Battle of the Bloggers

This past Saturday three of the club's four bloggers got together. Mark D. of Mark D's Gaming Site and I visited Ed of Ed M's Wargaming Meanderings Blog to play a game of Ed's heavily modified V&B for wing scale 19th century games. Ed's system features two-stand infantry and cavalry units as battalions and squadrons and single stand units as half-battalions/squadrons. There are many other changes, which make for a very different game albeit with familiar core mechanics. I expect at some point three different posts about this game. I'll cross link here when Ed and Mark's posts go up.

Mark had played the scenario once before as the Honved so he chose the Austrians and I commanded the Honved. Both armies featured many of Ed's wonderful figure conversions and excellent painting shown previously on his blog. Here are a couple of close-up photos of my units that started on the table.

The scenario was a meeting engagement with some villages on my right flank (Mark's left) and some hills in the center. With only one command of advance guard available to start for each side I wanted to get my half-battalion of Jagers into the town, or if possible, into the woods past the town. Mark saw the same opportunity, and moving first got to the woods so I settled for the village. My cavalry protected my infantry columns flank and Mark charged with his uhlans but my hussars held sending his lancers back with half their strength lost.

From here Mark and I brought up our armies from off table and got them on-line. On my right flank my Jagers forced Mark's Grenzers back in the woods out of range. On my left I pressed with a single squadron of Hussars looking for an opening on Mark's flank or to force his heavy cavalry command to that flank, away from my vulnerable half battalions which I massed on the right flank under the command of my CinC.

On the left flank Mark did counter with his cavalry brigade forcing me to withdraw my single squadron and match him with my lighter cavalry. I tried to bring up my horse gun, but didn't really do so very effectively and his was shooting at my cavalry while Mine wasn't returning fire. In the center we were at a standoff, with the exception of his artillery which was on-line although at long range I was weathering the fire well enough for it not to be pressing the issue...yet.

My final regiment with my one high-morale infantry unit, the 'red hats', advanced to press the right flank where I had amassed my half battalions and jagers to finally press the issue in the woods.

If Volley & Bayonet has one flaw, it's that it's a game of counter punching. The attacker is always at a huge disadvantage. With the scenario a balanced meeting engagement, and both Mark and I being seasoned V&B players, neither of us wanted to attack. It was a game losing move. Still, a play test needs combat, so I made a go of it and went in with the whole lot on the right. This went fairly well as I had my full battalion of elites on Mark's half battalion. I was able to press the flank on the right and following up it looked decently promising.

On the left I went 'over the top' on the hill with my horse gun and an infantry battalion and prolonged my field guns to support the push against the single unit Mark had on the hill. Three on one - it seemed like a fine plan. Then Mark reminded me why you don't attack in V&B by eliminating all of my artillery in a single turn with two shots by his stationary defending units. That attack not only stopped, I was now pretty much pant-less on my left-center.

I did a classic 'last turn' move by charging all of my cavalry into Mark's cavalry, mostly 'for science'. This resulted in Mark's heavies nearly eliminating my hussars, and me also losing against his battery and his Uhlans. If there were another turn all of my cavalry would have been eliminated by Mark's counter-charges and horse gun opening up my line of supply for raiding by Mark's cavalry. Another case of he to acts last, laughs best in V&B.

All in all a great day of gaming. Ed's changes to V&B seem to be flowing in the right direction. My complaints about V&B are more about the core system and not Ed's modifications. I had some suggestions to Ed on things that might be done to ease the V&B counter-punching issue a bit. Also this is a separate,  unrelated rule system to his upcoming 'Chocolate Box Wars' project... so that V&B nit I'm picking might not even be part of his new system.

Nine Year's War at Ed M's

My friend Ed M. invited those of us who had the day off due to holiday shut downs at work to a game at his house today. The game was a 6mm Nine Years War game using Ed's 9YW house rule variant of Volley & Bayonet.

As you can see from the game, Ed uses a system of very easy to understand on-stand casualty markers as well as having beautiful figures and terrain. Although I could never paint 6mm figures, there is something appealing about seeing the whole unit in formation, particularly multiple squadron cavalry brigades.

George and I played the French and Bob and Pete (shown left) played the allied coalition forces. George and I were defending and deployed our main batteries interspersed with our infantry on the central hill with our lighter batteries supporting our flank units. On our right Peter and I positioned, and re-positioned our cavalry each looking for an advantage, but both of us maintaining at best parity until finally all of our battle cavalry were on-line.

Having the slightly superior morale quality, I finally went in with the whole lot. Pete's 'inferior' cavalry had their way with my heavies and for the most part sent me packing. Over the next few turns we fought to mostly a mutually assured destruction. I was hoping for and needed better from our best troops. To the left you can see what was left from BOTH forces at the end of the game.

In the center of my command's half of the battlefield was a small town, held by some of my dismounted Dragoons - in the Nine Years War these are still mounted infantry, just starting to transition towards the cavalry we all fear in the Napoleonic era - specialist troops being used appropriately here to secure and in the case of the coalition forces, to assault towns and other built-up areas. Peter's dragoons pushed mine out, then my infantry pushed his dragoons out with Peter finally decisively retaking the town permanently with a good infantry force in reserve. For my side of the battle, a loss across the board. Well played by Pete.

On George's flank Bob pressed hard with his cavalry on our left flank and over time wore George's cavalry and some infantry down significantly contesting our left most hill. The larger town on George's flank was taken once softened up with mass infantry musketry. George's counter-attack almost re-captured the town but fell just short. Well played by Bob. This was a decisive coalition victory.

Volley & Bayonet Wing Scale Napoleonics Play Test

Last Saturday my friend Ed (pictured left) hosted a play test of his house rule modifications for wing scale Napoleonic Volley & Bayonet. This is a project he and my friend Mark have been working on for the past couple of years on and off. The game was an 1813 scenario with a French advance guard meeting the lead elements of a Prussian army. Control of a valley (middle of the table) and the surrounding hills would determine victory.

My friend George was my opponent in the game. He played well and soundly thrashed me last time we played these rules. This game he played equally well, but the dice, while spotty, were with me in crucial times and allowed me to have a good day. My fellow Frenchman Peter (not photographed) played his flank equally well, supporting my center toe hold on the valley while thwarting the main Prussian attack on our right.

All in all the rules played even more smoothly this test and are coming along quite nicely. At the end of the game neither side wanted to stop playing because we were all having a great time. There's a short video below showing the nice tabletop including Ed's wonderful figures and Hots playing mat.

Wing Scale VB&G Napoleonics (2)

Last night a few of us went over to my friend Ed's house to play test his game for our upcoming club game night. The game is a post Leipzig 1813 scenario designed for playing with his home-modified version of the Volley & Bayonet Road to Glory rule set. Ed's modifications are an evolution of an effort he and my friend Mark D. have been collaborating on for a while. The scenario was well thought out and Ed's modifications seem fun and easily understood.

As for the game, I played well, but so did my opponent George (in the Hawaiian shirt). Sometimes the dice gods smile upon us, sometimes they smile upon our opponents. Last night was one of the latter for sure. With equal skill applied you'd expect a close run affair, but George took me to the woodshed for an old fashioned whooping. In the end my entire command was shattered and for the most part destroyed as well. George had some exhausted units but he still had a full regiment of Prussians willing and able to capitalize on the giant hole he'd made in my side the French rear guard.

At the bottom of the article is another attempt at a panoramic view of the table in video form from YouTube.

15mm AWI Game

Last Friday night we got together at my friend George's house to play some wing scale AWI using Volley & Bayonet. George has recently finished construction on his wargame shed he calls 'the clubhouse' and it's quite a nice place to game.

The game was a return to wing scale V&B for Revolutionary War battles. Since it was George's first game in this scale in a few years we felt our way through the game and had a pleasant time. My friend Mike had some very nice sharpshooters which did quite a nice job of obliterating my force - see the dead on the windowsill. It was mostly an action of attrition as once he had done his damage my remaining force was able to kill his sharpshooters and push into the vacated woods only to be sent packing by another American regiment.

Wing scale V&B works nicely. I promised to put on one of my scenarios for George at an upcoming game night sometime this spring - probably April. I think it might just be time to revisit Monmouth courthouse again. That is one of my favorite scenarios for AWI V&B.

American Continentals

This is a unit of generic American Continental infantry that I purchased from Ebay from one of my favorite sellers, 'kendobear'. They came based for another rule set, so I've re-based them for Volley & Bayonet to match my other figures. Since this was an 18 figure unit I was able to make a formed unit of two stands and two skirmish stands. The figure selection lent itself nicely to this basing as there were just enough figures in light infantry hats to make the skirmish stands look the part.

The flag is from warflag.com. I chose a generic flag for the unit to stay safe. I expect this unit to play many roles and didn't want the flag to limit the units usefulness.

Napoleonic French Dragoons

This is four brigades of French dragoons. The figures are another Ebay purchase from a private seller. I've of course re-based these for use with Volley & Bayonet on 2/3 sized stands like all of my other Napoleonic figures. These were a great deal and I needed a couple more brigades of Dragoons. I wasn't really in need of FOUR brigades, but it's hard to buy less than a dozen 15mm painted cavalry on Ebay. I'm sure I'll be able to put the extra two stands to work at some point. Who can't use an extra division of dragoons now and then?

Play Testing VB&G RTG Wing Scale Napoleonics

Today Ed hosted a play test of a Napoleonic wing scale variant to Volley & Bayonet Road to Glory that a few of our club members are working on. We're going to be getting together for a large game in the future and today was the first step in steaming out the wrinkles in the rules. This was part game and part design session but 100% fun. It's always good when you can get together with your friends, talk a little history, tactics and play a game.

I've received good feedback on my short videos on my last post. I have included some additional video 'raw footage' of our test session. Obviously I'm not much of a videographer. Hopefully with practice I will improve. Until then enjoy these for what they are.