Category: Periods

Action off Horns Reef – 17th August 1915

The British force breaks off at the end of the action

The society is refighting all of the naval actions of WW1 as a long running campaign, initially focussing on British Home Waters in 1914-1915.

Scenario 10 covered a night action off the Danish Coast on 17th August 1915.

Ships used are 1/3000 Navwar, with the Princess Margaret and the Light Vessel scratch built, all from Mark’s collection.  Rules are Mark’s computer moderated rules written in Visual Basic 6.

British forces were heading in to the Heligoland Bight to lay a large minefield aimed at catching German vessels coming in and out of their ports.  The large Minelayer, Princess Margaret, was escorted by seven modern ‘M’ class destroyers of the 10th Flotilla.  The sun had recently set and the British force was using the light from the Danish Horns Reef Light Vessel to get a position fix before heading in to lay the mines.  These were commanded by Mark as umpire.

Co-incidentally five large German destroyers of the 2nd Torpedoboots-Flottille had been on a search mission to the north that day and were heading back to port, also using the light vessel to get a fix before their final run in.  This force was commanded by Jon.

Horns Reef Light Vessel

The British force was silhouetted against the afterglow of the sun and so at 8.13pm the German force was able to sight and close on the British unseen.  At 8.22 the British spotted the shapes of ships in the murk and after some hesitation about their identity, the closest Division of British destroyers opened fire.  A short fight at about 5000 yards ensued with the British getting off a couple of torpedoes.  Apart from a near miss on the British destroyer Miranda, no hits were made and whilst the British torpedoes crossed the German line they both missed.

The British had turned away and with the remaining light having gone, the two sides lost sight of each other.  The players now plotted their next actions on a map.

The British decided to attempt to resume their course for minelaying and at 20.40 the two sides blundered back into contact.  As there was no moon and the Princess Margaret reacted slowly to the new contact, the two sides found themselves very quickly at close range.  The British 1st Division raced forward to shield the Princess Margaret, with both sides opening fire as they closed to just 600 yards and the German commander ordered a flotilla torpedo attack.

The close range clash – torpedo markers show the salvos fired and Minos has a marker showing she cannot turn to starboard due to a heavy port list

In a few minutes of mayhem the British destroyer Minos and then the German B 109 sank as a result of shell hits.  The British were extremely lucky to avoid 16 well-directed German torpedoes which crossed the tracks of 6 ships including the Princess Margaret.

Moorsom and Miranda shield the Princess Margaret

The Mentor and Moorsom were also badly damaged and reduced in speed and the German G 103 stopped by a shell in her engine rooms.  She was able to repair her damaged steam line and get back underway at reduced speed after the action to limp home.

B 98 leads the German Flotilla

The British again broke off and this time headed west for their covering force.  The German boats gobbled up the lagging Mentor and sank her with gunfire, then also stumbled across the crippled Moorsom as they steered south for home, again finishing her with a couple of salvos.

The British destroyers had succeeded in saving the heavily loaded minelayer they were there to screen, but had paid a high price, with 3 of their destroyers sunk, for only 1 German boat lost.

In the real action the Germans used the light advantage to close, then fired 3 torpedoes, before the British saw them.  One of these hit and blew the bow off the destroyer Mentor.  The Germans and British then immediately broke off, leaving the Mentor alone.  Once shored up, she managed an epic journey to limp all the way home.

In all campaign games German losses count double, to reflect the fact that they were less able to absorb losses and to reflect their more cautious use of their ships.

Nevertheless this game was a German tactical victory as the tonnage of British ships lost was more than double that of German ships lost – 2805 tons to 1352 tons, a net score of 101 points for Jon as German commander and a loss of the same for Mark as British/Umpire.  This leaves the league table as follows:

Mark H +87196
Andy K +13060
Mike P +11339
Alan O +350
Mark W +307
Alex M +121
Colin C 0
Brian S 0
Dean L 0
David S 0
Ian F 0
Brandt 0
Andrew (visitor) 0
John Le -428
Jon R -1155
Barry -3995
Trevor P -9538
Craig D -14481
Steve T -30235
Bob C -52540

 

Chain of Command – and no Chain of Command

 

We had two games running at our last meeting.
The first was 15mm refight of the opening clash of the American Civil War, the First Battle of Bull Run. The second was a 25mm action using Chain of Command.
In the first game Andy and Jon led the Federal Army against Steve and Mark with the combined Confederate Armies of Beauregard and Johnston.
This used Steve’s 15mm figures and was a third playtest for his home grown, Brigade level rules.  One of the features of this action was the fairly chaotic command arrangements of the newly raised, largely volunteer armies, which arrived over the course of the action.  This means that units from the same command were set up to appear at different points on the battlefield, meaning that many brigades were hard to co-ordinate as they were out of their command radius.

We managed to reverse history with this one with the Federals seizing the high ground and seeing off all of the Confederate attempts to get it back.  Steve’s rules make for an enjoyable and fast paced game and after a few tweaks to fine tune things are ready for another outing!

In our second game fast forward to 1944 and Dave and Pete led their American paratroopers (with some help from an attached Sherman tank)against a position defended by German paratroopers under Alan and John.  Figures and terrain from Alan’s 25mm collection.  Alas the Sherman support was to no avail – picked off in an ambush by a Panzer killer team armed with Panzerschreck and Panzerfaust anti-tank weapons.  These rules can be the source of some nasty surprise if your opponents save up command points to deploy ambushes!

 

Extended Slamming

Tony F reports on one of the two mega-games that the club put on at the August bank holiday weekend meeting.

Last weekend the club ran an extended meeting – nine hours of gaming, from 10am to 7pm. To take advantage of this there were two extra large games – a Napoleonic 15mm game set in the days just before Waterloo, and a nine-player Hammer’s Slammers clash. A report on the former will be with us soon, and here’s a brief-ish rundown of events in the latter game.

This game took place on a 15 foot long table covering a border zone between the territories of the Stewarts and the Hirosekis on the planet of Kalan (mentioned briefly in the essay Backdrop to Chaos in volume one of The Complete Hammer’s Slammers). Each of the nine players commanded a combat detachment, and each side also had an air defence detachment as a shared asset.

View along the table from the Stewart end.

The Hirosekis fielded three detachments (one each of Heavy Mechanised, Planetary Warfare and Mechanised Infantry) stiffened by two Lightning Division detachments (Armoured and Infantry), with air defence provided by a Foster’s Mercenaries calliope detachment. The Stewarts’ first line of defence was provided by a detachment of Stewart Borderers – this is a unit I made up specifically for the game, comprising mostly infantry with some anti-tank guns and fixed defences. They’re very much unofficial, the detachment sheet has no points values, but feel free to use them in your own games if you wish. The defenders also had two Stewart Highland detachments and a supporting Harris Commando Armoured detachment, all in off-table barracks – these came on 1dAv turns after the first shot was fired. Air defence came from a troop of United Defence Calliopes (and boy, did they earn their fee…).

The clash would provide an interesting comparison between the Hirosekis, a Commissar force with average quality troops but commanded by officers with high leadership ratings, and the fanatic Stewart Highlanders who were rated as elite, but whose officers left much to be desired. In game terms this meant that the Hirosekis had lots of leadership points with which to order their troops around, but the troops in action couldn’t hit a barn door (from inside the barn…). On the other hand, the Stewarts were excellent quality troops but the poor leadership values of their officers meant surrendering the initiative and having very few leadership points – it took a long time to get the Highland Detachments into position once they entered the table.

Lightning Division APCs on the road

The objective was a TV transitter aerial, which the Hirosekis needed in order to broadcast propaganda to the Scots. The Stewarts had been told that they needed to hold on as long as possible so that reinforcements who were currently on the way could reach the battlefield.

The battle raged for almost seven hours – the Hirosekis opened proceedings by advancing their heavy armour down their right flank with the Lightning Division’s heavy blowers charging down the main arterial road, accompanied by mortars and MLRS. The Borderers, a territorial unit, clung on desperately as the Japanese advanced with their anti-tank guns having little impact. Their morale rose when the first of the Highland detachments came on table, as the Hirosekis finally had someone else to shoot at !

As mentioned, it took a long time for the Highlanders to get into position because of a dire shortage of leadership points. Once their tanks and anti-tank guns managed to deploy they started to chip away at the Hiroseki and Lightning Division heavies which had begun to advance at speed (the Lightning Division blowers performing a rarely-seen Thunder Run manouevre down the main road). But the Stewarts only had four tanks between them, and once they started to be knocked out they were reliant on the towed anti-tank guns, which had to be deployed in the open to counter the Soheis. The two APC mounted heavy mortars were very handy, one of them knocking out three enemy tanks on its own.

The much-awaited reinforcements that the Scots were clinging on for finally appeared – but in the rear of the Hirosekis ! Colonel Clark, commander of Clark’s Commandos, had on his own initiative diverted his landing shuttle to an open plain behind the Hiroseki forces and sent a high-speed detachment straight into the Japanese soft underbelly. The force of light armoured cars tore into the mix of artillery, command and air defence vehicles, routing Foster’s unit almost immediately and destroying virtually all of the Hiroseki artillery. The Japanese recovered their poise quickly however, and Clark’s Commandos pretty much disappeared in hail of powerguns and lasers.

Refusing to be distracted by the clamour behind them, the remaining Hiroseki tanks made a desperate dash for the transmitter mast; one Sohei and a Shaman got there, only to be mauled by a fusilade from the remaining Stewart anti-tank guns. The Lightning Division blowers charged down the road and attempted to reach the mast that way. The leading tank was knocked out, but the following vehicle pushed it aside and the defenders had simply run out of ways to stop it.

After seven hours hard fighting, we gave the Hirosekis a minor victory for reaching the mast; more than half of their heavy tanks had gone, including that of their CO, Major Tredaiwa. The Lightning Division tanks had also taken a battering, while Foster’s Mercenaries had disappeared altogether. On the other side of the table, only one of the Stewart detachments was in any sort of shape; the other Highland detachment and the Borderers were one TU away from breaking, and the Harris Commando unit had lost most of their infantry.

We’d like to thank John Treadaway, Kevin Dallimore and Peter Merritt of the South London Warlords for coming down and helping us put the game on – John provided the Hirosekis, one of the Stewart detachments and Clark’s Commandos plus a fair chunk of the scenery. The rest of the forces and scenery were painted by me. All of the figures and vehicles are from Brigade Models apart from Clark’s Commandos, which are from Darkest Star.

Photos by Andy King, John Treadaway and me.

Slammer Update #1

Tony F shows off some of the new models he’s putting together for next weekend’s extended meeting

If you’ve missed the previous updates, we’ve extended the hours for our August bank holiday weekend meeting, with the club open until 7pm. To take advantage of this, two members are putting on extra-large games catering for lots of players.

My offering is a 15mm science-fiction game set in the Hammer’s Slammers universe of US author David Drake. With around 10-12 players expected to take part we’ll need lots of forces to go round, so I’ve been working away on some new mercenary detachments. The first to be finished is this unit of Foster’s Mercenaries, a specialist air-defence and artillery outfit. They are equipped with huge multi-wheeled Centurion transport vehicles – some are command or transport vehicles, the others armed with howitzers or rapid-firing calliopes. The detachment also has an organic infantry element for local defence.

The vehicles and infantry are all from Brigade Models and you can read a bit more about them on the BM blog, including details on construction and painting. Even better, this is another task knocked off my To-do list for the year 🙂

Sci-Fi Gubbins

Stephen has been tinkering again…

Here’s some sci fi scatter terrain I put together for a recent game. A lot of the parts came from the bits box or shops like Poundland – so it can be very cheap to put together terrain pieces.

As we all know, extraplanetary deserts are well known for having jettisoned escape pods buried in them. And this one’s no different. The escape pod is a Revell 1/144 Apollo Command Module kit. It was mounted on an old CD and then filler was slapped on.

And if alien deserts are known for their escape pods they are just as well known for their enigmatic dinosaur skeletons.

I bought this about a year or so ago in The Works. They had several different dinosaur skeletons, in clear plastic tubes, for about £2 each. So I bought one of each, just in case. This was actually more hassle to put together than it looks like it should be. The trick is filling the rib cage. I used expanded polystyrene bits where the ribs would be (which would also keep the weight down) and then slathered it in filler before pushing the skeleton into it.

The next piece is a generic bit of industrial waste. The wheels and the cement mixer tumbler were from Poundland kids toys. The grey container thing is actually an empty stapler cartridge from an office printer/photocopier.

This bunker/shack/whatever is another bit from a Poundland toy. It’s actually the scoop from a toy tipper truck turned upside down and then bits of plasticard and other odds and ends stuck on.

The fun at Poundland doesn’t stop! I can’t take credit for this one – I stole the idea from someone else on a forum somewhere. It’s a pair of toy guns, the handles cut off and covered with plasticard. The end of the barrel is also cut off and used to make some kind of exhaust vent. Then given a slap of paint.

Yup, finally, more Poundland! A toy truck, tyres removed, and given a new paint-job and rusted up as a derelict.

Extended Hours – part 2, Hammer Time

As previously mentioned, we’ve arranged for a longer than usual meeting on the bank holiday weekend, and two members are taking the opportunity to put on extra large games. The first of these is Dave B’ Napoleonic game from the Waterloo campaign.

Far removed from the mud and blood of Belgium, Tony Francis is hosting a large game based on Hammer’s Slammers, taken from American author David Drake’s series of stories. We should be joined by John Treadaway, co-author of the Hammer’s Slammers: The Crucible rules, so there will be no excuse for getting the rules wrong ! This game will also be staged in 15mm on a 12′ (possibly bigger, if we can find enough scenery to fill it) table. The game is set on the mining planet of Kalan, with conflict breaking out between the Japanese of Hiroseke and the Scots of Stewart – each side supported and supplemented by as many mercenaries as they can afford.

Extended Hours – part 1, Boney’s Final Days

The club’s next scheduled date on August 11th is unavailable due to hall refurbishment, so there is no meeting that day – we can all enjoy the summer sunshine instead.

However, as recompense we’ve arranged extended hours for the following meeting on the 25th – the club will be open until 7pm rather than the usual 5pm.

Two members have taken the opportunity to put on large games that day – in the first, Dave Bates will be running The Battle of Ligney, a 15mm Napoleonic what-if scenario set during the Hundred Days (or Waterloo) campaign.

The game concerns the battle of June 16th 1815, principally Napoleon attacking the Prussian army who were deployed along the Ligney, a small but marshy stream crossed by four bridges. As we know, Wellington was not involved as he had been busy with a banquet in Brussels. However, in this game we bring in the 2nd Anglo Allied Corps under The Prince of Orange from Quatre Bras. Napoleon’s staff failed to get orders to Marshal Ney – who had been at Quatre Bras –  until much later.

The game is Black Powder supplemented by play tested house rules, and will be able to accommodate up to 6 players.

Sniper in Ghillie Suit

In his third painting update, Andy goes undercover

I’ve had this figure knocking around the paint box for years, so decided it was time to paint him up. If memory serves he was a Eureka Miniatures figure sold by Ground Zero Games in the UK, but I don’t think they are still available.

He (she?) is wearing a Ghillie Suit, but that won’t help much given the somewhat upright pose, I’d have though being prone would be safer.

The figure was undercoated black and painted with a variety of brown and green patches, with a final drybrush to pick out the foliage strands of the Ghillie suit using the same shade of green as used for the base.

Wargames Illustrated Druid

Andy goes all mystical in his second painting report

This figure was free when taking out a WI subscription at shows this year and will likely appear in some Dragon Rampant games.

He’s a little taller than most of my dark Ages figures, but that makes him more imposing!

His overcoat is modelled as if made up of various patches sewn together, so I used Vallejo German Camouflage Dark Brown as the base, with a variety of other browns for the various patches. His under tunic and sleeves were painted a mid-grey and washed with a blue wash.

I used a mix of Medium Flesh Tone and Pale Sand for his skin, as I wanted a pale complexion.

His staff was painted Beige Brown and then washed with Army Painter Dark tone.

1809 – Clash of Cavalry – 6mm

This game was a clash between the French Confederation Army of Germany Reserve Cavalry Corps (2 division of cuirassiers and 2 of light cavalry) and the Reserve Cavalry Corps of the Austro-Hungarian Hauptarmee (one division of cuirassiers and two of mixed medium/light cavalry), set in 1809.   The orders of battle were historical for early May 1809.
This was a two player game fought to test out some changes to the cavalry part of the house rules for Army scale combat at yesterdays meeting.
The day ended with the Austrian Corps forced to retire in the last move, although inflicting a halt on their opponents as they did so – preventing a pursuit.
The figures are all 1/300 Heroics and Ros – ideal for large scale actions of this type. Around 1,000 figures representing about 25,000 real cavalrymen were used.
Our house rules use brigade bases for manoeuvre, with combats fought out at battalion/squadron level, designed for actions of corps/army size using several thousand figures – but capable of being completed in a single day of gaming.  The combat phase rolls up the combat outcome into a single dice roll representing the outcome of both firing and melee.  The focus in the game is on command and control and effective use of reserves.