Renaissance Ottomans...

Things have been pretty quiet on the hobby front recently, with work pressures taking their toll. I've managed a few Friday games with Keith and the gang, but there's been all too little time to post on the blog. There's been some painting going on, and with the most recent bases completed today I realised I'd managed to make good progress on the current project - a DBR Ottoman army. I  bought the figures quite a few years ago, and painted up a DBA army, with plenty of figures left over. I'd promised myself for all that time (at least 10 years) that I'd complete the DBR army at some stage. So here's the progress so far (not including the bases that I'd painted up for the DBA army.

So far, 7 bases of Feudal Sipahis, 6 bases of Janissary archers, and 2 artillery (s).

How do you complete any and all such 'gaming army projects? One base at a time.

Pirates vs Undead? Seems realistic enough, surely ...

In our evening of HotT gaming, Andy and I now pulled out two different armies. For me, the Pirates, for Andy, his Undead. 

The Pirate army:

1 x Airboat

5 x Warband

1 x Hero general

1 x shooter

1 x drunken horde

1 x God

Deployment, the Pirate airboat out on the right flank, warbands and behemoth in the centre, the horde out on the left supported by the shooter

The lines clash, the behemoth pushing its opponent back

Just love the behemoth..

Two pirate warband died right there

However two more warband make a breakthrough against Andy's Grim Reaper blade, and make a deadline for the Undead magician

The warband attack the Magician, with the Airboat swooping in in support

... and are unceremoniously repelled

They go in again ..

.. and this time the magician is eliminated

The Undead had now lost their general and more elements than the pirates...  but what a great game.

Martian invaders .. a new HotT army is revealed

Our first HotT games in a while, and Andy brings along a new army - Martians. The figures are strictly 15mm, but .. hey.. maybe it';s just that Martians are shorter beings than the humans. We decide to pitch my Weird World War 2 Soviet army against them. 
The Soviets are:

1 x God (artillery)

1 x Aerial Hero 

1 x Flyer (Yak fighter)

2 x Horde

5 x Shooters (SMG troops)

I can't recall Andy's composition, but it included a behemoth in the form of a 'tripod' al la HG Wells, and a Hero.

Deployment, with the Soviets (nearest the camera) defending

The Martian invaders, Andy mistakenly deploys the behemoth behind a shooter base locking it in place

The Martian Hero

Soviet Hordes

The Aerial Hero swoops in behind the Martians

And destroys a Marian Shooter base

The two Soviet Horde bases had been s\destroyed, but are redeployed.. there's Hordes of the Things

The Aerial Hero attacks the Martian line from the rear 

Hero vs Hero...

They draw, with an odd number, and so both heroes (generals in both cases too) destroy each other

It's getting messy in there

The Soviet troops are getting chewed up.. Da, Tovarishch, but the Martian behemoth loses a combat, with no room to recoil

The Soviet God finally appears

Finally the Martian army defeats the Soviets.. description is a little thin as we played the game over a week ago, and the memory 'ain't what it used to be'... but what a battle..

Action around Mallwischken

We don't get to play Great War Spearhead games very often. This week was an exception, with four of us coming together to fight the historical scenario 'Action around Mallwischken' from the 'All fine men' scenario book published by Shawn Taylor and Robert Dunlop.

The battlefield at the beginning, Germans attacking from the right, Russians defending from the centre road left

The German plan of attack, with the main effort on the German right, here we thought we saw the weakest area of defence. Not the regiment kept in reserve off table in the centre, so that it could be committed in support of either flank. See also the length of the attack arrows.. more comment on that at the end of the report

The German right flank regiments sweep across the open ground hoping to take advantage of the relatively open Russian left

Russian defenders entrenched in the centre on the high ground

Russian defenders occupying the village of Uszballen

The Russian centre

The advancing German infantry took fire as they advanced, required to move at full speed because they had no spotted enemy

Similarly on the German left. This fire was to prove decisive, causing heavy casualties

The intensity of the fire fight that developed in the German right can be seen here, with fire identified with markers

The regiment on the German left, only intended as a blocking force, had advanced too far, taken serious casualties and attempted to withdraw back into the woods.

Troops in Uszballen taking fire

Russian defenders in the centre took a fierce volume of fire, with one company eliminated and another suppressed, but this was not enough

Uszballen still holding, despite the volume of fire

The German right is also taking serious casualties. Their supporting artillery is now in action .. surely this will help

Uszballen is now taking heavy small arms and direct artillery fire but .. nope.. still holding, and no casualties

And the defenders in the centre are also now taking artillery fire but they still hold

The German left survives a morale test and pulls back to avoid further casualties

A regiment of the German supporting artillery on the right is now also taking casualties from direct fire

Fire continues to pour down on the defenders in the centre.. nope..

The 3rd German regiment is nearing critical casualties

The Russian defenders are now sufficiently confident that they advance from their entrenchments to counter attack the Germans

And they advance to counterattack the blocking regiment on the German left

However at this stage, the 3rd German regiment is forced to take two consecutive morale checks (it's casualties took it past the 50% and 66% marks all in the one turn), passes the first but fails the second. 

While the German reserve had been committed to shore up the left/centre, the attack had clearly run out of puff. Withdrawal is the only option.

So, clearly Keith and I (commanding the Germans) had forgotten how to 'attack' in GWSH. I have to take the responsibility for that, having drawn our attack arrows too long, too far. This drove the attacking regiments onto the Russian defences, and the casualties were basically catastrophic. I know that I was cursed with poor die trolling with the attack on the right, but that is hardly a 'get out of jail' excuse. The attack was poorly planned.

But what a great game. We had forgotten that the simpler range of weapons systems inWW1 games means that games play faster than their WW2 and Modern equivalents. The game was played with my 6mm forces, all modelled using figures and guns from the Irregular Miniatures range.