31 January 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

28mm

Black Powder

Andy

29 March

English Civil War



Tsushima 
( Ironclad naval )

 

 

Billy McClenaghan 

David Taylor

26 April

Rorke's DriftPhil Magilton

31 May

WW2 theme for VE DayVarious   VariousVarious
28 June

Ancients (Romans v Germans) - 28mmInfamy! Infamy!David Smylie
26 July

French & Indian War

28mm

Sharp Practice 2

Jeremy D and David M.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


 

25 January 2025

Get the pilot

 A WW1 game called "Get the pilot".

A French plane has gone down in a forest clearing containing a forester camp.

The Germans want to capture the pilot and have a Luftwaffe engineering officer examine the plane.

The British want to stop these happening, to the extent of blowing up the plane and either rescuing or assassinating the pilot.


Game using One hour skirmish wargames (OHSW).

Players
German  : Jeremy Nixon.
British : David Maltman.


<< UNDER CONSTRUCTION >>

Napoleonic - Le Garde Au Feu

Report from Gary, 25th January 2025.

Game using Field of battle 3rd edition.

Players 

French : Mike and Simon.
Allies : Dave T and Dave M.

Club meeting today and I put on another FOB3 game this time using scenario 'Le Garde Au Feu' from GDB scenario booklet as the basis.

Scenario is set during Lutzen 1813 and depicts the afternoon counter attack by the Imperial Guard around the 'four villages' defended by a Prussian and Russian force.

French were commanded by Mike and Simon with the 'Two Daves' (Dave T and Dave M) tasked with holding off Guard with their Allied force.

French had 32 units with 2 Old Guard,12 Young Guard, 4 Line, 4 Second Line some Skirmish screens and supported by Guard Lancers and Line Lancers with several batteries of guns (some Guard standard with one Battery static on heights), they also had 45 Morale.

The French had to place 2 Brigades in off-table reserve (they choose the Old Gde and Gde Cavalry).

Allies had 24 units with 4 Prussian Line, a Prussian Guard Brigade with 2 Gde Musketeers, a small (3UI) unit of Gde Jager, 4 Russian Grenadiers (although Pavlov unit starts as a village garrison), 4 Russian Second Line, Skirmish screens and Prussian Cavalry Dragoons and Hussars, a unit of Russian Gde Hussars and several gun batteries, they started with 35 Morale.

Game was another cracker with lots of action and incident.

Highlights were Russian Gde Hussars being Routed but then Rallying and charging two units in flank destroying them but then being charged in turn on their flank and annihilated.

One Prussian Gde foot were ignominiously Routed with 3 hits by OG Guard guns but they too managed to Rally (and restore all UI losses !).

Most entertaining (at least for Umpire) was the OG Foot Brigade failing 5 times (1 on a D10) to appear but then once they did they were 'supercharged' getting 3 moves twice and essentially winning the game by inflicting musketry losses, which expended Allied Morale and of course an Army Morale was turned and the Allies quit the field.

However it transpired that the French had only 1 Morale clip left so very close to collapse themselves.

Quote of day was from Simon "how to win by rolling ones" as indeed the French had a deluge of such rolls especially early on. 

________________________________

Photos

French Young Guard formations advance near Rahna.


And encounter Russian Gde Hussars near Klein-Gorschen.


Action at Rahna heats up.


Prussian Gde forms a sort of Brigade Square behind Rahna.


Prussian and Russian foot Brigades hold back in front of Gross-Gorschen.


Formations engage on other side of Rahna (note OG guns on hill).


Russian Line and Grenadiers push forward.


Russian Gde Hussars have rallied from rout with 2UI loss but have forced French into square (the French units assaulting Klein-Gorschen were later flanked and routed by Hussars).


Young Guard forming for assault one Brigade behind 2 gun batteries.


French Cavalry have arrived from reserve.


French about to take Rahna through orchards.


Prussian Dragoons ride to their glorious doom (they did Rout a foot unit but 'died' themselves after taking a hit in pursuit).


Rahna focus of activity on French right.



Pony wars


Report from 
Phil McGlinton, 25th January 2025.

Game using The Men Who Would Be King rules in 20mm.

Some Pictures of TMWWBK game clear victory for the plains Indians


Wagons roll.



The 7th Cavalry press forward.



The Indians pounce.

11 January 2025

The Fracas in the Forests, 1758. A French and Indian Wargame.

Report from David Maltman, 11th January 2025

Think Daniel Day Lewis in Last of the Mohicans. Think the attacks on the British columns. Think "Where are they coming from ?". Think "Hidden movement, without an umpire or paperwork". That sent me down a rabbit hole to come up with a suitable mechanism.

Game using Sharp Practice 2. 

Players
French : Jeremy Dowd , Chris Caves.
British : Jeremy Nixon, David Smylie, David Maltman.

The British are moving North with a slow wagon train. The French want to stop them and if possible capture the wagon train. The French deploy at any of the locations marked D.

Scenario map.

French order of battle.

  • 1 unit 32 Compagnies Franches de la Marine, with 2 leaders.

  • 2 units of 6 Compagnies Franches skirmishers each with a leader.

  • 1 unit 6 Milice Canadienne skirmishers with a leader.

  • 3 units of 12 tribal Indians each with leader.

  • 3 units of 12 tribal Indian skirmishers, each with leaders.

  • Sapper.

British order of battle.

  • 1 unit 24 highlanders, 1 leader.

  • 2 units of 24 British regular infantry, 1 leader each.

  • 1 unit 30 Militia, 1 leader.

  • 4 units 6 frontier skirmishers each with leader.

  • 1 units of 12 tribal Indians with leader.

  • 1 units of 12 tribal Indian skirmishers with leader.

The British are about 15% higher on points than the French, but that was more than offset by the use of hidden movement. The hidden movement uses 2 cards instead of the unit placed on the table, in different areas. They both move as if they are real and only when one becomes visible are they replaced by the real unit, or removed from play.

The bridge was always going to be the focus of the action. The French had a sapper who could blow it up, forcing the wagon train off road to use the Ford. It was slow on the dirt track, half as fast off it. So it could massively increase the number of moves to get over the river.

The game started with the French getting a unit of Canadian skirmishers and the sapper to the bridge. The British were also closing on the bridge with a unit of Highlanders and 2 accompanying frontier skirmish units.


The British skirmishers open up with their rifles and make the Sapper duck down and so was unable to setup the gun powder. You can also see cards for the hidden movement as the units were still hidden by the trees. The Highlanders are slowly making their way to get their 24 muskets into play.

Meanwhile David S. and Jeremy N. were running interference on the wagon train. Both the forests to the East and West were full of cards, Indians to the left of them, Indians to the right, the British were very paranoid at this point. David Smylies Indians where dispatched into the Western forest on a forlorn hope style advance to flush the enemy out. Only to find it completely empty. Given Davids legendary dice rolling skills a major advantage for the British. Jeremy was not so lucky on the Eastern side. It was full of the Indian hordes. 

Up front the frontier skirmishers where joined by the Highlanders and swift work was made of the Canadians, causing the Sapper to scarper back to the next unit, which was the big French unit, the Compagnies Franche. 


On the eastern side of the column Jeremys tribal Indians got badly beaten up, with so much shock on them that they ended up blocking his unit of 24 line infantry from firing on the enemy Indians. However, his frontier skirmishers kept the hordes at bay. Chris, who had been let out of his wargaming cave for the day, was all for getting tore in with a tomahawk. You could see in his eyes he wanted to be shrunk down to 28mm and join in the action.


Back on the Western side Mr Smylies Indians were leaving the forest in Indian style with his large Militia unit bringing up the rear. At the front it had bogged down to a back and forth series of musket volleys, with the French Indians about to cross the river into the willow forest.

At that point time was up, leaving us with a draw. The hidden movement seemed to work well producing paranoia in the British.

Although a good game, it was probably too large for Sharp practice in the time available. It would be interesting to rerun it under something like Black powder or Rebels and Patriots.

WWII Sicily

 Report from Gary. , 11th January 2025

I played in a game using Combat HQ rules that was set up (a good deal of work) and umpired (even more arduous !?) by Mike.

He used a Command Decision (?) scenario from the excellent Bob McKenzie site with action around Pesano and Tobacco Factory in Sicily campaign.

This has Yanks defending (2 infantry Battalions with a Tank Battalion as off-table reserve) being attacked by Pz Grenadiers with tank support (PzIVs) and with options to conduct flanking maneuvers (ie entry points). 

Both sides had artillery support with Yanks having roughly double

Bryn and Mr B took Krauts/Heinies/Nazis and Ian and I the glorious US forces of freedom.

We got to set up on 'blinds' to create some fog of war with Huns coming on from varied directions. 

Ian took the forward US Battalion which were dug-in and on the half of the table with lots of cover (tree lines) whereas my Battalion had much more open half of table but would see the tank support arrive in this area (very conducive to a tank engagement).

So it proved as Mr B arrived on my flank with Panzers and Grenadiers and overwhelmed my Support Coy (an MG a Mortar and a lowly 37mm AT gun). 

Yank infantry on this flank really took little part here as hugging distant limited cover  and outside their range, spotting for Artillery their main activity.

Tank support arrived on third turn and engaged MrBs PzIVs, a Pak40, a Puma and a PzIII (which turned out to be a Flam Panzer).

Shermans outclassed in the end although a single Veteran M10 did kill a PzIV and US force morale faltered. 

To be honest not really sure what occurred between Bryn and Ian, German infantry seemed stymied but they had several Panzers which were pushing forwards, Ian only had a 37mm AT gun and a T30 half track (75mm) with any ranged AT capability (infantry all have Bazookas but of course limited range)

Not played these rules in couple of years and took awhile to get gist of how one uses the various dice as 'strings' or the very flexible 'wild dice' (sixes) along with the Staff Orders but once it clicks it all plays smoothly.

Good fun with a very interesting scenario, kudos to Mike for arranging the game

Not many pics as too engrossed in game (always a good sign).


First of the Germans arrive on my flank 


Later with 2 brewed M4s and M10 in action (note infantry hugging river bank for cover)



Panzers advancing 



A fresh PzIV company is pushing forward mid-table



The scenario map






01 December 2024

UWS Programme for 2024

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.

Please let me know if you'd like to volunteer a game for April.

30 November will also be our annual Bring and Buy sale.

On 28 September we'll have a theme day to mark the 80th anniversary of the Market Garden campaign of 1944 - A Bridge Too Far and all that! If anyone wishes to run a game within that theme, please let me know.

Jeremy D

Date

Period

Scale

Rules (if known)

Organiser(s)

30 Mar

Ancients

28mm

Hail Caesar

Andy & Richard

 

27 Apr

 

 

 

 

 

25 May

Napoleonic

15mm

General d’Armee2

David S

 

29 Jun

World War Two

28mm

Chain of Command

Jeremy D

 

27 Jul

Franco-Prussian War

15mm

They Died For Glory

David Br

 

31 Aug

Napoleonic

28mm

General d’Armee2

Andy

 

28 Sept

World War Two

Market Garden 80th anniversary

Various

Various

Various – contact Jeremy D

26 Oct

Russo-Japanese War – Tsushima (naval battle)

??

??

David T

30 Nov

French & Indian War

(Seven Years War in America)

28mm

Sharp Practice 2

Jeremy D

and others