Rolfs Last Stand, At 850 Ad, somewhere near Normandy

It was about time to let the Normans and Vikings out again, so me and Bart decided to continue the "Markgraf" saga of Rolund and Henri the Red. (28mm, Hail Caesar).
In the last battle Henri (Norman), played by my, had secured a victory over the combined forces of Rolund (Norman) and Rolf (Viking), played by Bart. So this time Rolfs Vikings will have to make a final last stand surrounded by the Henri‘s Retinue and the low life follwers of Bishop Luitpolt Der Pickelige (the pimpeled). After a couple of turns Rolund rescue party will arrive.

We had the number of turns rolled secretly by another club member so that no one of us could possibly know when the forces will arrive. Unfortunately for Bart, he rolled the maximum number ...

So there and then enfolded a truly medieval massacre as my milites stormed the hill and attacked the Viking shield walls. (Note for next time: we will improve the shield walls and make them tougher against Horse attacks). Rolfs Vikings had no chance and were ridden down even before the Bishops rabble could run up the hill to join. (ah OK, some of the peasants were actually of help and attacked, but we edit this out of our Saga). Only the Berserkers could flee over the river and make a last stand.

Henri's army was a bit in disarray at that moment and proceeded to plough forward more or less successful. this was when Rolund‘s Forces (first the cavalry) arrived (on the 6th turn!!!). Too late for the late but great Rolf, he died on the hill, but not late enough to give Henri a bit of his own medicine.

The Bishop, played by Alistair, rumbled along with his peasants, and did a pretty good job of actually bind and contain large parts of Rolund‘s army. While my Normans charged downhill into the counter-charging Knights of Rolund. It was brutal, I lost one unit of Heavy Milites, but in the end Henri prevailed - victory again!!! Normandy is secured for the King again!

So he will rest and lick his wounds right there in a camp with his retinue and the rabble of the Bishop who survived this massacre. 

Rolund won‘t come back again so quickly after these two defeats, or will he? Rumours have it that he has again secured new allies, amongst them Raoul the Insane, a particular nasty fellow, even with the (very, very low) standards of his contemporaries ...

Initial deployment on smaller table

Henri the Red and followers

The Bishop and crew

Rolfs Vikings

Rolund‘s Rescue party off table

Rolfs Viking tease with a war cry

Then came the charge of my knights

The wave of the peasants

Rolfs situation is getting untenable

the last Vikings getting crushed between two fronts

Henri is hunting the last Berserkers 

Then Rolund‘s Cavalry comes in

Heavy Milites as well

So we must charge! (this is THE image of my understanding of a Norman charge)

... downhill into the little river

one of my knight units is gone, dead in the water

my archer sluggin behind

all scramble downhill!

the peasants advance ...

Timere Danaos, et gaudium ferentes!!!

... because my 28mm ancient greek army is growing stronger ...! So beware!

The Thessalonian Riders, an ancient version of the Stradioiti of some sort ...

The cavalry of the Spartans ... less famous ...

The Spartan High Command 

The Delian counterpart

An Delian Sub-commander with a flute player

another Delian Sub-commander with guard

The Devils of Ithaka, stones lingers

The 1st Delian phalanx

The 2nd Delian phalanx

The 3rd Delian phalanx

The back line of the 3rd Delian 

The back line of the 4th Delian

The Battle at Guessembourg 1870

First I have to apologise, a combination of holiday, Claymore, and no camera (forgetfulness and lend away due to art project) kept me from posting anything. (A Border Reivers game http://www.edinburghwargames.com/slaughter-on-the-redesdale-road-1592/ where slaughtered some cattle thieves and the second intro of my tiny Classic Greeks Army to ToTheStrongest http://www.edinburghwargames.com/battle-of-thespiae-86-bc/ can be found here at Angus' blog).

I still have a lot to do, apart from work, the collection and assembly of said Greek army (I hate that part!) and I‘m working apparently on TWO different wargame rules projects atm, "Seven Years" and "The Tattered Tricolore" - Which we decided to re-vamp and test last Thursday. The problem was, I just had "adapted" to the "Bonny Blue Flag" rule system some Frano-Prussian War era tweaks, then play tested them just ONCE a couple of months ago ... and now as you can imagine, nobody really remembered the intricate, but sweet rule system ... including me, the umpire and writer/adapter. But to Hell, as if that would ever deter us from doing it anyway! We just guessed the most part and still had fun ;)

So we decided to bring all our 10mm toys (Angus, Me and Jack and Gerry) and we splattered them (in Angus case literally) over the table top and off we went. Gerry Jack and Peter played the French Imperialists, actually my half ready Guard Corps with upholstering from other collections, while Bart, Angus and David played the German Would-be-Imperialists with effectively my 3rd Corps v. Alvensleben and the famous 5th Cavalry Division v. Rheinbaben, yes, the Death ride boys.)

First, it was collectively decided that the Prussians HAD to attack and thus, the Would-Be-Imperialists skipped the "Softening-the-Frenchies-with-Krupp-guns"-part and advanced directly!
A bloody mess in a post Napoleonic war, if you ask me, softened only by our disentanglement of the delicacies of these rules. The French had less troops but advanced positions in the villages in the table centre, so all they had to do was stay put and fire what the barrels hold.

Bart also did nothing to change his reputation for brutal cavalry charges and attacked a healthy French line upfront! But due to his luck he cracked it (halfway) and was not annihilated!

In the end, I had to declare the French winner on this, as they still weren't pushed out of their positions and the casualties were surprisingly low - we were running out of time, again. But we all had a lot of fun. The rules definitively need a re-edit and then are most likely playable/enjoyable. But I can see the "Game-engine" of "Seven Years" would work for this era as well perfectly ... but Angus is a little nostalgic about the Bonny Blue Flag adaptation ... so that needs to be decided ... soon ... more to come ...

The set-up at the beginning

The v.Bülow Curassiers a traversing the river under Barts command ...

Gerry‘s Chasseurs are just waiting for them

some turns later...

The Cavalry hiding from artillery

The French clinging to their village

Jack's advancing French Flank

The Prussian centre and an defiant Angus

THE French centre (Peter) forms up

The Prussian Flank marches on to attack

First gun fights the French are immediately in the Prussian long range thanks to Krupp.

More gun fights and the lines are closing up

Jack prepares the French onslaught 

Bart does the unthinkable and attacks Gerry‘s Chasseurs frontal!

but the French shoot back!

Still true to his unbelievable luck he forces the French into retreat without getting annihilated!

But soon the French will fire back