Two Games - The Crimea and Corrichie

 I had the chance to catch up with some mates this week. Two games played - the first, a brief Crimean war game with Graham H whose British Guard saw off my Russians.

Over lockdown last year I built up my Crimean war armies. These comprise of  plastic Warlord Russians supplemented by a few Great War Miniatures metal figures picked up on eBay and Great War British Guards and some accompanying Rifles, Artillery and Hussars. Just enough for a game. I have some modifications using Rebels and Patriots so we played through with those. The double 1's and 6's seemed somehow apt for the mismanaged campaign and as you can imagine popped up a couple of times during the game. We played with everything I had, rather than it being points balanced, (the British came in around 66 points while the Russians were in the 40's had we been counting), it was a fun game after all. 

My Russians chewed up Grahams flank, but then his hussars swept in and drove off my Cossacks and captured a gun. Grahams artillery cleared my skirmishers off the hill, but my chaps got their revenge and whittled down the guards as they advanced. However even with Russian reinforcements coming up the battle was lost. It was good fun though. 

The second game was a trial refight of the battle of Corrichie - a local encounter between supporters of Mary Queen of Scots under her half brother Moray and the forces of the rebellious Duke of Gordon and his followers. This is a battle which I have been researching for some time and this was my first opportunity to trial my order of battle and classifications using Pikemans Lament. 

To say that it went well and followed history to a great extent is an understatement. True to form Gordon's men beat up the raw Aberdeen militia and drove them back, but when they tried to take on the veteran Lothian men they came up short and on the very last turn of the game, I rolled a double 1 and Gordon was slain.....

...However here's the twist...Moray's pike also took casualties....and Bill also rolled a double one....so both leaders were killed!! 

Quite what affect the death of Moray would have on Scottish renaissance politics is anyones guess, but it would have been considerable. The Gordon's fate may have been largely the same or they may have suffered all the more in retaliation. It's certainly set me to readying the other battles to try using the rules. 

I don't have pictures of the actual game...being a trial we didn't bother too much with scenery and the battle took place on a bare hilltop...but here is a shot of  the mix of Foundry, Graven Images/Timeline and D'Arlo/Vendel figures which I've used for this period. I'm quite happy to mix them all!