Seven years war disaster!

This game was played a couple of weeks ago but I only just got round to uploading the pictures!

Situation:

The French army, with a small Reichsarmee contingent (a la Rosbach) deployed in open ground at the end of a valley, the weaker Reichs troops hiding behind a wood and hill on the right.



The Prussians, unable to form a solid line in a position to engage the French, left a holding force to their front...


 and put 2 attack columns, one on either wing. The right had most of the cavalry...


 while the left, facing the hidden Reichs troops was mostly infantry, with a single regiment of Dragoons and 5 squadrons of hussars.

The Battle:

The battle began with the Prussians right wing cavalry, supported by infantry battalions, launching a massed attack against the French horse facing them...


 The French horse panicked and withdrew behind a wall of Swiss mercenaries, who were unimpressed and proceeded to fend off the Prussians for the remainder of the game.



On the Prussian left, the Reichsarmee, after firing a couple of artillery rounds at the advancing Prussian hordes, fell back from their hill and set up a shorter frontage anchored on the woods further back.





Seeing the flanks being attacked, the French infantry in the centre attacked the weak force facing them, but barring a regiment (which gave the advancing French a very bloody nose) the Prussians marched rapidly to either flank, leaving the French advancing into a void.

The battle though was to be decided on the French right, where true to form, the Reichsarmee infantry - despite having the excellent Hesse-Darmstadt and Blau Wurtzburg regiments in the front, backed with Franconian militia, broke and fled before the first volleys from the Prussians.




Seeing the hopelessness of his position, the French commander - seeing another Leuthen looming decided to leave the battlefield.

Neither side took massive losses, and was won by manoeuvre.

Perhaps the Prussians had a Condottiere in command!!

Rules - Our Own

Players- Lawrence (French)

Ian (Prussians)

Richard (Reichsarmee)

Samurai skirmish game 9th October 2010

Situation:

The scenario involved a local Samurai Lord visiting a vassals (Hatamoto) village with 2 retainers (Hatamoto) and their retinues being attacked by an Ikko-Ikki (Warrior monk) raiding party.
The Samurai started in the village attending on their petty Diamyo...



... when the Ikko-Ikki appeared in 3 distinct bodies on the table edge. Some light defences had been placed as a makeshift barricade between the buildings, and the Samurai hoped this would offset the lack of armour they had available (Only the local Hatamoto and his personal Samurai had their armour available)
A light force was on either wing with the main body attempting to assault the village in the centre.

The Battle:

The Ikko-Ikki advanced rapidly toward the village.



The first body to engage was the Ikko-Ikki right wing, composed of a small group of Warrior monks (Sohei) supported by several groups of armed peasants and some Arquebusiers. Having crossed the river earlier they eschewed a long range firefight in favour of a sudden charge.

The Samurai in the village detached the majority of their force to face this initial attack. They initially tried to break up the attacking Ikko-Ikki with Arquebus fire, but this was quite ineffective and soon they were in a fierce fight at the barricades.

At one of the gaps, the Ikko-Ikki commander threw waves of peasants at the defences, before committing himself to the attack when these assaults began to fail.




In the centre, a smaller group of Yari armed Ashigaru held a barricade in the face of a larger group of Sohei supported by peasants, archers and Arquebusiers.

These, finding the bridge undefended, streamed across and attacked the defences.



Once again the Samurais fire had little effect, and the Sohei leading the attack smashed through the barricades and began to push back the defending Ashigaru.



On the Ikko-Ikki left a small group of peasants and armoured archers probed the rear of the village via a minor ford , and the Hatamoto facing them stayed in cover to avoid the shooting of the archers.



Once the Ikko-Ikki were across the river, the Hatamoto attacked fiercely and in a bloody fight wiped out the attacking group.

Not needing them, he allowed a small group of his Ashigaru to support the weak centre (see above) with Yari and shooting from their arquebuses and bows.

The Ikko-Ikki right now began to collapse and the samurai facing them pushed forward to surround an annihilate them.

  

 

Soon the commanding Hatamoto felt confident enough to send the majority of his men to support the retreating centre.

The Armoured Samurai  fighting the Ikko-Ikki lords group  eventually broke the peasants they were fighting and rushed the Armoured Ikko-Ikki commander. Everyone expected a tough fight here, but in the first attack the Ikko-Ikki commander lost his head – literally!

Seeing this, and with their flanks being attacked by the victorious Samurai on either wing, it was not long before the Ikko-Ikki began to fall back and leave the field.

The Samurai losses were minimal, and the Hatamoto were greatly honoured having won so decisively in the sight of their Lord!



(Rules: our own.
Figures: all Perry and Museum miniatures.
Pictures: by Lawrence and Richard.
Text by Richard.)

Wars of the Roses skirmish game 2nd October 2010

Situation:

This was the second outing of my beloved plastic Perry WotR figures, painted in the livery of one of the Percy family, with six lovely Foundry crossbowmen with 1st Corps Pavisses.
Once again we were facing Ian’s Foundry Nevilles in different liveries. Lawrence had just finished a small unit of Perry Plastic WotR archers in Lord Faulkonbergs (sic) livery.
The terrain was once again Lawrences lovely trees and hills with his multi-period use tavern.
The terrain was based around a rough road with hedging along the edges which would have looked right in the Bocage in Normandy!


The Battle:

The Yorkists deployed on some low ridges near the tavern....

... though nearly half deployed rather disingenuously behind the tavern, hoping to ambush my Lancastrians if they came down the road to outflank the visible Yorkist troops.

A small body of ‘Pricker’ cavalry with a Knight leading was deployed on the road - assumedly to intimidate the indiginous wildlife. My longbowmen were in no way impressed!

My Lancastrians deployed in 2 bodies, a light force deployed behind a small knoll and in some rough ground on the right, with the remainder deploying to the left of the road.

   

The Lancastrians rapidly moved to engage the Yorkists on the hill and over the next few turns the Yorkists took rather the worst of the engagement and took several ‘breathers’ on the reverse slope of their ridge.

The Lancastrians on the road and the knoll were taking casualties too, but stood their ground.

      

      

The Percies were eventally confident enough for their archers to start flanking the Yorkists on the hill.

So what was happening to the Yorkists behind the tavern? They waited in vain for the Percies to come up the road – the Lancastrian plans to scout in that direction having been scuppered by the difficulty their comrades were having shifting the Yorkist archers off their ridge.

With Lancastrian casualties mounting from the arrow battle, every bowman was needed to engage them.

Eventually, the ‘hidden’ Yorkists emerged and crossed the road to attempt to outflank the Lancastrians on the road ‘a la St Albans’.

Some of the Lancastrian armoured archers were forced to turn and trade arrows with them, fortunately they were helped by the main Yorkist body falling back for another breather – allowing some of the other Lancastrian roadside archers to add their shooting against the Yorkists crossing the road.

The Lancastrians left in the road now had to stand and take fire from 2 directions.

Luck was with the Lancastrians (and probably the prevailing wind!) as they again began to win the shooting match.

With the Lancastrian Men at Arms advancing, their archers having suppressed the Yorkist shooting to a great degree, the Lancastrians decided to withdraw from the battle.

As usual in these battles, and in this one too, the only way of achieving decisive victory would have been for the combatants to come to hand strokes.

The Lancastrians, on balance, would have been happy to gain the ascendancy they did however. Their losses, particularly amongst the unarmoured archers were bad enough to make them shy of taking more without good cause!

(Pictures by Richard and Lawrence, Rules and text by Richard)

(Fun had by all!)