A first go at the English Civil War

Last nites game against my dad was I my first stab at a English civil war game. Using Pike and Shotte rules I took command of the Parliament forces lead by Essex and my Dad took command of the Kings army. The game ended in a very close draw, both sides had lost Two Batallias each. Both my Cavalry brigades fought very well, breaking the cavaliers right flank cavalry and even breaking Prince Ruppets cavalry after repeling the initial charge, chasing the Prince from the field (I took a photo of the amusing moment) before been broke by the cavalier reserve cavalry. My infantry faired worse with Essex's troops breaking late in the battle. My infantry brigade to my left flank struggled with its command rolls all night and once they did get into the action it was to late in the day to make a telling contribution. It was a good and enjoyable game. Here are a few pictures of the action..

More troops for the Macedonians.

Continuing on from my last Ancient project post here are some further pictures of my new units, all models once again from irregular miniatures.

Here are some Hypaspists

Companion Heavy cavalry, I will be using these as Hetairoi

Another unit of light infantry Peltasts 

Some mounted generals, the white horse and rider il be using as Alexander

Thessalian medium cavalry

Dark Elves v Plague Daemons 2500 points game

 I fancied having a go with my Dark Elves for the second time since the release of the new book. I changed the army quite abit from last time and opted away from any mounted troops in favour of some solid infantry blocks supported by a couple of war hydras.

Thanks enlarge to the sale of my Skaven army I had treat myself to a few new models for my Dark Elves to go with the Army book and i would be using some of them in tonight's game.

 First up is the massive Cauldron of model with the character options you get in the box set. It would be to get its first outing in tonight's game.

I managed to get a further 10 fine cast Executioners thanks to EBay at a bargain price, making my unit a much healthy 28 strong.

And finally of quite ready for tonight's game are my Black Guard, not cheap on the pocket (thank you Games workshop) but a lovely model I must say. It's the first time in all the years I have had a Dark Elves army I have owned a unit and when they are completed i will have a twenty man (elf) unit. 

Anyway here are some pictures of our Warhammer  game between the Dark Elves and Plague daemon army. The Dark elves claimed a victory with the Cauldron of Blood and Witchelves combining into a very destructive unit, and the Daemons faired poorly all game with the dice gods, fickle things these Chaos Gods!

We rolled meeting engagement as our scenario, straight away the dice started playing havoc with the Daemons,  3 units of Daemons failed to arrive for deployment and would enter play from the first turn onwards from the table edge. All the Dark Elves were curtious enough to be on time.

The Hordes of the Great Unclean One

The Dark elves battle line.

Plague Bearers clash into the Corsairs with a Beast if Nurgle. The Corsairs lose but hold their ground as a War Hydra moves into position to charge into thevDaemons flank.

All kinds of rotting, plague bearing, unclean green skinned Daemons head towards the fighting.

The Death Hag on top the Cauldron of Blood  seeks her prey and sets her sights on a unit of plague Bearers near the forest.

The Hydra crashes into the Beast of Nurgle and destroys it, however the Plague Bearers remain and in the next round of combat break and destroy the horde of Corsairs, and the skulking Battle Standard bearer in he rear rank.

The Darkshards and bolt thrower destroy what remains of the Plagur Bearers who had just overrun the Corsairs with a hail of arrow fire.

The lurking hydra finished off the nurgleings with relative ease and after a couple of rounds of combat the Witch elves and cauldron destroyed the Plague Bearers unit. In the final turn the Witch elves and Cauldron make a successful charge and comfortably destroy a unit of plague drones. The God of Khaine would be most pleased.....

After surviving 2 miscasts but in the process losing all her magic levels, the Sorceress takes haven in the watchtower to have a birds eye view of the carnage on the battlefield.

Ancient Project update

While i was at Smoggycon convention i managed to Purchase quite a few more troops for my Alexander's Successor army from Irregular minitures. I bought some mounted and foot commanders, various light troops, heavy companion cavalry, Peltasts, Thracian light cavalry and some Hypaspists. My dad has been busy painting some of them up so here is a few samples.

First up are some skirmishes armed with bows and javelins and shields

These skirmishes are Crete bowmen and slingers

And finally some Thracian light cavalry and some Peltasts

All in all I have amassed quite a large force, enough to get them on the table in the new year. When I'm at York convention I will be on the spend again and I will be looking to get a couple of bolt throwers and some elephants so I can use the army as a Successors army as well.  

War of the Roses

We ran a war of the roses non historical battle at the weekend seen as my dad had recently rebased the models. We used Hail Caesar rules with a few amendments. I fought with Richard III against my Dad who was Henry VII.

The game was a close affair with me just about getting a minor victory at the end of the evening. Some poor command rolls had hindered my Dads right flank (Stanley's troops) to a almost stand still for the entire game and his left flank (Oxford) after some initial success was broke by my Norfolk troops.In the  centre Henry's and Richards troops fought each other with both sides having success with a possible slight advantage to my Richards troops.

Here's some shots of the action

The Start of the Battle

Norfolk and Oxfords troops clash

Henry waits behind a wall of archers and bill men with his cavalry 

First gains by Oxfords troops as they push the men at arms back though the field and break the Halberdiers 

Richard III and his knights look to charge through the opening in support of the men at arms but subsequently rolls a blunder

Stanley's troops stand and watch the battle contently 

Fighting back from there initial loses Norfolk breaks Oxford and Richards right flank is lost

Richard and Henrys troops clash in the centre

Stanley's troops decide to assist Henry but its far to late in the day, Northumberlands archers hold Richards right flank.

The end of the game.

West of the Oktiabrski State Farm..... Russia

Seen as though I had a lieu day from work me and my dad ran an afternoon Battle Group Kursk game. I fancied trying one of the historical scenarios from the book and we decided to do the West of the Oktiabrski State Farm. We rolled for sides I was given the job of leading the Russian assault.

The game turned out to be a very close run affair though at one stage I felt I had the game won quite 

comfortably but I was mistaken, here is the game....

Russian tanks with riders enter the table heading towards the dug in German SS Grenadiers.

A German Pak 40 fires and ko's a T34.

After rushing the German defences Stal Stal Stal style I totally forgot I had a timed Kytusha rocket bombardment hitting the area around the objective at the crossroads, the Germans loose a couple of infantry squads with direct hits and a T34 explodes onto flames as a result!

German SS troops open fire on the Russian tank riders as more T34's push forward

The Germans weren't getting it all their own way and a long range T34 AP round destroys a Pak 40.

A JU 87 dive bomber drops its bombs on the advancing T34's, with tank riders scattering from the tanks the large bomb hits direct on top of one of the Russian tanks.....,BOOM

With a second Pak 40 destroyed the Russian tanks claim the cross roads objective.

German armour starts to arrive in the form of a Stug III platoon, also off table 88 shots are now in range of the Russian tanks which slam home into the targets.

The Russian HQ tank goes up in flames after a 88 mm shell easily penetrates its armour.

 

T70's with tank riders move forwards as quickly as possible, firing area fire to pin the German defences 

The first line of German defences is over run and their moral chits are starting to mount. With so much armour over running he German defences I felt confident I would win from this position.

Another Stug platoon enters play as he final German reserves start to change the course of he game. A back and forward fire fight sees the Stug forced to take a morale check which is passed with a beyond the call of duty action. The Stug opens fire destroying the T34 with these bonus shots.

The final 88 shots coupled with the Stug KO another two T34's, all of a sudden with sum high morale chits I nervously approach my break point.

A surviving T34 gets some revenge and KO's the Stug III. The resulting chit pushes the Germans very near their breaking point, my Dad was now unable to risk trying to rally any pinned troops so I new he must be about to break.

The Stug advances with its pinitle machine gun firing and destroying  a unit of infantry. My break point was 61 and I was currently on 59, the resulting chit was a 1 (big sigh of relief) I would have one more chance to win the game.

A Russian infantry platoon enters the German fox holes and opens fire on the dug in HMG, the volume of fire is enough to kill the MG 38 team pushing the German's past their break point finishing the game. 

The final battle field, Russian tanks are ablaze all over the battlefield, I may have won the battle but at a very heavy cost, out of a starting force of 13 T34s, 6 T70s and two infantry platoons I had 2 T34s and T70s left and one squad of riflemen and a command stand left.

I really enjoyed playing the scenario and through some serious luck in pulling low morale chits for the majority of the game and getting 6 special morale chits I managed a win for the Russians. On any other day I could have passed my break point a few turns earlier. However it came down to the humble Russian file squad to win the game and not he massed ranks of Russian tanks when it finally killed the MG 38 HMG which had caused a lot of damage to the Russian infantry through out the game. The Germans put up a brave fight and very nearly won the game before deciding to abandon their positions  and fight another day, as for the Russians they will continue their advance once they get some much needed reinforcements...........