Will Depusoy and friends have been converting the Kursk “Storming the Citadel” campaign to I Ain’t Been Shot Mum, but using Chain of Command activation and buying support “platoons” instead of single models.
Here’s a quick report from one game taken from the IABSM Facebook Group. Click on the picture below to see all.
More practice for Britcon as friend Rob comes over for a couple of games of To The Strongest. The first game was my Early Imperial Romans (well, the Marian Romans proxying for them) versus Rob’s Classical Indians.
not a lot of romans…
but an awful lot of indians
My plan was simple: my veteran cavalry would sweep forward on my left wing and quickly dispose of his raw horse; meanwhile the Legion would advance forward into combat using their superior strength and flexibility to chew through his javelinmen and elephants; once the lines were fully committed, my cavalry would return and hit the enemy from the flank and rear or sack the enemy’s camp.
Unfortunately, my cavalry were having an off day and just couldn’t break the Indian horse: they spent the entire battle tied up way out on the left. That meant that the job of winning (as usual, some would say) was all down to the legionaries.
Fortunately they proved more than up for the task and, apart from the odd minor set back mainly down to the Auxilia, once the lines had closed and the Roman “mincing machine” had started up, there wasn’t a lot that could stop them.
The coup de grace came from one legionary unit breaking through the Indian line and sacking their camp, taking the last Indian victory medals in the process.
Here are some pics of the game:
Great After Action report from Dan Albrecht and friends, originally posted on the IABSM Facebook Group.
The battle recreated an engagement between 12th SS Panzer Division and the British 11th Armoured Division on June 27th near Caen. Order of Battle is from the excellent book Monty's Epsom by Skirmish Campaigns.
Click on the picture below to see all the action:
I needed to get some practice in for the To The Strongest tournament I’ve entered at Britcon this year, so friend Peter kindly invited me round for a gaming session where I would fight the Romans against whatever he fancied playing.
Given that my Early Imperial Romans are mostly infantry, it was no surprise to see a huge mass of cavalry waiting for me on the other side of Peter’s table. The first two games we played would be Mongols versus Romans, the last would be Normans versus Romans.
Being a mostly infantry army, I was comprehensively outscouted and ended up with my troops exactly where I didn’t want them. At least a fifth of my army was out-of-play until they moved in from the flank, and what cavalry I did have were faced by enough swarms of light horse archers to also keep them occupied for the whole game.
Outflanked on my left, my left flank collapsed, and I spent the entire game reacting to the threat from that side. The upshot was a massive 13-0 defeat for the Romans (including the death of the CinC) that boded ill for the rest of the day!
Much to all’s amazement: I won the scouting and, as a result, began the game in a much better position than last time.
Despite this, my left flank collapsed again and I soon found myself 0-4 down in terms of medals. This time, however my better deployment meant that I could recover from this set-back, and in one glorious charge, a unit Roman Equites Alares dashed six victory coins of Mongols from the table, tearing a great big hole in the enemy centre.
Although I was by now running out of victory medals, knocking out another unit of Mongol Lancers and taking the enemy camp finished the job, although I did lose my CinC and part of my camp again. An 11-11 scoreline, but victory for the Romans.
Amazingly, I won the scouting again and, if I say so myself, deployed perfectly against the Norman threat.
I advanced forward confidently, only to have my cavalry charge forward with an advantage and get comprehensively stuffed. The worst that should have happened was an even-stevens tussle, but my horsemen just evaporated!
I might have been able to hold on and counter-ruck against an infantry army, but against a mobile mounted army I stood no chance. The rest of my Romans put up a brave fight, so it was no whitewash, but in the end a 6-13 defeat.
So what did I learn? Well, I shall be changing my list slightly just to give me a bit more flexibility, but the main lesson learnt was “don’t fight cavalry armies” which is not very helpful at all!
Bevan and I played another game using Neil Thomas’ 19th Century rules, this time using one of the scenarios included in the book: the battle of Nachod from the Autro-Prussian war of 1866.
There are three small towns above Nachod (which is the one with the pond): Wenzelberg, Wysokow and Aldstadt. The Prussians occupy two of them, Wenzelberg and Wysokow, with cavalry on the hill above and reinforcements on the way. The Austrians are just arriving near Wenzelberg. Victory goes to whoever occupies all three of Wenzelberg, Wysokow and Aldstadt at the end of turn 15, with any other result being a draw.
The Austrian infantry pushed the Prussians out of Wenzelberg fairly easily (historically they were cut to pieces by defensive fire) but rather than retreating the Prussian previous owners hung around and, together with the Prussian Uhlans and Jaegers, caused huge delays in the Austrian advance towards Wysokow.
Meanwhile, the Prussian reinforcements had also started to arrive.
The Austrian were pouring troops onto the battlefield, and lined up ready to begin their assault on Wysokov. Behind them, the Prussian Guards from Wenzelberg were still causing problems, and it took another two Austrian units to finally get rid of them.
This was all taking up too much time: the Prussian column was getting closer!
The Prussians in Wenzelberg weren’t waiting for the Austrian hammer blow to fall: taking advantage of a pause in the Austrian advance (the Austrians were “exhausted” for three turns i.e, couldn’t charge, and moved and fired at half effect) they advanced out of the town, formed line, and began blasting the advancing Austrian columns with fire from their breechloaders.
Meanwhile, a terrific cavalry battle developed between two Prussian and three Austrian regiments. The Prussian Uhlans were, however, on fire, as they were historically, and although the various cavalry melees would continue until the end of the game, the Prussian Uhlans would effectively fight the superior number of Austrian cavalry to a standstill.
The Austrian infantry were, however, doing better than their donkey-walloper comrades and, ably supported by artillery, were able to defeat the other regiment of Prussian Guards and occupy Wysokov. They then prepared to face the onslaught of the arriving Prussian reinforcements.
Keen not to allow the Prussians any time to deploy effectively, the Austrian columns marched straight out of Wysokov and straight at the enemy.
The Prussians had managed to deploy some of their regiments into line, but their guns were still on the road behind them, and although those that had deployed opened up a withering fire on the Austrians, there just weren’t enough of them ready to fight.
As the game drew to a close, the two sides were locked into a firefight that was slightly going the Austrians way: if only because their guns were deployed and firing whereas those of the Prussians were still limbered.
With two of the three objectives in Austrian hands, and with a superior tactical position, the game was declared a winning draw for the Austrians.
This was a tight-fought game with the Prussian Guards fighting for every yard: at one stage, two units of Prussian guard were fighting six units of Austrians and holding their own! It was only when the Austrian guns came up that the situation turned against them.
In the end, Austrian aggression won the day for them, although we probably had the width of the table too wide by 30cms or about two turns of road movement. A right-sized table would have let the massive Prussian column of reinforcements close with the Austrians earlier than actually happened, something that could well have turned the game in their favour.
So a draw was the right result: as the person playing the Austrians, I was not looking forward to facing the Prussian breechloaders should they have had the time to properly deploy!
Quick After Action Report from the I Ain’t Been Shot Mum Facebook group: Des Darkin running a game using the dice-activated version of the rules.
US forces advancing towards Leipzig run into more than expected outside the village of Gross Glechin. Click on the picture below to see all:
Here’s a cracking After Action Report from Steve Blease from his Bleaseworld blog.
The Welsh Guards are trying to break through to Brussels, again. Click on the picture, below, to see all…
My second game at Operation Market Larden 9 was a game of Sharp Practice set in South Africa in 1846.
To quote the briefing, “Xhosa raiding parties have brough terror to European settlers along the border with Cape Colony, destroying farmsteads, murdering their inhabitants and driving off livestock. The Governor has ordered both Regular and locally-raised auxiliary units up into the Waterkloof mountains to escort the civilians back to safety”.
I would play the commander of the auxiliary units tasked with rescuing the civilians.
The column I was helping to protect. My auxiliaries will enter the table from far to the right of what you can see here. The xhosa will come from where the camera is and off to the right as well.
This turned out to be a Ripping Yarn of a game, with waves of Xhosa initially trying to overwhelm the column and my troops with fire then, realising that we were winning the firefight, attempting to charge in and fight us at close quarters.
Most of the work, I admit, was done by my colleague controlling the Regulars, who established a firing line towards the rear of the column and a group of Riflemen in a ruined farmhouse and, quite frankly, shot the Xhosa to death.
For my part, apart from an initial hiccup with Corporal Nutter’s section of militia, who used my first move to retreat behind cover and then did not activate for the whole of the rest of the game, I managed to get some very useful Frontier Light Horse types into a position where they were protecting the road and could use their double-barrelled carbines to good effect, and then started rolling up the Xhosa’s left flank with the rest of my troops.
A charge from the Xhosa just about wiped out another of my units (horsemen who were, at that point, fighting dismounted) but that left the charging Xhosa vulnerable to a couple of volleys and a counter-charge that sent them scurrying from the table.
In the end, we defeated the Xhosa without taking too many casualties ourselves. Here’s a gallery of the action:
My thanks to everyone who was running/playing the game (it was great to use such beautifully painted figures on a cracking layout) and, of course, to Ade Deacon for organising the event as a whole. Can’t wait for OML10!
One of the games I played in at this year’s Operation Market Larden was a superbly presented I Ain’t Been Shot Mum scenario put on by Phil and Jenny.
Iaon and I would lead tanks from the Welsh Guards supported by motorised infantry from the Grenadier Guards in a race across Belgium to be the first units into Brussels. Historically, the only opposition encountered was in the town of Halle, and that’s what the day’s affairs would recreate. Our mission was to get a “significant force” off either of the bridges at the other end of the table.
Unfortunately, things did not go entirely to plan mainly, I hasten to add, due to a spectacular cock-up in tactics on my part!
Click on the picture below to see how easy it is to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory!
At Operation Market Larden 9 last Saturday, my morning game was a superb Race for Brussels game put on by Phil and Jenny.
The Dynamic Duo had playtested the game a few days before, and Steve Blease has written a lovely After Action Report that you can read by clicking on the picture below:
But how did you do at the game, I hear you ask?
Rest assured, I’ll be writing a full report concerning my execrable performance when I have time to do so but, put it this way, it was definitely an “interview without coffee” for my company commander when he limped back to base!
Great After Action Report from Elroy Davis showcasing a game set in Sicily, 1943.
Click on the picture below to see all:
I recently spent a bit of time properly marking up my 17th Century “eastern front” Transylvanian and Muscovite armies: by “marking up” I mean putting identifiers on each unit that allows me to remember which are which! That done, it was time to get them onto the tabletop.
The Transylvanians were a bit of a mish-mash. Their core Household troops (heavies and lights) were supported some more light cavalry and two brigades of infantry, one of foreign Commanded Shot and one of Szekley Pike & Shot (represented by Scots!).
The Muscovites were similar: a core National Cavalry and foreign Reiters supported by a brigade of Tartar horse-archer allies, with two brigades of foot, one Cossack, one Soldat (foreign-trained foot).
Our first game was very short. My opponent, Kavan, had forgotten how important it is in For King & Parliament not to lose your commanding general (as valuable as a couple of camps in To The Strongest) and blithely sent his CinC forward with the first wave of attackers.
The Transylvanian Household Cavalry were, however, having an exceptional day: their first charge smashed the squadron of enemy cavalry led by the Muscovite CinC from the field (meaning that Kavan lost about half his Victory Coins in one go) and then charging again to KO a second unit as well.
Combined with losses elsewhere on the field, this was enough to break the Muscovite morale and send them fleeing back to “the first throne” in some disarray!
As the first game had been so quick, we decided to re-set the sides and play again, but this time with the Muscovite CinC safely at the back of his troops rather than leading from the front!
Two key differences in this game. Firstly, the Transylvanian infantry had to fight for possession of the small town on their right flank; and secondly the Transylvanian Household Cavalry didn’t achieve the same success on their initial charges as last time.
This meant that the heavier Muscovite cavalry had time to drive back the Transylvanian light horse, particularly on the Transylvanian left wing, and then curl around to threaten that entire flank.
A combination of steady foot and charging horse put the town into Muscovite hands and that, plus the combination of lost light units and the usual battlefield attrition in the centre, meant that the Transylvanians were gradually ground down and, after a series of reverses in the centre, were forced to retreat.
Two great games of For King & Parliament/Eastern Front Edition and honours even with one win for each side.
Success for the Transylvanians has to come from understanding how to make the significant numbers of light horse work. I didn’t manage it in either game really (the first game was the Household cavalry’s show!) so something to work on for next time!
With Viking and Norman armies now complete, I thought I’d have a look at what else this meant I could field. The most obvious mash-up was an Anglo-Norman army i.e. an English army from after William the B’s victory at Hastings.
This seemed to me to be quite a good combination: you have the the mobile power of Norman knights, the endurance and ferocity of the Viking foot (well, Anglo-Saxons…but the fyrd is a fyrd as they say!), and some lights in support.
With that decided, it was time to pick an opponent. Looking at the list of units that have been painted but haven’t been on the tabletop yet, it was obvious that the Assyrians were up. Not an historical match up by any stretch of the imagination (well, perhaps a pre-emptive strike on what would be the site of the British museum?) but this is Ancients so we won’t worry about that too much! I would play the Anglo-Normans, Kavan would play the Assyrians.
I deployed in a conventional manner - infantry in the middle, cavalry on the wings, lights with missile weapons in front - but Kavan made the unusual choice to put all his heavy infantry on his left wing, with the heavy cavalry and heavier chariots in the centre and his lighter infantry on the left. He then proceeded to march his heavy infantry forward at a rapid pace, hanging back most of his other troops.
I must confess that this completely banjaxed me, and I spent the next phase of the battle trying to re-arrange my troops to match. Talk about surrendering the initiative to your enemy!
Kavan’s troops, of course, were not waiting for me to sort myself out: they were up and at me, taking full advantage of the confusion to sneak a unit of cavalry through the middle as I tried to face the twin threats approaching my flanks.
And this was just the start!
With cavalry now driving through the middle of my line, I couldn’t advance the infantry I’d moved to the right flank to counter his infantry, meaning that I tried to stop them with my knights. Kavan had anticipated this, however, and had hung a unit back to protect his flanks. So this effectively stalemated that side of the field, taking my best troops out of the battle.
Things were going no better on my left and in the centre, with Kavan cross-ruffing his heavy chariots between the two to both prevent me getting any sort of advantage on either and then, with a superb run of cards, even managing to rear charge a unit of heavy Norman spear that I was pulling back to try and defend my camps!
Even if my heavies did survive that initial impact, I was definitely now on the back foot, and it wasn’t long before they did give way, leaving the way clear for the Assyrian chariots to break through and finish the capture of my camps that the cavalry had begun.
That took care of the last of my victory medals, meaning that the Assyrians had won a glorious victory over my utterly-defeated Anglo-Normans.
A great game of To The Strongest, fought superbly by Kavan, who knocked me off balance with his initial deployment and never let me recover. A master class!
As our first Normans versus Vikings game hadn’t taken that long, Kavan and I decided to swap sides and play again. This was to be a very exciting game, but for all the wrong reasons!
Deployment was pretty quick. Having seen how the Normans were able to harry the somewhat dispersed Vikings in the last game, I was determined to keep my troops together to protect the flanks of each unit whilst giving maximum opportunities for mutual support. I put the huscarls, my best troops, in the centre hoping to punch through to his camps…and made sure I left my light javelinmen to protect my camps: no repeat of the last game here!
The Normans advanced towards me really quickly so, not wanting to have no room for tactical retreats and the like, I pushed forward as well. I also moved my light archers to the front determined to use every advantage I had despite the fact that missile fire had had almost no effect in the last game.
The initial clashes produced mixed results, and it looked as if we were in for a grinding clash determined not by subtle tactics but by blunt force!
Then disaster struck!
I have used the same fold-up tables for many years, and have never had a problem with them. This time, however, I must have neglected to lock the legs on one table properly, and as Kavan leant forward to position one of his units for the attack, the table underneath him collapsed!
Fortunately the rapid advance of the Normans means that almost all the figures were on my side of the battlefield i.e. on the other table, and it was only one set of legs that collapsed not both, so only a few units were affected and even those mostly by jostling rather than a long drop to the floor!
We were therefore able to put the battlefield back together fairly easily, and re-order all the jostled units with no damage done. Phew!
At this point in the game, the Normans were doing pretty well: pushing the Viking units back with a series of hard charges from their lance-armed heavy cavalry.
Now, however, the tide turned: the “earthquake” had obviously been the Allfather, or perhaps the Odinson, intervening!
My men rallied, and began knocking Norman units off the table one by one. Even my lights contributed: with an initial clash between the big boys often resulting in one disorder a side even a single, successful hit from Viking light archers meant an enemy unit cleared from the table (my “deep” units could take two disorders before breaking, the Normans only one).
My idea about mutual support proved useful, as several times warbands that had already dealt with the enemy horse in front of them were able to turn and intervene in another clash, as below:
Here, the intervening Vikings smashed the enemy they flank charged from the table, giving the unit under pressure time to rally off a disorder. Yes, they were then in a terrible position being flank charged in turn, but the Vikings are tough and can usually take one flank charge without breaking.
Fittingly, it was a light archer unit that polished off the last of the Norman victory medals:
A great game with a very narrow escape. I will make jolly sure the table legs are locked next time!
As mentioned in my last post, with the last of the Milites finished it was time for the Normans to finally take the field with a game of To The Strongest versus Kavan playing the Vikings.
This would be quite an interesting battle as the Normans were mostly heavy cavalry and the Vikings were all infantry. My plan was to take advantage of my extra mobility and get around his flanks, as charging formed infantry with cavalry is rarely a good idea!
As the game began, both sides advanced forward strongly, with the battle rapidly dividing into three sectors: the left, the centre and the right.
In the centre, Viking huscarls (the units with the red Meeple) had sped forward and hit a line of Norman cavalry in the Norman half of the table. With three Norman units in play against just one Viking, I was fairly confident that I could win the first clash, but I had underestimated just how ‘hard’ the huscarls were: being a deep, veteran, shieldwall unit with extra two handed cutting weapons!
My first Norman cavalry unit just evaporated and, worse, the follow up huscarls, led by their overall commander and waving their ‘land-waster’ standard, hit my own overall commander’s unit and forced him to make the decision to run away as fast as possible! Oh, the shame!
A quick overview pic, with the Viking huscarls bursting through my centre!
Meanwhile, on the left flank, my plan had actually worked out rather well.
Three units of milites had faced up to a couple of the lesser-quality Viking bondi units supported by some lights, and used their superior mobility to get around the hairy infantry and into the Viking camp. Six glorious victory medals headed my way as my horsemen remembered their heritage and sacked and plundered the enemy camp for all its worth!
My Viking Longships haven’t arrived yet, so the Viking camp has a weird looking hut in it…and lots of Norman cavalry!
In the centre, however, the Vikings were about to do to me what I had done to them, with their commander’s huscarl unit crashing after my fleeing horse and then into the Norman camp and refusing to be shifted even by William himself!
Fortunately only one half of my camp was taken, but that still meant three victory coins to Kavan!
Casualties were now mounting on both sides, so it was obvious that the battle would be decided on the right where, up to now both sides had cautiously crept towards each other.
Somehow I had managed to get into a decent tactical position where I could get two of my cavalry units onto one of the bondi units but, as I have said before, these deep units are tough and the bondi survived long enough to pull back and get some support.
Not even the toughest Viking, however, can keep taking charges from the front and flank, and so it was here as well. The bondi unit broke and with that Kavan’s final victory medals were spent and the Vikings decided to retreat.
A great game and a very narrow victory for the Normans as I only had five coins left myself.
It was an interesting battle and one where I learnt that Norman cavalry definitely do not want to take on Viking huscarls or bondi units head on, even with lances: the only way is to get around their flanks or hit them two-on-one.
Off to Dave’s for a game of I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum versus a couple of novice players, Peter and Si. It’s May 1940 and I would play the French defending against a strong German advance.
Click on the picture below to see all:
Another series of mega-games of To The Strongest yesterday!
The premise is as follows:
two teams: one of three players, one of two players
New Kingdom Egyptians vs Neo-Assyrians
Four armies, two identical armies of each, each army is 300 points
In the morning, one team takes the Egyptians and the other the Assyrians for two simultaneous 300 point battles
In the afternoon, the teams swap armies for two more simultaneous battles
Finally one massive 1,200 point battle with each side bidding to play their preferred army by sacrificing victory medals
Add up all the points over the five battles and see which team wins
The big pyramid marks the centre of the 18 foot table. The temple at the far end is the end of the battlefield, but there’s a mirror behind it making things look even bigger!
My morning game involved me using a New Kingdom Egyptian army against Steve and Dillon playing the Neo-Assyrians.
I decided to mass my light chariots to give them a bit more staying power and at first this seemed to be working nicely. My charioteers charged forward and were soon loosing a hail of arrows on the Assyrians.
Unfortunately, there seemed to be something wrong with my bows that day, and I just couldn’t score a hit to save my life. The Assyrians then came forward in return and hammered me in melee. We didn’t finish the game (phew!) but at the final whistle I had lost 7:13 points.
For the first afternoon game, I swapped sides and played the Assyrians versus Si taking the Egyptians.
This battle started really well for the Assyrians, going 5-0 up within the first few turns. Unfortunately my luck turned and the cards (it was a new deck as well) decided that they hated me!
It was a hard fought game that we did manage to fight to a conclusion: with me going down 15:21 points.
Fortunately my team partner, Peter, had done somewhat better than I had, and we went into the final mega-game only two points behind. We then sacrificed two more victory coins to make sure that we took the Assyrians: so four down in all.
We played this enormous battle as one game in two halves, meaning that there were a couple of times that the two halves got out of sync and one side or the other had to pause and wait for the other to catch up. Dillon, playing in the centre on the enemy side, had to fight Peter with some of his commands and me with what was left. Despite these small speedbumps, the game rattled on at a cracking pace, showing what a robust system To The Strongest is.
Not only was the game cracking, but also very close. We started off with me doing rather well, and Peter doing less well. Then I had a catastrophic turn when I shed victory coins like last year’s fashion (not sure where that metaphor came from!) but recovered to deal out the same treatment to my main opponent, Si, immediately afterwards.
Both Peter and I then continued to alternate good patches with bad patches, calling out our successes (and failures) to the other as they happened. Finally the last Egyptian victory medal was won, and it all came down to how many we had left.
We’d been keeping them in a little pot, and, at first, it looked as if we had hardly any left at all. This was, however, an illusion, as we’d been taking out the big medals as we went along leaving only the little ones behind. The final score was 42:31 to Peter and I, meaning that we had won the day overall.
All in all a great day’s gaming. My thanks to Peter for organising and hosting.
Lee Young and friends recently played out a game of I Ain’t Been Shot Mum set in the Spanish Civil War. I missed this on the IABSM Facebook Group, so it’s a pleasure to feature it now. Lee says:
Another great game of IABSM, this time our Wednesday night game takes us back to the Spanish Civil War.
The Nationalist had to break through the Communist line and reach the top of the road to Madrid. Had to do some tweaks to the FT-17s and placed some extra cards in for ammo shortages. Played better than I expected.
Another beautiful game of I Ain’t Been Shot Mum from Phil Turner, with help from Dee VonDoom, Steve Blease and Jenny Turner.
Highly recommended.
Played a second game of For King & Parliament with friend Fred, this time using scenario #02 from the Marlowe to Maidenhythe scenario pack: Widbrooke Common.
I didn’t have my camera with me, so not many photos, and those that there are are from my mobile, but one thing that did stand out about the game was the power of a well placed unit of Forlorn Hope.
For those of you who know the game, Forlorn Hope are the weakest possible units: usually acting as no more than speed bump as they get overrun by better quality battalia. Not in this game however!
Placed occupying a farm house in the centre of the table, Fred’s Forlorn Hope held up two of my full strength standard battalia for the whole game, constantly rendering them Disordered when I got too close, meaning I never really got a chance to properly assault them.
I still won the game, I hasten to add, but would have won it a lot more quickly and effectively if it hadn’t been for the Forlorn Hope.
Here are the other shots of the game that I took:
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