Wednesday, April 8, 2015

on a gaming roll!!

I have managed to play two games this week?!?!  On the back of my success in the warhammer game, we arranged to play a longer game on Tuesday, taking advantage of the fact that we all seemed to be off work that day.  One of our 'go to' games for multiplayer games is the Crimean war.   One of our band, Kelly, has a quite impressive set up for this period  all 28mm foundry figures.
We used Black powder by warlord games as this gives a fun and fast paced game, even when using a lot of figures.

Jem and I were Russians blocking the convergence of two valleys.  There were 3 locations that generated victory points - one across the river by the wood, one in front of the redoubt on the hill and the third in the farmyard.  We held all three and received 1 pt per turn for each we held, whereas  the enemy would get 2 per round for each location they held.  The game would run for 10 turns.
This was our initial set up in a 'v' shape holding all the objectives.  We would get reinforcements that would arrive at pre planned points on the board.  We had 3 brigades on the board to start with and 4 more that would arrive later.  Each turn we could roll for 2 brigade reinforcements and each would arrive on a 4+.  Any that hadn't arrived by turn 4 would not be coming...
 The brigade on the right, holding the line of the objectives were a veteran brigade.
 Those on the left were a normal infantry brigade.  The Artillery were all grouped together under the c in c.
 Jon, commanding the Allied army leads on the C in C's brigade of artillery and the British Guards brigade.
 Kelly placed  a french brigade on the table under his command.  The idea seemed to be smashing us from both sides at once....
 Allied first move and the french advanced and formed line.

 Our artillery on the hill starts taking aim...
 even the cossacks!
 Our line stands firm, preparing for the worst.


 The Guards advance to the river and prepare to cross.
 Allied reinforcements advance onto the table - a mixed command of Zouarves and Turkish infantry battalions
 They moved a bit further than they were meant to and my recently arrived dragoon brigade felt obliged to charge them while they were still vulnerable!  Ultimately I needed to slow them down until more infantry brigades arrived on our side.
 It would have been better to charge just one battalion each as spreading my attacks over 2 battalions each allowed them a better chance of survival.  I won the combats and forced one to retire.  My dragoons also retired undamaged and ready to charge again next turn.
 The french prepare to assault the ridge

 The Turks being a bit more circumspect alter formation and try and shoot at my cav.

 The Brish Light and heavy brigade arrive on our flank!!  The lights immediately charge some hapless cossacks who, being disordered, could not get out of the way.  Ohh well....only cossacks..they don't count towards army demoralization.
 The Guards cross the stream.

 Just in time an infantry brigade turns up on the left to form a line to face the british light division.
 Someone rolled a blunder (Jem!!!) and the Uhlans charged off at the Guards.  Might not end well for us...
 The Heavy brigade
 and British artillery.
 A Highland battalion of the guards advances towards the enemy......

 ........the good guys awaiting their arrival

 fine fellows, the Russians....
 The cavalry regiment that is part of the french brigade.
 The assault goes in
 The view along the line.
A french officer tried to encourage to troops to make another effort!
 They are repulsed with casualties
 The Turks have had to form square as the heavy dragoons are still waiting for them to move.
 The dragoons keep charging but never do quite enough damage to collapse the square.
 To everyone's surprise, the cossacks are still about and get charged again by the light brigade
 More reinforcements for us (the last as it turns out - the naval brigade must have gone back to their boats because we never saw them!!) A light Cav brigade. They stare at the tempting flanks of the french formations.
 Out of focus french in the distance...
 And they refused to charge :(

 Damage has been building on my dragoons causing a sort of stand off
 the battle rages around the objectives, one vet battalion (across the river) destroyed by a guards battalion, and another forced to retire by the french.  Things are looking wobbly.....
 Our line on the left looks a bit more steady than on the right..
 The heavies give it another go and bounce!!
 The lights still refuse to charge the french.
 The veteran brigade have broken and fled leaving a big hole....  Luckily the french fled at the start of their move so we still retained the objectives.
 The russian infantry assault the guards in the hope of breaking that command as well
 The light cav join the assault on the Turks and Zouarves.
 The Guards are about to break!!
 Russian infantry forced into square to fend off light brigade.  The lights are destroyed :)
 The heavies decide to charge the guns on the ridgeline
 The guns roar and the charge fails.  The heavy brigade takes damage.

 The russian lights throw themselves at the square - lances prove to be more effective and they break
 Now the infantry have gone the cavalry charge a limber and moving gun, destroying it - very brave of them!
 With brigades breaking everywhere, the battlefield looks a lot emptier.  The British heavies sit in front of the guns which starts shooting them away and the light brigade have broken as well.
 The Turks looking shaky.
 The russian heavies get out of the way as they had taken a lot of damage and I didn't want to lose them at this late stage.
And that was about the end of the game.  Turn 10 finished with the artillery holding the ridge and a single russian infantry brigade still holding the left.  The right was held by the light cavalry but the Allied army was broken and the valley was ours!!!
A great game with friends - loads of really nice figures on the table and a close run game ending in victory.  What else could you ask of a 'no work' tuesday.....

6 comments:

  1. On a roll, indeed! Another epic game!

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    1. big games are fun every now and then. A table full of toys is always nice to look at and move about!

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  2. Lots of great painted minis and exellent photos, and great game!

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    1. it was really good fun. Kelly is an excellent painter and very fast which allows him to paint big collections in a quick time frame. I would not even be a quarter of the way through the stuff!! Why I like skirmish projects, I suppose :)

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  3. Sounds like a really good game. Out of interest, how many brigades do you think were used? There seem to have been a considerable number of them!

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    1. C-in-C command just had artillery and each side had 2 cav brigades (1hvy, 1 light) and 4 inf brigades. so 7 for each side but 1 didn't turn up for both of us - both infantry. brigade size was 3-4 battalions for foot and 2-3 for cav although the the british had more as they were all small units, about half the size of the russian ones. There were plenty of figures to move around but not too many that the game was slow. Black powder handled the size well, but then it's designed to be that sort of size.

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