Project Alma - a fine day for a varnish

 Dry and warm days have, until this week, been a rarity in this part of the world. Or when they've been here I've been elsewhere. So with the sun out it was a fine chance to get my Crimean stuff vanished in one go. 

1 tin of Windsor and Newton at the ready and off I went. 

Russians first. 

Each unit has a base of skirmishers and lurking behind are 5 guns, 2 cossack batteries and 3 line. 

British next.

The Guards Brigade, Highland Brigade and part of Pennefathers Brigade, with the 95th skirmish order. Hussars and Lancers and Artillery to the rear.

Seeing (almost) everything laid out like this makes me want to do more...light dragoons, heavy brigade and Russian cavalry, and maybe French, Turks and the Sardinians......uhoh! 

Napoleonics - French v Russians

 I had the chance to head up to see Graham H this weekend and have a game of 28mm Napoleonics. Graham has been building French and Russian forces for 1812 and we fancied something bigger than the skirmish games we've been playing recently. I found a scenario based on Pirna 1813 in which the Russians under Wurttemberg were trying to get over the Elbe whilst Vandamme was trying to cut off their route. 

This was a good sized scenario as it mean we could both use figures for both sides, making sure that my French (painted 17years ago and still looking fresh, bar a bent flagpole and broken bayonet!) and the Russians I inherited from a late friend's collection were both able to get on the table as too were Graham's figures.

For rules we used a set I made up based on Neil Thomas's Napoleonic Wargames with ranges and movement tweaked a little to fit my unit frontages. They seemed to work well enough - although they're probably too simple for many tastes they allow a decent sized game (a corps plus a side in this case) to skip along with all the usual formations. We played over the afternoon, getting 10 turns and a lot of chatter and lunch in and I will be back at some point to finish the game.

Playing the French I brought my corps on to find Graham's rushing deployed in an arc just forward of a small village on the road to the Elbe. My deployment zone was tight and my scouting lancers took some hits before I was able to retire them behind my infantry. However I managed to get my artillery into play and my divisional and corps batteries were soon pounding the advancing Russians.

Grahams right flank was open, that nearest the bridge, so he threw his cavalry forward (we both need Russian light cavalry, so stand ins were used!) and I was forced into square to see them off. By now my guns had torn through two Russian units on their left and Graham pulled his men back to the road and out of range. It was my turn to advance.

I limbered up my guns and pushed my left flank, closest to the river, forward. Now it was the Russian artillery's turn to cause damage. My morale tests were good while Graham's shots on target were mercifully few until I got into close range with one battalion. This gave me time to open up my divisions and get the brigades moving on my right along the river to try to force the Russian flank away from the bridge. 

The Russian reserves were now on the table - 3 battalions of Grenadier Guards, marching straight for the bridge. It was going to be a foot race to see who got their first and that will have to wait til we play next. 

Sikh War......coz I forgot the Figures!

 At Oldmeldrum Wargames Club we have lots of good terrain for games, which we keep at the club in the British Legion. However we don't have space to keep our figures which meant I had to humph mine down from my loft last night. It wasn't til I was laying out the figures for the next game in mini campaign that I realised I'd left a box at home.....the one with the mutineers in it 😫

Still I had the Sikhs instead so we improvised and the British found themselves facing down 2 units of Sikh regulars, a unit of Akali warriors and an artillery piece instead of the mutineers. What was going to make a bigger difference to this game, and the following one was that the Sikh players rolled decent stats for their officers, giving them a free re roll once per game and a free action for one of their units. All the British could muster was an inexperienced cavalry officer and a pleasant infantry commander for their BNC, BHA, HEIC Europeans and 2 units of BNI. 

Ross and Alastair commanded the British and started off in fine fettle moving across the table in fine form. The former taking the infantry down the right while the latter took the horse and gun down the left towards the Sikh held village, just over a river at the end of the table.  On they came in fine order, marching and trotting steadily, closing down the  distance to their objective...until the Sikh artillery, which had moved up to the rivers edge unlimbered and opened up on the Bengal native cavalry.  The first round of John's artillery crashed into them causing some fearful casualties and it went downhill from there. 

The 3 infantry moved up to the river and found the crossing contested by the 2 units of Sikhs commanded by Dave who had moved his men out of the village to oppose the British. The British took heavy fire as they approached, the pinning them  in place and it was the Sikhs who, making use of their free activation got the better of the firefight and crossed the river with bayonets fixed. They were supported by the Sikh artillery which has finished off the cavalry and were deprived of their own gun whose crew had been cut down by the rampaging Akali's. It was all over in an hour. John and Daves Sikhs had inflicted a heavy defeat on Ross and Alistair's British.

We still had time for another game from the campaign. So the table was swiftly rearranged and this time Alastair and Ross took command of a column of men marching across the table, British on the left under Ross and BNI and BNC on the right under Alistair, sandwiched between the two was their baggage and wounded. Their objective was to get off the table from the opposite end. Facing the, was an equal force of Sikhs. John had Akalis and Cavalry facing Alastair while Dave commanded his two Sikh regulars and an artillery piece against Ross's pleasantly led men. 

The second game was a close contest on the right. Alastairs men were able to see off the Sikhs and indeed were able to begin to sweep the cavalry round onto the opposite flank. General Smiley, aka Ross, wasn't having a good evening. Sikh musketry, bayonets and artillery had whittled away his force on the left and driven the remnant back on the baggage. Confusion reigned. Alastair's men moved through the train to try and stem the attack but it was to no avail and they too were hit hard. Dave seemed to have pleased the dice gods since last weeks poor showing. The Sikhs had won the day again, setting up the last game of the campaign.....a desperate last stand. But that will have to wait.

Figures from Foundry, camels from Empress. Wrong British used....compounding my earlier error I took my 1st Afghan War was stuff out of the box! A couple of topsy turvy games, but good ones😂