1920 - Send me dead flowers to my grave near Sewa-stop-the-poles - in the Russian Civil War

So this time we wanted to Set The East Ablaze with Peter‘s Miniatures (and some add ons from me, Bart and Campbell) in 28mm and invited the honourable Donald to help us to fight for a little "Fort" at the side river of the Dnjestr (or minus the vowels and the rest in any order).

Bart would play the Poles, me the Lithuanians, Campbell the Turks and Donald the Reds. We would all converge from all side to the little fort filled with, you guessed it, Reds (?). We could forge alliances, but to stop 3 guys siding against one, while Peter umpired the game, the Reds were allied with the Turks.

So we creeped in snail speed towards the centre and then, we, Bart and me, as in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth against the Soviet corruption, got by some divine intervention some extra armoured cars as we were dying like the flies in a forrest fire. Which was my fault, apparently, as I was hiding in the Birch forrest, like any good Lithuanian would start out otherwise it would have been amazing ...

Then later after half of our units got shot away, Campbell turned sides and we entered the walls of the fort. To my surprise the Reds withdraw and thus finally won the game just by hairs length ...

What a wonderful game, I really enjoyed it, and congratulations to Donald, its not often that Bart got shot away!!!

Next time, I think, I want the centre to be a non-player (as Reds) and the incoming Russians to be White with every party freely to forge and break alliances at any time. Did I mentioned that I didn‘t liked the set up?

The initial set up and the reds in the middle and at the far (short) side

The Reds hiding behind a wall

Ata turks men 

The first Poles on the field -  yes horses!

And all the Lithuanians hiding in the Birch forrest, what a game changer!

Some clashes between Poles and Reds

Then I left the woods, but to late

The enemy just had formed into THE Death Vallley

with Turkish help, ts, ts, ts!

Nevermind, I stormed!

And 1 unit reached the wall!

then the Turks thought the better of it and changed sides 

A Russian Gun vanished in the ensuing carnage

And finally my Victors from Riga went over the wall - but too late Donald retreated into the house!

1566 Disaster at the Not-So-Neisse

15mm Polish Renaissance (Barts collection), by Fire&Sword, and Peter and me thought, well jolly gosh, lets choose the Polish Hussars, they always win !!! (that is empirically tested, all our games against them, we lost) - so Bart and Alisdair choose the Swedes, and thus they got prompt more units and points - duh! It was Bart who did the scenario and allocation of troops.

Then Peter decided we would have two heavy cavalry brigades instead of one or two lights ones, which was a major mistake, as we would loose the reconnaissance phase, which we just knew afterwards - so therefore, I will just refer to him as Pjotr from now on. Pjotr was our CinC by the way so nevermind ... I knew I would be happy, if he only would just manage to lead the troops towards the enemy ...

Maybe Bart was afraid me and Pjotr would win. So we got a scenario where the Poles need to kill off a Swedish advance guard to prevent them to secure two river fords. Besides outnumbering us, they had bigger units and were typically better organised - i.e. they got +2 combat resolution per every fight as we found out later on. So they must be very demoralised psychologically to begin with.

Embolded by so much tension, I put my regiment on attack and charged with my winged hussars over the first ford. Their wings must be good for something, but besides my average dicing, somehow they were a bit light on their breasts. They lost and got killed in the end. I remembered Bart cavalry tactics and thought well, I don't have the orange dice, but maybe if I kept on charging ... Pjotre in the meantime just let the Swedes over the ford and started to go fishing at the river with the rest of the Polish army, in the end some of his command made it over the river though.

Gallantly at the end, I even charged with my Cossacks (which I was told were the worst units, but they fought better than the hussars),  but to no avail another victory for Alisdair, I'm sure he is not aware of how exactly he ended up doing that, but Bart surely knows. As I'm pretty sure he was the only one knowing amongst us three pretty clueless about the finesse of the rules. Nevertheless I know I had immense fun! Next time I will choose the Swedes, as they do seem to be the winning team. ;)

My winged hussars charge!

and loose somehow

while the other Swedes fly over the river - where is Pjotre!

... half drunk reorganising his command  (his beer is on the left!)

Pjotres High command

my Hussars still in the game fighting!

still not winning either

The Pancerni got a fright to go over the river (water!) 

Meanwhile the Swedes got a shot at fishing poles

then my hussars got charged ... and died!

to the astonished pancerni

Still my Cossacks were waiting

while my other cossacks had even rounded the enemy and were next to the CinC!

Then the pancerni clashed in a charge, but they lost their pistols or something

meanwhile my cossacks got charged and simply held the line - tada!

While the rest of my troops charged and got charged and still lost their fights

but didn#t went off table in the last turn

well meanwhile Pjotres units were at the river ... fishing probably ...

Little men need big hills

... just finished the basic structure of my new modular hills! The old ones had also  a make over and the new one are fitting so that one can do larger hills or hillscapes, (if thats a word). The "little men" in the picture are 28mm.

426 BC The Battle of Olpae

It was the battle in the Peloponnesian Wars where the Athenian general Demosthenes beat the Spartan Eurylochos with a simple trick. So we decided to give it a go in 28mm using Hail Caesar (plus some new useful rules for the era) Bart played the Athenians while Alisdair played the Spartan king with the help of Mike who played the Ambracians and some Peloponnesian auxiliaries. The set up was almost historical as we decided to beef it up with a dash of greek cavalry for both sides (and I swapped the line build up form left to the right).

Now in history (in short) Demosthenes hid some of his peltasts and some lighter hoplites behind some hills and they sprung the trap after the main stay of the spartan army was way behind them, thus be able to roll up the line from the weakest point up.

Bart and the Delians got the 1st turn as the Spartans decided to "pray" a bit longer - but Bart failed to move his command. Then the Peloponnesians moved slowly forward while Bart still couldn't move his line. It seemed the gods didn't like the scheming way of Demosthenes. By the time the Spartan army triggered the hidden units of the Athenian allies to spring forward - these Amphylochians were on their own, because Barts army was still way behind ...

And thus it continued, while Alisdair as Spartan king and new found hero of the gods rolled and played very well, Barts rolls got worse. He was able to hold off the Spartan King‘s body guard for quite a remarkable while, but to no avail. Previously he lost his cavalry clash (yes, I know a first for Bart as well) and then his auxiliaries won over Mikes, but he could not really capitalise on this.

So in short the Athenian army was decaying slowly, along with Barts dice luck, in front of our very eyes. Still he fought bravely on until the very last phalanx, but in the end it was a sounding victory for Alisdair and Mike and the Peloponnes. I guess I can say we all had our fun or at the very least a new experience.

Next time we will do the battle of Amphipolis (422 BC, it will be Brasidas vs Cleon). But I guess we better will be all praying to the gods to give us their favour and more luck in rolling the dice than Bart had in his battle.

Barts Delian line

Alisdairs Spartan line

The changed set up

the original set up

the Delian stats

the Peloponnesian stats

the trap springs out of their hiding ground

But the Delian line is fragmented

The cavalry will clash

The Athenian slingers pepper the Kings bodyguard

But still the Athenian allies hardly move

first clash of hoplites

The Spartan king advances

More push of doris

a temporary set back for the Spartan allies

and another clash of phalanges

slowly the battle line entwines

but the Athenian centre is holding!

The Spartans are almost hesitant

still the Delians hold

The Athenians have now a free flank ... but cannot exploit it

soon all the lines are in fight

the Peloponnesian auxiliaries hesitate

The Delian elite city guard, the 500 schefel man, are getting enclosed by Sparta

soon  the Spartan Horse will attack their back

The Delians getting pushed back

The regular Spartans arrive

the Delian guard holds out

aaand holds out

but then has to have a break test ... you guessed it ... 

the last unit of the Delian centre must do a break test ... its over!