The Fords of Isen.

 The Fords of Isen.

Game using Midguard.

Players

Rohan                   : Chris Caves, Jeremy Nixon,
Saumans minions : David Smylie, Stephen.

Report by Jeremy Dowd.

This game was the first appearance of the new Midgard Heroic Battles rules at the club. 

Written by James Morris and published by Reisswitz Press, the rules cover warfare in Ancient, Mediaeval and Fantasy settings, especially those battles where heroic leadership could be a decisive factor.

The scenario was taken from an article in the 2025 Lard Magazine, and was based on the works of JRR Tolkein. The Riders of Rohan were defending the two fords against the evil forces of Isengard.

Most of the players had never played these rules before, so it was up to Jeremy D and David S to provide the necessary guidance. Chris supplied the figures and terrain from his extensive collection.

As it was a learning game, we won’t dwell too much on the outcome. Suffice to say that the good guys didn’t win!  

The Isengard forces led with their most powerful unit, a pair of Trolls, to attack the ford on their left, and despite gallant charges by Rohan cavalry and infantry, they made it across. 

Meanwhile, at the other ford, Rohan archery delayed the onslaught of the Uruk Hai, but eventually the latter prevailed. 

The view from the Isingardian side

There ware flank attacks by some Uruk Hai and Wargs.

Reinforcements arrived for both sides, but it was a case of too little too late for Theodred, Prince of Rohan, who was cut down as he fought the trolls.

All agreed that the rules worked well, and we will hopefully before long have a chance to try this scenario again, in addition to some historical battles.

Editorial comment.

I think I speak for most, if not all, of us that Chris's terrain boards are very impressive, puts my green fleece blanket to shame. But I do wonder, if we were to check behind his container, how many teddy bear carcasses would be unearthed ?

I note Chris is channeling Peter Jackson by sneaking some Elves in where they did not appear in the book. However, they were only stand ins for Rohan archers as there were not enough of these for the scenario. 

Gimli the dwarf took some time out from his run to Fangorn forest. Killed an Urk hai and had a smoke before rushing back to the forest. Peter Jackson would be proud.

Photos curtesy of Gary, Chris and the Editor. 

Russian tank riders pounding on the gates of Prussia.

Game using Battlegroup.

Players : Dave P and Adam
Scale    : 20mm
Report by David P.

East Prussia Feb 1945 – Battlegroup Rules

As the Soviet steamroller grinds west through East Prussia a small but potent German battlegroup deploys dug in and waiting at a vital bridge to stall their advance. 

The German defence (David) consisted of a panzer platoon (1x HQ Panther, 2x King Tigers), a Stug Battery, (3xStug II’s), a panzer grenadier company, an assault engineer platoon and a Whirbelwind.

The Soviets (Adam) consisted of a T34 company, an infantry company (tank riders), a mech infantry company and a heavy tank platoon (2x su100’s and a JS2) plus various assets.

The battle began with most of the German units in ambush orders, while the Soviet scouts moved cautiously under MG fire toward the bridge, followed by a T34 platoon. So far there was little German reaction, but when 2 Su100’s appeared unexpectedly from the woods on the north map edge, the King Tigers were forced to take action. Unfortunately the first Tiger missed, and was promptly knocked out, while the second Tiger managed to destroy one of the Su100’s in turn, but was then taken out by the second. A PAK 50mm responded and missed, the entire German position was flanked, and nothing was available to counter it. Or so it seemed!

Hiding in “reserve move” some distance away an assault engineer halftrack raced toward the woods, disembarked it’s squad who were able to move into range to fire a panzerfaust at the remaining Su100 to destroy it. In the following turn though they had to turn their attention to the JS2 that had just lumbered around the edge of the wood.

The battle seemed to proceed at breakneck speed. The soviet T34’s fired scores of shots at the pillboxes at the bridge, along with a massive pre planned barrage, all to no effect. Finally a direct assault by Soviet tank riders on one of the pillboxes was successful, only to find it was unoccupied! Their fire at the remaining German armour was more effective, destroying the HQ Panther, for the loss of only one of their own tanks. At this point the battle ended abruptly with the Germans having reached their break point, and was declared a win for the Soviets.

Great fun, and great shooting by Adam.

Editors comment.

Were he still around Jim Morrison may have penned this ballad about the battle.

Tank riders on the storm
Tank riders on the storm
On T34s we're borne
Into this fascist world we're thrown
Like a dog without a bone
A soldier out on loan
Tank riders on the storm 
Tank riders on the storm ...

Lets finish this off with some photos of Adams fine models before the mayhem started. 

Hard to believe they are 20mm. My 28s do not look that good.

Photos curtesy of David P. and Gary. 

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) in 28mm.

Players
German  : Jeremy Nixon.
British    : David Maltman.

The field of battle.

 

There is plenty of terrain to break up line of site as OHSW gives rifles and machine guns infinite range ( the table roughly is 400m long in this scale ). Forests, individual trees, the foresters shacks, piles of equipment/supplies, abandoned trucks and cars and piles of cut logs.

The Germans arrive at the Eastern side, either at point C on the first phase, or they can try a flanking move to point D. But that requires a card draw, less than the current phase number. Jeremy opted to bring everything on at point C on the first move.

British were similar except entering from the West at points A and B. I choose to bring one section and an armoured car on at A on the first turn and gambled with the remainder of my force at point B.

Forces are roughly equal, 2 sections each. The British have 2 Rolls Royce armounded cars the Germans have one Ehrhardt E-V/4 armoured car, it has more resilience and fire power than the Rolls Royces. There were a few additional specialist officers to do with the German examination of the plane and a British Military intelligence officer to decide if the pilot should be assassinated to stop him falling into German hands.

The plane and pilot are slap in the middle of the table.

The final items to put in place are a wolf and a bear, I like some chaotic elements in my games. The wolf started of in the South Eastern forest, well in the German zone. Mama bear was foraging for food at one of the huts to the North of the plane.

The way OHSW works you get up to 13 activation points per phase to spend on actions ( card draw, ace is 1, king is 13 ). You get the most efficient use of points with the armoured cars, so both British and Germans rushed armoured cars to the center with any remaining points bringing up infantry in support.

The British got some luck with their flanking movement and arrived on at phase 5, top right of photo. Immediately sending the armoured car over to support its companion.

You can see the 3 way armoured car fight surrounding the plane. You can also see the bear just below the trees the plane crashed into. Though not inflicting any wounds on anyone it did block the Germans bringing any reinforcements through the gap between the hut and the big equipment pile. 

Meanwhile back in the German lines the infantry are pushing up to support the armoured car. At this point Jeremy did something to annoy the wolf and its random moves brough it into it attack range and it put 3 Germans down.  At the end of the turn these turned to be down and out, hurrah for the red, white and blue lupine.

Then Jeremys luck got even worse. He won most of the initiative draws, going first in the phase, drew high value cards, many of them face cards, giving lots of activation points. Then he went to fire his armoured cars HMGs and would draw a JOKER, thus immediately ending the turn and losing the rest of his activation points for this phase. The British got lower value cards on their turns but were able to slowly plug away at the Ehrhardt E-V/4, eventually causing enough damage to make the crew bail out thus ending its fighting ability, making it just another bit of terrain.

Jeremy brough up infantry to the side of the plane opposite from where the pilot was sheltering, so they could not get at him. They throw grenades at the armoured car with small effect. But on the next British phase the armoured car shoots them up. The Germans ended up with 8 dead but still managed to pass their morale test 

On balance the British seemed to be well ahead with the rescue of the pilot only being a couple of phases away.

A good game, but probably with too many soldiers as both sides pretty much used only one of the sections. Would be nice to try with a reduced number of soldiers and no armoured cars.

The bear patrols the area to the North of the plane. The pilot can be seen hiding behind the plane.

Photos curtesy of Gary. 

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.

Photos curtesy of Gary. 

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.

Photos curtesy of Phil. 

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.

Photos curtesy of Gary. 

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

Photos curtesy of Gary.