The Siege of Lucknow: a Volley and Bayonet game

This week, I joined Jon, Adrian and Alastair to play Adrian's scenario 'take' on the Siege of Lucknow from the Indian Mutiny. The game was played using Adrian's 15mm armies, and his beautiful buildings and terrain. 

The British forces deployed defending the walls

The CinC, and some of the civilians to be protected

The attacking forces advance

The first breach in the walls, and the first assault

An attack against an intact section of the wall

The defenders took serious casualties, and withdrew to the hasty works that formed the second line of defence

The attackers assault the second line

It got ugly

And the inner defences were breached

British casualties were horrendous

Adrian and another group had fought this scenario once before, and it resulted in a British victory. In our case, the attackers (Jon and Alastair) were 'on fire' with their die rolling. The British casualties were horrendous, and we were given one of those 'serious thrashings' All the same, it was a 'bloody good game'.

Towns and rivers: an ACW game

This week's VnB game was an American Civil War game with Murray, fought using my 15mm armies. The scenario creates a battle over strategic river crossings and towns. We allocated victory points to town sectors and crossings. Alternatively driving opposing divisions into exhaustion accumulated victory points.

The Union began in possession of the central town and main river crossing with one division on table, the remainder of their force to enter the table from the right. The Confederate attack came from the left.

The battlefield, the CSA attacking from the left.

The Union army included a regiment of cavalry that deployed on their left with the aim of outflanking the enemy advance and harassing it with fire

The Confederate army also included a cavalry regiment which Murray deployed on his left, with a view to surging forward and ceasing one of the river crossings.

The Union division holding the main town ..

... albeit badly deployed on its right, failing to take advantage of the defensive advantage of the river bank

The Confederates surged forward on their right and captured the town sector objective

A confederate division came forward on its left to support the now dismounted cavalry in holding the river crossing

Half the Union force is massed on their left

The Union cavalry slips past the Confederate right, and turns to threaten the advance

... while their right flank division makes its way through the forested terrain to contest occupation of the river crossing

The Confederates attack the Union centre

Two of the three Union brigades lose their fight and retreat

The Union centre collapses, taking such heavy casualties that it suffers a moral collapse. The Union centre is wide open

Meanwhile the Union cavalry on their left attacks the Confederate right. Murray omitted to respond to the cavalry threat and I couldn't resist the opportunity. It's rare for cavalry to charge home in our ACW games. The CSA brigade passes its morale but loses the melee

The Union left attacks the town sector in a well supported charge

Meanwhile another Union division advances towards the Confederate right centre

.. and the Union right pushes to the edge of the forest and begins a firefight with the CSA left across the river

The CSA right is exposed with the Union cavalry rampant. Murray withdraws and reorients

The CSA attacks across the river on their left, but is repelled

The reoriented CSA right

In a turn of extraordinary luck, in one turn the Union fire eliminates a CSA brigade and forces the left flank division in to exhaustion

Fire from a Union sharpshooter unit causes an additional casualty which tips the CSA right flank division into exhaustion

This was a really interesting game. The early loss of the Union centre seemed to herald the demise of the Union army. The CSA forces were slow to exploit that opportunity before two of their divisions were exhausted in a turn of extraordinary luck for me as Union commander.  A lucky escape for the Union, and an outstanding game.

Peninsular action: a 25mm napoleonic game

Four friends, a collection of 25mm Napoleonic figures, a table, a good rules set, some beers, and sausage rolls. Some of us are easily pleased. It was time to introduce Murray to VnB napoleonics, given that he'd only played ACW games until now. So Adrian, Jon, Murray, and I, got together to play a small simple scenario designed entirely to allow some good old fashioned 'gaming rather than necessarily generating a novel and challenging scenario. It turned out however that there were challenges aplenty.

I dragged out my age old 25mm napoleonic armies, French and Spanish. They were painted 40+ years ago, in the age when black undercoats, washes, and highlights, weren't a thing. As friend Keith pointed out some years ago though, they are an artefact in themselves, and en masse on the table they still look the part.

The Spanish are on the defensive (now there's a surprise) on the right of the photo, already in position, and the French are attacking from the left.

The French forces attacking from the left, the Spanish in position atop a long ridge, anchored by towns at either end. The French attack is massed on their right (the bottom of the photo). I left the beer can in the photo because .. well .. you know

Spanish dragoons

French brigades advance against a thin Spanish line supported by light troops

The Spanish line is attacked, and driven back by fire and assault with the bayonet. One of the French cavalry divisions (Chasseur and Hussar) has advanced to exploit the situation. The Spanish defending division (which included the dragoons)was exhausted, but so too was the smaller of the two French attacking divisions

The Spanish withdraw to shorten their line and adopt a defensive position

The French right pushes around towards the Spanish, but fire along the way brought a second French infantry division almost to the brink of exhaustion

The as yet uncommitted French infantry division in the centre

The French left attacks the Spanish right (top centre of the photo), as the Spanish commander had thinned out his right to reinforce his own left

Some pretty bloody cavalry action on the French left.. a Spanish dragoon regiment counterattacks, and eliminates a French dragoon regiment

The Spanish had performed exceptionally well .. linear based Spanish with a mix of M4 and M5 troops, against M5 French on massed bases, is hard work. 

And what a great 'small game'... an evening well spent.