John Paul Hancock and friends present another battle report from the Bashnya or Bust campaign pack. They are on the fourth battle of the campaign: #4H Devnat.
So far the Germans have had it all their own way, with their few Tigers proving unstoppable, but now it’s time for the Soviets to have some fun! Click on the picture below to see all…
A second battle using my newly finished Gauls: this time against a formidable Early Imperial Roman army consisting of five units of veteran legionaries (red shields) supported by a couple of units of standard legionaries, auxilia and cavalry. History would suggest that this was going to be a big ask of my troops!
Despite winning the scouting, Peter managed to play his usual trick of weighting his men onto one flank (my left) in an attempt to fight only a portion of my army with all of his. Not a problem on this occasion, however, as I used my initiative to start moving warbands left whilst holding back my main line.
After an initial slow start, the Romans got moving pretty rapidly, and it looked as if it was going to be a race between his veterans attacking my left flank and the main body of my troops trying to punch through his centre.
Battle was joined right the way across the left hand side of my line, with my Gauls taking the worst of it in the initial clash but, showing a fine bit of resilience, surviving to start giving as good as they were getting.
A big turning point was Peter replaying a natural “10” only to draw an Ace whilst attempting to turn a legionary unit onto the flank of my cavalry…
…and soon the centre-left was looking decidedly bare of troops with the action in that part of the field now fully focused on the bottom left hand corner of the table. It’s worth noting that at this point Peter had lost two Roman generals and was feeling the pain of that “+1 for out of command” penalty.
The schwerepunkt now switched to the area just in front of the Roman castrum, where units from my central command, backed up by those I’d switched from the right flank, were now threatening hard. Once again, it was a unit of slingers adding their weight of fire at the critical moment that made the difference (pictures top and bottom right in the gallery, below) and I was also being helped by the cards allowing my somewhat unwieldy warbands to manouevre just how I wanted.
Kudos also now to the troops in the bottom left hand corner of the field, where the Gallic cavalry managed to disorder their legionary opponents, with the warband next to them going one better to defeat the Romans in the woods in front of them!
The battle was now reaching its climax, with both sides nearing exhaustion. The Gauls survivied a final push from the Romans…
…and then, with a mighty roar, broke into the enemy camp to take three coins and the win!
(Looks easy, but start with a base 2+, add two for moving diagonally makes 4+, add two for the rough ground of the camp makes 6+, add two for crossing fortifications makes 8+, and I drew an ‘8’. Oh, and you have to ignore the lights defending the parapet right in front of you!)
To show you how close it was, I had lost 11 coins by this stage, so if one more warband had broken, victory would have gone to the Romans.
As it was, a very satisfactory result, with the Gauls proving both manoeuvrable and resilient right the way through the army from the warriors to the cavalry to the lights. Another cracking game!
For Christmas last year, the kids got me a ticket to Tankfest 2026, held at Bovington Tank Museum in Dorset at the end of June.
Although I’ve been to the Tank Museum many times, this was my first Tankfest…and a great day out it proved to be. Okay, it was the hottest day of the year, but there was plenty of shade in the museum when things got a bit much outside, loads of free water stations scattered throughout the site, and regular warnings from the organisers about the need for sun cream and hydration. Plenty of toilets too: no queueing involved!
So what was it like? Parking is easy - all laid on and included in the price of the ticket - and the queue to get in was fast-moving and well-organised.
The entrance leads you into the main outdoor area: a combination of lots of living history stands and installations, the tank park, concession stands selling food and drink, and a mini-market area with stalls selling tank- and/or military-themed items. There were even two pop-up wargaming stores: one from Entoyment in Poole and one from Warlord.
I spent a very happy couple of hours wandering around this area, trying to take it all in. The tank park gives you the chance to see everything from a Mother to a Challenger right up close, and you could handle a wide variety of smallarms and man-portable anti-tank weapons. Everyone manning the stands was very friendly and keen to share: highlights included the StuG and Nashorn on a visit from the Nederlands
The queues for the concessions stand were variable: not long if you picked your moments, a right pain if you wanted something at peak times. Good variety on offer: pizza, burgers etc plus ice cream and cakes!
Past the main outdoor area is the arena where you can actually see the tanks in action. Next time I go I’ll book a grandstand seat, but only because of the sun this year: you can see the action really well from anywhere around the arena. It’s here you get to really understand the sheer power and noise of the vehicles, especially the modern main battle tanks. According to the commentators, modern MBTs have the silencers removed from the engine as the noise the tank makes is part of the intimidation factor, and you can certainly feel the tanks going by in your bones as they pass.
As a special treat this year, the new Challenger 3 had it’s first public appearance: very cool, and now with a reversing camera!
Interestingly, the StuG threw a track whilst taking part in a mock battle in the arena: they then had to break out an ARVE and recover it so the track could be reseated. Took a couple of hours to get it all done, and that was without people shooting at them!
In addition to the above, you can visit the Museum itself: highly recommended in its own right. There were loads of new things to see since my last visit, and getting around everything took me a good couple of hours, and that was moving quickly.
So all in all Tankfest gets a big thumbs up from me. I was there from 8.30am (when it opened) until 4pm, so left before the main British Army demo. I almost stayed, but I’d had enough sun by then and had a 2½ drive to get home to look forward to.
Highly recommended!
Time for another game of To The Strongest in 2mm: I would play the Fanatical Berbers against Neil’s Early Feudal Spanish.
I lost the scouting and could only watch in horror as Neil deployed the vast majority of his army in a schwerepunkt against my right flank.
Not only that but, as the action began, the command he had left behind on my left turned and headed right to join their comrades…who were advancing rapidly towards me as fast as their horses could carry them.
Fortunately for me, Neil’s attempt to consolidate his commands on my right meant that the light cavalry I had deployed on my left could sweep forward and flank charge the Spanish troops moving sideways.
Although the latest Even Stronger now prevents light cavalry charging through other light cavalry, I was fortunate enough to have the time and space to hit the unfortunate sideways-movers from flank and rear, rapidly wiping out one formed unit, one light unit and a general for an immediate five coin advantage, and even threaten the final unit of lights as well.
Meanwhile, on the right, my counter-advance had brought the two sides within easy charge distance and a messy and extremely savage series of melees broke out with neither side particularly gaining the advantage.
If it helps when looking at the photos below, I’m using green disordered markers and Neil is using white skulls. It’s also worth noting that all the luck in the cards seemed to be with me: I was saving hits like there was no tomorrow and Neil, er, wasn’t!
Given that we each lost at least one unit in the kesselschlacht shown above, I was now feeling fairly confident of victory. I mean I was something like seven or eight coins to three ahead with thirteen getting the win, and my lights on the left were in a perfect position to sweep down onto the largely undefended Spanish camps.
My hubris was, of course, immediately punished by Lady Luck: my next two turns neatly preventing my lights from doing anything remotely ressembling sweeping, and the tide turning against me on the right, with even the elite Black Guard suffering the effects of my current run of misfortune.
Neil, meanwhile, had been battling away, refusing to give up. His cavalry on the right had taken full advantage of my troops’ card-enforced pause in doing anything and had effectively won the fight there, and the ‘scores on the doors’ were now showing that the coin count was just about even.
I now had two coins left, Neil had one, so whoever broke the next unit would win the game, and it looked as if I was about to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory!
The rest of that turn was very frustrating: all my possibilties being nerfed by the cards again.
In Neil’s next turn, he managed to drive my light cavalry (bottom-right in the picture, above) off the table, meaning that we were now even on coins and into what was effectively a sudden death match!
Fortunately, lights from the left came to my rescue: their general ordering them to throw their javelins at the enemy lights in the nearest camp. I scored a hit, and Neil (despite the advantages of being in a fortified camp) pulled just one pip lower than he needed: the lights were routed and I had won the game - just!
An absolutely cracking game of TTS that played out in only just over 90 minutes. It was the sit-down I needed afterwards that took the time!
Alex Sotheran and friends played a great looking game of I Ain’t Been Shot Mum the other day, focusing on the assault on the Italian fortified position of Nibeiwa in late 1940.
Click on the picture below to see all:
Time to get the Celts back on the tabletop. Up until now they’ve manifested as Galatians, but I’d now had a chance to paint enough missile-armed light infantry to field them as Gauls…so today’s encounter would be Gauls against Vikings using To The Strongest.
The Gauls outscouted, and I managed to get all my cavalry onto the Vikings’ open wing on the right. The Scandies had, however, put their six units of veteran Huscarls (armed with big choppers) on their right, so I faced them with my two veteran warbands and hoped they could hold out until the cavalry had done its job.
Note that the Viking longship represents a three-square fortified camp: something that would prove highly significant in the battle that followed.
Things began with me advancing forward strongly on the right, with my cavalry aiming to outflank as my infantry pinned the enemy in place. As planned, I kept my left wing back and was lucky in that my opponent, Peter, drew poor cards and couldn’t, initially get his lethal Huscarls moving.
As battle was joined in the centre, my cavalry swept in from the flank…but to little or no effect: Peter had manoeuvred into an echelon formation anchored on his fortified camp which protected the flanks of nearly all his infantry, and those footsoldiers that I could get at stubbornly resisted my attempts to run them down.
Nothing I did with the cavalry seemed to work, and my “brilliant manouevre” looked like being nothing more than an inconvenience for the Vikings, even when the cards did decide to help me out a little. It was only the intervention of some slingers that actually managed to break one of his infantry units, even with my multiple flank attacks.
Meanwhile the infantry melee in the centre had drawn just about everyone else into one big scrap, and my poor Gauls were getting the worst of it.
Fortunately, I now managed to bring the warbands on the right into play: crashing them into the centre anyhow just to take the pressure off the rest of my troops.
Every surviving unit on both sides was now engaged either in the mass melee in the centre or on the right where my cavalry were still trying to win the game for the Gauls. Both sides were hemorrhaging coins, and the result was totally in the balance.
Ultimately, however, it was the Gauls who broke first: one of my veteran warbands (who’d already lost their general) finally giving up the ghost when assailed from front and flank. A victory for the Vikings!
It had been a very close and exciting game. I still can’t quite work out why my cavalry didn’t sweep all before them but, looking through the pictures above, it was probably down to a combination of brilliant manouevring on Peter’s part backed up by some very lucky “save” cards. If the cavalry had been able to break even just one of the Viking units they had spent most of the game attacking from the flank, then I think it would have been the Gauls celebrating rather than the Scandies!
An excellent game of To The Strongest!
I see the recent heatwave or the alternative attractions of the footy haven’t put anyone off their painting: lots of entries pouring in for the Challenge!
First we have Dex, with a large addition for some planned games of Chain of Command 2 set in Burma in 1944 and 1945. You can see all his submissions in his gallery, accessible via the NavBar, above, but here we have elements of the British Indian army including 3rd Carabiniers, 'Indian' 7th Cavalry, Probyn's Horse, cavalry armoured cars and some multipurpose scout carriers/jump off points, all in 15mm from a variety of manufacturers.
Next up is Carole with a couple more units for her Midgard “Empire” project using Wargames Atlantic figures:
Mr Luther has sent in some more of his little ‘planes. These are some Italians for East Africa, and some Japanese torpedo bombers for the Sino-Japanese War. It’s worth pointing out that the little FIAT Cr32s (middle picture, below) actually have 18 decals each!
Next it’s time for Andrew’s usual entry. Here we have more medievals for his already impressive collection. These are all loot from the recent Phalanx show.
And last, but by no means least, we have Bill and his sixty-five 6mm AFVs: a mixture of German, Soviet and British WW2 vehicles:
That’s all for the moment, but keep them coming!
Friend John and I fancied a game of Quadrant 13 (sci fi rules from the TooFatLardies) so I set up a battle involving the Chuhuac (sci-fi mini dinosaurs) versus The Invaders (little grey men, little green men, lots of warborgs).
As we hadn’t played for quite a time, I decided on a simple, equal-points encounter battle with each side having the same objective: secure passage for following forces down the road that bisected the field.
Both sides were nervous of the other’s firepower, so crept forward into suitable cover from which they could take potshots at the opposition. No casualties, although there was a moment of excitement when the Chuhuac Raxa light support craft made a couple of passes over the battlefield…to little effect and the light fighter took damage when it strayed too close to heavy warborgs on overwatch.
The Chuhuac tried a probe on the right wing, and although their Battlesuit platoon effectively blocked an Invader Drone squadron from advancing, a squad of Chuhuac mounted on gravbikes took heavy damage as they tried to slip past the opposition, eventually wiped out to a man.
In the centre, the Chuhuac Vasseth Strike tanks had been exchanging fire with the Warborgs, their superior fire at longer range gradually chipping away at the robotic soldiers.
Neither side had the advantage in electronic warfare as well, each attempt to jam the opposition being counter-jammed by the other side, so it looked as if stalemate had been reached despite the fact that both sides were under orders to secure passage down the road as fast as possible.
Something needed to give and, almost at the same time, both commanders decided to throw caution to the wind and slam forward with one part of their force.
On the Chuhuac left wing, the Barosaurians lumbered forward from the alien wood in which they had been sheltering - if Godzilla can shelter in a wood! Covered by the saturation weapons employed by half their number, the Bask infantry were soon right up with the Invaders’ Warcaste platoon.
Weirdly, the Invaders seemed to be targeting the Barosaurian shoulder-mounted weaponery, as every single one of the advancing hulks had their main guns destroyed, and a vicious melee broke out which was won by the Barosaurians literally stomping the Warcaste troopers into the ground!
At the same time, the Invaders’ two platoons of Warborgs got tired of being sniped by the Chuhuac tanks and Battlesuits, and charged forward, trying to get into the close range they needed to bring their firepower fully to bear.
The resultant kessleschnacht proved painful for both sides: although one Chuhuac tank was badly damaged and forced to bug out, the Warborgs took fearful casualties as well despite their built-in shields stopping a lot of potentially-inlicted damage.
At this point we called the game, with a winning draw being awarded to the Chuhuac. With equal sides in terms of points, neither the mini-dinosaurs nor the Invaders could inflict a knock-out blow on the other, but the Chuhuac were definitely winning the battle of attrition, helped by John’s appalling dice rolling!
A great fun game of Q13!
Plenty of time left for a second battle before vanishing off the the Vanquish show. Rob would use his Siamese/Thai again, but I switched to a Classical Indian army, but a Republican version with few elephants, only two-horse chariots, and loads of raw troops.
I lost the deployment but as Rob chose to concentrate his troops on the right side of the battlefield, I could still look to outflank his line on the left with my chariots, the elephants lumbering slowly after them.
I was a bit worried about the block of cavalry and elephants heading down towards the right hand end of my line: it was very much going to be a case of holding them off until the chariots could pounce!
Unlike the last game, my outflanking manouevre arrived in position with almost perfect timing: the chariots could attack the flank of his infantry on the hill while my longbow and javelin men kept the enemy pinned in place from the front.
Unfortunately, Rob’s troops proved quite manouevrable themselves, so I had to abandon the idea of outflanking the troops on the hill, just pinning them in place with javelin-throwing chariots, and concentrate on the other enemy infantry at the bottom of the hill. Here I got into exactly the position I wanted and prepared to wreak havoc!
Meanwhile, however, Rob’s big block of cavalry and elephants had been sweeping forward towards my right flank: defended only by a couple of useful units of javelinmen (in blue), a single unit of chariots, and a couple of units of raw horsemen (in yellow).
Worse, Rob’s other infantry brigade had managed to get away from the centre and had joined his “big push” to the right.
Fortunately for me, Rob’s initial cavalry attack on the far right hand side got bottlenecked by the trees and the edge of the table so that he couldn’t apply his numbers and, even better, one unit of my raw cavalry got the bit between their teeth (see what I did there!) and actually managed to win a combat against their Thai opponents.
An incredibly hard-fought melee broke out all along the line in this sector of the battlefield, with my troops, despite being outclassed, holding their own until the Thai elephants came lumbering out of the forest and smashed them from the field!
But, you ask, what about your outflanking force: surely your troops have by now run over the Thai infantry near the hill and are heading back towards the action to save the day?
Er, no.
An unfortunate double Ace countered my initial advantage, and another hard-fought melee broke out around the hill.
Meanwhile, becasue the combat in the bottom right hand corner was going well for Rob, he was able to divert some of his infantry near their to turn and attack the flank of my line of raw longbowmen (in green) who were still trying to get forward to support the flanking attack.
This looked bad but, with a bit of luck with the cards, the raw longbowmen held firm even if they were all disordered.
I was now starting to win the combat around the hill, largely due to outnumbering the Thai 5:2 in terms of units and had the occasional flank attack advantage, but it was all happening very slowly and, as we have seen, the rest of the Thai were winning in the bottom right hand corner…
Let’s go back to the right where I was now down to only two victory coins remaining…so it was all over if one set of Thai elephants got into my camp, or the other defeated my raw cavalry. This was all very much too close to call!
Luckily, the Thai elephants had obviously exhausted themselves traipsing across the battlefield and slaughtering my troops, so neither managed their allocated tasks.
Two match points saved!
Which, as Rob was also down to his last victory coin, gave me the opportunity to block some enemy Lights from evading and then run over them with my own elephants charging in from the flank.
If you click on the left hand picture below, you can see that the elephants are in position to charge the flank of the Lights in front of them, but the Lights could evade through their infantry on the hill into the empty square on the other side. In the right hand picture, however, you can see that I have moved my javelinmen first (in blue, with the 9 next to them) to block that square. Now when the Nellies charge forward, the Lights have nowhere to evade to and get squashed!
The squishing of the Lights by the Nellies gave me Rob’s last victory coin and a win, but only by the merest scrape of the skin of my teeth!
It had been a magnificent game where my outflanking manouevre had been countered by Rob’s mass assault on my right, where the Thai elephants had wreaked havoc once they had cleared the forest.
A close run and most enjoyable game!
My afternoon session at this year’s Operation Market Larden event was a game of I Ain’t Been Shot Mum run by Phil and Jenny, using Jenny’s marvelous terrain.
The setting was Arnhem, 1944, and one section of the Oosterbeck perimeter where the British paratroopers tried to hold off part of an SS Division. I would play the Germans, with Vlad as my opponent.
My objective was to take (and hold until the next Tea Break card) a house at the far end of the table: see picture, left, below. At my disposal, I had four platoons of infantry and four armoured vehicles: a Tiger, a StuG, a Panzer III and a SdKfz 251 flak. Against me were four understrength Para platoons with a plethora of both automatic weapons and PIATS.
I believe the key to winning a game of IABSM is to mirror good, historical tactics. Here, the situation demanded a rapid, aggressive advance focused into a schwerpunkt that would allow overwhelming force to be applied every time the enemy was encountered.
I therefore decided to advance my whole force up the Stationsweg road (the one on the left hand side that runs the length of the table) and then cut right at the end to hone in on the objective. I was hoping that by doing this I could initially apply my whole force to only part of his because, as Vlad pointed out, he had the whole table to cover whereas I could choose where to appear.
The opening moves therefore saw me send the first two platoons of infantry (Zugs 1 and 2), accompanied by the StuG, up the sides of the road. The Tiger and Zug 3 would rapidly follow.
The action began very early on, with two squads from Zug 2 rushing the house with the dormer window by the greenhouse on the far left in the picture above. This proved to have a very surprised section of Paras inside on the ground floor, and a sudden melee broke out, easily won by Zug 2 as they had double the numbers.
There was a PIAT team upstairs who managed to fire a round into the Tiger as it took up a position by the house, but luckily all it did was chip the paintwork and rattle the tankers inside! Meanwhile Zug 2 continued its rapid advance: disposing of another section of Paras who were in the next house along. So far, so good!
Meanwhile, two squads from Zug 1 had taken possession of the house on the other side of the road, the other squad rushing forward into the small wood past the two greenhouses.
The squads in the house then watched as a couple of Para blinds advanced towards them, and then used their upstairs vantage point to spot both a 6lb-er anti-tank gun unlimbering in the garden of the house to their front and another platoon of Paras making their way through the copse of trees right underneath the windows. My plan to force the Paras to reveal their positions by needing to move towards my very narrow axis of advance was working!
The anti-tank gun got off a shot at the Tiger, but the round either missed or bounced off its armour, but then Zug 1 let rip and shot half of them down. HE from the Tiger then finished the crew off. Zug 1 then prepared to deal with the Para platoon advancing towards them through the copse.
Back on the road, my SdKfz flak had appeared, and promptly started pumping 20mm cannon shells into a house slightly further into the center of the table (the one with the dead marker on top of it in the picture below). Another Para platoon had been spotted in the house but, for the rest of the game, either the flak or the Panzer III would keep the enemy pinned down with cannon and/or HE fire, effectively taking them out of the action and unable to do anything.
So that was three of the four Para platoons spotted: with one eliminated, one about to be fired on at close range, and one pinned down by cannon/HE fire. One of the two enemy anti-tank guns had also been taken out, and all for the loss of only a handful of infantry.
The remaining Paras then had a bit of a resurgence, with the other anti-tank gun decloaking right at the end of the road perpendicular to the Stationsweg (I think that’s the Graaf van Rechterenweg road: the superb terrain was a more or less exact representation of the actual battlefield, with Phil and Jenny having walked the route and specially commissioned 3D printed buildings to get it just right. Huge kudos to them!).
This managed to get a couple of shots off at the StuG before getting enough HE in return to take it out of the action. All the Paras now had to deal with my armour were PIATS and sticky bombs.
One of the PIATS now made a difference, a the officer in charge of the Para platoon under fire from Zug 1 grabbed said PIAT off one of his squaddies and used a Have A Go Hero card to fire into the SdKfz flak. Incredibly, this survived one round with only a little bit of engine damage, but then the officer moved closer, fired again, and blew it to bits! His success was, however, short-lived, as elements of Zug 4 then rushed forward and captured him.
Meanwhile his platoon had been effectively neutralised by Zug 1 firing from the upstairs windows of the house overlooking the Paras’ position, and the Tiger and Zug 2 had moved further down the Stationsweg road.
Time was now ticking on, so leaving just enough assets to deal with the remaining Paras that I’d spotted, I sent everyone else forward and now curling around to the right in a final advance towards the house that was our objective.
As it advanced forward, the Tiger did have its second brush with death. If you look closely at the picture top right in the gallery above, you’ll see another British officer standing just outside the house in the centre of the photo. He also had a PIAT, and managed to get a couple of shots off at the armoured beast. Luckily for me, they both bounced off the tank’s front armour, and then a barrage of HE fire from the Tiger’s 88mm gun vapourised the poor Para before he could fire again.
Back to the narrative, and the fourth and final Para platoon was spotted lurking behind the objective house. They didn’t want to go into it, as they knew the Tiger would then quickly reduce the house to rubble. They did have another PIAT team, which they sent forward to the hedgeline to engage the big cat. I had now, however, managed to get most of three platoons of infantry forward in preparation for a final push, and fire from one of them shot down the PIAT team before it could fire.
The climax of the game was now upon us, but actually things ended witha bit of a damp squib. I sent a squad of infantry across the road to “occupy” the target house, with a good roll on the dice getting me just inside.
I was hoping this would force the Paras outside to come inside to displace my infantry from their game-winning position, at which point the Tiger would bring the house down on the lot of them (well, I was commanding SS troops) with the rest of my infantry then re-occupying the rubble to take victory, but in fact the Tea Break card arrived almost immediately and that was that!
A great game of IABSM played across a wonderful table set up. My thanks to Phil, Jenny and Vlad for a fantastic afternoon’s gaming.
Time for my Timurids to take the field again, bolstered by my latest spot of painting: some “flaming oxen” courtesy of Ten Kingdoms prints from Micks Bits via Etsy. Their opponents would be the Siamese (Thai) army of good friend Rob.
Unsurprisingly, the Timurids won the scouting, and I used the opportunity to stack most of my cavalry on the left flank, looking to advance quickly, turn and then roll up the enemy line. My main worries were the Thai elephants lurking opposite my cavalry on the right flank - I’d have to keep well away from them - and the massed infantry facing my largely empty centre: if my flank attacks didn’t go in as planned, I could see my camps overrun for a hefty loss of coin.
Once the game began, I advanced quickly across my entire front, and was happy to see at least some of my left-hand flanking force get into position before an unfortunate Ace stopped the rest from following.
On the other flank, I send my Turkoman light cavalry in to harrass the advancing Thai horse, but no arrows found their mark. No worries: all I wanted to do here was to pin the enemy in place whilst my flank attack went in.
But where was the flank attack?
Yes, I now had four units of cavalry behind the right flank of the advancing Thais, but they seemed to have disappeared from view: the rapid Thai advance leaving my outflanking horsemen too far from the action to immediately intervene.
And that rapid Thai advance was now causing me some problems: more elephants pushed some of my lancers backwards; the “flaming cattle” were sent flying from the field without achieving a thing as his infantry pushed forward; and even my right flank was now fully engaged and foundering!
Finally my flanking force appeared but, again, the rapid advance of the Thais meant that had, so far, little effect.
The main melee across the centre of the field continued with the Timurds, despite being somewhat on the back foot, proving that they still had teeth…particularly on my right, where the enemy elephants had been shot down and more lancers had won a duel with their Thai equivalents and returned to smash into the enemy flank.
My flanking force still hadn’t intervened, but my third cavalry command (the one that had started just to the right of the flanking force) finally dealt with the threat of the Thai cavalry and elephants in front of them, turned, and managed to crash into the flank of the still-advancing Thai infantry.
You can see them in the bottom half of the picture below…and, yes, that’s the flanking force above them, still desperately trying to get into position to have some effect on the battle!
Their intervention meant the end of the left-hand Thai infantry command, and my flanking force finally got into contact, hitting the rear of the other Thai infantry command and causing one measely disorder!
The writing was now on the wall for the Thai, but their guard infantry still managed to dispose of the last of the Kharash (driven slaves) and then crash into one of the Timurid camps.
This was, however, too little too late: the lead unit from the outflanking force finally got its act together and crashed into the back of some unfortunate Thai archers sending them, and Rob’s last three coins, reeling from the field.
So, a commanding 14–3 victory for the Timurids in the end, despite how long it took for the flanking attack to make any meaningful impact on the battle. Credit also to Rob: the scoreline hardly reflects just how close he came to turning defeat into victory. His decision to drive his battle line forward so aggressively very nearly neutralised my flank attack altogether, and the single camp he captured could easily have become three — especially if the Kharash hadn’t held out for as long as they did.
My morning session at this year’s Operation Market Larden event was a game of What a Cowboy! translated to the 1879 Zulu War and the death of Louis-Napoléon, the Prince Imperial of France, and only son of Emperor Napoleon III.
Here’s the historical background:
With the outbreak of the Zulu War in 1879, the prince, with the rank of lieutenant, forced the hand of the British military to allow him to take part in the conflict, despite the objections of Rouher and other Bonapartists. He was only allowed to go to Africa by the special pleading of his mother, Empress Eugénie, and by the intervention of Queen Victoria herself. He left England on 27 February 1879 with letters of introduction from the Duke of Cambridge, the British commander-in-chief, in the hope he might be allowed to follow the movements of the troops.
Once he arrived at Durban, he joined the General's Head-Quarters and met Frederic Thesiger, 2nd Baron Chelmsford, the commander in South Africa, on 9 April and was nominally placed on his staff. The prince accompanied Chelmsford on his march into Zululand. Keen to see action and full of enthusiasm, he was warned by Lieutenant Arthur Brigge, a close friend, "not to do anything rash and to avoid running unnecessary risks. I reminded him of the Empress at home and his party in France."
Chelmsford, mindful of his duty, attached the prince to the staff of Colonel Richard Harrison of the Royal Engineers, where it was felt he could be active but safe. Harrison was responsible for the column's transport and for reconnaissance of the forward route on the way to Ulundi, the Zulu capital. While he welcomed the presence of the prince, he was told by Chelmsford that the prince must be accompanied at all times by a strong escort. Lieutenant Jahleel Brenton Carey, a French speaker and British subject from Guernsey, was given particular charge of him. The prince took part in several reconnaissance missions. However, his eagerness for action almost led him into an early ambush when he exceeded orders in a party led by Colonel Redvers Buller.
Despite this, on the evening of 31 May 1879, Harrison agreed to allow the prince to scout in a forward party scheduled to leave in the morning, mistakenly believing that the path ahead was free of Zulu skirmishers.On the morning of 1 June 1879, the troop set out, earlier than intended and without the whole escort, largely owing to the prince's impatience. Led by Carey, the scouts rode deeper into Zululand. Without Harrison or Buller present to restrain him, the prince took command from Carey, even though the latter had seniority. At noon, the prince halted the troop at a temporarily deserted kraal. The prince and Carey made some sketches of the terrain and used part of the thatch to make a fire. No lookout was posted. As they were preparing to leave, about 40 Zulus fired upon them and rushed towards them, screaming. The prince ran to mount his horse and was able to grab onto the holster on the saddle of his horse. The prince's horse then dashed off before he could mount. After about 90 metres (100 yards), the strap the prince was clinging to broke and the horse kicked the prince in the belly, winding him. The prince fell beneath his horse, and his right arm was trampled. He leapt up, drawing his revolver with his left hand, and started to run, but the Zulus outpaced him.
The prince fired three shots from his revolver at his assailants, but he missed each shot. The prince then fired two more shots, albeit slower, in order to better aim. However, these, too, missed. One of the prince's assailants, a Zulu named Langalibalele, threw his spear at the prince, but missed. Another spear, thrown by a Zulu named Zabanga, struck the prince's left shoulder. The prince tried to fight on, wielding the spear thrown by Langalibalele in his right hand and his revolver in his left. However, weakened by his wounds, the prince sank to the ground and was overwhelmed. Zabanga stabbed the prince again with an assegai, followed by Gwabakana; and then the prince suffered a final blow from Klabawathunga – who stabbed the prince in the right eye – penetrating the prince's brain and killing him.
Two troopers of the Natal Native Horse, Abel and Rogers, as well the Zulu guide accompanying them, died with the prince during the Zulu ambush. Carey and the four surviving men came together about 50 yards (50 m) from where the prince made his final stand but did not fire at the Zulus. Carey led his men back to camp. The prince's body was recovered the next day. After a court of inquiry, a court-martial, and intervention by Empress Eugénie and Queen Victoria, Carey returned to his regiment. Carey died in Bombay on 22 February 1883.
The game would begin at the moment the Zulus are first spotted, and I would play Lieutenant Carey and Trooper George Rogers. As you can see in the picture on the left, below, both my characters began the game stuck in the goats’ corral!
Subsequent discussions with other people who have played the game have led me to understand that the way to win is to all work together to hold off the Zulus as a single body, but when the chits for my characters eventually appeared, last out of the bag, I discovered that everyone else in the party had just run for their lives, every man for themselves!
Trooper Rogers ran out of the corral towards his horse, Lieutenant Carey climbed over the corral’s wall. The pics below show how far we all had to go (the other side of the donga to the left) and the position as the first of the Zulus arrived.
There was then a mad scramble for the horses, with about half the characters, including Trooper Rogers, managing to get on board and kick for the donga. Lieutenant Carey was last out of the bag again, and was almost overwhelmed by Zulus immediately. He was badly wounded by a thrown spear, but managed to shoot one of the Zulu indunas (chiefs) dead with his trusty army service revolver. Carey then managed to get onto a horse but, perhaps crucially, hadn’t managed to check or tighten the girth!
Carey was almost caught immediately, but managed to shoot another Zulu dead and urge his mount into a canter. Unfortunately, all this delay had given the Zulus time to close in, and Carey was wounded again and fell from his horse. The fall stunned him, and before he could rise, the enemy was upon him and he was killed!
But what of Trooper Rogers? Well he had managed to outpace the Zulus and had reached the donga safely. In front of him was the Prince Imperial, who was now on foot having lost his seat whilst trying to jump his mount down into the rought ground of the dry river bed.
Rogers dismounted and began to lead his horse through the donga. Unfortunately, the horse shied at a patch of water and bolted almost straight into the Prince Imperial, who promptly mounted Rogers’ horse and rode off!
Typical royalty!
The game ended with Rogers jogging after the Prince Imperial, hoping that the Zulus were too busy ritually disembowelling his erstwhile comrades to give chase!
A terrific game: full of action and excitement. The players managed to extricate five of our eight characters, including the Prince Imperial, which surely counts as a victory of some sort!
I was sorely disappointed that Carey hadn’t survived: I thought it was all over almost as soon as the game began, but had begun to hope he might live after he had shot down the Zulu induna…but it was not to be. As for the Prince Imperial stealing Trooper Rogers’ horse…words fail me!
My thanks to Simon, the gamesmaster, and the other players: Chris, Dave and Ty. A great morning’s gaming.
A few weeks ago I drove to Evesham for the twelth Operation Market Larden Lardy games day.
As always, the tables looked excellent with a great mix of custom terrain and miniatures. I played in two quality games—one in the morning and one in the afternoon, AAR to follow - and it was great to catch up with everyone, even if I couldn’t stay on for the traditional curry in the evening.
Here’s a round-up of most, if not all, the games on show:
As always, huge thanks to Ade for organising the event, and to all the gamesmasters and players, especially those unlucky enough to be saddled with me!
I’m already looking forward to OML13!
With one loss and two wins already under my belt, it was on to the final game at this year’s Ewelme tournament. I’d be fighting Palmyrans again, but this time under Dillon’s able generalship.
As I’d beaten them in the last game by putting all my cavalry on one flank and refusing the other, I decided that that’s what I’d try again. I mean, it had worked last time, so what could possibly go wrong?
As the game began, my horsemen shot forward and immediately engaged the enemy. This worked well, as I routed one unit of Palmyran cataphracts and my cavalry penetrated deep up the right flank, preparing to turn and roll up the enemy line.
Things were not, however, going so well on the left and in the centre. In the last game, the Palmyrans had initially held back a bit, giving me a chance to develop my outflanking manoeuvre on the right. Not so in this game: the enemy shot foward and my warbands were soon under some pressure, particularly on the far left.
No matter: the plan was still viable, and I could now turn my cavalry and drive into the Palmyran left flank.
Well that’s what should have happened, but Lady Luck intervened and decided that my troops deserved a hefty kick in the fork!
Now I know that some people think that I blame the cards for every one of my defeats, but I would maintain that my luck in TTS competitions is, at best, erratic. It’s not always bad (those of you who have been paying attention will remember that in the last game I drew a 4/5/6/7 for consecutive activations giving me three flank attacks against an unwitting enemy unit) but on this occasion it was not just bad…it was the pits, man!
Ready to turn my cavalry and send them into the Palmyran flank, I drew seven cards in a row with none higher than a 2. Let me say that again: seven cards in a row, none higher than a two.
Don’t believe me? Here’s the evidence:
A quick reminder of the stats. That’s a probability of:
P = 16/80 × 15/79 ×14/78 × 13/77 x 12/76 × 11/75 × 10/74
Which works out to approximately: 0.00000536
So the odds are about:
0.000536%
or roughly 1 in 186,000
This pause in the action gave the Palmyrans time to recover from my right flank assault, consolidate, then capitalise on their success against my left and centre, and before long one of my cmaps was taken and I suffered a 69-165 defeat!
So kudos to Dillon for riding out my initial assualt and focusing on what was important: knocking my three-coin warbands and/or camps off the table. A well-taken victory for him.
Disappointing, but my two big victories in games two and three still meant that I finished in fourth place overall in the tournament. Here are the full results:
One consolation, though: my army did win the prize for the Best Presented Army, even if I did have to vote for them myself!
Thanks to Peter for organising (and congrats on another big win) and to all my opponents throughout the event. I highly recommend the TTS tournament circuit to everyone: lots of fun games in a competitive but very friendly environment. Here are the rest of the year’s fixtures:
To The Smallest (15mm): July, Cardiff
British Open at Britcon: August, Leicester
TTS at Colours: September, Newbury
TTS Open at Warfare: November, Farnborough
Two the Strongest (Doubles): December, London (TBC)
More I Ain’t Been Shot Mum action from John Paul Hancock and friends.
The next scenario in their Bashnya or Bust! campaign is #3D: Zhena, where both the Soviets and Germans need to take and hold a vital road junction.
Click on the picture below to see all:
My third game at this year’s Ewelme To The Strongest tournament was against Adrian’s Palmyrans: legionaries and cataphracts, gulp!
Learning from my previous games and a discussion on tactics from Mr Butler, I massed my cavalry on one wing, intending to blast through any enemy there whilst my warbands held up any advance against my centre and left.
As I’d lost the scouting, the game began with the Palmyrans advancing aggressively. As planned, I sent my horsemen forward on the right flank, and they soon secured an excellent position from which to roll up the enemy’s main battleline.
Adrian had, meanwhile, been a bit unlucky with his activations on the other side of the table: his nasty superheavy cavalry and mincing-machine legionaries not yet in a position to cause me any trouble on the left.
Even better, my warbands in the centre had taken full advantage of the need for the Palmyrans to deal with my cavalry coming in from the right, with one (led by their general) bursting through the main enemy line.
Adrian diverted some of his heavy infantry to deal with this warband, but an amazing run of cards meant that the usually cumbersome deep unit pivoted neatly in place and charged the flank of some Palmyran heavies not once, not twice but three times in the same turn!
More decent cards also saw my cavalry properly curling in from the right to achieve total domination of that sector of the tabletop.
This was too much for the Palmyrans to take: the loss of the heavy infantry being the final nail in their coffin with my Galatians winning a massive 186-21 victory!
So a cracking win due, in part, to the cards…but I’ll take that as I’ve so often been on the other end of Lady Luck’s tender ministrations!
Lots of entries submitted, so time for another update.
First up, we have Bill with some more cracking buildings for the Caribbean plus the troops to go with them. Plenty more in his gallery, so make sure you check it out via the NavBar, above.
Next is Mr Helliwell, also with a combination of figures and terrain. Here I’ve just shown his two terrain collections: you can see the individual pieces in his gallery, along with the troops he sent in as well.
Stumpy has been re-basing orcs:
Whilst Carole has been painting more spearmen for Midgard.
Next up is Dex, with some troops for Burma:
Mervyn reports that he’s very hot (in the temperature sense!) but has still managed to send in some Genoese mercenary types:
And finally Mr Burt has sent in some Brits for his FSJs to fight:
Keep them coming!
I needed a few bits and pieces to finish off my Celts.
First up were the casualty figures: unfortunately important the way I play! These are 3D prints from 3D Breed’s March or Die range printed by Bunker Miniatures.
These are great figures. I especially like the chaps with the spear sticking up out of them, and the mailed warrior with a sword but without his head! I even managed to use up the last few cloaks I had lying around and, yes, the figure underneath is fully painted.
Next up are some light infantry with slings: a troop type I will need when I field the Celts as Ancient British. I very much like the way the 3D Breed designs have translated into 28mm: very chunky figures, almost cubist in nature. They paint up very easily and are nicely posed. One slight issue: I always thought of the Celtic slingers as Iouantoues (youths) and these are definitely not that…I mean, check out the balding figure in the red and white stripes!
These size reasonably well with the Victrix figures that make up most of my army: only very slightly shorter even if they are quite a bit chunkier.
Finally we have one of the 3D Breed’s specials: one of the two druids that they offer. The other is more of a generic holy man with knife figure, so I’ve saved him for another use. The chap below is another antler-wearing ‘Herne the Hatstand’ so fits well with the general theme of my Celts. Lovely figure: paints up easily.
All the above are painted with Contrast paints on a Grey Seer undercoat, with any highlights etc done using standard acrylics. The cloaks are highly recommended and are from Weave of War.
Finally in today’s bulletin, we have the first bits of a 15mm Han Chinese army: three units of Billmen armed with the dagger-axe, and four units of Spearmen armed with, er, spears. These are Lurkio figures from the range now being made available again from Gripping Beast, with the command and standard anachronistically coming from Ten Kingdom’s Song Chinese range via Micks Bits on Etsy.
It was a bit odd painting relatively old school 15mm metal figures again after spending so much time on plastic and 3D printed 28mm figures, but I think they have turned out okay.
I will say that this project very much demonstrated the difference between metal casts and 3D prints: the 3D prints have much more animation in them, looking better overall even if the extra detail sometimes makes them more difficult to paint. I would have gone 3D printed Song all the way, but wanted an earlier Chinese army that can pass for Spring, Warring States, Han, Three Kingdoms etc. Once the Han are finished, I’ll probably eventually end up doing enough Song units to convert the army into a later Chinese army anyway!
Note that these are based ten to a 75mm frontage base (FK&P2 from Big Red Bat), which means I can now field three units of Billmen/Spearmen on a 15cms grid (two bases together) or six units of Billmen/Spearmen on a 10cm grid (one base). The standards are coloured in pairs (green, yellow, blue, red) to make pairing them easy.
Next up are three units of Crossbowmen, so another 60 figures in total. I think I might need some more red paint!
Still reeling after my devastating loss to the Tuaregs in game one, my fourth loss in a row with the Galatians, my lads now faced a powerful Principate (Early Imperial) Roman army. I was not looking forward to this: the Roman mincing machine was built to defeat Celts!
The only area where I did enjoy superiority was in terms of cavalry, so I opted to deploy all my horsemen on one wing, hoping to overwhelm their Roman equivalents as fast as possible then turn into the centre.
The battle began with the Roman army moving forward like space invaders.
In reply, to conform to my plan, I hung back on the left, but advanced forward on the right, my cavalry in particular shooting forward in a card-induced raggedy fashion, eager to bring their opponents to battle!
The two cavalry forces met in a thunderous clash. Despite their ragged advance, my men held firm against the initial charge before steadily driving the outnumbered Romans backwards. Yet this was no easy victory; the Roman veterans fought with grim determination and proved exceptionally difficult to break.
Meanwhile, back in the centre, a bit of luck with the cards (well, a bit of unluck for Dave) had seen the Roman line effectively break into two parts, each of which I could hopefully destroy before closing in on the rest.
On the left, where my objective was really only to pin the enemy in place, a brutal grinding melee erupted. Much to my surprise, my warriors initially gained the upper hand, driving back a Roman Cohort and wiping out a unit of Auxilia.
The Romans fought back hard, however, and honours were very much even by the time things were decided elsewhere on the field, although some Sagittarii were now threatening the Lights guarding the camp.
On the right, my superior numbers did indeed start to come into play, with the victorious cavalry then joining the infantry to drive back a mix of Roman Legionaries and Lights.
Again my infantry proved very successful in combat, one warband bursting through the enemy line and heading straight for their camp.
And it was this warband that won the game for the Galatians: taking the enemy camp and the Romans’ last few coins for a 168-79 victory.
So a first victory for the Galatians: a hard-fought affair as you would expect facing such a powerful opponent.
On to game three, where I would need another big win to salvage my hopes of a respectable finish!
The theme for this year’s Ewelme tournament was Africa and the Middle-East. I could have fielded my usual Venetians Abroad, but as I now had just enough of my new Celts to make up a Galatian army, that was what I decided to field. I even finished them in time to have three practice games prior to the event, but as I lost all three battles (and two of them badly!) I wasn’t feeling too confident of success.
My first game was against Steve’s Tuaregs: an army comprised mostly of lance-armed camelry. I lost the scouting, deployed, and watched as the Arabs came forward.
It’s always bad to surrender the initiative to the enemy, and so it proved here as Steve’s first action of the game was to neatly pick off the Galatian cavalry on the far left of my line with a unit of his camels: their bonus in defence against my horsemen being irrelevant as my chaps were immediately blasted off the table without any chance to fight back.
This set an unfortunate pattern for the game as, certainly for the first few turns, Steve couldn’t miss a hit and I couldn’t save a thing!
The Tuaregs also came forward on my other wing, where my other cavalry there were also soon under huge pressure.
There was a glimmer of hope when my flank march arrived shortly after this, but the Tuareg had so many units that they could spare a couple to bottle up my horsemen, and all that happened was that I eventually lost a few more coins, although we were both quite surprised at how long the Galatian horse ended up lasting!
Steve’s tactics were now obvious: avoid my fanatical warbands and win the game by destroying my vulnerable-to-camels cavalry. This worked very well for the Tuareg, especially given the cards we were pulling, and with both commands of Galatian horse defeated and off the table, I was soon down twelve of my fourteen victory medals.
I did have a little success with my infantry, but nothing to write home about, and it wasn’t long before I was handing over my last two medals for a heavy 31-150 defeat!
Well I have to say that that was a brilliantly executed, textbook victory for Steve, with my only consolation being that I had plenty of time to look at the other games being played!
One game down and three to go, and it looked like being dark clouds over Ewelme for the Galatians!
Vis Lardica is a website devoted to wargaming and military history, with a special emphasis on the company-sized rulesets produced by the TooFatLardies: I Ain't Been Shot Mum (WW2); Charlie Don't Surf (Vietnam); and Quadrant 13 (science fiction). There’s also a lot of content devoted to To The Strongest (Ancients/Medievals) and For King & Parliament (17th Century).
Welcome to Vis Lardica, a not-for-profit website mostly dedicated to the company-sized wargaming rules produced by the TooFatLardies, but encompassing my other gaming interests as well.
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