Welcome!

Welcome to the Blog of a Skirmish wargamer! I hope you enjoy reading it!



All my rule sets are freely downloadable from our club website's Downloads page





If you need to contact me my E-Mail address is richardbradley5@gmail.com







Sunday 25 March 2012

Horse and musketing!

As the title suggests, we did 7 Years war again!

This time we did a Prussian v Austrians and Russians...

The Russian left deployed with cuirassiers in the front and dragoons behind.
 The same arrangement further in..
 The Russian main body formed a defensive position with the Austrians.
 The Austrian horse deployed in the centre, backed by grenadiers.
 Damned impressive!
 The Prussians deployed Kuirassiers and dragoons facing the Russians.
..but supported their horse with infantry and guns. 
  
The battle began with the Prussian cavalry attacking.
 ..Followed by the main body of Prussian foot on the left.
 The Russian horse eagerly countercharged the Prussian right.
 The Russian guns taking a toll of the left wing squadrons.
 The cavalry battle was fierce, Russian dice rolling countering the superior Prussians!
 
 The Prussian infantry advanced to support their horse.
 On the Prussian left, Austrian guns engaged effectively with the advancing Prussian infantry.
 The Prussian right wing Kuirassiers were ruined before beating the Russian horse.
 
The other Prussian horse were more successful against their opponents!
 
The Austrians advanced, forcing the Prussian infantry line to pivot to face them. Before this, the leading Prussian brigade made progress in breaking the Russian front line. 
 Night fell with both sides glowering at each other, neither having the advantage sufficient to win outright victory, though, no doubt, both sides claimed it!

Players;

Prussians: Phil and me
Russians: Lawrence
Austrians: Ian

Rules: Freely available as ever at: Tyneside wargames club download page

Saturday 10 March 2012

The nearly battle!

Today we tried another Wars of the Roses skirmish.

The game was .... rather short!

The Nevilles deployed with a band of men at arms on their right, dominating a wood.
The main body of armoured archers in the centre... 
 ..mostly unarmoured archers on the left.
 On their far left, a body of billmen stood behind a hill.
The Percies and De Laceys arrived facing the weak Yorkist left. 
 With the Yorkist right out of sight behind another wood, the De Laceys advanced within range and shot an arrow storm!
 Despite being at long range, the results were...devastating!

The Yorkist Nevilles were left with so few archers able to respond, they fled the field!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The game was, to a degree, spoiled by two factors, which will be corrected in any future WOTR games we do;

(1) The table was too shallow, allowing our side to dominate before the other side could manoeuvre.

(2) The system we use for deploying troops needs changing--

Currently, we dice for which side is the attacker, the defender gets choice of side, to a degree!
The Attacker deploys next, and gets first move.

We plan next game to use a deeper table, so we can have more than a shoot-fest!
We also plan to deploy alternate units (ie: The defender deploys a unit, then the attacker, etc), so we cannot choose the optimum line of attack neccessarily.

I will let you know if this works!

Sunday 4 March 2012

The Seven Ronin

In a blatant tribute to Akiro Kurosawa's great film 'The Seven Samurai' - we did a version of the final climactic battle!


The village we were defending.
2 Ronin (Lawrences) waiting on 1 road facing the stream...
Their opponents approached.
Another force came down another road.
Wher two more Ronin (Ians) were waiting.
Our leader (Phil) was in the middle of the village, marshalling some trained villagers!
My two Ronin faced the main bridge into the village..
They were soon being attacked too!

Ian's Ronin came out bravely to face the massed horde!
Phil seemed to be leading a dancing class, but detached some villagers to support us!
Lawrence sent his Ronin to contest the ford.
Phil sent 2 bowmen to shoot in my support at long range..
 One of the raiders fell with an arrow in his chest!
 Lawrence's Ronin joined battle, supported by an old man from the village.
 My Ronin moved to a tree which protected our rear, and waited.
 Ian's men were soon fighting the horde! - dealing out Katana death!
 Lawrence's Ronin killed an armoured bandit, the old man walloped his opponent with a stick!
 Back at the ford, the Ronin were forced by numbers to give ground. 
 On my flank, the bandit leader approached in the rear of his force.
His advanced force attacked my Ronin. 
 Meanwhile, Ian's men were being outflanked, some of Phil's villagers moved to defend the barricades.
 As my Ronin fought off the massed rebels, Phil sent our leader to help! 
 The pressure on Ian's Ronin increased, and one of his Ronin was wounded!
 The pressure on Lawrence became too much, and his Ronin fled back to the village. The bandits swarmed across the stream in pursuit.
 
 My men were fighting and holding our own.
 Ian was holding too, but his Ronin was wounded again. Things looked grim!
 The bandits were fighting the villagers behind them.
Seeing the danger, Ian's Ronin withdrew into the village.
 
 Lawrence's Ronin were surrounded and separated by enemies!
 The pile of bodies in front of my position continued to grow...
 Until the Bandit chief and his armoured retinue attacked me! 
Lawrences men were, surprisingly, keeping the enemy at bay! 
Phil's Ronin leader was pushed back, but my Ronin seemed to be winning! 
 
 Ian's shorter line seemed to be holding too.
 Lawrences opponents were falling in droves!
 My Ronin left the tree and attacked!
 Phil's Ronin was wounded by a Yari...
 ..But one of my Ronin fell dead with a Yari in his belly! -catastrophe! 
 With a final attack, my last Ronin slew the Bandit chief!
Phil's Ronin leader dispatched his stubborn opponent as well!
 The rest of the surviving bandits began to fall back..
 ..before fleeing to the safety of the countryside! - Banzai!!! 


What a close game it was! - we could have lost at any time!

Great fun though!