Good God! No post since September!
What can I say, both Keith and myself are busy with family life. Since the last post we've had a few campaign games played. Sweden, Prussia and the Allied States have joined forces and over-run Austria. France is on the defencive and my beautiful Russia is under siege on all fronts. I've pictures from 3 battles to post ... sorry they haven't been put up yet.
Merry Christmas !! Keep your powder dry and your gaiters clean!
Well, we've managed to get a Seven Years War campaign going!
Our thanks to Steve, who is running the "Grand Strategy" part of the campaign from the States while we fight all the battles here in Canada at our weekly gaming sessions. We are using a map similar to the Sport of Kings map.
I get to play the Anglo-German forces, who have managed to enlist the help of the Dutch to drive the French out of the Low Countries. Anglo-German forces have laid siege to key French fortresses in Berg while the French have similarly besieged my German troops in Franconia. But those actions are but a side show! Last night we played a field battle in Westphalia featuring 520AP of French against 400AP of Brits & Germans and 200AP of Dutch.
In this picture, the Anglo-Dutch are on the right, deployed in front of a small village, while the French are on the left, straddling a large swamp. The terrain was very marshy with a few gentle gnolls scattered across the field. A small lake sealed off my right flank. The French deployed with the majority of his cavalry on his far left, while we British had concentrated our cavalry on our far left. These were supported by British muskets, fusiliers and guards and the Hanoverian guard. The center was held by Hessians and Brunswickers and the Dutch held the far right.
We quickly raced up on the French right and hit their flank with our cavalry. The French responded by driving their troops forward in a series of column attacks on the British infantry, hoping to break through before their flank was crushed by the cavalry charge.
Meanwhile, the French pushed forward on their left against the Dutch, hoping to have more success there. (Note: Emen wasn't here with his Dutch figures, so I substituted my Hanoverians instead) Mark B helped immensely here, delaying the French advance with his hussars (now pulled back to safety behind his guns) and his jaegers until victory could be accomplished on the far left.
With their entire right surrounded, with horse behind them and elite British infantry to the front, it was only a matter of time before the French collapsed. Thanks to a couple of good moves and several good dice rolls, it was a longer time than it might have been and the French managed to bloody my British nose a bit before they went down. The picture above shows Sparky trying to keep his French from fleeing the field and (even more gloriously) my British horse and German cavalry swarming the routers :-)
WOW! Keith Con was bigger than ever this year, with twelve players and several visitors as well. Don Cameron from Five Arrows Figures showed up again with his wares as KeithCon's official miniatures and Osprey book dealer.
Four of the players, who were new to our rules opted out of the tournament and played some non-timed "learning games". The rest played three searing rounds filled with high octane excitement and cut-the-air-with-a-knife tension.
All eyes were on this table in the second round:
Where Martin, the two time Make Ready! champion faced Gary "Going for the Gold" Giles. Gary's ceaseless playing paid off and he wrested the championship title from Martin this year and won a copy of Mark Urban's "Rifles" as a prize.
The rest of the standings were:
Gary Giles - 23.2
Martin Rowland - 16.2
Mark Beaudon - 11.8
Dave May - 10.7
Skip Johnson - 9.8
Josh Garratt - 7
Mike Manning - 5.9
Ron Giles - 2.1
Thanks to everyone who participated. Send copies of any battle reports you want posted to either me or Gary and we can put them on the site
This weekend, June 2nd ... KEITHCON!!!
We've been busy painting our armies, honing our lists and developing winning strategies
to take the title from the current reigning champ, Martin Rowland.
For those of you out there in the wide world of the web who can't be here in person, no problem!
We will be bringing you the reports and pictures right here.
For those who can attend in person and want to know where to go, here's the map:
http://maps.google.ca/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=eastminster+united+church&sll=49.891235,-97.15369&sspn=103.177264,84.023438&ie=UTF8&om=1&ll=44.173463,-77.357655&spn=0.011543,0.027509&z=15&iwloc=B
See you on the tables!
This is what wargaming is all about! A great bunch of guys out having fun. At the back table we see Gary & Mark getting ready for their SYW Prussian vs Russian game.
At this table Dave & Josh played an interesting game. Josh is new to SYW Austrians, so we set him up to play Dave with.... his SYW Austrians. There's nothing like a civil war to test the strengths and weaknesses of an army! The table was set with lots of thick woods and both players initially deployed toward the far side of the table. Dave moved quickly to grab the central wood while Josh went in hard on Dave's left flank, anchored on a little village:
While trying to delay in the village, Dave formed his cavalry up into line on the far side of the central wood and moved forward to pin Josh's hussars, seen here moving in column toward the right.
After a prolonged and difficult struggle, Josh cleared the town, but Dave had managed to reform his cavalry line on the far side and continued to delay Josh's progress and even inflict some casualties as they were slowly ground down.
Meanwhile on the other flank, Josh's hussars slipped the net, but were then hunted down by Dave's dragoons & hussars and scattered in every direction (including into a marsh!) Horse were flying everywhere in a dizzying, glorious mess. One of Josh's hussar regiments managed to charge some of Dave's grenzers coming out of the woods in column, but they were repulsed and some of Dave's cavalry dispatched them, too.
While Josh was finally clearing the town, he also launched a frontal assault on Dave's left with six battalions. Unfortunately, the attack stalled and Dave was able to concentrate his artillery fire and wheel a brigade of his infantry onto Josh's flank, shredding them. Here we see Josh's two remaining battalions making a last stand while some grenadiers rush up to the rescue.
Unfortunately for Josh, the grenadiers were too late. Having sustained serious losses, the center reached the breakpoint. With the cavalry losses on both flanks, the army's morale tipped and they quit the field. Dave, with a shaken left flank and some losses across the rest of the line, carried the day.