War of the Spanish Succession: The Battle of Ortmund using Neil Thomas Wargaming Rules with 18th Century Modifications

I decided to mark my return to the wargaming habit by having a battle between my Marlburian British and French forces. This was a fictional encounter around the village of Ortmund and Frekoft between the forces of Lieutenant General Lumley and the Marquis de Maisonelle.  

This was the setup with both forces arrayed into line of battle following deployment from approach columns. 

The forces were equally matched with the British having a special rule advantage of Platoon Fire and and it would prove to be a decisive factor in the firefights around the village of Ortmund.

I used my new play-mat which my son gave to me as a Father's Day present and found it an excellent surface to hold my little 6mm figure bases in close formation. 

The cat wasn't as impressed and looked on with dispassionate neutrality as the British rolled up the French line with a decisive but costly victory. Rules used were my 18th Century modifications to Neil Thomas's sound Napoleonic Wargaming rules.

 
 

My Collection: Air War SPI (1979) Part 1

I decided to start up my blog again as I'd missed my regular posts and had previously found it a nice way of spending the odd half hour chatting about my little interests and passions. A lot of things have happened since my last post in ...2021! So plenty to keep me occupied with in getting on-line and discussed. It might also act as a gentle catalyst into getting me to play some games and find more time for the hobby.

First up is my recent purchase on e-Bay of an old school classic of the 1980s board game fraternity Air War by SPI. This is most definitely the most complicated board game I've ever played. I remember it took me a whole morning and with help from my friend for me to take off and make a turn and then I crashed! His big brother was actually a fighter pilot in the RAF at the time and he jokingly said it was harder to understand this game than his flight training. 

The game makes a merit of being ultra complex and I suppose before flight simulators this was a close as you could get for a reasonable outlay to the real experience of fighter combat. Anyway it was a thrilling exercise to get some mastery of the game and it also helped with understanding the tactics and subtleties of modern air combat.  

I will go into the game components and rules in more detail in my Part 2 and leave you with a view of the cat in its favourite position, this time in another one of my grail purchases, the Avalon Hill version of the old classic Kingmaker which I will review soon.

 

 

 

 

Memoir'44: Battle of Arracourt

I hadn't had a game of Memoir'44 for ages so I tried a scenario I'd never played from the base game, the Battle of Arracourt. This was a major armoured confrontation with plenty of artillery thrown in on the Allied side.

The game started well for the Germans who immediatly launched an armoured assault on their right flank knocking the US tanks back to the next hill line. This was followed up by a hand of good cards for the Americans who initially countered the German advance but over time their options narrowed so that they ran out of anything in the centre and couldn't activate their artillery to good effect. 

The situation became dire as the German tanks pressed on to the US baseline and the game ended quite abruptly with a 6-2 victory. Looking back I would have played the Americans much more cautiously and waited for the Germans to move towards me but the game did give the feeling of a force put into panic by some aggressive tactics that completely unbalanced them so from that perspective was quite a sobering gaming experience.

The cat made a dash across the battlefield towards the end! 

 And after I packed away the game pieces, basked in the glory of victory.

Some Recent Acquisitions

I've been spending a small birthday fund that I'd accumulated at the start of the year and have made several interesting purchases that I'm sure are going to give me a lot of payback once I've invested a bit of time in them.

First up was a set of rules I'd wanted for some time, Sharp Practice. This fills a nice little niche allowing large skirmishes which is a wargame I really enjoy. Also set during one of my favourite periods covering the entire black powder era. So it will be with a Napoleonic focus at first but whose not to say whether I will dabble in ACW or AWI scenarios too. I also got a set of cards at a reasonable price and these are very nice.

Next was the WWII version of the rule booklet for Battlegroup. I was so impressed with the Cold War set and had seen such good battle reports on YouTube and on-line that it looked to be a very promising candidate as my preferred WWII ruleset. Also Amazon was selling this at sales price so enough said! It is a lovely book with excellent illustrations and clear, well written text and explanations.

I've also always wanted to recreate medieval skirmishes ever since I used to play out extensive battles with my 1/32nd toy soldiers in my early teens. So the prospect of a clear and simple ruleset at a below £10 price was irresistable. This ruleset has a great reputation and reading through it I was immediately impressed and  enthused. I even searched out his Dark Age adaptation Landwasters and Raven Feeders so I can extend this without any trouble into the earlier period and use my Anglo Saxons and Viking figures. There is even a Fantasy version that I've seen but that's a future project.

Final purchase is the WRG 1685 to 1845 Wargaming Rules. A bit old school compared to the others but was this was more a substitution and preservation move to replace my original rule book and prevent any further wear and tear. By getting a nice fresh version that is in a pleasing A4 size format I can now leaf through the rules with confidence that I'm not causing further damage to my precious original. I read through these again and they are still absolutely up there as one of my favourite sets of rules. They have a charm and quality that just just lends itself to the size of game I prefer involving only a handful of brigades.

So that was a well spent budget delivering a lot of bang for the buck. The cat was content with some treats that I managed to divert a small portion of the funds for.

 

One Hour Wargame: Scenario 2 Pitched Battle

Almost immediately after my previous battle I found a little time to setup a straightforward line-up based on Scenario 2 in the OHW book. This time it would be the Austrians as the opponents with a scenario set in the middle of the 1809 campaign. 

I used my add-on morale rules again and tweaked these a little to make them less invasive to the play. This worked much better and with the use of the solo event cards produced a compelling game that delivered a lot of entertainment. 

The poor Austrian general tried to be creative and use his superior cavalry in order to mass them on the French right flank but their envelopment was stalled by some determined French dragoons and artillery that held firm. Meanwhile the French line was able to blast away at the Austrians and make their units start to falter and break.

It took 7 turns and the Austrians had lost all but their hussars and jaegers. So another fine game that delivered wargaming enjoyment.

The cat was a little more sceptical of the entertainment benefits of the exercise.

One Hour Wargames: Scenario 12 An Unfortunate Oversight

I wanted to get back into gaming after a short hiatus and thought a good way to do this would be using OHW. For this I would try out a stripped down version of the rules that I'd felt had been over engineered with modifications I'd used previously.

With one exception - I couldn't resist trying out some simple morale rules based on unit rating, casualties and commanders. These worked out pretty well and injected just the right amount of friction without slowing the game down. Obviously open to further modification as I playtest these they provide a solid add-on that I'm inclined to keep.

I chose the scenario randomly with a D20 roll and the sides with a D6 from the lists. I went for a Napoleonic lineup as these are the models I have to hand just now while I'm going through a house reorganisation. French v Russians in 1812 with two splendid brigades ranged against each other.

The French were tasked with a daunting prospect of capturing the village and the hill. By using the ford they were supposed to get an advantage in circumventing the river and opening up the right flank to assault. That was the plan, however, their assault was stalled by tenacious Russian resistance.

The final position saw the French down to one remaining battalion while the Russians retained four functioning units and a shredded elite battalion of grenadiers still willing to use the bayonet on the invaders.

The cat reflected on the Russian tactics while I was checking my counter inventory for Third Reich after I packed the OHW game away.

Recent Purchases

I bought some rulesets and supplements and also purchased a boardgame which had been on my wishlist after a welcome cash injection following my birthday.

First up was the boardgame Luftwaffe - the old Avalon Hill bookcase game which I'd wanted to collect for a while and try to see if it was possible to solo game with it somehow. Beautiful cover art which was almost worth the price - a very reasonable purchase under £20 and in pretty good condition.

I also wanted to try out some rules that had come to my attention when I was trying to figure out a good set that would satisfy my particular interest in early 80s Cold War: BAOR v Soviet encounters. A perfect opportunity presented itself with the Battlegroup Northag rules. I was inspired by their specific remit and the targeted time period. It also has a range of 10mm models and figures from Plastic Soldier Company which might be worth investing in to get my forces setup. Mechanics look very sound and fun to play. They evoked something of the old Navwar Combat Commander which I never actually played but always loved thumbing through to get ideas for other adaptations and background.

Next post I will detail what else I've spent my cash on.

The cat wasn't too impressed. Yeah whatever...