Ironclad Naval Game

 

Myself with British commanders Jeremy and Sylvain

Cropped photo of French admiral Curt

It’s been five months since my last post…but I’ve been regularly gaming.  Last Friday I tried out Long Face Games Barbette and Battery (B&B) rules using my scratch built 1870s era ironclads. As with all of LFGs rules, B&B were quick to learn  and play and gave a fun game, with reasonably historic results.  I don’t know what more one could want I a set of rules.

I set out the following forces based on what I had available (French) or felt like fielding (RN).

British Devastation, Monarch, Hercules, Achilles, Shah

French Redoutable, Colbert, Marengo, Fabert, Champlain

French ironclads Redoutable, Marengo and Colbert 

HMSs Monarch, Shah and Achilles

HMS Devastation

The two French had some lucky early hits that caused heavy damage to Hercules and Monarch, but ultimately the heavier British guns took their revenge and sank Marengo.

All in all a satisfying nights entertainment.

AAR Seven Years War With Maurice

Last month at Curt’s request I ran a test game of Maurice using my SYW collection.  We had the French attacking the Anglo Allied army defending a hill, based on Scenario1 from Grants Programmed a wargame Scenarios.  It was a long affair ending after midnight in a narrow French victory.  Photos are in no particular order.

The French close on the allies.  There is a series of hills on the right.

Advance!

The expected Sylvain flanking manoeuvre 

Stacy advances the French lights on his left.  I needed to amortize my windmill investment 

Sylvain makes plans for an Anglo Allied counterattack 

French command and traffic control 

Early on, Stacy advances the French light troops.

Maurice has a number of innovative ideas, many of which I quite liked.  Overall, they won’t be the go to SYW rules.  They weren’t Toy Soldierish enough and some commands spent a lot of  sitting while other commands were activated.  I think with more games we’d get the hang of getting all the cylinders to fire in sequence but it might be too much work for a Friday night.  Still, worth a look for diseases and flavour.
 

AAR Picts Vs Late Romans

It's been three months since my last post and 6 weeks since this game, but better late than never!

Back in early May I ran a game using To The Strongest (TtS) and my Pictish and late Rom an armies.  The scenario was the Broken Ground scenario from this classic with the Picts defending and the Romans attacking.  The Picts held a line of hills and the Romans needed to capture the two passes between the hills, best accomplished by defeating the Pict army.

Can't recall all of what happened, but I do know that.

• It was a close game, with both sides down to their last victory medal and the Romans eking it out after both sides missed opportunities for the kill.
• Stacy and Sylvain took the Late Romans, Curt and I led the Picts.
• The Pictish combination of Spears, skirmishers and mounted troops make for an interesting change from the bog standard war band barbarian hordes.
• We'd played a lot of WFB type armies which don't field many light troops so it was a bit of a learning process.  The one hit units were a challenge to face and field.
• Sylvain tried his usual wide flanking move with cavalry on their right flank (Pictish left flank in the photos), which we managed to mostly counter since he opened a gap from his centre.

The Pict centre

Our camp.  The Pictish stone came from a local "If it's not Scottish it's Craaap" shop. 

Roman flanking attempt finds itself flanked. 

A wider view of the same situation

View from the Pictish right.

First class pointing from Stacy.

The centres close.

Infantry scrum!

Typically confused state late in the day!

I take solace for our loss with the Pictish Warhound.

Santiago de Cuba 1898 AAR

 

Last week I got my newly painted 1:2400 scale pre dreadnoughts on table for an action based f Santiago in 1898, giving the Spanish a bit more to play with .  Rule were Broadside and Salvo from Long Face games (also check out LFG's campaign sets for the Spanish American, Russo Japanese and Balkan Wars).

At the start, Jeremy in grey and Sylvain in green were the Yanks.  Curt (behind lens) took the Spanish and I was the  GM.

Curt's forces emerge from the harbour between the two freshly painted batteries.

Curt had

• Admiral Cervera's squadron of 4 armoured cruisers (Maria Teresa, Oquendo, Vicaya and Colon) and a torpedo boat flotilla
• Local forces of one old cruiser (Reina Mercedes), a flotilla of old torpedo boats and two forts.  The fort to the right of the entrance had a torpedo battery and an electrically controlled minefield in case the USN got too close.

The blockading Yanks were dispersed, including one flagship and attending TBs off table en route to meet with the Army General.

The US forces were

• Jeremy's Flying Squadron of the armoured cruiser Brooklyn and the obsolete AC Texas.  The battleship Massachusetts was off getting coal and unavailable. 
• Sylvain's Atlantic fleet with the battleships Oregon, Iowa and Indiana and two armed yachts.  His flagship the AC New York and a torpedo boat flotilla were off table.

The local ships are the first to leave to provide distraction. 

The USN reacts.

An armoured yacht got too close to shore and comes under fire.  She also narrowly missed running into the minefield.

Cervera emerges

Jeremy was close to crossing Curt's T and then Curt did a 90 degree turn to starboard to go behind the yanks.

The US squadron's got in each other's way a lot and there were some tense moments.

One of Curt's cruisers rams and sinks JP Morgan's yacht!

In the background a Spanish cruiser attempts to ram a US battleship with much less success, taking damage in the process.

Things were getting chaotic here.  The Spanish have yellow labels and the US light blue which helps a bit, but it was a wild scrum.

Curt had to get two cruisers off table and he is getting close to doing this.

And they've made it!

It was a fun game.  The rules worked well, were really quick to learn and fast to play.  And they gave reasonably realistic results.  I'll have more a review at a later point. 

Santiago Light an After Action Report

 My visit to USS Olympia rekindled my interest in the Spanish American War, so I now have fleets ordered from Tumbling Dive in 1:2400.  However, this week we had a test game using Broadside and Salvo (B&S) from Long Face Games and my 25 year old 1:1200 scratch builds.  Long story short, it was great fun!  The rules played fast, worked well, gave reasonably historical results and were easy to pick up.

It was aa scaled down version of Santiago.  Two Spanish armoured cruisers and a destroyer group were trying to break out past a dispersed US squadron of two battleships and an armoured cruiser.

Sylvain contemplates his moves as he inspects the US fleet blocking his squadron.

US Admiral Curt

Spanish breakout in the background.  USS Indiana moving to counter.  The green mat to the right side is land.

 

Cristobal Colon followed by Vizcaya

TBDs lead the Spanish line while Indiana steams into close range, New York gets closer and Iowa chugs along in the background.

An attempted torpedo run driven off by quick firers!.

A second attempt foiled!

The Colon begins to suffer from the Indiana's big guns.

Vizcaya tries to run but New York moves to counter while the Colon is crippled.