Teutonic Order vs Early Polish

I've just completed an exciting encounter between a Teutonic Order Army and an
Early Polish force. Both were increased to ten units as I wanted to expand on
the number of additional troop types available.

The Order's Grandmaster made a bold advance on the Poles who were deployed in
what appeared to be a strong defensive position of a hill with a marsh to their
right.

The Knights of the Order and the supporting crusader knights wreaked initial
havoc on the Polish flanks, catching the Lithuanian cavalry of the Polish
general off-balance and forcing a supporting unit of Polish Knights to retreat.
Using his superiority in mounted forces, the archers of the Polish line were
gradually broken, leaving the central spearmen for the slowly advancing Teutonic
infantry units. The crossbowmen did considerable damage as the Order approached
the hill. By the time the forces engaged a couple of units were weakened and
this proved critical in the early stages of the infantry assault where two spear
units faced two spear units. Despite being uphill the Poles suffered poor dice
rolls and as a result were pushed back from the ridge line and gradually
destroyed in the ensuing turns.

With the cavalry wings imploding, the Polish general sensed that the game was up
and acknowledged defeat: 7 units v 4 remaining Polish units.

A good game with plenty of medieval atmosphere. Fanatic knights are potent
weapons and with an army stuffed with this type of assault force it takes a
great deal of tenacity to deflect the juggernaut. The Poles did put up a
credible defence and their knights performed a stout duty on the flanks but the
preponderance of both heavy and light cavalry combined with the success of the
infantry assault, assured a clear victory for the crusaders.

Milestone

With the completion of my last game I reached a bit of a personal milestone with
my 50th wargame using the Neil Thomas rules system.

Since May 2010 I've played 13 Ancients & Medieval, 5 Pike & Shot, 17 Horse &
Musket, 13 Modern and 2 Skirmish games.

All of these were a pleasure to play and I've thoroughly enjoyed developing all
the supplementary rule materials in tandem with the gameplay.

Now onto the next 50.

Battle of Holville Church 1863

I've just had another venture into the ACW using the rules from Introduction
with an encounter battle between an elite Confederate Army and a regular Union
force.

Both were fighting over a strategic bridge (Trent Bridge) and Holville Church,
towards the right flank of the Union advance.

Both sides started well with a rapid advance towards the strategic objectives.
The Confederates momentarily halted which gave the Union time to bring on
several reserve units but gradually the Rebels gained the required positions and
managed to exert a concerted fire along their right and centre where they had a
local superiority. Both sides were hampered by a table cluttered in terrain and
linear obstacles. Mobility and visibility was pretty restricted as a consequence
and this stoked up the sense of battlefield chaos.

Initially it looked favourable for the Union side with a numerical superiority,
however, the quality of the Rebel forces began to tell and some judicious use
of the rallying rules managed to get a couple of their battle weary units back
into action.

Meanwhile the Union was suffering along their whole line and the victorious
Confederate right flank commenced an encirclement which snuffed out the
remainder of the Union resistance.

A great game which lasted a couple of hours and was full of excitement right to
the end. The cavalry on both sides were hampered by terrain and couldn't use
mobility as effectively as I've seen in other games. The artillery was important
but the decider for me was the superior morale status of the Rebel forces which
helped them in morale checks and rallying.

Western Desert 1940

Here is a battle report of a recent game using the Second World War Rules from
Introduction with my supplementary overlays and solo Command & Control rules.

At last this was a chance to field my Italian Libyian Desert force and take on
an Eighth Army formation under the illustrious Brigadier McDonald.

The Italian commander General Alvintzi was set a defensive task of holding a
long line of hills which overlooked a key desert highway running North which the
British wished to secure and utilise to move their armoured units forward.

The British had nine units on table, albeit a fair distance from the Italian
positions. In contrast the Italians only fielded five units on table, the rest
held in Reserve and released piecemeal under the reserve rules. This was to
prove significant as an early deployment of reserves, particularly armour
support to counter the British would have been timely.

The British made steady progress, the Italians remaining concealed on the ridge
and adopting prone positions where possible. The first decisive engagement was
with the Italian AFVs and in a short time they had lost a Recon and Tank unit.
Despite holding up the British advance with heavy casualties on the carrier
unit, the British managed to exert increasing offensive pressure on the ridge
line finally forcing the Italians by turn six to move into highly defensive
positions and keep their heads down. It looked doomed to mass prisoner capture
but the Italian commander had a brief flash of brilliance and managed to
extricate a couple of units of infantry and a tank. This was played out through
my solo Command & Control rules which worked very well throughout, creating a
number of interesting and, actually, quite logical situations to develop.

Overall another superb game. The Italians were not outclassed but the overall
quality of the British seemed to manifest itself throughout. With German backing
the Italians should be good in the defensive in entrenched or covered positions.

Dark Age Game

I've been watching a few programes on Discovery about the Vikings and their
warrior ethos. This got me enthused to play a good old Dark Age slugging match
with their traditional enemies the Anglo-Saxons.

Both lined up and looked pretty similar, however, the armies have subtle
differences. On one side the rush of the warband, more mobility and the
integrated bondi archers. On the other the shieldwall (which in this game proved
to be decisive).

The Viking charge was concluded with the huscarls crashing into the Anglo-Saxon
nobles, however, the bondi held off and performed some rather useful initial
fire on the Saxon fyrdmen which was designed to soften them up a bit to get the
decisive base removal in the first round and perhaps trigger a morale collapse.
As it transpired the initial luck on missile fire was not consolidated in the
close combat rounds that followed and the superiority of the shieldwall as a
defence grew as the battle raged on.

I modified my pushback rules which are now simpler - the difference in bases at
the end of a close combat is the number the lesser unit is pushed back in base
depths. Worked well and made that snake like ripple up and down the battle line.

Back to the contest despite the Vikings getting one of their bondi to the other
side and forcing the Saxon general to make some hard choices regarding the two
units to remove, the Anglo-Saxons still had a preponderance in active units to
defeat the remaining Vikings 5:2 in the next couple of turns.

Great game, nice representation of a rush and attack tactic vs a solid defence.
In future games the Viking mobility should feature more with strategems to flank
or use terrain better. This would seem to adhere to their style where they
weren't renowned for seeking pitched battles but preferred applying their
seaborne strategy of surprise and speed to their land operations.

Battle of Trimsos

I decided to put on a pet project of recreating the inspirational battle of
Trimsos, the one depicted in Wargaming which uses the Tony Bath derived Rules.
This I now played using the AMW Classical rules.

My Hyrkanians were based on a Persian Army, my Hyperboreans looked distinctly
Greek.

Both were deployed as per the photographs in the book and I used my reversed
borard and desert terrain to give the game an arid look and feel.

The game was great. I initially plumped to play the Hyperborean commander but as
things developed and the lines started to clash I decided to become a more
neutral party. The Hyperboreans fought some great set piece actions but didn't
seem to have the overall strategy right. In contrast the Hyrkanian general
exerted a steady superiority on his right flank and centre with the elephants
crushing the Hyperborean centre. The Hyperboreans sent two units to take the New
Bridge and this proved a wasteful use of the mobile elements in their force. The
Hyrkanian general had two static infantry units which helped to keep their
opponents out of the main battle where they would have proved very useful
countering the Hrykanian mounted threat.

As the game progressed the Hyperboreans were gradually reduced and encircled,
the chariots arriving too late to help their comrades now reduced to one
remaining unit.

The Hyrkanians had five units left and just like the Wargames battle shared the
same result of a convincing victory.

Great game and scenario - certainly got my Old School fix from this game.

War of 1812 Game

I used the Bank Holiday weekend to fit in a game using one of my period
adaptations. This time an escalating engagement between a defensively postured
American Force under the General Buckley against a probing assault force under
General Arnott.

The rules used were my AWI Rules based on NPW with War of 1812 lists.

I fully deployed my solo, command and control and incorporated some scenario
setup features, up to now restricted to my modern simulations. I'm also going
through the Charles Grant Programmed Wargames book to pick out features and
ideas to use. I picked up on the Chance card concept and built this into the
game. Taken together I had a very interesting encounter develop.

The British had the initiative and maintained this throughout the engagement.
Both sides started with three units deployed on table with a Reserve release
rule in play to allow units to appear on the baseline during the course of the
game. Throughout the British scored better rolls and had a steady stream of
reinforcements. The Americans in contrast had a dearth of reserve units until
the end. By that stage it was too late as their front line units were depleted
to the extent that they started a general retreat. With the British objective to
reach the American base line, this was achieved by a unit of line by Turn 7.

I deliberately proceeded at a slow and deliberate pace keeping note in my battle
diary of events, die rolls and following the sequence to the letter. This paid
dividends as a truly unique gaming simulation emerged. It had the pleasing feel
of watching a game being simulated where I was involved but not in control.