FK&P AAR: Cossacks versus Ottomans

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Rob and I fancied a game of For King & Parliament - Eastern Front variant. I wanted to get my newly-painted Azabs onto the table, so Rob would play the Ottomans, and I took the Zaporogian Cossacks as (a) they hadn’t been on the tabletop for some time and (b) they would be a historical match-up for the Turks.

This could also be an interesting game as, rather than being cavalry versus cavalry like many of our recent games, this would be cavalry versus war wagons! It would also be fairly epic, as we were playing at 160 points per side: a large game even for FK&P.

The Ottomans had committed the majority of their cavalry to the left flank, facing the rather motley Cossack horse and their Tatar allies. I wasn’t going to win this clash, so my horsemen sallied forward aiming to do as much damage as they could before dying gloriously!

One unit of Tatar lancers, four bow-armed lights, and two units of raw Cossack horse versus the pride of the ottoman empire!

Now if you’re going to go, you might as well go in style, so one unit of Cossack horse charged the Ottoman guns that had, perhaps unwisely, strayed too close to the front line.

Much to my surprise, the Cossacks ran right over the unfortunate Turkish artillerymen and announced their intention to charge the Janisseries behind them…before realising how stupid that would be and skidding to an abrupt, Ace-inspired halt!

This did leave the Cossacks a little exposed, but the Sultan’s elite Sipahi’s of the Guard were so stunned by the action that they just stood there watching as their motley opponents charged by!

Meanwhile, the other Sipahis had been clearing the Tatar light cavalry from the table, the unfortunate horse-archers’ attempts to evade failing dismally.

The Tatars weren’t done yet, however: forward went their single unit of noble lancers and, although disordered by the process, they smashed one of the remaining Turkish Sipahi units from the table.

Even better, after pursuing the survivors for a bit, the Tatar nobles then spotted the Ottoman camp, pulled themselves together and, executing a smart right turn, went on to do what Tatars do best and sacked the camp, stopping only to gather in the spoils!

Back to the Cossack horsemen…who’s blood was obviously up!

Those of you who know the history of my Cossack army will know that I bought the box-set in ignorance thinking Taras Bulba like waves of elite light horse riding down all in front of them, only to be somewhat surprised that the army was almost all foot, and foot in wagons no less, with the only cavalry available being little and raw!

Well, no-one had told the Cossack horse that they were little and raw. The so-far-unengaged unit leapt forward and ran over a unit of Janisseries, only to be followed by the other unit, still disordered from running over the guns, then crashing into the Janisseries that they had pulled up to avoid, and sending them flying from the field too, despite the disadvantage of their disorder!

Meanwhile, the Cossack tabor (war wagons) had been slowly advancing forward in the centre of the field, looking for the right spot to stop and form an impenetrable wall of wood from behind which to fight the advancing Ottomans…except that the Ottomans weren’t advancing!

Although a couple of their cavalry units had bashed through the Tatar light horse and were ready to turn inwards and attack the Cossack left flank, the rest of their cavalry and half the Janisseries had either been destroyed or were worrying about the Cossack horse who had got through behind them.

The tabor were therefore bunched together firing sideways at the enemy cavalry that had beaten the Tatar lights, with some Cossack moloitsy (literally “lads”) moving to protect the rear left flank.

And what of the Azabs, the reason for the Ottoman presence?

They had been kept back on the Ottoman left along with a couple of units of light horse. They finally got moving forward as the Turks became a bit desperate, having been hemorrhaging coins for most of the battle so far.

The Cossack right, however, was ready for them: three units of infantry (admittedly two more Raw “lads” units) would be enough to hold them up at least until the battle was won elsewhere.

The end of the battle came not with a “huzzah” but with a bit of a damp squib.

The tabor opened up of whatever they could see, and one of the casualties caused was a Turkish officer, which was enough to remove the final Ottoman victory coin. Defeated, the invaders slunk off the field back to Istanbul, leaving the victorious Cossacks to both celebrate and to wonder what the Cossack horsemen had been drinking!

It had been a cracking battle from the Cossack point of view: some very good cards meaning that their raw Cossack horse had rather surprisingly swept all before them rather than acting merely as speedbumps as anticipated.

Add in the Tatar noble cavalry doing what they were supposed to, and some lucky sniping from the tabor, and everything had gone rather extraordinarily well!

I just hope I haven’t used up all my good luck: I’ve got Britcon next weekend!

FK&P AAR: Muscovites vs Ottomans

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One of the great things about the To The Strongest system is that you can fight a decent sized battle in a couple of hours and still get a definitive result.

Thus it was that after our game featuring Ayyubids and Crusaders, Rob and I still had time for a game of For King & Parliament/Eastern Front variation. Rob would take the Ottomans, I would play the Muscovite.

The game began with strong advances on both sides, in particular with the Turkish horse seeking to break through on the Muscovite right flank.

The fighting opened on the left flank, with a massive cavalry clash between ten units of cavalry: five Turkish, five Russian.

The Muscovites had managed to get a tactical advantage: getting into position to be able to charge into the flank of the Ottoman line. Unfortunately, the Turkish horse proved extraordinarily resilient, failing to take any damage even when attacked from front and flank!

Not a bad set of saves!

Despite this resilience, the initial clash went to the Muscovites, who now still had five units of cavalry versus the three remaining to the Turks.

This advantage was, however, an illusion: the Muscovite horse had been badly disordered in the initial clash and, as the two lines closed again, it was the Ottomans who burst through the Russian line, evening up the scores to three remaining cavalry units each.

Meanwhile, on the right flank, the Ottomans were definitely dominating the situation after the Muscovite Cossack and Tatar allies had suffered a ‘mare on first contact, leaving the Turks utterly dominant in that sector of the battlefield.

Meanwhile, in the centre, the Ottoman Janisseries watched the action, unmoved…

Back to the left flank, and the Turks saw an opportunity to wipe another Muscovite cavalry unit off the field with a flank charge stymied by the cards.

This gave me the opportunity to move their targets to safety, but in one of those quirks of fate that makes FK&P so exciting, the Sons of Boyars decided that they would rather be flank-charged after all!

The Turks were keen to oblige, de-Boyarising the table with ease. At the same time, the rest of the Ottoman cavalry on that flank charged forwards and that, combined with the losses on the right flank, was enough to send the remainder of the Russian army fleeing back towards Moscow!

Well that had been an epic game, well won by the Ottomans: their cavalry had proved unstoppable even by the usually super tough Muscovites!

Another great game!

FK&P AAR: Vanquished at Vanquish!

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I visited the Vanquish wargaming show in Bourne End a couple of weeks ago. It’s a great little event and conveniently close to home, so I always enjoy attending. This year, I had an extra reason to go — the South Oxford Generals (SOGS) were running their Pavia game using the For King & Parliament: Eastern Front variant.

I ended up playing the Ottomans against a combination of friend Gary and a young lad who was at the show with his father…who was helping him, as was everyone else in the room…an important fact to remember when we look at what happened in the game. Very important!

Now the Poles, my opponents, have vast amounts of very, very good cavalry, including the dread Winged Hussars (veteran horsemen armed with lance, pistol, carbine, bow, spear, warhammer, phased plasma rifle in the 40-watt range etc) so I decided to see what I could do against the Polish infantry: after all, I had the Janisseries and they’re supposed to be pretty good. So forward went my foot…

First, however, the Poles, understandably keen to get their cavalry into action, advanced their right wing, and soon a massive cavalry melee broke out in the centre of the field.

My chaps didn’t actually do too badly here. In fact they did rather well in that rather than being wiped out to a man, they held their own, gave as good as they got, and soon the left hand side of the battlefield was looking rather empty of formed units.

This shifted the action into the centre where the two sides went at each other again.

Much to my surprise, I was definitely winning the cavalry battle, but just couldn’t quite finish the Poles off.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the field, the two infantry lines had closed and were sending shot after shot at each other, but to no great conclusion.

By this stage the game had attracted quite some attention with, as I said, the whole room siding with the young lad against me: somewhere along the line I had apparentlly turned into a combination of Dick Dasterdly and a pantomime villain! We won’t talk about who was Mutley, Si…

Anyhoo, we were now neck and neck on the coins front, as my initial gains on the left had been offset by my opponent’s gains in the centre and on the right.

The young lad’s father wanted to go. I agreed: he needed to take his child away before the young scallywag (not what I had originally written!) beat me!

It was all coming down to one final turn. I had cavalry to spare in the centre, but just couldn’t quite get them into the action in time…and the Poles still presented a danger from their last few horsemen.

In the end, I had a turn where I failed to get the last coin I needed to win; then the young lad went through most of his turn equally failing to get the last coin that he needed to win before commiting his last remaining unit of light horse in a desperate charge at a unit of my light horse.

With the crowd cheering them on, the Polish light horse smashed into my chaps and sent them routing from the field! I had lost!

What a cracking game of FK&P and a real example of what wargames shows are all about: not just the shopping but beautifully displayed demo games played with plenty of crowd participation.

My thanks to Si and the rest of the SOGS for putting on such a great game.

Postscript

Afterwards someone came up to me and said how much they had enjoyed watching and that it had been one of the best demo games they’d ever seen. They also wanted to know how difficult it had been to make sure that I lost, and by just one coin. I must, they said, be a very skilled player to manufacture such a close result and yet make sure the young lad won.

Make sure the young lad won? Make sure the young lad won? I was trying everything I could to beat the little…young scallywag!

 

FK&P AAR: Overlord!

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Off to Overlord, Abingdon Wargames society’s annual show, to play a game of For King & Parliament - Eastern Front variant pit on as a demonstration game by friends Si and Mark.

I would play the Polish-Lithuanians versus Gary and Si playing the Ottomans.

The set up was an approximate version of the end of a very important battle in the Vienna campaign (they’ll never know that I can’t remember which one!) in which the Polish-Lithuanian cavalry, headed by the Winged Hussars, destroyed the Ottoman cavalry and won the day.

I had set up hoping that history would repeat itself, with the Hussars and Pancieri heavy cavalry on the right of the line facing the Ottoman horse, and with my lighter cavalry and Haiduk levy infantry on the left. The Ottomans had their guns and Janissery veteran infantry in the centre, but only their Azabs on the right, so I was hoping that even if the Hussars didn’t do the business, my infantry could defeat the far right of the Ottoman line and then loop in to roll up the fiendish Turk.

The battle began with the Poles pushing forward strongly across the whole front except the far right, where the cavalry command there stubbornly refused to move forward.

Confident in the quality of the Hussars, my tactics on the right were just “get stuck in”…which seemed to work very well as before long the Ottoman cavalry had melted away in front of me.

At the other end of the table, the Janisseries unwittingly played into my plan by not coming forward but choosing to exchange inconclusive long range fire with my Haiduks.

This meant that I could then, as planned, try to get around the left-hand end of his line…which sort of worked in that I did manage to get into a decent flanking position, but just couldn’t deliver a coup de grace that would let me start rolling it up.

Meanwhile, the Polish-Lithuanian cavalry, having defeated their Ottoman equivalents, turned in (well, those who weren’t pursuing did) and started to roll up the enemy line from the other end.

This culminated in a flank charge into the Guard Janisseries plus “marching band army standard” that should have swept them off the board but unfortunately just bounced off!

There was still nothing much happening at the other end of the table. My flanking manoeuvre was still sort of working, the Janisseries were still hanging back…

…which gave me the opportunity to hit the pesky Guard Janisseries with another unit, and this time the extraordinary chits I pulled from the bag did the damage and destroyed them.

This actually won me the game as I think I took five medals from that one unit (two for the unit, two for an officer and one from the marching band standard) which was quite lucky as the rest of the Ottoman line had finally realised that they needed to do something and had moved forward in a threatening manner!

But they were too late. As mentioned above, the game was already mine not, I hasten to add, as a result of any great tactical manoeuvring on my part: it was the Winged Hussars crashing through the Ottoman horse that did the trick. I was having a good day on the chits as well: saving far more often than I should have, and getting some cracking attack chits in as well.

All in all it was a most enjoyable game and a great chance to play with Si’s beautifully painted toys. The Overlord show was good as well: heartily recommended for a visit and definitely on the list for next year.

FK&P AAR: Transylvanians vs Ottomans - Take Two

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Plenty of time left after game number one, so Neil and I decided to play again: same sides, same terrain.

Given the above, both sides set up in largely a similar fashion as well.

but this time the Ottoman infantry also come forward strongly (last time they held back).

But the Transylvanian light horse have been at it again, and manage to sneak around the left side of the Ottoman line and take the Ottoman camp!

In the centre, one lot of Ottoman artillery prove a tempting target for the Hungarian Seimeni, but I’m not sure how long they’ll last now they have taken the guns!

Here’s an overview of the battle at this point:

The Transylvanians commit their Household Cavalry in the centre. It’s very successful, but every time it destroys an enemy unit, it pursues them off table and is lost!

That’s a very expensive way to figth a battle!

I have the Ottomans on the ropes, but just can’t quite seem to polish them off. Neil saves a couple of match points on the right…

…and the Janisseries are starting to chew through the Transylvanian infantry!

It is now sudden death: whoever loses the next unit loses the game…unless, that it, I can get one of my three units that have pursued off table back into the action.

It’s still Neil’s turn, but he’s just about out of unist to play. On a whim he decides to try and re-take his camp, lost to the Transylvanian Lights earlier in the game, with some of his Sipahis.

With a couple of good activation cards, the Sipahis hit home…and my Lights die…which is enough to cost me my last on-table victory medal! The Transylvanians lose heart and retreat!

I’m still not sure quite how I lost that game, but I did! The Transylvanians just couldn’t quite finish off the units they Disordered, and the Ottomans proved very successful in saving match points.

A great game of For King & Parliament/Eastern Front!

Hittite City Gates from Red Copper/Baueda

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I needed a camp for my Hittites so thought I would follow what I’ve been doing so far and use the Red Copper STL of a Hittite City Gate that looked pretty good to me.

The only problm is that I wanted the camp to fit on a 10cm x 10cm base and the size of the full tower-gate-tower of the original was just over 15cm in width. No problem: those nice people at Baueda scaled and printed the components for me so that they fit beautifully onto one of my camp bases.

The individual pieces linked together well, with only a very slight bit of shaving to get a tight fit. Note that I left the rear end open to facilitate using the camp to store tokens etc during a game.

I painted the main towers and walls with a sponge (one of the sponges that protects figures in a blister pack will do the trick), then re-painted the stonework at the base of the walls in grey, washed with a Contrast grey, then highlighted with a lighter colour.

I did try drybrushing the walls in a light colour, but just couldn’t get the effect I wanted, so had to re-paint the test area again. On reflection, the un-drybrushed walls are a good contrast to the heavily drybrushed base.

I then painted the roofs and beams in a warm brown, and the window frames in what I would call a biblical blue.

All in all, I’m very happy with this kit: highly recommended.

Ottoman Command from Khurasan

Friend Rob was kind enough to paint some Ottoman command figures for me.

These are the Khurasan specials from their Ottoman range that I will use as officers and heroes.

Exquisite paint jobs!