Tuesday, November 27, 2007

BATTLE OF UBERGANG

Played out on November 26/27 at Bluebear's New Gaming room!

The Duchy of the North faced off the bureaucratic and uffich Burtzenians.

The battle was a Table Top Teaser, number 3 this time.

Jeff had the table all laid out very well with a pair of hills, a river and a series of roads.

From one wooded defile came the Duchy of the North, the other disgorged Burtzenians.

I commanded the, mostly, white coated Burtzenian forces. Their primary job was to take and hold the bridge over the river. Upon arrival a great opportunity for victory presented itself, for if the town could be taken from the Nordeners, then the main body would be able to crush their advancing forces.

The early battle was one of maneuver, I chose to hold off the Nordeners with some cavalry, sadly the better force was only able to arrive in small numbers. At least the recruits did well, when they charged a smaller force (after taking two 'cracks' at it) of dragoons, they managed to shatter them completely, the follow-up carried them into a force of infantry which had strayed too close (actually their aggresive commander had 'interpreted' his advance orders into an all out assault!) These infantry were very nearly cut to ribbons, but the recruits were unable to maintain their devastating charge, due mostly to 'desertions' in the pursuit (lame excuses about lame horses while busily looting the dead and wounded).

After this clash came a small lull, only punctuated by my skirmishers getting in a few licks at the enemy artillery and still arriving infantry.

The last stage was dominated by artillery, for while my lone medium battery had only 7 shots, and missed with the first 4, the last shot was a killer - taking out the entier cossack formation that was not in a charge mood, yet willing to get to point blank (thus cannister) range on the guns!


I was unable to get any re-enforcement to capitolize on these gains though and by the end of the battle, taking some time to re-form and re-organize their ranks the Norden Duchy troops tried one last advance, only to get pummelled back to their starting point by one very tough gang of veterans.

Result: a draw.

Ultimately a good first run for Jeff's new game space and I look forward to sharing with him some more.


For everyone else: here are a couple of shots of Jeff's troops now on display in his new cases.

8 comments:

Fitz-Badger said...

nice
Getting me inspired to have a go when I get a few more troops painted.

Bluebear Jeff said...

Fitz,

This scenario is really not very troop intensive. Each side had:

3 Btn of Infantry
1 Coy of Skirmishers
2 Cav units (1 hvy, 1 lt)
1 artillery piece

Because of the nature of the rules we use, I gave each side a second gun and a slightly larger skirmish unit . . . but you wouldn't have to.

So, depending upon the size of your units, this is quite doable.


-- Jeff

marinergrim said...

Good game good game (as someone once said).

Steve-the-Wargamer said...

..nice write up - scenes of utter carnage in the little picture half way down!! :o)

Bluebear Jeff said...

Steve,

Both Murdock and Pete have their troops based on stands with tiny neodymium ("rare earth") magnets.

When casualties are taken, they remove figures and "litter the battlefield with them to show where the fighting was hardest.


-- Jeff

Snickering Corpses said...

One of the interesting things about the way you guys use movement bases and leave casualties where they lie is the "marching over the corpses" effect. It always strikes me when I see that.

MurdocK said...

Yes Snickering Corpses,

At first I was careful to not have the men march on them like that, but after I did it in haste one game I discovered that it did not damage the minis and gives that macabre sense that at least some soldiers must have encountered on these battlefields.

Stepping over or fighting amongst the dead and wounded on the same ground.

Once the battle is over it is abundantly clear where the hottest part of the field was that day!

rpardo said...

A good fight! However the 3rd teaser is designed mainly for face-to-face so it is not very suitable for a solo gamer like me. Now I want to use the 'Programmed Scenarios' book of CS Grant
Regards
Rafa