Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Battle of Polkfurt

a review:

I started with the envelopes set up, Jeff got to roll 1/2 of the arrival turn and I rolled the other half and the 'spot' for arrival 1-6.

Sadly Jeff rolled rather high, to his advantage I rolled well for the arrival locations (save for one). Allowing him to have troops at least on the flank of the moving wagons and in two cases, ahead of them!

Special notes for the mappe:
The northern steep hill was considered 'Nasty' terrain (with only 1/2 die" or d3" for cavalry and 1" for infantry artillery not allowed during 'game' proceedures as moving arty on this hill would mean taking it apart first!).
The woods areas are all 'separating' terrain with d3" less for the formed troops moving and 1" less for the skirmishers and irregulars, with all moves being diced for by company (stand).
The #5 zone forest is permitted to have artillery pass through it so long as it is moving 'behind' infantry (either in column or line).

The Norden forces were arrayed with the horse and dragoons well out in front of the infantry, with a large contingent on the road with orders to rush ahead and secure the south road area. The cavalry seemed to have orders to reach the fort first at all costs.

The convoy was moving ahead of average for the first five turns, all things looking well, other than the column of infantry on the road was rushing off out of command range, the Commander; Brigadier Dagfinn Ulf Nilsson then ordered that the covering infantry start the march along with the moving supply column. Sadly he was very far out of command range for his other infantry column, now well ahead on the south road.

Moments later, the Troopers of Brigadier Ernst von Bruin arrived, well positioned on both the north and south flanks of the convoy. The mornings orders of just attack were all now tossed aside by von Bruin whom did his usual aggressive thing and converted them to assault orders! He was personally close to the von Kodiak Kuirassiers and they were at once launched into an attack on the northern cover columns of the Snow Leopards!

Meanwhile in the forest, south of the fork in the road, the Rheinfelden Grenzers had begun to deploy. Quickly and quietly without drum or horn.

We used a chalk board, with the outline of the forest on it as the 'secret' deploy area, allowing the player to know very well how close his troops were to exiting the woods and still keeping that information secret from his opponent as the chalkboard table was hidden from easy view behind our turn control board.

By turn seven the situation for the North forces was desperate, though they were still confident. No wagons had yet been destroyed, but the Infantry Commander, Brigadier Dagfinn Ulf Nilsson was completely out of contact with all of his soldiers as he was racing east to stop the infantry columns of the Artic Foxes leaving the others behind to the west and hoping that they could fend off the two forces of cavalry then pressing in on the wagon train from both flanks. While the Snow Leopards did well against the head-strong von Bruin forcing the von Kodiak Kuirassiers into a foolish charge that fell short of their target and left the horses badly winded and vulnerable while they closed home, blown.

On the south flank the Edelbrau Dragoons reformed into column and attacked the rear of the convoy while the commander's Skirmishers kept the Ice Wolves and artillery from interfering with their operations.

Now was when the Rheinfelden Grenzers broke free from the south woods, appearing in very large numbers between the two infantry formation groups to the east and west. Nothing lay between them and the fork in the road which the convoy was going to have to move through...

The rear of the convoy was disrupted by the charge of the Edelbrau Dragoons. Mule teams scattered at their approach and the wagons were upset along with most of the drovers being put to the sword by the massed troopers.

Gen Otto Fasjovik, in the city of Polkfurt, took in the scene from the postern gatehouse. Only 2/3rds of the supplies remained and fully 3/4rs of them must reach his position lest the city fall back into the hands of Saxe-Bearstein. He chose to send off messengers to command the horse back to the road fork and do battle against the advancing Bearstieners.

Meanwhile on the south road, Brigadier Dagfinn Ulf Nilsson had stopped the Artic Foxes only just in time as another infantry battalion of Bearstieners appeared in the south, to the east of the woods and was now firing on the flank of teh Artic Foxes. They turned to face this new threat and attempted to return fire...only a scattering of them managed to hit their mark.


Left behind to guard the convoy, the Snow Leopards now took a charge from the re-formed Edelbrau Dragoons now in line and pressing on the back of the supply train. The Snow Leopards could not accept this charge into their extended line flank, the lost many men, then broke and ran.




By turn 8 the Norden Cavalry had turned around, but they were desperately far from where they were needed! The situation with the convoy was desperate, yet no troops were in range to be of any help!

The coup-de-grace came from the north, along the tall ridgeline the Heineken Hussars now appeared! While it would be hard for them to reach the convoy, their appearance meant that the covering Norden cavalry could not stop the approaching Rheinfelden Grenzers, nor do anything to stop the von Kodiak Kuirassiers from their looting operations of the second wagon in the convoy after chasing away the drovers!

There was still a long-shot chance that the badly mauled Snow Leopards, whom had rallied, could stop the advancing Edelbrau Dragoons. They did not and were swept from the field. Their attempt at a stand though did stiffen the resolve of the rearmost (now) wagon team and they halted the Edelbrau Dragoons, if only for a short time...



Turn 11 and endgame came with the North Cavalry chasing away the Heineken Hussars, this left the Rheinfelden Grenzers unmolested to begin a wild looting of the remaining waggons while the Edelbrau Dragoons hacked up the last mule teams. There would be no respite for the holders of Polkfurt, and the Duchy of the North would have to surrender the city much, much sooner than expeted with many conditions most likely.

Gen Otto Fasjovik had already quit the city and was last seen rushing north away from the city.


Other game notes:

I liked the 'orders' interpretations and limitation details that Jeff has put into his rules. He may not have like the fact that one of his infantry battalions was fored to march into musket fire by these rules, but that was the intent...to make players do things according to some kind of historical norm (like following orders) with some unexpected results.

I also started using a new 'timer' I have recently purchased...partly to keep my children focussed on time related tasks (and me too!) and partly for use at the game table. It as lights and sound elements, can be fully programmed (to the second) for each timer section and I found it to be very helpful in keeping the players focussed on the table (something that can get 'out of hand' quite quickly) whenever 'movement' was to be done. We only used it to keep the movement turns - MOVING. During the other turn parts we did not use it and I found that 3 mins per brigade was plenty of time.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Polkfurt Mappe



For the Wagon Train Teaser today, the map has been finished for use by the players.

I include a copy here so that the readers can understand the coming descriptions of the game play.

Cheers

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Wagon Train

A table top teaser, from 1978 comes to life again!
Steve's Wargaming site holds many of these games, we will be doing Wagon Train.

This time with a new set of rules by Bluebear Jeff, Tricorne Wars.

So far the troop lists are ready and I have laid out the battlefield, for the examination of the players (and anyone interested).


Here we see the view from the fortifications looking west...hoping that the supplies can make it to the defenders in time.


Then the same field, from the view looking east towards those battlements.



Then a view of the much needed supplies (I managed to 'cobble' together enough materials to look like a supply train...or some such thing).

I have some surprises for the players and I will reveal all in my postings after the game.

Thursday, August 09, 2007

Sneaking ships in on the side.

I did the base coating layer for the troops (ran out of grey floqil) needed in the LATIVM CVP, and the wood elves. I found some time today and crammed in finishing the hull cleaning for the 11 medium and 10 small ships.

Next up will be starting the painting, then while the paint drys I can work on the masts for all those ships...


Still have plenty to finish in time for some eBay sales this year also.


Oh and not to mention (eek I mentioned them!) the finishing job needed on the fantasy minis from last year(?).

Back to the brushes...

Monday, August 06, 2007

Cleaning, preparation, calendar, OOPS!

I was going to do some more work on the ships, then the calendar was checked and I remembered that I need one more army for the coming LATIVM CVP, DBA Tournament that I sponsor every 2 years.

The Italian Hill Tribes is the army that I needed to replace (as I give away a painted army to the tourney winner each time).

So the boats have to wait yet again.

I also decided to toss in a 15mm fantasy army that needed painting - much of the metal I have 'floating about' needs to get painted. Something that I had resolved this year was to paint more of the 'old metal' I have than I get of the 'new metal'.

So far I have definately done this.


The fantasy army is from the Warmaster line, a 10mm-12mm scale really, but the 'stick' of 6 men in a line is exactly 40mm wide, something called for in the DBA rules for 15mm figs. When I discovered this about the Warmaster stuff I started watching for sales of them. Then a store nearby (about 4 years ago) decided to get out of all their GW 'extra' lines, only keeping 40K. This put the minis on sale at 50%-80% off (by then end it as 80% and that was when I really loaded up with whole boxes of them and extra blisters of the 'uber cool' fantasy stuff). So here will be a wood elf army (I know that the halberdiers are actually empire, but so what? At this scale most players cannot tell which way they are supposed to be facing let alone what the minis are of...)!

Sunday, August 05, 2007

Fleets for sail next.

I have some 1/900 scale fighting ships of the line that I am going to start working on. The masts will all be removable and I am working on a way to make the rigging removable as well (so that battle damage is handled -on the model- rather than on paper). The magnets and fender washers will all take part in this action.

I am also working on a system to make the "Wooden Ships & Iron Men" system functional on the tabletop, again without needing extra tracking sheets, by using beads and posts I intend to make tabletop game pieces that take care of all the information tracking.

I also need to finish painting on the last of some fantasy (well fantasy'ish') medaeval characters so that the painting table spaces are cleared up before the end of summer and my very busy eBay season.

SO MUCH TO PAINT!
SO LITTLE TIME!

Cheers
FULL THRUST = Full Speed Painting!

I had scheduled a summer tabletop game of FULL THRUST so that my son and I could get better acquainted with the rules. Up until wednesday I did not have the ships ready. I now have 3 Omegas, 3 Novas, 3 Narn G'Quans, 3 Minbari frigates, 12 Whitestars, 12 Starfury fighters, 12 Minbari fighters, 9 Delta Pirate fighters, 4 cargo ships, 2 Imperial Shuttles adn 5 TIE fighters. All done in 2 days since I was away at a conference on saturday, leaving at 3 am and getting back at 2 am today (sunday).

Of course my son wanted another player to be in the game, sadly he could only be there long enough to get started, then had to go. This took my son down a notch, then we started another game, he learned that mom was going out to a show and wanted to do that more.

So I ended up finishing the game alone, so that I could at least sort out the rules for myself.

FULL THRUST is a great little set of rules once you get them sorted out. The realistic vector movement is a bit difficult if you have not used such a thing before.




The forces in the second battle were 2 Narn Crusiers (we were using the basic ships SSD's from the main rulebook) vs 3 Omega Destroyers and 2 Whitestars as Corvettes.

The Narns had a simple plan advance with vector 4 in direction 2, change nothing and pound all comers.

The Omegas were established as a leading formation, while the whitestars dashed far off to the left flank to hit the Narn Cruiser on the left first, hopefully taking less casualties from the combined firepower of the two Cruisers.

Things went well until the Narns got a lucky long range shot in and damaged one Omega, this reduce the firepower of the attack, the Whitestars then got close enough for #2 or 'B' batteries to fire, but not close enough to fire their own #1 or 'C' batteries, this caused one whitestar to be damaged without getting a shot back.

Finally the Omegas got round the back of the Narns, unfortunately another whitestar was blown to bits by then, and the damaged Omega had withdrawn from battle rather than risk another close encounter with the Narns.

The Narns lost one Cruiser to concentrated fire from the Omegas, then one Omega drifted too far and into the flank fire from the right side Narn, *POP* goes the Omega! Leaving the Narns the masters of the battlefield as the slightly damaged remaining Cruiser was going to get a 'free shot' at the last Omega as it drifted past the Narn into forward point-blank fire into the rear!

Friday, August 03, 2007

Just Because I really thought this was FUNNY!

FUNNY!

Sometimes I wonder...could it all be real?