First Battle of Newfield Crossing

At last the preliminary skirmishing of the opposing Advance Guards was over and enough troops were present for battle to begin.

<Note: you may click on the pictures to enlarge them.>

After a short cavalry clash, the Dominion cavalry pulled back. Their job was done, they had delayed the Rebel army long enough for the Grenadiers to occupy the little town on Newfield Crossing.

Slowly the opposing forces arrived and deployed. General Lannigan, wondering where the heck the Black Hats were, ordered Blue River Battalion to move around the left and attack the town from the north while the Oberhilse Blues attacked from the West supported by the Redcap battery.

The fire from the town was fierce and the Blues were eventually forced back, exhausted.

To the south, Colonel Nolan's Black Hats had finally arrived, but with signs of more redcoats arriving on his flank, the Colonel was reluctant to push forward without orders. MacDuff's Highlanders were also reluctant to push on to the town leaving the Bluecoats behind. At last MacDuff's impatient nature got the best of him and he sent his men into the woods.  

By dusk, the Dominion had a firm grip on the crossroads and the Rebels had suffered heavy losses and made little progress. General Lannigan ordered the men to fallback for now.

Will General Lannigan renew the assault in the morning? Only time will tell.

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The Model Major General

54mm figures, mostly home cast on a 4ft x 6ft table.

And Will Soon Continue

 Its a long boring story.......however.....

A couple of turns in and the boys are ready to "get down to it".

The battle should resume and be fought to a conclusion by this time tomorrow. Rainy days and Saturdays really pick me up.

Ready To Take The Field

It was a busy weekend of the non-wargaming sort but I managed a few things.

The reinforced 2nd Origawn Infantry drilling.

Apart from the 4 new figures and rebasing a score or two of older ones, I also typed up several basic quick reference versions of the rules: on grid/off grid, morale tests vs rallying hits, 12 figure battalions vs battalions composed of  3 or 4 companies, each of  3,4, or 6 figures, and so on. These are all variations that I've  tried over the last couple of years, in various combinations, so reviewing old blog posts  allowed me to assess many of the pros and cons of each. Luckily, some of that 'work' was able to be done while minding puppies in the new outdoor pen or 1/2 watching tv during evening family time with some of the hounds. 

The new mixed with the old.

At this time, a 2 sides of a page set of rules using many MacDuff features and battalions with 3 companies, has been printed and are ready to be tested at the first opportunity. This should come somewhere between Tuesday and Saturday. 

Summertime And

Finding Hobbytime  ain't  easy!

What little 'me' time I have had has allowed me to do a bit more re-basing back onto the washers and to take a closer look at the pros and cons of several organizations and ideas that I've been contemplating including  what impact each option might have on what extra figures would be needed and whether or not they would work on my smaller table. 

The Blues Brigade.  The Black Hats deployed as a heavy skirmish line with supports in line and the 2nd Infantry in march column.

The urge to go back to a MacDuff or Charge! style organizations with several Companies making a Battalion or Regiment has once again been squashed as that would work best if the rules were made a bit more complicated than I want, the games would tend to be longer, and would benefit from having table made bigger again. Instead, I  will stick with my  also traditional 12 man regiments with the ability to throw out skirmishers.

Every bit counts! Things will get easier in August and rules and armies  need to be ready  for a fullscale outside trial by combat!

The Pursuit

For  Toy Soldiers, time does not fly by as it does for we mortals. For us, the repulse of the Rebel raid <link> happened more than two months ago, but for them, it was as yesterday. So it is that we find ourselves watching as the pursuit catches up with the Rebel rearguard.

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At the Southern ford, the defenders put up a tough defence, holding off three times their numbers till late in the afternoon.

The situation near the beginning of the fight. The Rebel rearguard was tasked with delaying pursuit till nightfall. Leaving half their force to hold the ford, the artillery, Lancers and two remaining companies of infantry fell back to the line of a hill and two woods which dominated the exits from the defile. The Dominion force, having had to leave their artillery behind and the cavalry not being of much use in forcing the ford, had to use their slightly larger force of infantry to take the fords before their numbers could be brought to bear.

Eventually the fire of the Dominion's left wing forced the Rebels to pull back to a wood in their rear. This gave the Queen's men room to cross the marshy stream but also exposed them to the Rebel artillery. The Rebel cavalry moved forward to block any move to relieve their other attacking column but the sight of twice as much Dominion cavalry gave them pause.

Relentlessly Colonel Ross's infantry drove the Bluecoats back while Colonel Denison led his squadrons forward against Lagg's Lancers and a company of the Black Hats.

With the Redcoats pouring over the stream on his right and the Grey battalion reduced to a handful of men, General Lannigan ordered all forces to fallback to the hill for a final defence. There was only an hour and a half till dusk. If they could hold back the Redcoats till then, it would be too late for General Douglas to press his pursuit tonight, given the losses that he had already suffered. The remaining Rebels, veterans of many a hard fight, gripped their rifles and faced the enemy.

It was not to be. The Redcoats' blood was up. The Grenadiers could not come up in time but paused to pour in long range fire along with the NorthWest Mounted Rifles and the Victoria's. As the cavalry trumpets sounded the charge again, Colonel Ross ordered his regulars to fix bayonets and rush the canon on the hill. It was too late, there was nothing left but to occupy the crest and cheer.

 General Lannigan had already ordered a general retreat. There might be another place to make a stand and darkness was not  far away. 

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This game was Scenario 20 from Neil Thomas's One Hour Wargames. This involves a force which has to retreat across two fords then hold a hill at the rear until the 15 turn limit is reached. 

Since my table is larger, my units smaller, and I like the chance of an all arms force and don't use his rules, I double the number of units by rolling twice on the unit chart. The rules are the latest version of A Model Major General . The changes were minor in detail but major in effect and bring the rules I will use for various conflicts, from the Conquest of Canada up to the NorthWest Rebellion, into line with each other. 

I made one little error when laying out the game. To make it clear which hexes were fordable, and for scenic effect, I scattered various bits of "stuff" along the non-fordable bits as usual but since my container of lichen was hiding and I was already using plastic 'rushes' to mark an area of swamp,  I used more of them to thicken up the vegetation along the non-fordable lengths of the river.   

It was about turn five when I realized that I was treating it as blocking line of sight which wasn't intended. This was hampering the ability of the attackers to bring fire to bear on the defenders of the fords!  If the Dominion had rolled up a battery it would have been a serious penalty but I wasn't about to change the ruling part way through the game. At least it also protected the Redcoats from the Blue Artillery until they broke through so that made it fair in the end anyway. 

A New Year, an Old Battlefield

 Recycle, reuse, right?

I'm all set to try out the same scenario in a different setting: A Gentleman's War in the French Revolution.

But first, I replayed the Zulu game. It seemed to me that my last minute reversion to the old Square Brigadier play sequence had been a mistake. So I brought back my Model Major General sequence with a shared fire phase and played it again. It worked like a charm.

2nd to last turn.

This time the game lasted the full 15 turns and victory or defeat came down to the last die roll. The Zulus had over run the wagon laager and the Brits were down to 1 company of sailors, 1 hit away from extinction. The third wave of Zulus was just crossing the river but the Zulus still had one unit in melee. They scored the necessary hit but Col Hill once again stepped forward to steady them. (5,6 =cancel 1 hit, 1=leader wounded.) This time it worked. 

Damn close run thing! Maybe he will get that medal!

Patience of Job

For over 20 years this BMC staff officer from the Gettysburg set, has been patiently waiting for a uniform and a chance to deliver his message. Today he is excited, he's been glued to a base and measured for a new coat (of paint). It looks like his time is nearly here. Perhaps I should name him Colonel Job.

Meanwhile, out of a host of applicants, these seven have been selected to serve on General Douglas' staff, delivering orders to Brigadiers. Sadly, 7 poker chips are now surplus to requirements again.

Lastly, the Black Hat Brigade has been based and a new officer appointed to command them. He also needs a uniform but the Winter campaigning season is upon us so there will be more time available for painting and playing in the months ahead.

In the late 90's when I found myself drawn into 54mm gaming, I built a pair of Volley & Bayonet ACW armies in tandem with my friend Tom. The basic units were brigades represented by 4 figures on a 3" x 3" square base per brigade. 

54mm Volley & Bayonet Cedar Mountain c2000

It was a few years later that I got hooked on Morschauser who also used 3" x 3" wide, 4 figure, bases with 54's. It took me a while to get used to one stand units with no way to show formations but when I left those sorts of rules behind, I found that I started to miss the higher level focus on what the 'army' was doing rather than getting hung up on the details of formations and manoeuvres of each unit. The hexes help to bring that back regardless of basing.

Please Stand By

 Normal gaming and blogging will resume shortly.

I seem to have forgotten how the busiest time of the year for my wife's home business affects the freetime of her errand boy, assistant, bookkeeper, tech support, landlord and general odd jobsman.

However, the game is 2/3 done. 

Just as the Rebels were starting to look a little too thin on the ground to hold much longer, Lannigan's Luck applied. Three favourable chance cards in a row put them back in the game.

 

Ace ="We marched all night. - player receives an unexpected reinforcement of 1/2 d6 units."

Of course Lannigan rolled a 6.  As I started trying to figure how to scrape together 3 units from what was left on the shelf, it occurred to me that it might be time for a force of the Rebels' Kree and Hunter allies to join them.

Right, snow on Thursday, should have time to play the last 5 turns.  

The End is Nigh

 The third day of battle began today.

Apart from various domestic distractions, I've been spending free time on tuning and re-tuning the rules. In part this is because occasionally I forget that I like to enjoy the fun of playing with toy soldiers while trying to capture the feel I get from reading memoires rather than worrying too much about consistency of scale, and details of organization and nomenclature. 

The other reason is that as I put more old toy soldiers on the table, the games were getting longer and less exciting. So I tweaked the rules until they were simple and fun but a bit too quick and abstract. So I tweaked them again, and again.  

Five turns into the third game of this series, its feeling and looking right for what I want and Tuesday looks good for me to have time to finish up the game.

Rawden Gap Day 2: A Bloody Fight

Although the Rebel's counterattack retook the farm, the Domion's attack pressed on again while a fierce, long range, firefight raged in the centre. 

 

Supported by some well aimed rockets, the Dominion infantry pressed forward, over running the farm and pushing into the woods. The opposing Rebel line seemed thin and anticipation of a breakthrough was high.  

The battle was not quite won yet though. Soon the attack came under deadly fire from close range artillery and  flanking Rebel infantry. Then came a courier with new orders "Fall back! The Rebels have pierced our centre!".  

Despite heavy casualties, the Grenadiers were still holding the reverse side of the hill and soon the Highlanders rushed to support them. Suddenly, the fight swung. After having taken sustained heavy casualties themselves, the Rebels made one last push to secure the hill. They wavered under a storm of rifle and artillery then crumbled when the Highlanders went in with the bayonet. 

It was barely midday but the Rebel army was falling back in disorder. The Redcoats were keen to pursue and finish the job but orders came: "Regroup, secure the position." 

General Douglas was playing it safe. His own army was nearing its exhaustion point because of the heavy losses sustained during the two days of battle. 

Soon however, a rumour started to circulate.  Reinforcements had arived by train and were on the march, set to arrive before dark.

There was going to be one more day of battle!

By the Rocket's Smoky Trail

 Ah, those crazy rockets!

Turn 3 started off with a bit of excitement provided by the often entertaining Naval Rocket Battery.

When rolling for rockets to hit, a "1" indicates a rogue rocket. You then dice for each hex it enters up to its maximimum range: 5,6 veer left, 4 straight on, 2,3 veer right, 1 explode. 

In this case the rocket wove back and forth passing over 3 friendly units while I held my breath, only to make a final sharp turn and explode right on target anyway!

I have high hopes of getting to play the last 12 turns on Thursday.

A Turn A Day ......

 .....Keeps the game going?

The Winter Campaigning season doesn't really begin until after Christmas but there have been more than the usual calls on my time as Gofer, assistant and handyishman. Still, Turn 2 was played.

The Dominion won the initiative and, after an unusually effect barrage of shells and rockets, stormed the farm.

In the centre, the opposing infantry engaged in a firefight.

Meanwhile, back at the farm, Gen Lannigan noted that the redcoats who had stormed the farm were completely unsupported. A coordinated counter attack soon recaptured it.

Another turn tomorrow? Probably, maybe even two or three!

Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Rawden Gap: Day 1.

A spirited advance and rapid deployment by the Dominion cavalry soon put Her Majesty's army firmly in control of both Centre and East Hills. 

In accordance with current tactical ideas, the NW Rifles  dismounted and opened fire supported by the horse artillery. Caught in the open, the Rebel 2nd cavalry halted in some disorder while Lagg's Lancers fell back and took cover behind the walls and buildings of a farm. Colonel Denison put himself at the head of the Bodyguard and charged, hoping to sweep the enemy away and over run the Rebel battery before it unlimbered. The terrain and enemy fire broke the impetus of the charge though and it was repelled with loss.  As Denison struggled to order the squadron, he was hit and the remant broke to the rear.

A prolonged firefight between opposing cavalry and artillery ensued as infantry on both sides rushed to the sound of the guns.

The Highlanders were first up. Their leading companies opened fire while  the rest manoeuvred into position for an attack on the farm. Behind them, the Grenadiers deployed to secure Centre Hill and seize the Western gap which was being disputed by the opposing cavalry.

Time was running out however. The Rebel Zouaves were already on hand, and the Hussars were clearly getting the worst of the firefight. 

The Highlanders charged the farm with a loud cheer but the Lancers held their post. Across the Gap, the Hussars had finally had enough and fell back in disorder, but not without having clawed their opponents badly.

With Zouaves and Voltigeurs deployed and moving to flank the attack on the farm, General Douglas called the Highlanders back and ordered his army to take up defensive positions across the line of hills. 

It was clear to both generals that neither army would be fully deployed before dark so the fighting died down. 

The Dominion had suffered the heaviest casualties on the first day of fighting but they held the key ridge and the gaps. Both armies began preparing for the next day's fight.

(Note: A technical discussion of the scenario, battle, and rules will follow the end of the battle, sometime next week.)

Rawden Gap: Pt One

After two quiet months, the Origawn and Dominion of Faraway armies were on the move again. General Lannigan decided to make a dash through the Rawden Gap, hoping to bypass General Douglas's main force.

The gap is a break in the ridge that separates the North and South Valleys. 

Unfortunately for the Rebels, General Douglas got early word of the move and marched quickly to meet him. 

 

By mid afternoon on the 4th of Dec, the opposing advance guards clashed at the gap. 

(To be continued)

Shaping the Battlefield

 "Waste not, want not", that's  an old saying that reflects how I was raised. 

I bought many feet of pine boards for use as display shelves 15 years ago when we bought this old farmhouse. A few years later, after I retreated into my current room and sold off or gave away over half of my miniatures and toy soldiers, some of the shelves became various rectangular hill shapes. Now they are beginning to morph into vaguely hex shaped hills as I prepare for battle.

Some of the joints are a little iffy if used to make multi-piece hill complexes, but they work fairly well as stand alone hills and the joints can always be disguised with a little scatter.  

Note that deployed units will face the point of a hex giving them 2 frontal, 2 flank and 2 rear hexes.
 Road columns will face a side and have 1 frontal, 2 flank and 3 rear hex sides.

The new and adjusted bases need a lick of paint, and I'd like to add a new unit or two and get the field hospitals ready and based if I have time. Once that's done, or Friday regardless, the troops will deploy and the dice will begin to roll.

I also clipped my cavalry bases to fit the hex grid, and rebased the guns.

 My initial thought is to start with a small "advance guards clash late in the day" scenario and then follow it up on the weekend by a larger pitched battle with positions determined by the advance guards' clash.

Carrying On Carrying On

 Having finally exhausted my fund of attractive options to  explore, I'm now focusing on getting these toy soldier armies up to scratch with standard organizations and basing protocols designed to work with the 4" grid and the expanded version of the Square Brigadier. Only took a decade of exploration and trials. 

The Rebel Sappers prepare to defend their earthwork against twice their number of Dominion troops. 

My trial deployment of proposed Sharpshooters was not a success and any future experiment will adhere to standard unit organization but with the option to split designsted Sharpshooter units into two detachments. So, I painted up an extra figure for each of the two units and rebased them to standard. 

Meanwhile, I have reduced the Square Brigadier to a "two sides of a page" Quick Reference sheet and have begun the process of writing a full set with more complete explanations, more unit types, and laid out with stats, options, special rules and notes for each unit type. This will allow for a greater range of unit types with more "personality".  To distinguish the two sets I am expropriating the "Model Major General" for the full version.

Past experience suggests that its going to take a while to finish.

Why is K.I.S.S.ing so hard?

 Keep It Simple Stupid!

I did get a chance to try my "improved", more 'accurate', less 'gamey' version of the rules and once again by the time the game was over, it was tedious, bordering on boring actually, and taking far too long for a quick solo game. (Please imagine a clever gif of me scrounching up a piece of paper and dunking it in a waste basket.) 

So I did what works best for me. I did other things for a while (including a 16thC game over Hangouts where I was rightfully trounced - sorry no pics but I expect the game will appear on the Sharp Brush blog.). 

Then, today, I came back with a fresh eye and an open mind.

Once more unto the Bridge! 
Turn 8ish of 15: the armies are all on board and well engaged.

The first step was to spend some time with my nose in books. Then, I let my subconscious mind guide me as I poked at the figures and started to think of other mechanisms, "the look of the thing", what needs to be shown and what doesn't and about the sorts of decisions I want to be making as a player.

Casualties mount. The Bodyguards charge into the battered grey infantry!

The next thing was to again regroup the figures into units of 8 infantry or 4 other figures which is how they are painted. I then dumped the existing command control and activation rules, the fiddlyier bits, the existing morale rules, the mutiphase charge resolution and the proposed reintroduction of pinned and rally rules.

...and they pursue, sweeping away the fleeing rebels. Then, once the refugees were clear..... the two Rebel batteries opened fire on them at close range! The Guards quickly retreated to lick their wounds.

I then scribbled some note outlining the new simple game, tweaked it once or twice for things that arose mid game, and played an engaging, very close, occasionally nail biting, rematch of the same OHW scenario in roughly an hour. 

The details are more abstracted but then so are the shiny toys and the things I had to think about as player seemed to me more like things a General should be thinking about.

Turn 13/15. The Hochelaga Fusiliers are the last fresh Dominion unit. "Fix Bayonets" "CHARGE!!" and the last remnants  of shaken rebel units flee over the bridge. Another incursion has been repulsed.

So, that's one happy test game. The rules have been amended to match and the link posted on my Rules blog page. 

I think its time to do some casting and painting and the like, and then try it again with a bigger scenario and more men!