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







Saturday 28 August 2021

Roll with the fates

 Today, we returned to the Seven Years War, with my victorious Prussians hoping to get yet another famous victory over the Russians!

Despite my Prussians out-scouting the Russians - I failed to get either flank sector to deploy in, so I deployed in standard style with a long double line of infantry with artillery on the flanks, and my vaunted cavalry behind the flanks, ready to deploy out.

My army, forced to have my right wing horse deploy in a wood!

The Russians deployed similarly but with their guns deployed along the line. Amazingly, neither of us had any Incompetent brigadiers, and we had Competent brigadiers (Phil had two, me one, which was with my right wing horse) 
All was looking good!
Then I rolled for my command dice, the left horse got a 1...
...as did the Infantry next to them...
One 3! - but the fourth got a 1 too!
Seydlitz in the wood got a 3, but being Competent, this went up to a 4!
With Frederick's additional order, the left wing Kuirassiers began to deploy.
Seydlitz led his whole force out of the wood.

The only infantry advance I could manage with those dice was to advance the Frei Korps!!!
The Russians had similar though less severe command problems, so soon I got my dragoons on the left chasing after the Kuirassiers.
My infantry were still unable to advance - but the Russians had been able to take the hill in front of their centre.
My right wing horse deployed easily, and the Hussars went forward to support the Frei Korps.
The Russians were happy to stay on their hill, and their artillery was soon in range.
My left wing artillery was disordered by their first volley!
Their artillery was active on their left too...
...a volley of cannister disordered my Frei Korps.
I hoped either the Hussars or light infantry would be able to destroy the Russian artillery on the flank to allow my heavy horse free rein.
These moved up in preparation to engage the strangely quiescent Russian cavalry.
My left wing horse was faced with a hill covered with Russian horse.
My left wing artillery fired...
Phil had turned a second line regiment to protect his flank, my fire got 'bounce through' which disordered his manoeuvering infantry.
Phil had his cavalry in good order on the hill, what would he do with them?
The Russian brigadier moved to steady his infantry.
Phil advanced a Cuirassier regiment to face my Hussars.
As Phil chomped on a sandwich, I hoped my Hussars might catch the Cuirassiers at the halt if I got a good charge in?
Piffle! I rolled badly and the Hussars halted!
My Frei Korps tried to storm the gun, but likewise failed their charge roll!
On the other wing, I brought up another Kuirassier regiment to hopefully deter the Russian infantry from venturing forth to engage my lead regiment.
No luck! The brave Russians advanced and got a good volley on my poor Kurassiers!
The lead Russian Cuirassier regiment now advanced confidently.
A brisk charge by the Russian horse swept my Kuirassiers away and both went off table.
Back on the other side, my Frei Korps stormed the Russian gun!
My Hussars AGAIN failed to advance though!
Phil turned a battalion and a great volley ripped the victorious Frei Korps to pieces!
As the Prussian and Russian heavies joined combat, the remains of the Frei Korps routed towards their base line!
Amazingly, on this flank too, my Kuirassiers baulked, and were routed by the supposedly inferior Russian Cuirassiers!
The Hussars had seen enough and retreated off the table.
I only had one regiment left on my right...
...and my left was faced with a line of infantry, with the probability of the Pursuing Cuirassiers returning on my flank!
Thanks to the failure of my infantry to advance, and some shocking die rolls, I decided I now had no chance of winning, and preserved my army for another day!

Well done to Phil's Russians! It was a fun game!

Saturday 21 August 2021

D-Day

 Today, we had a couple of games of WW2 skirmishing using my own rules 

The scenario was a couple of officers from the 101st Airborne with 0-3 soldiers they have already joined up with, following the chaotic drop into Normandy in the early hours of 6th June 1944. The aim of the game is to join up with as many of their comrades as possible, eliminating any enemy troops en route.

The battlefield.

I started on the right , having rolled up 2 riflemen to accompany me.
Phil AKA Norman D Landings, had another 2 riflemen accompanying him on the left. As its night, we lost the advantage of automatic spotting in the open...so couldn't see each other's groups.
Phil activated a marker, bringing a mortar strike on his group, which thankfully missed!
He made his way through the terrain safely.
I was gathering lost souls at a fast rate, luckily finding US reinforcement chits rather than hostile action!
Phil found a large group of 5 soldiers on a hill, more than doubling his force.
I sent 3 of my men forward to scout.
Phil organised his men into a coherent section. 
My men moved through the wood scouted by my 'recon element'.
Phil was also moving through a wood to avoid observation.
The last counter in the wood turned out to be a dummy marker!
My men rushed a hedge, driving away the 'Portal Markers' which could bring on German soldiers, and spotting the (square) event markers.
I luckily found another 2 riflemen.
Unfortunately they appeared in sight of several Portal Markers, which created a German patrol behind my force!
My men scattered, but I lost a man dead and another wounded!
Phil met the enemy too, a sniper killed one of his scouts.
He had detached 2 scouts to activate another event counter, which produced ANOTHER two Americans! - we now outnumbered the Germans 2:1!
The Germans got another half section in support against me.
Only the MG team spotted me, but that was bad enough!
I lost another man dead and another wounded.
Phil, attracted by the fire, climbed up a hill overlooking the action.
Their fire wounded one of the MG34 crew.
My men fired too...
...They killed one German rifleman and suppressed the rest!
The machine gun killed another of my men though!
Having spotted 3 of Phil's force, a German fire team attacked!
Phil had brought up the rest of his section...
...The Germans were shredded in a storm of fire.
On the other side, my Lieutenant slumped to the ground, seriously wounded. 
The triple damned MG team now turned on Phil.
Two men fell to a well aimed burst...one of them his Lieutenant!
The rest of his men returned fire, wounding and suppressing the gun crew.
At this juncture the rest of the Germans retreated off table.
Although technically an American win, with both officers down, the force would not be able to continue on mission.


The second game...
I started again again on the right with 2 guys again!

Phil got a 4 on his D4 so got a maximum 3 companions!
Phil again went to that wall!
He spotted a marker, which turned out to be a Bazooka team!
My men advanced and found a Mortar 2nd.
Quite randomly, the next counter I spotted was the rest of the Mortar team!!!
Being visible to a lot of PMs, we were so lucky to roll a '1' on encounters! 
Nothing, Nada, Zilch!
The highly visible Bazooka team went into cover.
Phil again found a group of 5 riflemen!
I moved my Mortar section round the flank.
The Bazooka team joined up with Phil's burgeoning army!
I moved warily, keeping out of sight as I advanced.
The Bazooka team had to duck, as a mortar round exploded in the pool next to them!
Phil's advance had displaced a lot of PMs.
I was able to move more freely in consequence.
Phil advanced past the pool.
He was spotted by a German group...
...an SMG burst killed one of his men, the rest went into cover.
One of his fire teams spotted the shooters and returned fire.
A German was wounded.
Another group appeared but, seeing nothing halted on their wood edge.
Phil advanced in the cover of a hillock, a well aimed grenade caused catastrophic damage to the Wehrmacht goons!
The survivors ran!
Phil found, you guessed it, 2 more lost souls!, including a Corporal.
I had moved into the wood behind the inactive group of Germans...but a 'Crack' followed by one of my few men falling dead...
...showed the Snipers were still about!
Phil was sweeping up even more Paras, including a gunner looking for his 30 Cal team!
My men moved round the German position and I lobbed a grenade into them.
Phil also attacked from their front...
...but he lost another 2 men to the HMG team.
My grenade had suppressed the riflemen and my carbine killed one too!
Phil's men had spotted the HMG and plastered it with fire.
Unable to fire, the Germans retreated off table.

Ah, a clear cut victory for the forces of Liberty! Yay!