The Battle at Klein-Soor, 1745 just after the Prussians had breakfast...

28mm, Second Silesian War - Rulset: (Seven Years) On The Prussian side as Frederick: Peter with his friend Fred and John and Gordon.

While I jumped in as the The Austrian Generalissimo with my Brigadiers, Bart, Alisdair and Tim.

Obviously my name is not Kroesos and I can only field that much on troops, but the blue print of the battle was Soor, just with a lot less units. Just after the Hohenfriedberg disaster the Austrian army wasn't in the best of shape and the surprise attack wasn't going to happen either - short after breakfast time the Prussian line had just arrived behind the road through Burkersdorf where we actually wanted to "surprise" them - how do they do that?

In short the cavalry was equal the guns as well, the skirmishers, just Austrian had one unit more but the Prussian had way more veterans and elite. The Austrians must deploy similar to the historical line plus a 3 turn block of offensive for one cavalry brigade - what could possibly go wrong?

Actually nothing - we peppered them with our guns (every gun just had 6 shots) and then again once they came nearer. They just did not attack until the very last turns!!! John was the only who attacked  with his cavalry and thus lost it because Bart was free to concentrate his fire on the poor dragoons and cuirassiers - ouch! 2VP in advance! Then Alisdair, the best artillery commander, shot a whole infantry unit away.

We had a pretty good time. Then our ammo ran out and that was the start of the Prussian attack -They really punched a pack with their re-rolls and quickly two of our line units were dead. But we managed to withdraw our empty guns and Tim attacked with out second cavalry brigade... not much glory for Frederick-Peter this time!

In the end we still kept our 2 VP advance and won this  time, Huzzah! Would we had to fight for another 3 turns it would have looked very different - but the end of club time saved our Austrian derrieres.

Rules on: https://meneken.blogspot.com/p/seven-years-set-of-rules-for-gaming.html

Initial set up

The Prussian have free re-deployment

And the Bayreuth Dragoons from last time ...

While our units were phlegmatic sitting on the hill ...

But somehow the Prussians were ...

... not the Prussians today ...

No attack on the Graner-Koppe

only at the very last urns ...

when we send our guns home  ...

as they were running out of ammo ...

The guard came out of the Burkersdorf houses ...

not really sure what they should do ...

the scenario set up

1775, 19th April - Lexington & Concord - AWI

It was 28mm again and the old AWI collection PLUS some newly arrived Militias had to be dispersed on the table. I just wanted to replay some of the more interesting battles of the initial Northern Campaign, so what better way to start than the actual search and destroy mission, that started the whole thing ...

After Bart went to the bar ... everybody else decided to be American and to give him the British, what would certainly an easy win, hey, (later Tim defected as well). So Campbell, Alisdair and David were fighting for the Rebellion, while Bart and Tim tried to find the gun and the powder in some hay stacks. We all used Black Powder 2.

Far from being nice, I didn't told them all victory conditions and changed even later some even against some protests on both sides - war is never fair...

The British arrived outside Concord ...and ... drumroll .. the American definitively shot first this time and started the whole disaster - boys, it is on you! I gave them minus 1 VP for that.

Then the skirmishing game and hunt started. Bart had actually a wonderful plan, to amuse "the rustics" with the Light infantry (under the able command of col Tim), while his Grenadiers did a southern-east swing directly bypassing everybody through cross country and attack Lexington directly.

The Americans, a bit rusty with the rules and amateurs of warfare, had severe initial problems of command and coordination. That showed and Barts Grenadiers were able to set two of 3 BUAs of our Lexington alight! (2 Victory points).

Then I changed the incoming time of the Earl Percy by the difference of the VP, and thus counted the grenadier as 1 VP instead of 2.  The two grenadier units perished in the following massacre and two further Militias were broken - thus tolling up the bill to 5 vs 3 (2 dead grenadiers and one saved BUA).

That was when Percy actually arrived. Tims LI was saved and the Militia wasn't in the position to really do much more damage and thus I declared the Battle a British victory. We will all wait of course for the Patriot propaganda following suite - see campbell report on SESWC.

Next time, in this line of fire, it will be the infamous slaughter at Bunker Hill ... get ready to make some more recoats even more red!

Campbells Thoms Gardener awaits a little too eagerly the British...

The initial deployment, Concord in the front ..

The LI and the Militia started to skirmish ...

Concord seemed to be safe ...

Tim concentrated fire ...

While everybody else was running for Lexington ...

Alisdairs Militia arrived first ...

Davids Militia got stuck in the woods ...

Tims LI blocked a whole brigade ...

The Grenadiers arrive ...

Just small units, BUT ...

The first Grenadier storm a house ...

... and start setting it afire ...

Then the other unit charges in ...

While Tim fought a gallantly defensive ...

Barts Grenadiers in a blood rush ...

But even them must give way some day ...

The first BUA burns ...

Tim retreats to save VPs ...

The second BUA is burning ...

Then the last grenadier unit got destroyed together with the Royal Photographer ...

The initial set up before I changed it ...

The British stats

The American stats

Somewhere in France between some grapes - 1870 - Franco-Prussian War

Let the 10mm out! Time for a fictional battle and Valour & Fortitude FPW testing! And I also slaughtered my bathing mat.

Bart, Campbell and Gordon were defending the ailing Emperor and some good wine villages, while me, Mike, Peter and Time were fighting for the soon to be Emperor with the shitty wine villages. Scenario principles were easy V&F rules plus every BUA 1 VP. some Infantry brigades/ Divisions were on table, some Infantry and cavalry would come later in as reserves.

Tim was our CinC and IF we had a plan it was so cunning I totally forgot about it. we marched forward until we reached the usual range of the chassepot and stayed clear of them. Then our flanks advanced and tried a pincer movement. Our Artillery wasn't that good and concentrated as we wished it would be, but due to some real Napoleonic Grognards in the leadership style of our enemy, their actual plan TOTALLY FAILED. We put pressure on them, or shot their efforts to pieces. Campbells flank attack was a desaster and Peter blocked them successfully. Gordone Cavalry attack was successfully bottlenecked by Mike and me.

In the end we won by minimal margin, 1 VP, IF we would had more time it would have been a French disaster, but the Prussians were wise and hesitant this time. ;)

The Rules seem to be a wonderful quick and easy/dirty solution for a multiple gamer club night - BUT the army sheets needed a bit of amending (prone; gun ranges accurate but not all that were effective etc...)

But we had a lot of fun,

Initial deployment

Gordons Garde cavalry get stuck between les bois ...

Campbells French advance as well ...

Quite frank in the open - the French line ...

Peter comes to block the French ...

Bart relative unusual defensive centre ...

Amassing chassepots and mitrailleuse as defense ...

Battle of the Bois de chateux de pleurre ...

The Prussians advance ...

Peter was able to block the advance ...

Mikes Cavalry was able to even bypass Gordons guards ...

We would have free range gun shooting before Mikes charge BUT that was the last turn ...

1944 - Somewhere in the North Sea - Cruel Seas Convoy

This time again at a club night, we had Tims formidable collection of coastal guards and Schnellboote out for a daring dash with the Warlord Games rule set "Cruels Seas", reversing the scenario from last time. Now the Germans had to attack the "Convoy" and sink one of freight ships. Trying to hinder the Germans were Peter and Mike and Tim with the usual four Royal Navy Cardboardbox ships - BUT Tim was introducing a new British menace - a heavily defended and armoured Gunship that out gunned all our German arsenal - I would name it the "Death Star"...

I'm not sure, but there were actually several occasion were passer by pointed out the deadliness and the futility of  our struggle against that particular ship... hmmm. On the German side I had to divide four Schnellboote between me, David and Andy.

Our plan was simple to divide the attention and going in with two ships on a Kamikaze like straight attack - while the other two surfed around and attacked the tanker from behind - What could go possibly wrong?

First Andy did the gallant attack, launched the first two torpedoes, but they missed (slided under both ships) and then his boat was in a concerted action shot to pieces and on fire. He skated along the freight ship but didn't do much damage, and ended up being the second target and was sunk by the rest of the Royal Navy gang in later turns.

David didn't remembered the plan and turned into the wrong direction and was then also main target of the whole flottila of the Royal Navy - again by the "Death Star".

We sunk accidentally one ship of the Cardboard box line. Then Tim got unfair and accidentally rammed Davids half dead Not-so-schnellboot, which he, of course, did not survived. Strange experience to have the typical British "cardboardbox - sensation " to be reversed on you...

My first boot then had Mike's Pappmacheboat on the target and slided in point blank next to him on both sides with two schnellboote. Yup - end of story - sunk by design - Thats how you do it boys. But my schnellboot was then to near too the "Death Star" (the one that rammed David by accident and sunk it) and was shot to the ground in one turn.

So the only one left on the board was my last schnellboot. Subsequently attracting the fire of all the British, but their arse were heading in the wrong direction. It was me who was now behind the two Freight ships, I released the useless torpedoes and started firing at them. Again I was going lean into point blank. The freight ship now was between me and the rest of the Royal Navy - I had outmaneuvered them all!! 

The last turn I raked the ship with all I got and sunk the bastard - German victory.

I apologise the Kriegsberichterstatter was on the first boot that was sunk - so we have not much photographic material that survived the incident ...

It was a blast.

Initial set up

The plan goes astray ...

... but then we outflanked them boot by boot.