The other view of the Somme

All of my previous reading on the Somme (1916) has been totally Anglo-centric. I had read accounts of the British advances against German trenches, the fruitless 'battering' of those German lines with row upon row of British bodies, the allied successes in the south etc. This reading had shaped my entire perception of battles on the western front between 1914 and 1917.

And then I read "The German Army on the Somme, 1914-1916" written by Jack Sheldon. The book (published by Pen and Sword Publishing, 2005, ISBN 978 1 84415 513 2) gives an account of the gargantuan battles of the western front on the Somme from the German perspective, drawing from German unit and personal diaries. The insights that I gained from this book have been profound. The paradigm within which I think about those mammoth battles has been changed forever...

This was not some sort of battle in which fresh German troops emerged unscathed from deep dugouts to mow down row upon row of pristine British infantry. This was a battle of materiel in which human beings of all three nationalities were caught up. All suffered the inhumanity of battle, the inhumanity of man to man.

My enduring image is now not only that of British troops suffering in no-man's land, but also of German troops suffering under the often described British and French 'drum fire', artillery barrages of such intensity that men shivered in fear for day after day. I have wanted to type a quote from the book to show what I mean (despite the publisher's concerns about such activities.. such quotes could do nothing but promote the book to all serious students of the first world war), but I have struggled to decide which to type. I chose the following, knowing that in itself it cannot do justice to the book, nor to the experiences of the men whose words are printed there.

"After dawn, the artillery fire increased, peaking at about 8.00a.m. Enemy airmen flew low over us, machine-gunning the position and giving their hooter signals. One entrance to the dugout was crushed. The artillery fire continued relentlessly, high explosive being mixed with shrapnel fired by the flanking batteries. casualties were already considerable..... At about 1.00p.m. the second entrance to the dug out as crushed, so, for a time, I was cut off from the company. We worked with all our strength to open the entrance and succeeded."

And from another entry dated 12 December:

"The regiment has now been in the line without relief since 26th November. because of the adverse weather all types of colds, chills and gastro-intestinal illnesses have appeared. Despite every effort to improve the lot of the troops, it has proved impossible to counter these illnesses, or to prevent them from spreading. The freezing wet and cold weather, wet dugouts, work in flooded trenches with a mud a metre deep, extremely strenuous carrying duties to transport rations and trench stores......."

and so they go on.

These words from Professor Richard Holmes in thbe forward to the book:

"Jack Sheldon observes that the Allies did not succeed in breaking through on the Somme, nor did they destroy the morale of the German army. But he agrees that it was never the same afterwards, and quotes a Bavarian general who acknowledged that: "The monster of the modern overwhelming machine of war gobbled up our finest men". But in a sense to talk of victory and defeat is to miss the point. as this book makes so very clear. the Somme was a supreme test of human qualities, and the soldiers on both sides displayed them more abundantly than their political leaders deserved, or those who were not there could ever really recognise."

This is the other view of the Somme.

HotT Carnage.. and it certainly was!!!

It was Christchurch's first.. HotT tournament that is, and 8 layers gathered (it was meant to be 10, but 2 were unavoidable detained..). The tournament followed the Berkeley format, with 5 rounds of play during the day. The players and armies fighting it out for the 'Emperor Dragon' trophy were:

* Simon, Dwarves
* Nick, Mountain Indians
* Mark, Lost Worlds
* Kevin, Cavemen
* Gordon, Zulus
* Basil, Mediaeval
* Andre, Republican Indian
* Stan, Wood elf

These two photos from the day: some of the guys at play....



And the Lost Worlds army messing around with some Indians...



The games were exciting, many of them close calls, and the Gods were as fickle as you'd expect, coming and going as they saw fit. Notable for their absence were Dragons.. none to be seen in any army lists (no wonder they didn't appear on the table!!).

The overall winner of the tournament, and so holder of the "Emperor Dragon" trophy, was Basil (club president.. no connection there.. truly!!). The best concept army was won by Gordon with his Zulus (a close one, as Gordon vied with Kevin and his wonderful Cavemen for the prize).

Special mention of Simon who, despite only 3 games before the day, managed to finish first equal on tournament points. He lost to Basil on casualty count back. Well done Simon.

Kevin managed the record for the greatest casualty count in army points.. a hard general, but totally in character with his Caveman army theme. Kevin had also played very few games before the day.

Many thanks to the guys who played... as you'd expect the games were played with a great sense of sportsmanship - what else would you expect with great guys and a few games of HotT. Plenty of mayhem and fantasy worlds murder: HotT Carnage - it certainly was.

Finally thanks to the Christchurch Wargames Club for supporting the event.

You can find a lot more photos of the event here

Indians discover Lost World .. and destroy it!!!

The Indian Emperor's forces discovered a strange Lost World deep in the jungles. What would you do? Attack them of course.

And so it was, in an epic clash that saw a strange ape god (the subject of long lost Indian myth) lead never before seen dinosaur creatures and savage tribes people against Indian elephants and bowmen. The Lost Worlds tribes people invoked their God's presence early in the battle, and he swept down on the Indian flank supported by an oddly screeching flying pterosaur.

However. despite early successes destroying Indian riders, the Indian Hero general took the fight to these savage people and, supported by a behemoth elephant intent on squishing tribes people between his large toes, managed to destroy the very heart of this oddly assorted opposition.

The Lost Worlds right flank, composed of beasts and behemoth, never managed to make contact with the Indian tiger beasts that opposed them, and frantic attempts by the Lost Worlds shaman to cast strange and lurid spells on the Indian hero were to no avail.

Our evening had seen two games played, the first saw the Lost Worlds army decimate the Indians before their God had even deigned to make an appearance, but this second game was a different story.

Squishing spiders....

At last, the Spider army is finished.. a piece of inspiration really.. it needed a God, and who else but .... Spider man himself. So here he is in all his glory.. well, maybe not... as we shall see. Their first full game was against my son's Indian army... complete with beasts (those nice looking tigers), and lurkers (take a look at the amazing snakes further down the page.

The spider army composition for this game was:

* God (Spider man himself)
* A hero general (large spider)
* Another hero to keep him company (a second large spider.. hey. it's lonely work being a hero)
* Two lurkers
* Ten spider Hordes

It all started off well.. a good solid body of spider hordes in the centre, right flank protected by some woods with lurkers ... and the two heroes on the left flank.

Turn 2 the pip die rolled 6 and, guess what.. Spider man appeared. You can see him in the photos, on the left flank, ready to act in support with the two heroes. So the manouvring started.

Unfortunately that's as far as it got. Turn three, the pip die rolled.. ta da!!! .... a 1, and off he went again. It was really downhill from there. I tried to get stuck in, but lost both lurkers (Nick put his own two lurkers into the woods .... spiders versus snakes.. if you'd told me 10 years ago I'd be playing a game with that combination I'd never have believed you!!). I simultaneously tried to manouvre against the Indian left (beasts and behemoth) with the two heroes while pinning these from the front with the hordes, only to have my hero general ensorcelled by the Indian magician. It was just one of those nights.

To cap matters off the beasts and the behemoth managed to destroy more hordes than I could bring back, and that was the game. And by the way, this is not the easiest army to use when you are slightly arachnophobic....he! he!

The Indian behemoth went crazy, .. squishing spiders.. nothing more to say really.. but a great game filled with plenty of wonderful dramatic moments.

Slide show AAR of a classic HotT game, and a BBDBA

My good friend Nick Grant sent me the link to this ANIMOTO slide show of a recent HotT battlebetween his fantasy EIR army and my own Lost Worlds army (commanded by wiley player Mark O)

The game was one of a series of games played at our first HotT games day 'A Hott Winter's Day' played in July.

Nick also sent me links to two shows that relate the two halves of a Big Battle DBA game: Early Imperial Romans (with Numidian allies) versus Gauls.
All of the figures were painted by Nick himself. I have to confess to commanding the Gallic right and got a little carried away with the chariots: for some reason I thought I could play the Numidian allies at their own game.. silly boy!!

The first half.
The second half.

Nice stuff, thanks Nick

'ere we go again... more HotT stuff

I was in Melbourne recently attending a conference, and my wife and I scheduled a litttle additional RnR time.. during which of course shopping was in order. Now it was, quite honestly, pure coincidence that we stumbled upon 'Mindgames' in Swanston Street.. no, truly, just an accident,.. hey, really, nothing was planned... anyway..

Browsing as we are want to do, my wife spotted a bag of.... Zombies....they had completely slipped under my radar... must be getting old... but, sure enough.. 100 20mm plastic Zombies... She asked.."Are these any use?" Now seriously, what could I say? 100 Zombies for only $16Aus... really.. silly question.

Oh, no.. irresistible...... I could see HotT Zombie Hordes .. shambling slowly but irresistibly across the table top.. I had similar visions when i spotted those little spiders a few months ago...

Now I have already seen where that lead....and I could see much the same again.. but this time not a new army, rather a variation on a theme.. Zombie Hordes for the Undead to play alongside.. I do need to be careful though. I am trying to make each of the HotT armies fundamentally different from the others,. so they each play differently on the table. I already have a Horde army.... careful, Robin.

The only downside is that the figures are ALL identical.. only one pose...hardly shambling.

'ere we go, 'ere we go ' ere we go.. again.

Volley and Bayonet goodness...

I'm like a 'Pig in S--t" as my Mother used to say.. I received my copy of the second edition of Frank Chadwick's "Volley and Bayonet: Road to Glory" rules. I have played with the play-test version of these for a number of years now, and they quickly became my all time favourite rules set (and that after 40 years of gaming, and I don't know how many rules sets).

The rules set allows gaming from 1700 to 1900, (with minor rules variations for each sub period) and plays so elegantly and subtly... they have given me viable 'gaming access to many sub periods of this era that I had longed to play for most of my gaming career. The rules I had previously found were (for me) always cumbersome, awkward or.. well, they just never suited me. Now that's not an atack on the other rules sets, they just never suited me: Volley and bayonet does.

There are some subtle yet significant changes in the second edition, but unlike some other rules systems, we have not seen a wholesale re-write of the system. The rules have a comforting familiarity that leaves me feeling secure after 9 years of using the earlier edition. As a 'gamer I like that.

The rules come with a scenario generation system that looks rather cool.. i might write more once I've actually used them.

In the meantime, I'm looking forward to a lot of Napoleonic games (my 25mm French, Spanish and British need some exercise)... more Volley and Bayonet goodness...