Just a short work in progress this week. Above Tony has managed to finish the last dwarves to complete the company from the Hobbit.
Next up Andy has made some more progress on his WW2 Brits.
And last for this week, Eric has painted up an additional four Viking archers on top of last week’s efforts.
That’s it for this week, we’ll be taking a break next Wednesday from the WIP posts with something else but will be back the week after.
This is the first battle report in what will be a long standing campaign to re-fight the Wars of the Roses. Details can be found on the campaign page. Stephen takes us through the first battle.
First Battle of St Albans
Well, our first Wars of the Roses battle in a campaign to re-fight all of the major battles – First St Albans.
Jeremey’s plan is that we set up the historical battlefield, but after that it’s up to each commander. So not a true re-fight so much as just sharing the same battlefield, so keep that in mind. There’s positives and negatives to that approach, like there is to any other way of re-fighting a battle, but that is the approach we agreed on so that’s what we are going with.
I had the Duke of Somerset in charge of my army. Since it was going to essentially be an attack and defend scenario (with me defending St Albans) I decided to use my army points prudently and spent a bit on militia archers (as well as retinue troops) to make the points go further. I decided I would keep them static, behind stakes for a bit of extra protection, and use retinue troops for any aggressive tactics. I also gave myself a Scottish contingent (yes, we know there were none present at the actual battle – read above for our take on this) of a pike block (protecting the central road into the town) and some light cavalry lancers who I put on the left flank to annoy Jeremey. Experience of using both troop types in previous games meant I wasn’t expecting much out of them. I had the men at arms in the middle, with Somerset, and on the right and left flanks, on the edges of the town, were the billmen and archers. I had quite a long frontage to my battleline thanks to bringing some cheaper troop types (the local militia archers) to bulk the army out.
In contrast, Jeremey had a smaller army that he deployed in two lines, meaning that he would struggle against my flanks. He also had lots of commanders! He obviously had low expectations of his army to follow orders. It looked like he had the whole of Burke’s Peerage on the table.
For so many commanders he made a slow and ponderous approach. The front line seemed to consist mainly of his archers. Out on my left flank I sent the Scots lancers charging forward. I still wasn’t sure what I was going to do with them. My initial tactic was just to put them somewhere it would annoy Jeremey and he would have to turn troops to face them just in case.
But it turned out I had them in quite an advantageous position, looking straight on to the flank of some of his archers. I rolled a couple of 6s so made the choice to send them in.
This set the ball rolling. First blood went to Somerset’s army – the Scots routed a unit of archers! At that point I decided they’d already paid for themselves. Mind you, not too far away were a unit of his armoured men at arms and it was obvious what was going to happen. In they went and off the table went some lancers.
Like I say, this set the tone. Because what happened is that Jeremey was having trouble keeping his two battle lines going. In the middle he moved his crossbows forward, looking straight at the pike block. I knew what would happen if I stayed there – a steady rain of missile fire and the pikes gone for nothing. So I decided to push them forward as fast as I could, plonking a 6 activation dice on them whenever I could to give them an extra move unit to get in quickly.
I advanced the retinue archers on my extreme left and right flanks to over lap his army, create some oblique fire lanes to keep him in arc as he approached, and see what casualties I could cause before he got to the town.
Jeremey’s lines got more and more separated. Due to both the Scots lancers, the Scots pike block, and the flanking archers, he was taking casualties and his line was breaking up. He was having to use his best activation dice to keep his line in order, turning this way and that to see off a threat as it came. And all this meant his men at arms and billmen at the back just got left behind.
At this point the only troops I had committed to melee were the lancers and pikes, which I ultimately lost, but it also meant I had not sustained any other casualties. By the end of it I had more or less routed all his archers (I think he had one or two units left, but that was about it), one of his commanders was dead (might have been two?), and many other of his units had taken hits. Apart from the pikes and lancers my army was still intact. The two armies had taken similar number of routed units but Jeremey had many more that had taken casualties and were looking weak.
There then followed a lull in the battle. I moved my flanks a bit further forward, sent some billmen to the right flank to give it a bit of backbone against some advancing men at arms, and moved my men at arms units into the centre where the pikes had been.
Meanwhile, Jeremey was ‘re-dressing’ his ranks (moving them to the rear is what he was doing!), sorting out his lines, and getting that rear rank forward.
The final stage of the battle then got underway.
Jeremey, with army now sorted out, continued his advance on St Albans. There was a push on my right flank as his billmen and men at arms came into conflict with my archers. It went his way. Out on the left things were a bit more static – it seems he still hadn’t fully recovered from the lancers. I moved my archers on the left into arrow range and let rip. He then double timed his infantry to close them into combat as soon as he could. There then followed a surprising victory for my archers.
They were charged by his plate-armoured men at arms, they drew their hatchets and blades and prepared for the inevitable. However, against the odds (and thanks to some demon dice rolling) the archers prevailed and routed the men at arms (who had been weakened due to bow fire).
In the middle Somerset ordered his men at arms forward, down the road, to meet the enemy in combat. That was very much the endgame. My men at arms, fresh and ready for battle, charged into what remained of Jeremey’s archers and billmen, taking them out of the game.
With that, it was the end – Jeremey’s army had reached its rout morale level and it was game over. A victory for Somerset!
Yorkist Loses
6 Units of Longbows (18 points)
1 Unit of Crossbows (3 points)
1 Unit of Welsh Spearmen (3 points)
2 Units of Billmen (8 points)
Total loses 32 points (Army break point 30)
Lancastrian Loses
6 Units of Longbows (18 points)
2 Units of Northern Boarder House (6 points)
1 Unit of Scottish Pikemen (6 points)
Total loses 30 points (Army break point 37)
Lancastrian Victory
Welcome to another Work in Progress Wednesday. Above we start with Tony and his freshly painted Knights of Rivendell.
Tony has also been making some 6mm roads.
Next up Felix has made some good progress on his Polish army.
Eric has been as busy as usual, first up a standard bearer for his Chaos Warriors.
Then we have something Eric calls a Hellbrute.
And finally from Eric something slghtly different with some Viking archers.
See you next Wednesday.
April kicked off with a fairly quiet meeting. Three games were being played.
ALAN put on a WW2 game using the ruleset ‘Nuts!’. The meeting was actually the anniversary of an action involving Germany and Denmark in 1940.
Jeremey and Stephen finally managed to start their Wars of the Roses campaign.
Sword and Spear was the ruleset being used, in this first battle of St Albans with an historical twist seeing the house of Lancaster win the day.
The third game was another opportunity to test a future show game from Pete of Fallujah in 2004 using 20mm miniatures and Force on Force rules.
Don’t forget if you fancy coming to a meeting to see the society in action, check out the diary page and pick a day that interests you the most.
It’s often feast or famine with the members projects and progress. Just a few offerings this week.
Above Eric has finished his Chaos Warriors.
Next up Andy has started a new project with some WW2 Brits.
Felix has continued his impressive run of putting paint on miniatures with some polish lancers.
And last for this week, I’ve finally returned to my balloon project. I’ve added more netting to some ballooons and finished the baskets. Next I have to start the assembly process.
That’s it for this week.
Everyone loves a bit of space opera and so several members jumped at the chance of a game of Full Thrust. Jeremey takes us through the battle of Moon 22.
Rather than have a straight up fight I thought I’d create a scenario to add a bit of flavour. We had two players per side Marcus joined me against Tony and Stephen. As we didn’t have an umpire I created four different scenarios centered around two damaged freighters and the collapsed Moon 22, each scenario had a different objective and each team would draw one at random. The remaining two were not revealed so that neither team could guess what mission the enemy had.
Tony’s fleet were all from Brigade Models, while my fleet was one I’d scratchbuilt. This was in fact their first action. Tony and Stephen’s mission was to get alongside the damaged freighters and then escape with the cargo. The mission facing myself and Marcus was to destroy as many of the enemy fleet as possible while trying not to lose any ships.
At the start of the battle each player ended up splitting up effectively creating four battle groups. Both groups made straight for eachother apart from Tony who kept some ships back and headed for the freighters.
Having exchanged a bit of fire Marcus and Stephen’s ships got very close. We were using the slightly harder vector rules from the Full Thrust Fleet Book 1 which led to a miscalculation for Marcus’ ships where they stopped short and turned their backs to the enemy. In the meantime Stephen also turned some ships round in anticipation the enemy would fly past.
On the other side of the battle I engaged Tony’s ships in a fierce fire fight. I got lucky with the re-rolls on one attack causing significant damage.
Meanwhile Marcus and Stephen were still engaging eachother. Marcus was concentrating on the smaller ships in order to score more points towards the objective but at the expense of leaving Stephen’s bigger ships including their bigger guns.
It became obvious what mission Tony and Stephen had when Tony managed to get some ships close to the freighters. Seeing this I quickly moved some ships in order to get Tony’s ships in line of sight.
I manged to destroy one of the ships but the others began to escape. Marcus had taken quite a beating from Stephens ships and decided to jump out rather than allow his ships to be destroyed.
With Marcus’ fleet leaving I made a run to catch up to Tony’s escaping ships. However I still had two big ships bearing down on me and so left a ship to cover my fleet.
Little did I know how severe the damge to Tony’s ships was, fire from my rear guard ship took out Tony’s flagship.
Tony’s ships were accelerating fast leaving only one chance to stop them. Unfortunately the dice were not with me and I manage to destroy only one of the fleeing ships.
With Tony having got only one of the two ships away and the loses suffered by mine and Marcus’ fleets the game ended in a draw.
It was good to get a game of Full Thrust in and for a chance to use my scratch built fleet. Also the moon used in the battle was an old sponge ball I found and the space mat was actually a table cloth.
It’s Wednesday, and Eric is putting us all to shame again. Above and below we have something new with a couple of Aeronefs.
Next up some Chaos Warriors
And lastly from Eric this week an old Grenadier adventurer miniature.
Next up Stephen has been painting up some 20mm Gladiators for an arena game.
Mark has made a little bit of progress on his ancient greeks
and we end this week with Tony having painted up a new space fleet (that recently fought me to a draw!)
and some rather impressive 6mm sci-fi terrain
See you next week.
A quick round up of last weekend’s games…
First up above we have a game of Sails of Glory. This game uses pre-painted ships that are 1/1000 scale I believe.
There was a FoG game with hundred years war English vs a force of Catalans mercenaries.
Now we move into space with a game of Full Thrust. This saw the players having to complete a mission involving capture or destruction of some ships caught up next to a moon that’s collapsed. One of the fleets used was entirely scratchbuilt.
It seemed to be a day with ships of one sort or another. Other club members were trying out Galley and Galleons rules for a forthcoming campaign set in the Mediterranean in the 15th century using 1/2400 scale ships either metal or 3D printed.
The forces being represented in the campaign are Genoa, Venice, Knights of St John, Ottoman, Barbary States and the Mamluk Sultanate.
It’s Wednesday and we have another collection of things the members have been working on.
Above Marcus has painted up some sci-fi creatures. They are apparently a Northstar Stargrave creature (orange) and Lucid Eye Beyond the Savage Core guard “dogs”.
Next up we have a couple of dwarves. Firstly a dwarven wizard from Stephen.
And another dwarf wizard from Andy.
Andy has also painted up a victorian/steampunk figure.
and yet more 10mm Polish infantry.
Next up Felix has painted some napoleonic polish cavalry.
While Mark has made a start on some 15mm Ancient Greeks.
And last but not least Eric has completed a unit of mounted chaos marauders.
That’s it for this week, see you next wekend.
Peter dives into the si-fi universe of David Drake.
“…And so, Major Kovacs, PRA Intelligence has confirmed that the rebel fanatics have used their mineral wealth to hire what looks like the whole Ariete Division (some 15,000 men) to back their ludicrous independence claims and rescue their faltering defence. It seems likely that they will try to strike at some of the outlying abandoned mine-workings before heading to the coastal plains, in part to get some more income but also to give our troops a ‘bloody nose’ in the hope that it’ll make the govt sue for peace. It is your mission, therefore, to buy some time whilst we organise a major push – and to show those ‘Arietes’ that Paley is not such an easy proposition!”
Saturday 12th March saw another game set in the SF universe of ‘Hammers Slammers’. The scenario this time was taken from the ‘Paley Campaign’, with rebel forces aided later on by the Mercenary ‘Ariete’ Division to try and turn the civil war in their favour.
The game represented a reinforced probe as ‘Ariete’ began their drive in a pincer aimed at the mining settlement of Smiricky VII, defended by elements of the PRA 7th Armoured Regt. Only short-range recce was available, as the PRA had not inconsiderable AA assets… The forces used were as follows:
2x ‘veteran’ armoured detachments, each of 10x TUs (Tactical Units)
Commanders
2x ‘trained’ detachments, each of 15x TUs
1‘Company HQ’ F100 ‘Top-cat’ which allowed for the redistribution of ‘action points’ between the two sub-commands (the other ‘guard’ vehicles and bridgelayer were just for show – this time).
Neither side had any off-table artillery assets (the PRA has an abundance of multiple-launch semi-guided rocket artillery, like WW2 ‘Katyushas’ or MLRS)
The ‘company HQ’, whilst certainly handy, was also an excuse to put some more nice models out. All of the vehicles were (sort-of) scratch built from other ranges – more of which anon. Meanwhile, what happened….?
Unfortunately, the main PRA player (your erstwhile webmaster, as it happens…) had caught COVID just before the game, and so yours truly had to sub. As the task was a fairly static one, however, with a purely reactive defence, it was not too bad. So, after initial briefings and extremely useful reminders of the key rules by JT, the PRA were deployed in hasty defensive positions across a wide general arc covering the four main roads in to the site. The undoubted qualitative advantage of the Mercenary Arietes – command/control as well as equipment – was offset to an extent by the close terrain and the PRA being in defence.
Captain Sime got off to a good start with his tank platoon crashing through the woods astride the NE track, whilst the armoured infantry skirted to come in from the north. Certainly his three tanks had a good view of the defenders – it’s just that it also worked the other way, as he found to his cost when one of the new self-propelled AT guns sent a (very lucky) round crashing through the side of the lead giant ‘King Cougar’, which promptly exploded!
Whilst this unfortunate set-back had more effect on the player’s morale than overall result, it did lead to a more cautious probing and longer-range ‘softening-up’ of defending infantry bunkers, other PRA vehicles etc (especially the SP/AT!), which in the end was more to the Ariete’s advantage. The PRA main weapons only had a decent chance if they could get some side-armour shots, and so were hoping to ‘mix-it’ when the enemy got closer.
As the Ariete gradually eroded the PRA armour, a late probe by the Heavy APCs almost came to grief when they were caught in a close-range cross-fire from one of the multi-barrelled SP/AAA and hidden PRA tank-hunter infantry in the mine buildings. Sadly by this time the PRA was running short of command points due to earlier losses, so could not afford the luxury of using said CP to enhance shooting, aiming etc, and the ambush came to naught. Well, other than generating lots of – fortunately small calibre – return fire from Chris into the buildings, until ‘Ariete HQ’ tactfully reminded him that they were supposed to not blow the bloody doors off the valuable mine workings……
On the NE flank, again the Ariete got off to a less than sparkling start when Lt Treadaway used a fistful of his command points in an attempt to execute a massed ‘Follow me!’ option, which would have seen half his force roll together as one in an unstoppable steel tide….. However, seems the tide was out that day as John failed the key roll and no-one else followed his lead! Not only that, but a probe down the road by a scout vehicle with an APC as backup came to grief when, having blown up some armoured trucks near the mine workings, they were ‘set-upon’ by another crossfire from the PRA tanks and SPs, from which only the infantry inside the APC survived.
As with the other flank, however, gradually the Ariete worked their way forward through the wooded terrain, taking out first the truly terrifying F35 SP/AT, then each of the PRA heavy armour in turn. There were some close shaves during return fire, and the sky was full of – fortunately – light ATGMs, for a while. In the end, the Ariete was simply too powerful and commanders good for the PRA engaged, and as they loss level tipped over the key 50% level, the PRA decided that their delaying mission had been achieved. It must also be said that the Ariete had gained a new respect as well as insight into the mettle of their PRA opponents, and much thought would need to go in to the next encounters.
Part 2 of this article will outline more about the terrain and especially vehicle models, together with all the scratch-building mania which went into this project. Until then, it’s a case of a geeky ‘spot the bits’ competition. Oh, and very big plus points for anyone who IDs the dark brown roads…
My thanks to my fellow MWS members for hosting the game, and both Chris and John for playing.
LINKS:
Hammers Slammers official website: http://www.hammers-slammers.com/
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