01 October 2025

UWS Programme for 2025

Although we usually have several games running at each of our monthly meetings, we encourage members to commit in advance to run at least one game per month. That way we hope to ensure there's at least one thing happening every month!

The table below shows what is planned so far.

David M.

Date

Period

Scale

Rules (if known)

Organiser(s)

22 Feb

Horse & Musket , War of the Spanish Succession

Lord of the Rings

Seven years war

Medieval

WW2

28mm



28mm

15mm

28mm

20mm

Black Powder



Midguard

Field of Battle 3

Lion Rampant

Battlegroup

Andy



Chris Caves

Gary

Leslie

David

29 March

English Civil War



Lord of the Rings 

Cold War 

Ancients
Late Roman v Sassanid

World War 2 

 

 


MEBG

7 Days to the River Rhine


Billy McClenaghan 


Keith Branagh

Chris Caves


Adam & David P




Mike

26 April

Napoleonic Peninsular war

Seven years war
Sharp Practice 2


Field of Battle 3
David Maltman.


Gary

31 May

WW2 theme for VE Day

First play Chain of command 2

Op Blue Coat


Normandy


Sci Fi 



28mm


20mm


15mm


6mm



Chain of Command 2


Phils own rues based on WRG

Panzer Grenadier Deluxe

Alpha strike
Various


Jeremy Dowd


Phil McGilton


Gary


Jeremy Mullholland
28 June

Ancients (Romans v Germans)

Boer War

Katzbach ( Napoleonic )

WWII

28mm


25mm

15mm



Infamy! Infamy!


The men who would be kings.
FOB3


Battlegroup
David Smylie


Phil McGilton

Gary


David P and Adam
26 July

Napoleonic 

Tsushima 
(Ironclad naval) 

Sudan

28mm

1/2400


6mm

General d'armie 2

Tsushima


Front rank...Fire

Andy

David Taylor


Leslie Tipping

30 August

WW2


Modern, Swedes vs Russians


28mm


1/72

Bolt Action


Seven days to the Rhine

Chris Caves and David Maltman


Paddy McG.

27 Sept

Rorke's Drift

WW2

25mm

20mm

Front rank...Fire

Chain of Command 2

Phil McGilton

Jeremy Dowd


25 Oct

WW2

28mm

Chain of Command 2

Jeremy Dowd


29 Nov

Return of The Village People

Napoleonic 

28mm


28mm

Lion Rampant


Sharpe Practice


Leslie Tipping

Jeremy D, Chris and David M

?? Dec




 

 

 
 

30 August 2025

Overview

Good turnout this month given the holidays. I believe we had 17 people involved in playing 4 games.


The games were : 


WW2 action in the Pacific.

WW2 post D-day Northern Europe.

A what if WW3 where Russia invades Sweden.

Seven Years War with Russia against Prussia.


Setup time.






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Photos curtesy of Gary, David Smylie and the Editor.

Sun, Sand, Sea, Sushi and Samurai.

Game of WW2 Japanese vs Americans in the South Pacific, played in the same month as VJ day. 
Using Bolt Action 3 in 28mm.













Organized, using terrain and models and umpired by Chris Caves.

AAR by David Maltman.


Players

Americans : David Smylie and Jeremy Nixon.
Japanese  : Ian Anderson , Jeremy Dowd and David Maltman.


Field of Battle :

A small Island outpost in the Solomon Islands. Defended by a small American Marine force and being attacked by a Japanese beach landing force. The Japanese have managed to insert some insurgent units onto the island prior to the main attack force.

Scattered across the Island are a series of clumps of tropical forest.

Rocky outcrops give cover from rifle fire.


The Japanese objective is to get a capture the Pagoda and the American supplies beside it. The Americans have to prevent this. 

For each side there are more units than there are bolt action dice, so not all units will get to activate each move.

How it played out.


The Japanese had a naval bombardment on move 2. This was remarkably ineffectual.


Two Japanese insurgent groups deploy on the top of the mountain, a FAO group and a sniper team.
The Japanese mortar on the small island takes out one of the US howitzers under the direction of the FAO.
The Japanese sniper gets a hit on the US mortar team.

The American artillery try to target the landing craft with little success.

The first landing craft reaches the beach and unloads a Ha-Go tank which immediately takes out a US MMG team.


The American reserves start to arrive. LVT, Stuart and an M3 with a squad on board.


A Japanese lunge mine team deployed from the little forest with the red pin in it. Due to a miscalculation they do not make it to the LVT by 2". The next activation and the US bring on a second Stuart tank which shoots the little team of 2 up.

The US sniper hits the Japanese sniper team with a loss of 1 of the team.

A second landing craft hits the other beach and deploys a Chi-ha tank. Which misses the US spotter in the house.


The Japanese unload their infantry onto both beaches. On the right hand beach the infantry spot the spotter and drive the team out of the house.

On the left beach the Ha-Go moves forward and is able to hit the US howitzer.


The Americans advance across the whole field, but more importantly start to assault the mountain to take the sniper and spotter out.


Most of the Japanese forces have made it ashore, with only the Ka-Mi amphibious tank still in the water, it's movement rolls had been spectacularly bad causing it to be glacially slow. You would have thought that David Smylie had been rolling for it and not David Maltman.



The Japanese mortar gets 3 hits on the US mortar team taking them out of the game.
The Hi-Go gets a good hit on the LVT immobilizing it.

The Chi-Ha gets 4 hits on the US squad in the middle wood.

The Japanese squad get some more kills on it. It's morale fails and it routs.

The Ka-Mi finally gets onto the beach.


The Stuart on the right kills the Ha-Go. The Chi-Ha kills the Stuart in the center in response.


The Americas assault the mountain and kill the sniper and spotter team.


To add insult to injury they raise their imperialist rag, the stars and stripes.


This annoys the mortar team on the island who can now see them so they do area fire on it, clearing the heights of yankees.


The central Japanese squad does a banzai charge on the US squad which has come up to the central wood.

The Japanese lose the melee 6 to 4 and are removed.


A Japanese squad moves into the wood next to the pagoda.

The Ka-mi gets a hit on the Yankee sniper.



At that point time was up. The umpire deemed that the Japanese would have captured the pagoda in the next move, so victory to Japan.


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Editorial comment.

To celebrate the victory we turned to Tota Kaneko, a HiKu master who served in the Imperial Japanese Navy.

Note it follows the Hi Ku scan of 5-7-5 better in Japanese

Japanese man in grey sampan.
Invade base of American.
We have a good plan.

Our barrage full of rage.
Useless navy don't hit the page.
Gets the Admirals rage.

Infiltrators snipe and spot.
The mortar lands on the hot spot.
The howitzer now is not.

We land on island shore,
Infantry, tanks and many more,
Enemies are to the fore.

Anti tank lunge mines hiss.
Launches too early and miss.
Tank deals deaths kiss.

Yankees kill the infiltrators.
Mortar reigns death from above.
Yankees are no more.

Squad rushes in to fight.
American guns down them do strike.
Japanese then lose the fight.

Chi-Ha fire at Stuart tank.
Goes up in blaze of oil so rank.
The ancestors we thank.

Squad rush into wood,
Access to pagoda is good,
Emperor knows win is understood.

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Photos curtesy of the Editor.