Back into the Desert

So following up from the previous week’s victory, it was time to switch sides and play the British in the first scenario, Frontier Battle. To play this I took 3 Humber CS9 and 2 Rolls. Three ten man squads with LMGs in Trucks. All backed up by a MMG in a Bren Carrier. 

I think this, will do me well.

Turn 1:

As the flare went up, and the enemy spotted, we raced forward. The majority of this turn was taken up with getting troops on the board. I pulled up my CS9’s in the centre. I had a squad on the left taking cover in middle. On the right, another squad took the flank. In the middle, a third squad moved forward, ready to charge forward and take a postion in the centre. 

Paint is coming

Opposite me were a number of Tankette’s. Some had double machine gun, a couple with anti tank rifles and scarily. Two had flamethrowers. Terry, got the best of the shooting, and three of my units. The squad on the left and the right, took two pin markers, as well as one of the CS9’s in the middle. Finally, pouring out of Terry’s trucks were two squads, an Elefantino and a MMG, which all took postion.

The flare gave out, and everything went dark as we went into the second turn.  

Turn 2: 

As the darkness descended, this boded well for me as Terry got the majority of his dice early on, and manouvered his vehicles forward. Not being able to get decent rolls on his visision rolls. I was able to move forward my truck on the left, to protect the squad from the impending Flamethrowe armed tankette.

Terry then moved the aforementioned flamethrower and flamed the truck to death. However, an advantage for me, it quickly ran out of fuel and began to limp it’s way homewards. More annoyingly, I wouldn’t be claiming any victory points for it. 

Finally, in the centre, Terry moved one of his Tankettes forward, and in response, I moved forward my CS9 forward and opened fire. However, I missed. In response, Terry moved another anti tank rifle and opened fire. Imobilising my CS9, gaining him victory points. 

In the lastfew dice roll, I ran forward my truck in the centre and pulled up in front of the Bagsarili, and then remembered, if I ran my truck, the squad in the centre wouldn’t be able to charge in. 

Oppps. 

The turn ended with the flares going up again. 

Turn 3:

I got the first dice of the turn, and my squad charged in against the Bagsilarie and died. They managed to kill two of the seven men out. Terry, killed five, winning the combat. On the left flank, two twin machine guns armed Tankettes, charged forward and opened fire on the squad. I went down, and lost a man. Meanwhile, on the other flank, the flamethrower came in and wiped out my squad. I had gone from three squads, to one heavily pinned and damaged squad. Whoops

In the centre of the table, the Tankettes began to change angle and move towards the CS9 and Rolls on the right of the centre. However, worse for me, the Bagelssaire moved forward, and charged the CS9, and wiped it out in a round of combat. 

Hum, things had turned against me. I was rolling poorly, and Terry was taking a commanding lead in the victory points. The only thing that was positive for me, was that the flamethrower tried to flame one of the Rolls Royce, and not only did it not hit, but it ran out of fuel, and began it’s way home. 

Turn 4:
On the right flank, my squad went down under a hail of Machine gun fire but despite the hail of fire, the squad survived. They may be pinned, but there fighting to stay in the game. 

IN the middle of the board, my commander, in a CS9, finally was able to pass a command test and moved forward and aimed a shot at the Anti Tank Rifle Tankette, and I missed. In response, Terry aimed his Tankette at my Rolls and immobilised it. 

Following on from this success, he turned the Bagisellir towards the Bren Carrier and charged in. However, they were not so successful and bounced off the Bren carrier. 

The flares came down and night descended again.

Turn 5:

With reducded visibility, I decided to through it all in, and attempted to charge the last squad at tankette to see if I can take it out in combat. However, I failed my dice roll. In response, Terry killed another two of the squad and added a pin. Taking their total to 6. 

In the middle, Terry tried to take out the Bren carrier, but despite another set of shots and around of combat, all he was able do was to drive it back. Which was great for me, as my machine gun could now see them, and it opened fire, killing two. 

On the right, my intact Rolls opened fire at Terry’s squad and killed another two. But they stuck around. 

Turn 6

The first dice was mine, and knowing that the game was not going to end well for me, I tried to charge the tankette with the last members of my squad. With six pins, I needed to pass a morale test on a 3. One roll of a 3 left and they attempted to charge in. I need to pass my tank fear test, and I rolled three and I was in. 

Until I failed to inflict any damage on the test (it was quite hard with three dice). The squad retreated and was then cut down into a hail of fire. It was worth a try. I then got another dice, and Terry’s Bagsellari squad was wiped out in the gunfire from the Machine Gun. 

The rest of the turn we traded fire, and Terry was able to wipe out the Bren Carrier, which had taken three turns to be destroyed and the game came to an end at this point. 

Terry had clearly won. 

Terry 18 victory points

David 4 victory points

  

Ouch, that’s all I can say. I don’t think I did anything wrong, but the dice were against me. I don’t the getting a number of pins, on squads on turn 1 helped me either. However, I gave a good go at it and was really happy that the squad that spent 5 turns pinned, were able to charge the tankettes, even if they did get wiped out.

The Italian Job

Pint's of coke with a pink straw give you a +1 to all dice rolls

So, after a brief foray into the Age of Sigmar, this week was back to normal and a game of Bolt Action vs Terry. For many years, I've not enjoyed this game. It's something to do with the pulling of tokens to determine who moves next. However, in the last year, breaking out my 101st Screaming Eagles has given me a new appreciation for the game.

So, we played a quick 1000 point game. Terry is busy painting a force of Italians for a forthcoming tournament. First time I've played against the Italians and they brought with them a few surprises including a plane, more of which will come later.

We rolled to see what scenario we would be playing, and the dice gave us scenario six, Demolition. We each had an objective and we had to try and destroy the opposition's objective. Terry used a vehicle and I chose my Anti-Tank gun.

We deployed half of our forces on the table and began turn one. It was a slightly uneventful turn as we moved forward and took up positions, ready for the scramble forward. The only thing of note happening was my sniper shooting the LMG from one of Terry's squad.

Turn Two arrived and so did Terry's plane. Having no flack to deal with this, it came in on my left flank and proceded to decimate an eight man squad. I opted to go down with this squad, but I still lost four men. The turn began properly and saw Terry land a mortar shell on the second of my squads. Again, I went down and Terry was able to do some damage to the squad.

In the rest of the turn, we began to bring on all of our reinforcements, and we were both able to bring on the rest of our forces. We moved up and I pushed a ten man squad as far forward as I can.

Hang on a minute lad, I've got a great idea

Turn three was the pivotal turn. Terry has moved his command squad out into the open and my ten man squad charged forward, and despite taking a casualty as they charged forward were able to engage them in combat, and wipe out Terry's commander. My men advance forward, and I could see his objective. One more turn, and I might be able to win.

However, Terry's veteran squad charged forward, from the nearby building where they had been hiding out and wiped out my men. I had seen victory and then watched it slip away. Worse was to go for me in this turn. Terry had pushed forward an armoured car down my left flank, threatening my troops. I tried to blow it up using a Bazooka and failed. I then tried to land a shell from a light Howitzer on it. I need a six, it was a long shot. I rolled to hit. It hit. I rolled to see if I penetrated. I rolled a one. It was a frustrating end to the turn.

Turn four arrived with the reappearance of the plane. It aimed at my fourth squad and did some damage to them. Again, I went down, and was able to reduce the damage caused, but it still did some serious damage to me. Having the next dice, I was able to fire my howitzer at the armoured car again. Having hit previously, I needed a 2+ to hit. I hit, with a dice roll of 2. This was it. I was going to blow it up.

Only to roll a 1 again. Two turns and two failed attempts to wipe out the tank. This was the main highlight of the turn. Terry approached one of his squads forward and wiped out the last few men from one of my squads and took cover in a building.

Turn five arrived, and I was able to wipe out Terry's squad in the building but the game ended with little fanfare. Due to the scenario objectives, neither of us had achieved our objective and so the game was a draw. Though, having done the most damage I feel that Terry takes a deserved moral victory.

To go left, when you should go right

So, what went wrong. Two things. Firstly, the airplane did a lot of damage. It did have a ridiculous amount of dice for its machine guns and quickly did a lot of damage to my men, who had little to do but die. It's an interesting unit, and one I'm going to be thinking about adding to my collections.

The other thing was my suicidal charge. I went against Terry's command unit, but on hindsight, I would have done this separately. There were three units behind the wall. The command unit, the tankette, and a medium machine gun team. I chose the command as it had the lesser amount of shots to fire. However, I think I should have charged the machine gun. I think, I would have been a bit further over and hopefully away from the veterans charge range. Then, I would have been able to make my way forward and get the objective.

Having said this, it has rekindled my interest in World War Two gaming and I'm thinking about starting a Desert Rat army. As I say a lot, to many ideas, not enough time.

Germanic Invasion

In a few weeks time, my wargaming friends and I will be playing the first few scenarios in the Hail Ceaser supplement, Germania. As you'll know from previous weeks battle reports, we've been playing Hail Ceaser to get ready.

This week, we put aside the Saxons and the Vikings and brought out the Celts and the Germanic Tribesmen. Instead of just a straight forwards line up and fight, we decided to have an objective. The Germanic tribesmen had to get through the Celt forces and off the board edge.

How the battlefield look for turn 1 and 2.

So we broke out the troops and lined up the forces. Both sides contained a good mix of troops. The Celts, or as they should be called Brits, had a few chariots. Whilst the marauding Germans had some cavalry.

The Brits were commanded by Terry and Jim, and they won the right to go first. The only positive move forward was when Terry blundered and his division drifted to the right. On our turn, we moved forward slowly, getting ready to charge forward in the following turn.

That was if we had a turn two. In this game, as you might be able to make out from the photos, we had six division, three apiece. All six divisions failed their command checks. Worse for Terry, the division that blundered previously blundered again and remember that they had left the gas on, and left the board, taking a wound per unit. At this point, Terry was the only player to have caused any damage and that was on his own turn.

It's not fun getting up close and personal with fanatics

The third turn was a bit better and I believed that Jim was able to charge forward and take on John's forces on our right flank. Combat raged but neither side were able to find the upper hand. In our turn three, seeing a big hole in the middle of the battle line, I charged two of my units forward, hoping to break through a unit of fanatics and off to the green countryside of Britain.

We rolled the dice, and my men came off the better. Causing five wounds, to Terry's two. It was this point that we've realised that we had rolled the wrong amount of dice on both accounts. As gentlemen, we agreed to refight the combat, and this time, Terry came off the better. Causing many wounds to my units.

Just before my clever move to kill the skirmishers

Turn four was a brutal round of combat, and my memory is a bit fuzzy on this. Hopefully Jim, on his wonderful blog Wednesday Night Warlords, will be able to inform you more about this turn. But at the end of this turn, we saw my division taking enough wounds to be broken. Whilst on the right flank Jim suffered the same fate.

As it was getting late, we called it there as a draw. I enjoyed this game, and it was a good game, played with lots of laughs. I'm looking forward to getting a rematch next week. Hopefully, it will come off better for me.

On the painting front, the weather has been better this week and so I've been able to get outside and do some undercoating. This allowed me to get the remaining seven Warg Riders undercoated and as I write this I'm in the processing of painting two of them up. This leaves me with some Mordo Uruks to paint up and a basing session and I've finished all of the models I need for scenario 1 of Siege of Gondor. I hope to do a photo session of them soon.

Saxons vs Vikings round 2

Or the tale of how I managed to snatch defeat from the hands of Victory.

So, Wednesday night, I had a game of Hail Caeser against Terry and John. They were using a combined force of Vikings and Normans, whilst I would be fighting off their unwarranted advances with a force of Saxons.

Get em lads.

I had two divisions of consisting of five units of thegns plus some slingers each. Terry had two division of Viking hirdmens and John had a mix of warriors on foot and a unit of mounted knights. I won the role off and my right flank marched forced as ordered and set out in traditional shieldwall manoeuvres. My left flank, heard the order, and then ignored it and possibly mishearing the order for a chant of Skulls for the Blood God or Waaaaagh decided to charge forward trying to get grips with the enemy as quickly as possible.

Terry and John's opening turn involved them moving forward and forming a shieldwall of their own. John's crossbow-toting warriors took aim and peppered a small unit of slingers, causing two wounds. Turn two began, and the first of my units made it into combat. Terry had the better of the dice rolling and inflicted more casualties on my men and they retreated to safety but Terry followed up and combat spilled into their turn two.

Terry's Vikings let out a roar and more combats appeared on my right flank. John tried to charge his knights into combat but a failed order role left them stranded in the open. Combat was a brutal affair with my Saxons inflicting wounds that Terry was unable to save. Terry did his best, but I was able to make my morale saves and I had gained the upper hand.

How many units are in this combat then. Answers on a post card to

My turn three became a brutal affair, I charge as many men as I could forward, arranging a string of combats across the middle of the table. On my left flank, I moved my skirmisher with javelins forward with a small unit of slingers and let rip. Inflicting four wounds on the mounted Knights which John was unable to save two off. Having rolled two sixes to wound, John was forced to make a morale save, which the knights failed and fled the table.

The combat was brutal with my men making short work of Terry's units. However, as their third turn began things were not all going their way. I had tried to hack my way through John's unit of foot knights, but they remained  resistant to my axe blows and my unit backed off, losing one of them in the process. As you can see from the photo to the left, it was a big swirling combat, which caused much discussion over the rules.

However, in their third turn things carried on as they had been left off with myself gaining the upper hands. Out of their three divisions, one had been wiped out and another was perilously close to collapsing. It was here I made a few mistakes.

During my fourt turn, I should have done three things that would have guaranteed my victory. I had to move one unit forward into combat and break one of Terry's remaining units. I got into combat, but in a rare flurry of dice rollsTerry won the combat and I was beaten off. The two things that I should have done, which I didn't do was to move my division commander into a unit to brings it's stamina down, taking away it's shattered status, and to move a unit forward into support.

Terry and John's fourth and final turn saw one of my shattered units wiped out, which broke my division and I lost the game. It was a highly enjoyable game, and I'm sorry for the lack of pictures. When you get caught up in the game it's hard to take time out take snaps. Terry and John were fun to play against and so, despite kicking myself for losing, I did have a lot of fun playing.

First battle in Space

So Wednesday night saw the first game of the year, and Jim and I took to the stars to play another game of Star Wars Armada. This is the third game that I’ve played and the second for Jim. I really like this game and it has a great positive in the fact that all of the ships come pre-painted, however, the rule book is a bit messy and could be presented better. But the rules are good, and I can buy a Star Destroyer, so I can let it slide. 

However, in the immortal of Benny, from the Lego Movie. Spaceships.

The fleets square of.

So, Jim took the forces of the Empire, with one Victory Class Star Destroyer, a Gladiator-class Star Destroyer, and an Imperial Raider. All of which were backed up by six Tie Fighter squadrons. I was playing the forces of the Rebellion and had a mark two Assault Frigate, two Nebulon B Frigates and a CR90 Corvette. These were backed up with four X-Wing squadrons.

So, turn one began and for both sides it was a matter of igniting the engines and sending the fleet forwards. All of the ships were out of range at the moment and so turn one ended quickly.

Going first, I send forward one of the Nebulon B and brought it into firing range. However, Jim’s fleet were still out of range. 

Jim responded by sending his raider forward, guns blazing, reducing my Nebulon B’s shield to nothing. I responded by sending the Assault Frigate forward,  responding in kind to Jim’s raider and targeting the Victory Class Star Destroyer.

Jim then moved in the Victory and inflicted heavy damage on my Nebulon B Frigate, leaving it limping forward. The remainder of the turn saw us trading shots with each other, I managed to take out one of this Tie Fighter Squadrons. 

Wait until you see the white of their eyes.

The third turn began and with some bad news for Jim as his Raider was destroyed under a withering barrage of fire from the Nebulon B Frigate and the Assault Frigate. It took a bit of doing, as my dice kept coming up blanks. But I got there. However, Jim was able to devastate the Nebulon B bringing it close enough to destruction, but it was still in there.

The fourth and final turn began and Jim finally was able to destroy the severely wounded Nebulon B Frigate. With a final barrage from the X-Wings destroying another of Jim's tie fighter squadrons. I had destroyed one frigate and two squadrons. Jim, in return, destroyed one of my frigates and X-Wing squadrons. We called it a minor victory to me, which was a good way to start the New Year. 

Next week, I'll be playing my friend Ben and we'll see how it goes again.