Tag: AAR

Scuffle In The Hedgerows

It’s been a while since Kieran and I played a Crossfire game, but last weekend we managed to get one in – it was great getting back to playing an old favourite. We opted for a simple ad-hoc game which we very loosely based around Normandy and some of the existing Crossfire Scenarios (most specifically “Scottish Corridor” from Hit the Dirt).

Escoville, 7 June 1944, near Caen: The initial British landings have been very successful and although Caen has not yet been taken the British have a bridgehead on the east side of the Orne River & Caen Canal, north of the city, it’s most advanced point near the aforementioned village. Here the 52nd Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire Light Infantry have moved forward to occupy the area to relieve & support the 12th & 13th Battalions, The Parachute Regiment, who have been holding the adjacent areas since the morning of the 6 June… Continue reading “Scuffle In The Hedgerows”

Fire & Sword Battle 06: The Gardner’s Jammed & The Yorks Vanquished

As described in Fire & Sword Turn 04: February 1884 Sir Henry’s column continued South towards Dongola, and at the 3rd Cataract is met by the first supply steamer to have made it beyond the 2nd Cataract. It resupplies his column and brings welcome reinforcements in the form of the 2nd Company, 19th Yorkshire Regiment (who are also wearing the freshly issued and newly designed Grey Serge Uniforms intended for the expedition), as well as the 1st MG Section, The Naval Brigade (operating Gardner Guns). The reinforced column is soon in Kerma and quickly continues on to Dongola, conscious of the possibility of European hostages or prisoners being held there. As it finally approaches the town Sir Henry is surprised with a sudden onslaught by the defending Dervish forces!

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Fire & Sword Battle 05: Because We’re ‘ere Yuzbashi! Nobody Else. Just Us.

Akhtar Pasha had just spent the last few weeks trekking along the caravan trail from Suakin to Berber. When he left Suakin the Eastern Sudan was quiet and unchanged despite the violent rebellion raging in Northern & Southern Sudan – however things had now changed, the Eastern Sudan had erupted into rebellion behind him and he was now deep in enemy territory, with a column of troops in need of water and supplies, and lacking any mounted force for reconnaissance or foraging! Akhtar’s plan was to march rapidly on Berber, this was the closest reasonable sized town that was both likely to have plentiful stocks of supplies, and be fortifiable once occupied – but it was also small enough that hopefully it would not have a strong Mahdist rebel presence, and they would not have heavily fortified the place thereby making access impractical. Around the middle of February Akhtar Pasha’s force arrived at Berber, and prepared to assault the town…

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Fire & Sword Battle 04: Sally at Abu Hamed

As referred to in Revolt in the Sudan Turn 03: January 1884, at Abu Hamed Sayed Bey decides to sally forth from the town and endeavour to temporarily break the siege. While Abu Hamed is now plentifully supplied with resources (it has over 6 months of supplies on hand) Sayed Bey determines to take the opportunity to procure more, and while he has a relatively fresh & strong force available to hopefully inflict a defeat on the local Mahdist forces. Unbeknown to Sayed Bey, he sallies forth only two days after Sir Henry’s victory over the Dervish force at Baqah al-Garbiyyah Oasis, intent on breaking the siege of Abu Hamed…

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Dominant Hill: The Black Brunswickers Baptism

Recently I finally got my Brunswick Corps close to completion (well barring the grass for the bases, and the 3 Brigade Commander figures) and Cam and I were overdue for another larger game akin to The Crossroads (that we had played several months ago) – so it seemed a good excuse to give them their baptism as an entire corps. This time we went a fraction smaller than that game, but a little larger than a standard Lasalle AB List Game, with the forces selected using an updated version of Cam’s Lasalle Points System originally posted on the AWC Website. The purpose was to try a game with about a reinforced Division (e.g. an Infantry Division with Cavalry Brigade in support) a side, test out the points amendments (especially regarding on-table cavalry), and play a scenario from Charles Stewart Grant’s Table Top Teasers or Scenario Books. This is what happened about three weeks ago…

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The Vaagso Raid: A Crossfire Game

Operation Archery, the Raid on Vaagso Island in Norway on 27 December 1941, involved over 500 British Commandos, Sappers, and Norwegians with the intent to take pressure off the Russians and to protect Allied convoys heading to Murmansk – and it’s an excellent action for modelling in Crossfire – check out the excellent recent game played at the Nunawading Wargames Association in Melbourne, Australia, on the Small Sagas blog (which includes the entire town made from “Paper Terrain” buildings).

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Lasalle at NapCon 2011 Report

A scene from Day 1 of NapCon 2011
A scene from Day 1 of NapCon 2011

While I was unable to attend NapCon several other New Zealand Lasalle players did – and one of them (Lintman) has provided some great photos of the event on his blog – Two large multi-player games were staged, Day 1 saw a loose recreation of Waterloo, and Day 2 a refight of Vitoria. Check out more great Lasalle stuff at Lintman’s Blog, especially his magnificent Calpe Miniatures Prussians…

Lasalle: The Trouble With Tribbles

The Battle For the flux de Tribble - as the Carabiniers storm across!
The Battle For the flux de Tribble - as the 1st Carabiniers storm across in foreground!

Okay – it’s got nothing to do with Star Trek & Tribbles – but I thought it sounded a cool title for a blog post (and AAR)! Anyway back at the end of July (2011) Cam and I played another Lasalle game – we reverted to the basic Army Builder List of a core force and 1 support option with standard troop values (1815 Hundred Days French & British) – the idea was to try out a proposed alternate scenario that was going to be used in the Lasalle Tournament at  “Call To Arms”  a convention in Wellington (New Zealand) in the second half of August. The proposed scenario in simple terms made both sides the ‘attacker’ (so Core Force + Attack Bonus + 1 Support Option) and placed 3 objectives instead of 1 on the table – all 3 having to be on the centre line, with one in the table’s dead centre, and one placed by each player not within 4BW or so of either of the others or the table edge. The following is a brief summary of the game with photo gallery…

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Black Powder ACW at the AWC

On Sunday a couple of the guys at the AWC played their first Black Powder game set in the ACW (American Civil War) – I was unable to attend, but Lee Heath has posted a brief report and a couple of photos on his blog Project Black Powder. I’ll be looking forward to hopefully getting in on the next game and maybe I should make a start on basing up my painted 28mm Union & Rebel troops (who have been actually waiting for the balance of the figs to get painted before I base them but perhaps I should forgo that and just get on with basing them)… Continue reading “Black Powder ACW at the AWC”

Crossfire Training Day!

"Hunter", A Royal Marine Centaur IV CS Tank, advances in game No.2
"Hunter", A Royal Marine Centaur IV CS Tank, advances in game No.2

My friend Wayne has been expressing interest in Crossfire for gaming WW2 and Vietnam – it’s all part of his WW2 Wargaming revival (see “A Bit Of WW2 Wargaming & Some Nostalgia“) – and as he had reason to be here in Auckland the last couple of days we got together for a bit of a Crossfire introduction and training session… We played a couple of simple generic scenarios with about a company a side and the following is a brief summary and some photos of the games…

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The Crossroads

Frederick William, Herzog von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel-Oels (Duke of Brunswick), leads his forces in the action at 'The Crossroads'.
Frederick William, Herzog von Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel-Oels (Duke of Brunswick), leads his forces in the action at ‘The Crossroads’.

Today we played a Lasalle ‘Big Battle’ with over a Division of troops a side and had a very successful game – our first true large game with Lasalle. The scenario was based on “The Crossroads” from C. S. Grant’s “Programmed Wargames Scenarios” (Wargames Research Group Publications 1983 – Pages 79-81) modified to suit Lasalle (most especially the game turn limit and our forces). Both Cam and I did the mad panic thing during the preceding week getting extra troops and such either painted and/or based for our ‘big bash’ which allowed us to field 31 Infantry Battalions (14 French & 17 Allied)  supported by 4 Batteries (2 each) and 5 Cavalry Regiments (3 small Allied and 2 large French – we had more cavalry available but did not deploy them to avoid a too ‘cavalry heavy’ game.

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Picton Holds On The Chaussée de Charleroi

Picton's Troops Advance...
Picton's Troops Advance...

Having taken rather a beating the last two days, Picton’s division had spent the day retiring North towards Brussels and collecting stragglers, looking to join up with the balance of the Anglo-Dutch-Belgian-Brunswick-Nassau forces heading South and East towards them. Picton had received instructions from Wellington to ensure he delayed the French sufficiently to allow such a concentration of forces – and to that end Picton deployed on the fourth day to again offer battle to the pursuing 6th French Division of General de Division Prince Jérôme Bonaparte.

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