A Battle for Ireland AAR BLB2

Another BLB2 play test as we try to get the best from this set specifically designed for the period.

This time a divisional sized meeting engagement in Jacobite Ireland. 

The key grievance up to press has been the very short movement rate meaning that much smaller tables are required and no real pre contact manoeuvre as there is simply no time when moving at 4 inches per turn.

We have tried doubling movement which worked reasonably well. This time Chris wanted to try strategic movement so units could move 16 inches a turn until they were within 16 inches of the enemy, allowing a lot more manoeuvre pre-contact. Then drop back to 4 inches for foot as per the rules.

Fairly equal forces, Steve as the Jacobite had a Brigade of Irish Guards and a brigade of poorer troops with two regiments of horse with blade, he had a light gun as support.

I had two brigade of drilled troops, one all shot Danes the other regulation Huguenots. I also had one gun but with a master gunner and two regiments of horse, one blade and one bullet.

Rolling for initiative both Steve and I got a 1, no movement at all from either side, not an ideal start. I do like some command and control restrictions but I do find that BLB2 can be too widely varying.

Next move Steve gets a 10 and moves his whole army, I get a 5 and move just half. We close on each other fairly quickly with the extended movement but the table is too tight for us to do anything except march straight forward.

I roll another 5 and the other half of my army can catch up. Again not ideal

Steve pushes his cavalry slightly further forward and I angle my horse to charge his.

Too late Steve charges my Huguenot's, my volley is poor only causing one casualty, Steve wins the first round of melee and I stand so we go straight to a second round which Steve wins again and my foot leg it, the Jacobite horse pursue and cut the unit down to a man.

Not the best of starts.

I now have Jacobite cavalry rallying to my rear, whilst Steve has the worry of Williamite Cavalry to his rear.

Having taken two turns to move my gun into effective range and another to deploy it, the Irish guards have advanced to effective musket range. I fire my first shot, being cannon even though its very short range I am minus 2 for my first shot and do very limited casualties. In return the Irish guards volley the gun getting a plus one for first fire and wipe it out. Not ideal.

Steve reforms his cavalry to face mine and I do the same, I have also reformed my rear foot unit allowing me to volley Steve's cavalry in the flank and reduce their already low number.

The majority of our foot are now in range of each other and halt to engage in a sustained firefight. Its almost impossible to fail morale from casualties inflicted from musketry which is weird because most of my troops cant charge home with Steve's due to their quality. So it becomes a case of who will die to the last man first.

I try an all or nothing charge on Steve's horse, I win as they have already suffered lots of casualties but I am down to half strength on both squadrons so now of limited use.

My right hand Huguenot unit has been under sustained fire from a battalion of Irish Guards and another of average quality foot. I have my other foot unit in line but these guys are down to one third of their original strength and still passing their morale.

Steve now has 2 foot units down to half strength but they cant fail their morale so its ok. Still feels odd. My own very badly mauled unit is now very much at risk of failing so I attach my commander in chief to stiffen them.

I push my horse into the gap where my gun was to give the Irish Guards something to think about, not that they can do much against them but I cant use them for anything else.

My almost gone unit has passed its morale with the plus three provided by the C in C, it is down to three D6 needing sixes for firing, so whilst still on table should be pretty useless, except, I manage to throw a triple 6!

Awesome but again as the Irish Guards cant really fail a morale from musketry it doesn't really change anything.

The return volley kills the remaining French down to the last man.

So the game is not lost yet with my right flank holding its own but the left flank is well and truly shot.

The game has highlighted that strategic movements can speed things up and allow us to use a bigger table, although that didn't work with tonight's battle field it could in future, but it has also really made us scratch our heads at the morale structure. Steve's view is that we abandon BLB2 now as there is too much that doesn't work for us. I am still on the fence and Chris feels they still work for small games but not for the larger ones we need for Great Northern War and Ireland.

I am tempted to see what we rescue with changes to morale but these would have to sit with changes to firing and ranges too alongside the changes already to movement so........

We will see what the new edition of the rules bring but may decide to start from scratch.

Watch this space. Thanks for stopping by.

WW1 and Interwar Progress

My recent focus on Middle East WW1 has, almost inevitably rekindled an interest in the Third Afghan War and the WW1 African campaign, as the British and Commonwealth troops we will use are the same.

It also inspired me to read this book I have had on a shelf for a year or two. About a quarter of the way through in a few days and finding it very good. 

I had half a dozen 1919 Empress Afghans so finishing these is a first port of call, bloody lovely but the photos don't really do them justice sorry.

Also cracking on with more Turks, these three have a base coat of spray primer, trench brown, same base coats then the strong tone dip and more highlights, very quick and I am reasonably please with the outcome. All three are Woodbine.

Soem close ups of the Afghans, using a lot of buff and pale blue/grey, a lot of photos from the 1970's have these colours and ai think they work very well.

The odd hint of colour in a cap or cummerband is useful and leaves them still looking suitably untidy and tribal. The rifles are a mix of Lee Enfield, Martini Henry and other breachloaders.

As the sun was fully out I tried one shot with it streaming in and another with it slightly obscured, neither really captures the figures with the full colour.

On balance the above in full sunlight slightly better.

Thanks for stopping by.

AWI Action with new British Grenadiers and Militia

Tonight’s game with Steve's rules had 4 Brigades of Kings Troops vs 5 Brigades of Rebels. Although the numbers of troops were very similar and the British had a very serious edge in quality.

Steve had his new British and Hessian Grenadiers and British lights on table, he also had his new Rebel Militia so it might prove interesting 2 of the British Brigades were top class and 3 of the Americans were Militia.

Steve and I had the Americans, I had a Brigade of Veteran Militia Rifles in a single unit supported by a gun deployed int eh centre of the table with two small 2 battalion brigades of Continentals, one to my right and one off table to my rear.

Steve had a brigade of poor Militia deployed forward with a battalion of Lees legion is support and two battalion of continentals off table.

Facings us from their left to right Chris F had a Hessian Brigade with one battalion of musketeers, another of Grenadier and a company of Jaegers. Then, facing my Veteran Militia two battalions of British Grenadiers both A class so very good.

Chris C then had 2 decent battalions of British with a Gun with the end Brigade being a battalion of A class British Light infantry, a decent Loyalist Militia unit and a British Line battalion.

Like most of his AWI collection these all have fabulous hand painted Mark Allen flags.

Particularly like this lovely Mark Allen flags. Nice!

Initially not much happens in the centre where we are expecting the outcome of the game. The rifles are drawn first and have no target, the Grenadiers then fail to make much headway at all with movement failures, no doubt having stumbled into some marshy ground. 

The Highlanders have however made good progress and reach short range of the gun.

Unfortunately for the Highlanders the Continentals also reach the gun and unleash a volley supported byt he gun, two bases of casualties are removed and they fail their morale retreating back though the line infantry behind them and dis-ordering them in the process.

On the left a protracted and on the face of it uneven firefight develops between the British light brigade and the Militia brigade, the Militia manage to hold their own and inflict heavy casualties on the British over a number of moves.

The Grenadiers finally get going and the Veteran Militia unleash a devastating volley, despite huge casualties the stoic Grenadiers press on and then charge the Militia with predictable results.

What remains of the veteran militia retreats in disarray. 

The British Grenadiers push on now facing a second line this time of continentals with flanking fire from the skirmishers. There a lot less of them, now down to half strength and they are finally forced to retreat,

Unfortunately for the Americans the second battalion of Grenadiers volleys the gun and destroys the crew. Seeing the rout the next battalion of Continentals is forced to check morale and breaks, in a ripple effect three regiments for continentals either break or retreat in the corresponding chaos leaving a great big gap in the centre of our line. One the left the Militia have finally succumbed to the uneven firefight, leaving the field to a badly mauled light brigade. 

On the right the continentals and Hessians have fought each other to a stand still, the Continentals have the best of it but are not able to support the broken centre.

Its a victory for the British, but a Phyric victory at best as they dont have the troops to press on. Huzzah for the king!

A cracking game that came right down to the wire with one really bad Morale throw turning the game for the Kings forces, but still a very small chance of the Rebels rescuing something from it when we ran out of time.

Thanks for stopping by.

WW1 Middle East Workbench

Talking to the guys about potential rules for WW1  and it got me motivated to finish a few figures I have lying around.

We have a few ideas and TFL's Through the Mud and the Blood and front of the que to try currently.

In terms of theatres we have 1919 Third Afghan War, WW1 East Africa, Palestine, Mesopotamia and Caucasus not to mention Baku so lots to go for if we get the rules right.

First step then to crack on with figures already primed, just brush off the dust 9Quite literally) and start painting.

It was also an opportunity to try Warpainter dip as an experiment.

First up Anzac bombers, fabulous characterful Woodbine Designs figures, really enjoyed painting these, no dip on these.

Four more Anzacs, riflemen this time, the one firing at the back has dip on puttees only, speeded up an annoying job for me but the end result is too pale so will need to re-visit with future figures. Loved these ordered some more.

These three have been dipped and the end result is not as sharp as I would like, I probably need slightly paler colours to start with, although the puttees are good.

These are old Battle Honours figures, started as WW1 German East Africa troops, had a hat swap to be Poles and didnt get used so now a new head and they are Turks. Should fit in OK as Woodbine are quite slim figures anyway. I may add some highlights to these.

These three are from Matchlock Miniatures, nice figures but a very limited choice of poses so only these three done. Dip used on one rifleman but not the other and not the officer. Guess which one?

I also have some Matchlock Turkish Lancers in Arab headdress, again just a couple of poses but nobody else makes Turkish horse, I imagine I will eventually do head swaps with some German or similar figures.

I like the colour scheme for the Turks but for some of them more highlights will defo be required.

4 Woodbine Turks, again all had Dip with varying degrees of success, will need to add some highlights here and there, the one in Arab head dress will join the others with fixed heads, this head is actually a Perry LRDG plastic head.

Decent progress, lets see where the Butterfly takes me.

Slightly larger Napoleonic test game

Tonight we ran out Steve's Napoleonic rules again. Larger forces with Chris Flowers commanding the French, Steve supporting him with the Italians and me with Russians and Prussians.

The Russians had a light Division to my Right with a Cossack Regiment and 2 Jager battalions, then a Dragoon Division, a further infantry division and a Prussian division marching onto table. The Russians had light gun batteries, the Prussians 12 Pounders.

Facing us left to right were an Italian Division, two French Divisions and then a Cuirassier Division and a Light Cavalry Division.

You will remember that each force has a number of chips allowing them to attempt to activate Divisions. We start by rolling to see who has initiative and activates first, spending one of the 6 chips to activate a division. We need a 3 or better on a D6. If we pass we roll again to see how many actions we have 1,2 or 3. Do our movement then try with a second activation. We cant try the same division again but now need a 4. If we fail the initiative passes to the other player.

I get the initiative pushing my Prussians on the left flank, then my reserve Russian foot, then the cavalry and finally the off table Jagers. As I pass each time I just keep going, with chips remaining I go back to the Prussians and pass again needing a 4 or better finally getting them into a solid defensive line, as the Italians have one unit in effective range I try a shot. I hit causing two casualties which prompts a morale test, Steve rolls a one and the regiment retreats. 

Not a bad start for the Russians and Prussians, however as I passed all activations the French now have all 6 chips and I cant respond to them.

Chris pushes his Chasseurs forward, then activates them a second time as they are in range to charge my horse battery. The closing fire is ineffective and the horse battery over run.

The light cavalry rally immediatly and charge into my stationery dragoons who have already taken casualties from the French artillery.

The other light cavalry catch my Jagers forming line and break them, leaving these troops to flee from the field. 

The lights having defeated the Jagers withdraw rather than face a volley as they mill around reforming.

Meanwhile the Currassiers have hit my disordered dragoons, which really should be the end of them. But a close range volley from the square as they close disorders them in turn.

Its a good time to roll a lot of six's and the Dragoons live to fight on another round where both sides are dis-ordered and the French no longer have their charging bonus.

Eventually the Currassier are forced to withdraw, two Dragoon regiments too badly mauled to continue but the line has held.

Before the light cavalry can take advantage and charge one of the Dragoon regiments I charge them with my Cossacks. The Cossacks loose pretty convincingly but the Chasseurs are forced back.

Whilst its been a fun game it has exposed some cracks we want to deal with. As Chris was intent on the cavalry action and me on countering him the rest of the game has simply been ignored so only a quarter of the forces have been engaged. 

As the rules allow you to try and keep activating the same units there was nothing to prevent this.

It was the right thing for Chris to do as well, if his superior cavalry had broken through, which they almost did, I would have had infantry killing heavies in my flank and rear and the game would have been up.

Some food for thought despite some good fun.