Vietnam Game

The Village

1968, somewhere in Vietnam, Easy Company are tasked to secure a local village which is currently being defended by Vietnamese Government forces and then conduct a mission to locate and destroy any enemy forces that might be threatening the village.

Concerns had been raised that the village, unlike others in the area had not been attacked by communist forces,HQ wanted to know why...

Trenchline found in nearby wooded area

The game was run by Mark, using 'Bodycount' rules, Steve was company commander and the squads in week one were lead by Rupert, Nigel & Dave.

In week two, Mike W. took over Dave's command and Phil took Nigel's command.

Battle Report from Steve to follow, when available. In the meantime some photos...

American 'Grunts' occupy the trenchline

Americans find bunker complex
and call in airstrike

Bunkers destroyed

More bunkers found, destroyed in
firefight / Grenade Fest!

2mm Teaser

by Dave 'Bug Eyes' Vallance

It gives me great pleasure to announce that all the infantry, both French and Austrian, have now all been finished for the 1859 war in Italy. The French alone amount to nearly 9,000 infantry figures (I may have missed one or two though).

I was going to do the facings, belts, scabbards etc, but they take sooooo long to do as in the monster scales, I gave up.

Three battalions of French takes me about an hour from undercoat to sticking onto the bases. Bigger stuff takes me three HOURS to put the undercoat on, once I convinced the buggers to stay stuck on the painting strips I use and not keep falling off!! And they only cost me a few pence and not a kings ransom for biggies...

Just some more French artillery to do, then the scenics (which is being built by myself).

Once ready, for your entertainment and delight, I'll be putting on the Battle of Magenta, 4th June 1859 (the colour Magenta comes from this battle, purportedly from all the dried blood on the white Austrian uniforms).

This battle is much bigger than the little on I put on way back in January 2018 (Battle of San Martino, which actually came after Magenta) and there will be room for several players.

So, watch this space...
...will the French wipe the floor with the pompous Austrians, or will the 'Kaiser's children' give the ' Les Pantalon Rouge'  a good thrashing?

Figures from www.juniorgenera.org

More Cavalry for Siege for Vienna

More cavalry just completed for the Siege of Vienna collection, both Polish/Lithuanian side and Ottomans.

Lithuanian Tartars / Cossacks

Completed a second squadron of Lithuanian Tartars,these light cavalry formed about one third of the Polish cavalry strength with about one third Hussars and one third Pancerni (armoured Cossack) cavalry. 

I still have to add a standard for this unit - it will be a religious banner of some sort.

Arab Heavy Cavalry

Next up is a group of Heavy Ottoman cavalry - Arabic in this case.

Warlord Light Cavalry

Thirdly I have finished the Warlord Croat Light Cavalry that I had on my workbench for months! These will be used as Polish Light Cavalry to work alongside the Lithuanians.

Finally I'm scratch building some Turkish Light Cavalry, these will be revealed at a later date!

All cavalry (except Croats) are being made form the extremely adaptable Gripping Beast Arab Light Cavalry plastic box set.

Battle of the Lake, April 5, 1242

The Battle of the Lake (a.k.a. The Battle on the Ice) was fought between the Republic of Novgorod led by Prince Alexander Nevsky and the forces of the Livonian Order led by Bishop Hermann of Dorpat at Lake Peipus.

The battle is notable for having been fought largely on a frozen lake, and this gave the battle its name(s).

The Livonian Order was an sub-division of the more well known Teutonic Knights, as such many of their number were German noblemen, crusading against the Novograd pagans and the  'heathen Russian Eastern Orthodox Christians...

John is recreating the battle in miniature and this is scheduled to run May 10th & 17th, be there early for best commands.

Snow effects achieved by using salt and the trees, lake ice and snow drifts supplied by Mark from his WW2 Russo-Fininsh War collection.

A video of the Background to the battle and the real events of the battle can be found here:

The Tabletop, frozen lake to left and shoreline to right

First week was devoted to set-up and a good start on the battle its-self. Rupert, Mike W & Phil took n the Russian side, with Rupert playing Alexander Nevsky - commanding the Russian horse on the right, Mike W playing his brother -Andrei who commanded the Russian Horse on the left and Phil commanded the infantry in the centre.

Prince Andrei's Heavy Cavalry,
deployed on Russian Left

Russian Centre, shore manned by City Militia and
local tribesmen a mix of Spear  and Crossbowmen

As expected Steve took command of the Crusader Military Orders in the Crusader centre and then the allied Germans were placed on the Crusader left under Mike N. and the Danish contingent was placed under Mark's command on the Crusader right wing.

Teutonic Infantry, backed by German & Danish Crusaders
formed second rank on the Crusader right

Military Orders, formed centre of Teutonic Line

German Knights formed the Crusader left wing

The battle opened with a general Crusader advance whilst Russian infantry lines were straightened out and extended and the Russian horse under Andrei Nevsky was deployed to their left and the allied Mongol hordes were deployed to the right wing.

Crusader control was lax and as soon as they saw the flank moves the central knights were unleashed in an all out charge to the Russian Infantry lines on the lake shoreline.

Whilst Danish Knights formed the Crusader Right Wing

Again as expected the Military Orders were pretty much unstoppable, cutting their way through the infantry lines, although the allied Danish and German knights found the going tougher and they got caught up in a series of long running melees with the stout Russian defenders - with one German unit of knights even being routed.

Estonian Infantry lined up in the second rank to the left of centre.

However, quality wins and the Military orders then pushed through the centre to meet Alexander Nevsky and his horse who fought them off for a couple of turns before they too were pushed back.

As expected Steve, commanded the Military Orders and
charged straight in flanked by German and Danish Knights

Military Orders break trough the Russian front line and then hit lines of Heavy Cavalry

On both flanks Russian Cavalry loop
in to attack the Crusader flanks

Meanwhile, Andrei Nevsky and his Russian heavy cavalry rounded the Russian Infantry line son the left flank and turned in towards the centre, with a view to cashing in on the exposed flanks and rear of the Danish Knights.

Similarly on the other flank, Mongol light cavalry were able to crash into the flanks of the German knights and engage in melee - albeit indecisive, they got a few free hacks at the German flanks.

Crusader Infantry were largely inactive in the game, having been left behind by the knights all out charge, they only got a few passing shots at enemy cavalry passing their front as they closed on the centre.

All still to play for in Week Two!

Famous last words and all that! Week Two started with the two Russian Cavalry flanking forces closing nearer to the exposed flanks of the Crusader forces.

Confused melee on the lake shore,
Andrei Nevsky leads his cavalry into Crusader flanks

The epic melee between Russian spear and crossbow men continued on the lank banks, with heavy casualties taken by both sides. However the end came for the Russians in turn two when the Holy Orders continued their rampage in the centre by smashing into Alexander Nevsky's heavy cavalry and breaking one unite and routing two other units as they failed their morale checks

The Russian army had reached its break point and the game was instantly over...

As it was still early in the evening it was decided to play on, on the Russian left a spearman unit of the Novograd city guard had managed to engage a Danish heavy cavalry unit in their flank, this unit was broken and the attached Battle Commander killed! Too little too late..

Alexander Nevsky and his cavalry in full flight

The game rumbled on for several more tuns with the inevitable destruction of the Russian forces in detail - albeit at significant Crusade cost - most of the German wing of the army were mauled and routed in their long running melee on their flank and in the centre - even one Military Order unit was routed.

Good win for the Crusaders and a good run out for John's rules.

Irish Rebellion Campaign

By Steve Cast

Advancing Irish

For those of you that weren't there last night the game ended in a drawer, I threw everything in it and locked it tight!!!

No but seriously folks the game did end in a draw.  I decided it was time that the sun began to set and that both armies needed to retire and lick their wounds.

The game ended thus; the Irish left flank had lost one Brigade but had pulled itself together and was pushing the crown forces back after a series of "Domino" routs caused by the rout of a unit of crown infantry being charged by French cavalry.

Irish Supply Wagons

On the Irish right a similar situation was occurring but with the shoe on the other foot.  The Irish had managed to rout one unit of English Regulars but had all but run out of puff with its reserves consisting of the well-worn Wexford army which wouldn't have stood up to much.

The French were however pushing forward and Rupert's centre was looking vulnerable but again the French were also running out of puff too.

So the Irish and French will head back to Londonderry for a well earned pint of Guinness and a slice of garlic bread whilst the crown will head back to their camp for a well earned cup of tea for the officers and a bowl of potato skins for the troops.

Irish Left Wing: Thick of the fighting

Because some players would like to continue with the campaign, but much to my better judgment, the campaign will go on!

At some point I will dish out the casualty reports and because winter is now setting in both sides will retire to their respective winter quarters and sit out the cold weather until spring.

The next game could be a naval action to see if the Royal Navy can stop the next shipment of 'garlic munchers'.

More Irish Reserves

I have come to the rather belated conclusion, which all of you saw many months ago, that I need a quick play set of rules for large Irish games but the rules I have are all I could use at the time.

So I will look into something else that is appropriate but not Shako!, we play too many games using Shako! and its various derivatives so it will be something else.

AHPC IX - Status Final Update

The 9th Analogue Hobbies Painting Completion closed almost a month ago now and I have not had a chance to post an update on the final outcomes..

I had set myself  target of 2,000 points in this my first attempt at the event, as it happens I failed to reach the target,racking up a creditable 1,961 points - I fell 39 points short of the target.

As you can imagine, I have taken some stick for being so closed but so far off but real life events took priority and I ran out of time to do anything more.

Anyway I finished a creditable 9th in the rankings, out of 80 participants,  here are the top ten and a link to the full site by clicking the logo top left!

Rank	Participant	ID	Points	Target
1	NoelW	57	6,268	2,500
2	MilesR	54	5,051	3,000
3	MartinC	46	4,470	1,000
4	TamsinP	80	3,426	3,350
5	AlexS	4	3,229	2,500
6	FranL	25	2,887	1,000
7	KenR	42	2,796	1,750
8	RayR	66	2,274	1,200
9	MikeW	53	1,961	2,000
10	StuartL	79	1,758	500