Turn 9 Results

Turn sequence.

Well that took a while (85 minutes) to work that turn out. And Oh boy it was bloody. Firstly let me say thanks to all the players. I can only imagine how hard it must be to command one of these ships with the information I give you. And I really do appreciate you all playing. Secondly the damage cards have been very harsh the entire game. In the last two turns 3 Jokers (1 red and 2 Black) have been drawn. Considering that with a normal pack of cards (52+ 2 Jokers=54) each shot would/should have less than a 2% chance of being drawn with each hit I think we can all agree that 3 Jokers in 2 turns is unusual to say the least. But from my point of view I can only play the cards that are drawn. And this is what happened.



Ariel View from the step ladder

Spanish Ships on the left hand side of the table.

The General Battle with those two Spanish ships getting closer.

HMS Badger did put his fire out but now it seems to have re-started
Infact he now has 4 fires started.
While HMS Inconsistent has 5 fires raging away.
Makes you wonder what the Spanish are firing!

The British Frigate is rushing to join the action.

SS Pina Colada also has a single fire blazing having taken shot from both port and starboard sides.
And returning fire at HMS Pachyderm as well as HMS Inconsistent.

HMS Agamemnon and HMS Challenge were both either arc of fire or range
so did not manage to shoot this turn.
Next turn however I suspect they will.

Just a reminder of the shoal the British right are
skirting around.

The last two Spanish ships are now well out of the port.



That's the latest update. I will of course contact those that have taken any damage and let them assign any repair parties. Generally speaking this turn was rather messy for all involved and no one did much better than anyone else.

 

Remember those playing I will need their turns in for turn 10 by 9am (GMT) Saturday 6th September 2014. And if any of you want extra photos don't be frightened to ask for them. I will try to get them back to you within 12 hours but please allow 48 hours just in case I am having an off day.

 

Thanks for looking folks and take care Probably update the blog on Tuesday. Have a great weekend and with any luck I'll see you soon. All thew best Clint



Old Guard (VBCW)

As I keep struggling with my wargames doldrums I have managed to motivate the paint monkey into finishing some more "Dad's Army" type figures for Matt.

The Flag is for A Very British Civil War Anglican force. Not sure where Matt got these figures but I suspect that they are from Colonel Bill (AKA Stu) and I also suspect that they are foundry figures but I am not sure on this.




 It is the normal motley crew including figures smoking as well as wearing scarves. They also carry a variety of weapons mostly Rifles and a couple of tommy guns,a Molotov Cocktail,  but also a couple of pistols and a BAR. The guy with the flag also has a walking stick, personally the flag would be enough for me. I might be encumbered with a stick and a flag as well as a pistol.


That's it for today, thanks for looking. And I shall update the PBB tomorrow. So if you are reading this and have yet to send in your turn kindly do so!

I am Not so sure what I shall start next as the afore mentioned doldrums have sapped my enthusiasm so that will be interesting for the both of  us.

OK I am now back to the DIY for today.

All the best folks see you soon,
Cheers Clint

15mm Colonial Sudan game.

The Port where the boat would dock
 and the British could leave the board!

While at Skirmish Tim "Frontline" Wade put on a colonial Sudan game.
The idea of the game was for the British players (Bob and Myself) to rescue the British forces and get them on the boat down river and back to good old blighty! The Mahdi players (Peter and Graham) had vastly different ideas! The British would be under Egyptian officers to begin with (until our own chaps arrived by boat) which game them a command and leadership value of 7. The Mahdi had a leadership of 8 for his officers. To make it more tricky we had no officers at all out in the desert where our forces were so they were not allowed to make their way back to the port UNTIL they had received orders to do so.

To make matters worse these British and Egyptian troops had limited ammunition.

The Egyptians got one chance to fire

Before they got swamped!
The Marhdist troops rolled 15 dice in close combat
The Egyptian rolled 4.
I think you can guess the result.

The relief column hampered by bad command dice
 had not made it far from the town
before the advanced Mahdi forces got close
so they formed square.
These Camalry die very quickly but do stop the
British from moving!

The boat arrives!

Egyptian Cavalry totally chew up one Mahdi unit!
Get a follow through charge.
chew up a second unit and
then badly fail (I rolled 2d6 and got 3) their morale
 and left the board!

Oh dear the Mahdi's troops destroy my thorn bush barricade
and souround the British! Gulp!
 

I dock the boat in the wrong area at first.
My mistake!

I re-docked the boat the following turn where it was not
vulnerable to the newly arrived Mahdi reinforcements.
Like they really needed more!
 

The troops sent out to get the British back get attacked on 3 sides.
And die gloriously for the Queen!
Allowing the Egyptian cavalry to get back into the town.

With now no British to pick up the boat sails.
and Leaves the town to it's fate.

Conclusion:
It was a good day to be a Madhist. I can't really say too much more. Bob and myself were really playing the game and it felt like we had our hands tied behind our backs. Shooting was not effective in any way. Morale and leadership values were too low. The Sudanese got a lot of reinforcements while we got very few. Yes we had a nice boat to play with and I could have taken the naval landing party ashore. But as they has worse stats than the British Army I was reluctant to do that. As I had seen just how fast they could die.

But it was enjoyable and I must say it did look very good. And the enjoyment is the important thing!

Thanks for reading today. I should have some painted figures for the next post.
Take care all and see you soon.
Cheers Clint

Autumn Skirmish

One of the very local shows is "Skirmish" they operate a spring and autumn Skirmish and as one of the local clubs we usually put a game on. More of the game in another post.

 So Let's for a change start with a loot shot. As the show is mostly a toy soldier show as opposed to a wargames show many of the traders are of little or no interest to me at this present time. Also there is a bigger show in a few weeks which I expect to spend more at I was on a plan to spend very little and indeed for less than £12

• Pot of Black Paint
• Pot of "Brown Rose" Paint
• Osprey Conquistadors
• Osprey Aztec Mixtec and Zapotec Armies
• 1 pack of MDF bases.(Very small round ones)
• Jodie the Belt fed girl.

I do have a use for everything but don't ask about the osprey books just yet. There were 2 other Osprey books I was interested in but I did not get them in the morning and by the rime I got another look round later they were both gone. Oh well it was not meant to be. Recently I have been going through the wargames doldrums we all do at times so not a big issue. But finally coming out of it and really got a few ideas for the future!

So here are a few of the games that were there.


A great looking Saga(esqe) game Very nice looking. But I did not get
to see what was going on so much.

Not really sure what this was. But at small
local shows not every club can get things
painted in time.

One of the Original Games clubs.
An Interesting looking game.
 

Not sure where the Mammoth came in the game
but any game with a Mammoth is worth a second look!"

Dave and Paul from Medway wargames Club
put on a war of the worlds game.

One of the original games clubs to get involved with the show.

Paul And Ian from "Krush the Kiaser" were playing out
of period for a change.

But No reason why Rural 20th Century France
should not be used as both WW1 and WW2
Just Build the boards and play the game.

Not sure whom these were (Maybe Ashford)
And I think it was Bolt Action.

The SELWG guys doing a bit of
African Bush wars using "Force on Force" Rules.

David and Larry from Hernebay/Whitstable Wargames club
Again one of the original clubs to support the show
were doing some 1920's Cops and Robbers.
This game did inspire me and more about this game as well at another time!

That's it for today. Thanks for looking and I hope to see you all soon. I will try to post again tomorrow, either a new wargames focus idea or an AAR of our game. Not sure yet.

 

Take care, all the best Clint

Turn 8

Turn Sequence this turn!

Well as you can see by the turn sequence The British moved and fired first. This has had a dramatic effect on the game. Dramatic yes, disastrous no! It has meant that while the Dons shot last a couple of ships were closer and others were out of arc. I will email all ships involved and tell them how their firing went individually as well as any ship that has taken any damage!









View from up the step ladder of Doom!
All the picture below are taken
Top left hand corner to right.

Two Spanish Ships Unicornico has made a slight course change

SS Guano is now on Fire after she EXPLODED!
She then Managed to set HMS Badger on fire when she returned fire.
Milsey was also at extreme range for his marines to fire their flintlocks.
But only ray will know what effect that has had! Rays Marines were not
in Range when he fired! (That is the joy of random turn sequence).
But as you should both be in range now I will expect you to let
me know what they want to target!
 

The Overall Melee!

From the right hand side of the table.
HMS Agamemnon unleashed a broad side at San Francis
HMS Challenge also fired at SS Pinna Colada.
And was fired apon by San Francis.

The Two smaller Spanish Ships have now cleared the estuary
 

HMS Badger and SS Guano in the background with the Spanish ships of
 San Francis and SS Pinna Colada are in the Foreground.
And the British Ship HMS Inconsistent Is just visible on
the edge of the picture. 

Once again there has been an explosion on the ship SS Guano which has resulted in a fire and in Turn HMS Badger also has a fire. That is the only visible damage this turn and they if they choose may send repair parties to put fires out, or indeed to repair any other damage.

AS ever if you need additional pictures feelk free to contact me and I should get them out to you in 48 hours if not quicker(  I aim for 12 but.... well life gets in the way sometimes. ) If you have taken or Repaired any damage you or repaired any damage I will send out emails to you later this day.

Kindly remember folks I will need your turns in by 9am (GMT) Saturday the 27th September 2014. And If you could very kindly put an indication of what ship or person you are in the title it will make it easier for me. As I type this I can see Lee and Ray chuckling as I type this and tryin g to think of ways to confuse me. That's not a hard task by the way!

Cheers Folks. I am off to a local very small show tomorrow so expect a show report on Monday or Tuesday. So until then take care aim straight and keep your powder dry. And remember anything but a One!

Reject Civil War

I woke up Sunday morning feeling lethargic, I did not want to put a game on. But I had arranged one with the Rejects and this time rather than Postie being the referee, I would! Anyway I had written the rules the day before and had very little sleep so I would look and feel my best.

The View from my Position at the door way.

What follows is not so much an AAR I will leave that to Big Lee and Ray and I am sure they will do a superb job, Much better than I will.

El Postie (Fascist Leader)'s Armoured car under artillery fire.

Customary Picture of Postie in Action,
While Ray leans on the table.

Posties Armoured Car again survive the barrage.

The last few moves of the game.

What follows is not so much an AAR I will leave that to Big Lee and Ray and I am sure they will do a superb job, Much better than I will.

Here's the Situation:

Second Battle of the Corunna Road. January 1937

The Battle of Madrid in November 1936 had been fought to a standstill, with the Nationalists under Franco failing to take the city. They then started to besiege it, aiming to cut its links to the rest of Spain. Franco decided to attack the city from the north-west in order to cut off water and electricity supplies from the Sierra de Guadarrama and encircle the city. After a failed offensive in November, the Nationalists summoned a force of 17,000 men, led by General Orgaz, with four mobile brigades (led by Garcia Escamez, Barron, Saenz de Buruaga and Monasterio), backed by heavy artillery and Ju-52 bombers. The Republican army had a few battalions led by Luis Barceló.

Towards the end of December, Orgaz received reinforcements and decided to relaunch the offensive on 3 January. This offensive became known as the Battle of the Fog. The Republican high command redeployed their units in the Pozuelo-Brunete sector. The Republicans had an army corps led by Miaja with five divisions (led by Nino Nanetti, Modesto, Colonels Perea, Adolfo Prada and Galan) but had little ammunition or supplies.

The Nationalists' offensive started with a heavy artillery bombardment on the 14 December and Franco's troops occupied the town of Boadilla del Monte. Now In January a second big push is underway.

We will only tackle a very small part of the battle as the whole battle was really quite large and lasted over 1 month.

Now I must say that while each side (Republican and Nationalists) each had a main objective that was Unknown to the other players. And just to make it interesting every player had an individual secondary or even tertiary objective that was only known to them. This would mean that according to Ray "Not only do I need to worry about the other side of the table but these two git as well" Indicating both Lee and John. Yes and it was the same for them as well.

It is worth noting that some BUT NOT all the secondary objectives were conflicting with other players, but not nessercarily those of the opposition.

I won't Go into too much more details but when the game ended some elements of both sides were convinced that they had won and others that they had lost. I really needed a clearer ending to the game however life and war is not always like that.

Victory Points

1st Surgit (Nationalist)  Managed to achieve both primary and secondary objectives.

2nd Smiffy (Nationalists/Anarchists) Managed to achieve Primary Objective

=3rd John (Republican/Poum Militia) Failed the Primary objective but managed his secondary and tertiary objectives.
=3rd Lee (Republican) Failed in the Primary Objective but also managed in his Secondary and tertiary objectives

5th Postie (Nationalist/ Guardia Assulto) Marginally succeeded in the Primary objective. But completely failed in his secondary objectives and lost additional Victory points for using his heavy artillery.

6th Ray (Republican) Failed in Both Primary and secondary objectives and also lost additional Victory points for calling for tank support which never actually arrived!

So Technically a Nationalist win. Although Ray was up against it from the start.

The Real winner was me though because it was a good day despite me not being in the mood and I learnt a lot that should the opportunity allow for another game I will be able to implement.

SO CHEERS GUYS I APPRECIATE YOUR HELP

Thanks for taking the time and effort of reading today. Take care of yourself (and those around you) and with a little luck some more in a few days.

Cheers Clint