1669 - Anglo-Dutch Wars Reprise

Campbell wanted to know, he can be quite persistent, in calling people landlubber or at the same time losing his ships against said landlubbers ... Well, 1/600th, Anglo-Dutch wars with "Tiller and Whipstaff" it was again. And not even being in the Dutch team saved Campbell from disaster...

Me and Peter were to play the Brits while Campbell and Bart played the Dutch. The Wind was coming from the port side, Peter and Campbell had a 3rd liner and a Fire ship while me and Bart had a 3rd and a 4th liner.

Bart went straight at me and Campbell as well, while Peter circumvented them incl. fire ship which proved useful later. Bart and Campbell had fun destroying my 4th liner and capturing it in turn, while my 4th liner then made a more permanent denture in their rigging. In The end they were trapped and entangled in a big cluster just in time for Peters fire ship with well a lot of fire on board. It hit and shared the goods and to the delight of the British the whole thing blew off and ignited and sank the captured as well as the captors.

Peter and me we then hunted Barts 4th liner ... until the time went out ... nice game ... even if you are just a landlubber witnessing those sea (rats?) dogs (guinea pigs???) get blown off as they are too slow to dis-entangle ...

P.S. next time it won‘t be Anglo-Dutch Wars - promise!

1668 - at the mercy of the Dutch

Campbell surprised us with "Tiller And Whipstaff" (a naval game from Langton Miniatures) gaming the Anglo Dutch wars by supplying wonderfully built paper ships (by War Artisan) in 1/600!

Bart (Admiral), Alisdair and me played the 3 Dutch and Campbell (admiral), Mike and his son Alisdair played the 3 British ships. We came in from the long edges of the table and the wind was blowing from topside near my table edge, hahahar!

While all the British just concentrated on chasing Bart, I fell back for my targets to chase them with the wind. Mikes ship got in between as he tried to cross against it but just earned two "crossing of the T" from my ship - ouch!

Meanwhile Bart got pummeled by Campbell and Mike and then captured! But my ship was close too, so I captured Campbells ship for all it was worth! (Don‘t call me Landlubber again, Campbell!) So after that unfortunate (for the British) Admirals ship exchange, Campbell was sitting in the badly damaged Dutch ship and ... blew off/ caught fire ...

Well it was time to continue to chase Mikes badly damaged ship ... some broad sides later the time out just about saved him ... other wise I would have im sunk!

LOVELY game, super easy and nice and simple (without simplistic) game mechanics. I love it!
Love that period anyway, huzzah De Ruiter! Anyway, we all enjoyed it so much that next week we will repeat the whole excercise again - what a nice new pweriod.

3 Dutch vs 3 British

The British south ward ships of Mike and Alisdair

My little 3rd rate ship the Zeeland, nice amount of guns

While all chased Bart and Alisdair, I lingered to let them in front of me with the wind in my back

Then I followed Mikes ship

Politely broadsides were exchanged

until I crossed his T ... as he tried to escape ...

Which I did then ... again

While Alisdair chased and pummeled our Alisdair

Bart got entered and lost his ship in a fight, flanked and entangled by two British ships

but while the fight was on the other ships I entered and captured Campbells ship

So in fact the Admirals had exchanged ships

But the British had the worse deal, Barts ship was previously heavily damaged

Mike tried to escape me, but I was still too close behind him

CAmpbells ship (former Barts) exploded and caught fire (red dice)

While I fired broadside after broadside into Mike

Bart ship caught fire as well in the end ...

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 ...