Thursday 26 November 2015

Bier Wars - the Battle of Amaretto

As a warm up game for the next part of the Bier wars campaign we fought the battle of Amaretto on Tuesday night. 

This was based on the excellent scenario "The Garrison of Tilsit" written by John Rae, author of "A Military Gentleman of the 18th Century". 


Planning 

What was supposed to be an action by Austrians against The Duke of Campari's men turned out to be an invasion by Hoegaarden instead as I forgot to pack the Austrians. However.....

We got set up and I managed to put the Faller buildings I have been keeping my eye out for on EBay. As you can see the large church is still a very big building one scale up from its intended use. I saw a similar building on the Cröebern 1813 (www.croebern-1813.de) site and book, so couldn't resist when I saw this on up for sale. 

Defending the little border village were two units of The Duke's infantry, a unit of Grenadiers, dragoons and some light guns. Attacking were 2 line regiments, a grenadier regiment, unit of Croats and some rapacious Cossacks, attracted by the potential of plunder (yeah picking's must have been thin elsewhere!) 


Things got underway when the morning mist cleared and the Garrison found the foe deployed in the fields across from the village. An artillery duel commenced while Hoegaarden troops advanced. 



The light infantry screened the advance, but began to take some casualties as they shot at the exposed crew.


Campari's officers are disturbed from their devotions and observe the enemy closing on their positions.

From the flank, Campari's dragoons threatened the left wing of Hoegaardens army. The Cossacks were employed to disrupt this advance, ready to pounce on an exposed unit. It worked for a while and the cavalry danced for advantage.



By now the lines of white uniformed infantry were approaching musket range and closed to blaze away at the defenders.



However the light infantry had not been able to drive off the gun crew and the Campari guns fired into the foe with canister shot.


Facing this onslaught there was little the Hoeggarden men could do. And they began to fall back. 
On the left the Dragoons had finally driven off the Cossack swarm and we're ready to engage the shattered infantry.


From the windmill, the Archbishop's staff ordered a withdrawal! His generals arguing about the quickest route back to safety!


A great game with some rather excellent inspiration provided, saving me form actually working much out. The positions of the defeated units varied slightly and the numbers of casualties varied greatly from the original, but that was a consequence of the rules. 

NT's rules coped well enough with a slightly smaller game, but we both thought we could up the hits each unit suffered from 4 to 6 before losing a stand if we were going to play at this scale again.  

Now we will see if Campari retaliates and opens a new front in the south. However his health and behaviour has become (more) unbalanced of late, so who can tell what the future holds!





Targe - A Grand Day Out

A couple of pic from Targe at Kirriemuir last weekend.

Our 6mm Quatre Bras game caught the eye of many of the visitors to the show and the judges as well. We received 3rd Prize for best demo. 

6mm isn't a great scale for visual splendour I have to say, but Mike's terrain drew them in.

Well done lads!






Saturday 21 November 2015

See you at Targe

Oldmeldrum Wargames Club - Quatre Bras


Off to Targe in Kirriemuir today to take part in a game of Blucher refighting Quatre Bras.

More when I get back. 

Sunday 15 November 2015

Catching up with some older paint jobs

A nice relaxed weekend so I got tidied up and finished off some figures that I had been lingering for a while.


The Balti of Roganjosh, Old Squire and his daughter, Confused staff officers, rocket men and lurking in the background - the Warlord Napoleon Coach and a unit of Buckberg Carabiner still to be finished off.







Thursday 5 November 2015

Garibaldini and Neapolitans - ready for action

I've been collecting these excellent figures from Gringo40 for a while and have had them painted for me by Dave Baker. As the range has grown my collected has expanded to the point where I have enough figs to put on a Minigame encounter from Neil Thomas's 19thC Wargaming. 

Ged's figures are tall and fairly robust, but they are very well sculpted and animated with particular attention paid to the bewhiskered features of some of the men. Particular praise must go to the Picciotti - a nefarious bunch of brigands and bandits who gave their support to the Redshirts but when the Bourbon regime collapsed returned to their form and became a thorn in the side of Sicilian and southern Italian life on a more and more organised basis as time went by. Other particularly nice figures are the Cavalry including an officer in a fetching mantle or cloak and the Horse Artillery crew.








I am assured that more figures will be forthcoming before Xmas and I really can't wait. 

Meanwhile some of my figs saw action on Tuesday night in a fire is set of skirmishes. Some pics of the latter are below.





In Neil's rules the Neapolitans are truely dire as his morale rating for them is "Rabble" . Although this reflects both poor training and leadership as well as a lack of esprit de corps, it's possibly a little harsh with the poor chaps losing most morale tests meaning bases fly off the units at an unsustainable rate. Three battles were fought with Garibaldi's men prevailing in two and only the timely commitment (or tardy arrival !) of reserves saving the day and Bourbon honour in the third. Still these are good fun and  all who took part enjoyed.