Minden with Field of Battle 3 at Ulster Wargames Society

UWS meeting today and I was umpiring a game portraying Battle of Minden (using another Might and Reason scenario as basis). 

Troops were provided by Dave Smylie and I done terrain and rules stuff.

We ended up with 3 French and 2 Allied players and it turned out to be an excellent game with lots of incident and action and much elation or frustration being vented by players.

French have numbers but a lesser deck and lesser troop and commander quality overall, although they have several crack units and lots of cavalry to counter some guard level Allied units and more numerous artillery.

At set up Allies looked rather thin on ground but once things got going their superior deck and C in C quality started to show.

Billy on Allied left suffered a bit of a set back initially when a Hanoverian unit was destroyed defending a line of entrenchments and it looked as if Allied left could be turned, however whilst tying to Rally some units the French commander (ie D.Smylie) was rendered hors de combat after attempting a daring deed (aids Rally roll at increased risk to leader) and this stalled the French.

This same leader having been bandaged up and re-horsed proceeded to fall of his horse once again as did his supporting cavalry commander so the French completely thwarted on their right.

However Billy managed to 'un-horse' his own leader on this wing also !

Allied cavalry performed generally poorly on the Allied left with several units bouncing off their French counterparts and another command failing to move twice even when on flank of enemy.

However on French left their own massed cavalry (under D.Brown) also under-performed failing to obey orders and then being hit hard by Allied firepower whilst their foot fought manfully against some guard Allied foot (under D. Taylor).

On Allied right the British command under Sackville was slow to deploy as we simulated his 'truculence/hissy fit' on day by making him roll 2 command dice and use lowest roll.

In centre of field French (under J.Dowd) defended Minden and this saw a fairly even battle with Allies.

A couple of large initiative swings saw Allies gain a large advantage putting a lot of hurt of French units across the battlefield with several being routed or destroyed in place.

This saw French morale plummet and they were soon 'gifting' morale to Allies

They did survive first Army Morale test and this saw them hurl their cavalry into several desperate charges but only managed to destroy a single Allied gun battery.

A lull won French turned up another Army Morale card which they failed this time and quit the field.

Great stuff and hopefully the players enjoyed the game as much as I did watching it unfold.

Slightly fuzzy view of field of Minden from Allied left wing

Initial clash on Allied left

French defending Minden as their cavalry mass on their left

Allied lines advance

French just about to turn Allied left wing as commander falls (black marker) disordering whole command.

Overview about mid point of game with Allied cavalry having being repulsed in foreground

Also at club were two other games.

Mike and Simon had a 15mm WW2 game using Combat HQ rules, late war Germans versus Russians (?) but I only had time to briefly look in so no idea as to how this turned out.

I took several pics but only these turned out (barely) viewable,

I do covet Mikes battle mat and that Normandy church. 

Another WW2 game this time in 20mm run by Phil with Jeremy, Leslie and George playing out action at Son bridge during Market Garden.

This was another excellent looking game by Phil with some impressive allied Dakotas and Horsa Gliders and nice terrain.

Again I had little time to see how this progressed but think it ended as a draw. 

Inevitably with current events in Ukraine there was some discussions of same.

Personally I am not that surprised that it has come to this tragic outcome and the fact is that this is not really a 'new' war more a massive escalation of an ongoing conflict which seems such a shock to many. 

The 'West' appears weak/soft at present time and frankly Ukraine has kind of been left hanging since 2014 invasion so Mr Putin has decided to play his military card.

One can but hope that this is a short-lived conflagration but signs are not good.