to Zero. 

So, a pretty convincing victory for the Germans, without the Panzergrenadiers ever getting to pour MG42 fire into the Soviets (they spent most of the game lurking in a coppice on my right flank) and the battle being decided predominantly by mortar fire and two bouts of hand-to-hand combat, rather than shooting.

I think that it was helpful to have four squads available, because it allowed me to threat both of the Russian flanks while also being able to push forward in the centre, which is where the decisive action took place.

Frostgrave club league - Week Four

Last Sunday we held the fourth of our Frostgrave league games at the club. Unlike previous weeks, we played a scenario from The Frostgrave Folio. In this scenario, certain kinds of magic would be inoperable (as decided by each player secretly choosing one school to ban) and there were also six pylons on the table which, if the dice fairies so decided, would send out jets of arcane energy which would strike any characters in their path. Here is the initial table. The energy pylons are represented by columns with green jewels on top. Once again, the central zone, where the bulk of the treasure was located was surrounded by a barrier preventing spells to be cast inwards.

I began to deploy my treasure hunters, led by my Elementalist.

Elsewhere, Andy began to cast fog spells, ostensibly to protect his band from long range attacks, but also to gain experience points.

My wizard cast Wall, closing off one of Owen's lines of advance, giving my Thief protection from his crossbows. Note that I was now able to use my new walls for this game.

That Fog was spreading. This was helpful to me.

My Apprentice successfully cast Raise Zombie. She was now accompanied by a shambling and fairly useless Undead Thing. 

Owen's gang began to advance, but soon became involved in a skirmish with Richard's band.

Andy's Frogs began to move up behind the Fog barrier.

Things were hotting up in the treasure enclosure and both Owen and I had people ready to grab some loot.

I also managed to cast a second Wall, blocking off Owen's Thief and Warhound from attacking my Thief and making off with the treasure.

Due to a Random Encounter generated by picking up a treasure item, a Large Construct appeared elsewhere on the table (we used a scatter dice plus a D20 for distance from the treasure). Not nice.

The Construct (actually my Bad Squiddo Golem from the My Last Sunrise gothic horror range) attacked my Thug, who heroically defeated the monster with an attack score of 20.

The treasure-grabbing action was serious now. Both my Treasure Hunter and Infantryman were grabbing some treasure action, and my Man-At-Arms was also close to picking up a casket.

One of Richard's Knights was beset by Beastly Things while his friends were engaged with fisticuffs with Andy's Frogs. 

Unhappily, my Man-At-Arms was killed off by crossbow fire, but overall I was pretty happy, because I ended up with four treasure items.

In the post-game reckoning, no one in my band was killed and I did rather well with Experience, Gold Coins, Scrolls and Grimoires. As a result, my Wizard has advanced to Level 7 and made spell-casting a bit easier.

I've also improved my Inn with the purchase of a Kennel, so expect to see some canine action next time around.