Seven Years War Russians on parade

Having watched lots of soldiers on parade at Royal Wedding thought my Seven Years War Russians should do same especially as I am in midst of prettying up bases, from basic plain green flock, in preparation for a game this coming Bank Holiday Monday.
Going to try Die Fighting rules again in conflict with Stephens Frederickian ubermensch....................


The whole bunch (well couple of Cossack units missing)
14 Line Infantry Battalions, 2 Observation Corps, 4 Grenadiers, 6 Gun Batteries, 3 Hussar Regiments, 4 Cuirassier, 2 Horse Grenadiers, 1 Dragoon and a bunch of Command figures.
Mostly Old Glory with couple units of Essex and Minifigs.

Guns, Grenadiers, Cuirassier and Hussars (note the mounted and gun bases are finished the foot not)

Line Infantry in summer and standard garb and Horse Grenadiers

Horse Grenadiers

Cuirassier

Hussars and Cuirassier

Commanders and Grenadiers

Observation Corps and Dragoons to the fore

Royal Wedding & celebration

Caught snippets of this today (many thanks to them both for the extra Public Holiday !) and wish them both much happiness. Hard not to feel pride at being British on a day like this.


To celebrate I ended up buying Piquet Les Grognads 2nd Edition online !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DBMM Galatians an exercise in frustration

Played a Dbmm game today at Stephens using my Galatians (with borrowed Seleucid ally) against Stephen's Han Chinese. Both looking to try armies for up coming Celtic Cup competition here in Belfast. Boy oh boy are the Galatians frustrating to use against a Regular army that simply moves out of the way of the slow unwieldy warband blocks. Knew that from previous games of course but one always expects more of these wild barbarian types ! Any juicy Han targets simply melted away from the warband advance and they faced LhS mostly. One block that tried to maneuver on my left soon went impetuous (the dread 1 roll) and ended up charging piece meal up a difficult hill and being mauled by PsO. Meanwhile the Galatian Cavalry and Chariots had usual fearsome task of trying to hold up a flank and where overwhelmed by Han Cavalry Light Horse and lots of Auxilia and Bowmen. Only up side for Celts was their CiC managing to kill oppossing Lh ally General  (although it took two goes with a rear attack advantage !). Did kill two of my favoured Artillery enemies but only after losing two warband to 6:1s in melee !! Seleucid contingent was held to slow advance on my right by a group of two Han cavalry only getting into action in last couple of turns and too late to affect outcome. Really like the potential of Galatians (and one of my better painted armies) but suspect that pretty frustrating to use in competition except against a narrow spectrum of opponents. Fine for 'friendlies' or themed competitions not so for open style.
Hmm..............what to use.......................list to be in by 7th May so need to decide soon........................

Lots of crappy iPhone pics

The struggle on Celt left gets nasty

Warband dispersed and heading to doom on hill

Han deployment prior to big sweep to right

Celt left out flanked and out numbered

Seleucids form up

Han bowmen run away

Warband group cohesion being lost

Main warband command advances into target poor environment

Han deployment

Massed warband at startline

Celt left at deployment

Seleucids crawl forward slowed by enemy cavalry

More SYW Russian units completed

Just finished another four 15mm Russian Seven Years War units, 2 using Old Glory figures (Viatski Regt) and 2 Essex (Observation Corps) with couple of Lancashire Games command figures. Hoping to use these soon with either Die Fighting, Field Of Battle or Might & Reason all fine sets of rules. I also have Piquet Cartouche 2nd Edition bought at Warfare last November which I haven't used yet.....................mind you these figures had been lanquishing unpainted for over 7 years !!

Viatski to fore Obs Corps behind (as always click for larger image)

Prussians with Die Fighting

Played first game with Die Fighting rules (by Bob Jones of Piquet fame) using my new Prussians against Stephen's French. A very interesting and fun set of rules with lots of nice features and subtle rules. Game was played at essentially the same level as our Lasalle or Field Of Battle games (ie sort of grand tactical). I fielded 15 units, totaling an initial 176 dice against French 13 units with 180 dice but after rating units and commanders I ended with 158 dice versus Stephen's 175. As it was a 'learn the rules' game we hadn't put much (ie any) thought into a scenario and simply threw out some terrain and set up opposite each other and went at it. Main lesson is that DF is big on resource management (ie your dice pool which is used for all actions/reactions casualties, morale etc)  and a 'advance with all units everywhere' approach is very costly in resources. Once shooting starts the drainage of resources greatly increases as both firer and 'defender' roll opposing dice. Nice feature of game is that its not purely base resource dice that are used (a max of 2 on any 'action') as these are supplemented by Free Dice (awarded for different tactical situations/options) and Leadership dice which are allocated to commanders ranging from 1 - 5 (these dice are able to be allocated to actions but only replenished on appropriate phase). The phasing or turn sequence is another innovative system with lots of different options available. We used a variable system (and utilized the 6 phase cards that come with game) but with my CiC being Inept (oh yes indeed) I had to randomly select my cards whereas the French CiC being Fabian (a type not a surname !) was able to select his which was at times a distinct advantage especially when reloading or replenishing command dice was key. All in all we were both very impressed with the rules and are both keen to give them another outing maybe with our SYW toys next time which using a different period template should play somewhat differently as its the Linear warfare period.

Prussian Landwehr with average Cmdr (3 Leader dice) and the Inept Cic (1 dice !) he also slowed all advances to maximum of 1 resource dice and with only 1 dice versus the 5 of Fabian opponent always surrendered initiative each phase, I would have been better shooting him !!

Landwehr and Cavalry skirt a town (terrain is very slow to traverse by formed troops in DF)

Prussian left with massed Cuirassier and Line Infantry facing occupied hill (just for a change !)

French left flank basking in sunlight (Napoleonic period specific 'template' visible on left and rulebook on right)

French center with average Cmdr (3 dice) and Fabian Cic (5 dice) deploy

Cuirassier disordered by French artillery (higgly piggly formation) as Horse Artillery advances

Prussian deployment

Holiday reading...................

These two newly published Ancient/Medieval period rule sets arrived this week and I have a couple of days off so hope to get into meat of them both, but with a game of Die Fighting (using my Prussians) arranged and my brother visiting from England it maybe more of a snippet by snippet approach............................

Plug for a mate

A long time compadre of mine (David Herron) is fairly well on with an online WWII rule set (based on Battle! rules) he has been working on which we play tested several weeks ago (check the WWII links) so I thought I would give his site a plug as he has just amended its site address :

http://wargame.djherron.com/Intel.php

Well worth a look see even if you dont like Daves rules as plenty of data thereon

Its a disease I tell ya !!! more rules.....................................

Succumbed to yet another shiny new rule set and yet another Ancients set (Hail Caesar also inbound !!) with a yet another pre-order tonight.
Just when I think I will be able to read never mind bloody play all these various rule sets (never mind other periods) is a question of little importance for my tiny mind !!!!

Lasalle Prussian first outing..........................

Played Lasalle game last night versus mate Stephen.
Great game as Lasalle is easy to pick up and highly playable.
He selected a Guard Division as core and this meant every single unit was Valiant making them tough hombres indeed. I managed to be attacker. On turn 2 he rolled for arrival of his Reserve Cavalry needing to roll under 3 (had +1 bonus for Cmdr) and rolled double 1s (first time I have heard him cheer such rolling !!). This forced my Reserve infantry to adopt square and the tough Guard Cavalry had a merry old time breaking 2 squares an artillery unit and riding down my Fusileers (caught in line). My own reserve arrived on my right and on first charge broke a French square (my 6 dice rolled 2 hits his 8 dice only one so double therefore decisive win) however bounced off next two deployed squares. I was hoping for quick game end as a non decisive win counts as loss for Guard force but no game was extended by three turns and I failed my 2nd Army Morale Check losing the game. Lots of quality cavalry made for a torrid time for Infantry and we did feel that 3 broken squares (2 of which were undamaged prior to melee) seemed a tad odd. I was actually surprised by the lack of musketry in the game. But great fun with a very playable and decisive set of rules that we managed a full 19 turns with (only my 2nd ever game) and a clear result not something a lot of Napoleonic rules I have witnessed achieving. The French Guard selection in the Army Builder lists is a tough opponent as the +2 dice for better Esprit often occurs. The fairly average Prussians need a good deal of luck against such quality. Looking forward to next outing for my new minions..........................................


Prussian Reserve Infantry on left flank

The Prussian center

Landwehr on right

French Artillery line the hills

Young Guard Infantry on reverse slope (bit of learning from Mr Wellington ?)

French center

Turn 2 (!!!) and the Guard Reserve Cavalry arrives

Prussian Reserve Cuirassier arrive several turns later

Lasalle Prussians on parade

The finished army posing.












The Infantry Brigade

The whole kit and caboodle