Relief of the Residency

With some interest expressed in a game of Sharp Practice 2 at the club I thought I would get my Indian Mutiny collection out again and stage a Residency sieve game.

The figures are the usual mix of Mutineer Miniatures and Iron Duke with the former predominating (although if I can find a way of storing them - a perennial problem - I may change that balance!)

The Residency itself is from Adrian's Walls and due to the lack of internal support does have a rather annoying tendency to war but is otherwise rather nice.

Here are a few photos:

The garrison only had to hold out until the relief column arrived and acquitted themselves splendidly, particularly some volunteers on the roof of the main building with Enfield rifles who managed to bag two Mutineer officers.  Whilst the Mutineers did inflict some significant casualties and managed to breach the outer defences they were thrown back by the spirited defence!

WSS: Prince Georg Infantry Regiment

And finally (for the Danes anyway):

WSS: Livgarden Til Fods Infantry Regiment

Another Danish unit:

WSS: Fynske Infantry Regiment

Another Danish regiment:

WSS: Jyske Infantry Regiment

Some more Danes:

WSS: Prince Carl Infantry Regiment

The latest addition to my Marlburian collection, this time some Danes:

Blitzkrieg 1940 - First Play

With the release of the Blitzkrieg 1940 early war supplement for Chain of Command, I was keen to try out one of the scenarios with my 28mm French infantry.

Of course the first issue was I didn't quite have the right numbers of figures (why does that always seem to happen?) so I needed to do some tweaking to the forces and add an appropriate backstory.  In this case that the French had already been engaged and had fallen back to regroup having taken some losses.

I took the French and prepared for the German onslaught.  My opponent made excellent use of the Stuka attack and Shabby Nazi Trick options which, along with some spectacular dice rolling (as you can see below) meant a French defeat; however, we played again and, with a much less effective dive bombing attack, I managed to hold them off the second time.

Here are a few photos from the game (usual apologies for the phone camera quality pics):

Battle of Krasnik - Poland 23 August 1914

After having actually got out my paint brush and painted up quite a few of my Peter Pig WW1 Eastern Front figures I decided it was high time to get them to the table.

The scenario was based around the early stages of the Battle of Krasnik with two divisions of Austro-Hungarians facing a division of Russians in defence.  It was based on one from Summer Harvest by Shawn Taylor for Great War Spearhead but I converted it to use Battles with Brusilov.

Here are a few photos from the game (apologies for the quality, I only had my phone camera with me):

In the end the Austro-Hungarians advancing through the forest got seriously bogged down and the whole attack stalled leading to a Russian victory.

X-Wing: Blockade Run

I decided it was high time we played a really epic game of X-Wing with some of the big ships in my collection.  I created a scenario loosely based on an episode from Star Wars Rebels, with the Imperials blockading a planet and the Rebels trying to break the blockade and deliver some much needed supplies.  Here are a few photos from the game:

WSS: Sjaellandske Infantry Regiment

Yes another unit of Danes:

A Tale of Two Skirmishes

As I was putting tog ether the forces for our club game at the next Skirmish show in a couple of weeks (the Second Battle of El Teb, 29 February 1884) I realised that I hadn’t written anything about our second visit last year.

Setting out the figures for El Teb

As to last year’s games, for the first show we had decided on a 28mm Vietnam game based on a hastily mounted search and rescue operation for a downed helicopter crew (You can find the relevant blog post here).

Our second visit to Skirmish later in the year was another 28mm affair but this time winding back to the Great War.  In this case our game was set early in the war, featuring a certain Erwin Rommel and taken directly from his own account of the action in his book Infantry Attacks. In his own, admittedly potentially self aggrandising narrative, after advancing west from Hill 325, Lt. Rommel stopped his platoon in cover in a field and took a scouting group ahead.  Making use of cover and the foggy conditions, they passed one farm and found their way close to the Mussy-la-Ville road.  As the scouting team approached they spotted a couple of French squads relaxing along the road.  Rommel decided to attack rather than wait to bring up the rest of his platoon.  Surprised by Rommel’s bold attack the French put up little resistance and then surrendered. In our scenario the player who took Rommel was somewhat less bold and when he encounter the French decided to fall back and gather his platoon before attacking.  Unfortunately for him that meant another French squad had arrived before the Germans returned and they had more of a fight on their hands!

Happy Hogswatch!

My compliments of the season to you all!  Thank you for stopping by, apologies for my absence of late and here's hoping you get some gaming goodness under the Christmas tree!