Forces of the Sun King part Deux

 This week our Louis the XIV correspondent reports:

 Some more 20mm  figures for Louis XIV. All from Strelets WSS range.  Painted as Bavarian cuirassiers (unfortunately my eyesight isn't good enough to paint the flags!)

Axis of attacks WWII Campaign - week 2

As we entered week 2 of the mini campaign the Germans were attacking in the North against Brits defending some hamlets. The British in their turn were attacking an open square and one with some fixed defences.

Game 1 (South) - British Infantry attacking German Infantry.

This table was reasonably heavily wooded with plenty of fields breaking-up the sight lines. The British attacked cautiously,  using their artillery and Churchills to clear the way. 

Dug-in German infantry backed by AT guns managed to hold off the attack and to force the Brits into a withdrawal. German win 2-0. 

 

Churchills and infantry attack

Game 2 (Centre) - Guards Armoured attacking Panzer Grenadiers

The Guards loaded-up on tanks and looked to swamp the defenders with targets. The defenders had some dragon's teeth and a bunker which they used to cover the objectives. 

A veritable battery of Firefly's provided overwatch while the Shermans' pushed forward with limited infantry and artillery support. Unlike GOODWOOD the British prevailed. British win 2-0.   

That's a lot of 17pdrs!

Table 3 (North) - German Infantry attacking  British Infantry

The Germans split their armour with the main thrust in the east and a smaller effort by the Jadgpanzer IVs in the west.  

 

Panzer IVs look to flank the British

The Germans made two errors though; their armour out-stripped their infantry support and so had to pause under fire from the concealed British and they placed their objectives too close to the villages enabling the Tommys' to remain in hard cover. British win 2-0.   

The waiting 6 pdrs

The campaign position sees the Germans attacking on 2 fronts with a chance of closing the central axis.

 

    

Forces of the Sun King in 20mm

Our Forest of Dean correspondent has reputed this week that

"While I have been unable to play for the last few weeks I’ve been painting more 20mm Strelets figures for Louis XIV force. Strelets (a Ukrainian company) do a good range for British and French as well as German and Imperial cuirassier. They did have plans for Dutch as well but sadly their main sculptor was KIA earlier this year."

Axis of attack WWII - a brief restbite

For various reasons we found ourselves short of Allied players this week and so took a break from the formal campaign. It was also a chance to show Keith the rules as he'd not played before. So we did a couple of attack vs defence games to try those out.

This was also my first chance to try out the US list I'd put together for the campaign - its an Armoured Infantry battalion with Sherman support. They did decently well capturing one of the two objectives in 6 turns play.  

The main "learning" from the practice games is that the attacker definitely needs at least 10 turns to have a chance. Also I need to think about force ratios - the attacker will typically have a 25-15% points advantage, which I'm not sure will be enough. I don't want to make the attackers forces bigger though as we will not complete the games in an evening. Perhaps the defender needs to lose some troops of have them start of table and need to dice to come on as reserves?

Cotswold Wargames Day 2023

A few shots of CWD'23 that took place this past weekend in Northleach. We took a 20mm Inkerman game using Shadow of the Eagles. In the battle the Russians attack through three valleys in swirling fog. The end result saw  one of the columns break through and two held off.

I took a quick tour around the other games there on the day too. There was a splendid Indian Mutiny game featuring some nice NWF terrain. This won best game 2023

Also a skirmish game based on the Sharpe books that seemed to involve drinking wine. 

 

And the final two were a Spanish-Mexican Wars game and Sharpe Practice ACW

 

As usual a good time was had by all and its nice to have an event mostly about playing some games and mingling rather than commercial.  
 

Axis of attack WWII campaign week 1

This week we started the WWII mini-campaign planned to test ideas for a larger game. Both sides begin with an encounter game on all three Axis. The Germans fielded 2 Panzer Grenadier Battalions and one Infantry Battalion. The British deployed two Infantry Battalions and and one Guards Armoured Battlegroup. 

Central Axis

The central axis featured a PG Battalion against reinforced British Infantry.  Both sides attacked with armour on their left flanks seeking to capture the 2VP objective in the enemies half, whilst using their infantry to hold the 1 VP objective in their own half.  The Germans had the bigger attacking tank force but the British infantry had 6 pdr support.

The British armour made good progress towards their objective with very little interference beyond some shelling from the Grille supporting the Grenadiers. The Panzers ran into heavy but ineffective fire from the waiting 6 pdrs and supporting Shermans.  

 

A couple of turns of highly effective 25pdr fire cleared most of the defending German infantry from their objective while the Panzers traded fire with the British infantry and Shermans. In the end the Panzers were defeated giving a 3-0 win to the British.  

 

Southern Axis

On this axis a reinforced Guards Armoured unit fought German infantry with additional AT support. The Germans deployed defensively hoping to knock-out the British armour before stealing some objectives, or playing for a points win on damage done.

The Guards advanced cautiously as they sought to avoid the many waiting German AT guns. Giving them limited targets until the last moment they were able to secure the enemy objective with limited pressure on their own. So another 3-0  win.   

Rifle battalion supporting the Guards

Northern Axis

This table is slightly smaller and so we reduced the force sizes by about 25%. The Germans reinforced this, giving a larger percentage advantage than on the bigger tables. As a result they swamped the British with Panzers and were able to win this one 3-0. Sadly no pictures here though.   

So the overall position has the Allies winning on two fronts and Germans on one. Next week some attack vs defence. 

      

WWII Rapid Fire Roloaded - Goodwood

Last week the Germans attacked so this week I thought we should swap around and have a British armoured attack. A game based on Monty's attacked towards Caen in the wake of the D-Day landings seemed a good choice. I could nt find quite what I wanted so I made up something based on Goodwood.  

The British entered from the Northern in the middle third of the board and had to exit in the Sothern third. They gained +1VP for each tank escaping and lost -1VP for each killed.

View from the east of the field on the Germans side

The British focused most of their forces on the western side of the table with a thin infantry screen covering the flank and an M10 Achilles in support. This meant a big lump of 15 Sherman's pushing forward.     

The cavalry charge! 

The Germans positioned their Panthers squarely in the way while they tried to move troops from the east side of the table in support. Early shooting was not very decisive but as the ranged closed both sides took some hits.  

Crucially for the Brits they still had most of their Firefly's intact and so were able to kill a couple of German tanks.  

Firefly's form a firing sqaud

We timed-out with the action finely poised after 4 turns of play.