2017 Battle Group Market Garden campaign Day 1

While finally writing up my games from the campaign weekend I found one day 1's afternoon games hidden in my game 2 photos. So rather than leave them hidden I thought I'd share this lovely tank heavy slug fest with lots of destroyed armour.

Battle Group Market Garden Game 3

My third and final game of the 2017 Battle Group weekend hosted by the Deeside Defenders. I had the honour of defending Arnhem. The scenario was from the book.

Great terrain on a 4x4 board.

The scenario did not allow me to deploy all my forces, just what I could dice for

I place my troops in the centre row of building as mutually supporting as I could

The first bombardment destroys my entire left wing 

The Germans arrive and mean business

The fire power directed at my remaining troops pinned them down

The German infantry infiltrated through the building on my left and added their small arms to the lead flying my way, and then charged 

Only my centre held or should I say had troops left. In 1 move the rest of my force would arrive

It wasn't to be. A German armoured car whizzed through barely defended streets and took the last remaining objective for an all objectives held victory. This was the quickest game of Battle Group I've ever played. I'd lost in 4 moves, and my first ever due to losing the objectives. I apologised to my great opponent who felt guilty winning so easily, but my tactics were wrong and my dice failed me. Very important lessons learnt 1. Don't defend so far forward 2. Don't forget about defending objectives. 

Overall I really enjoyed the campaign and I'll definitely refight this scenario again, and hopefully do better.

Battle Group Market Garden Game 2

My second game at the Battlegroup Market Garden campaign hosted by the Deeside Defenders last year took place on a very open and marshy terrain.

Artillery ready for whatever 

Hiding

The Germans grab the first objective

The Germans obligingly come towards me

Germans making good use of the road

A well place German machine gun dominates the tracks

My PIAT team move forward to have a go at the armoured car sat on an objective

The cover is getting crowded

I secure an objective

German armour advances

My paras wait patiently

Very cosy

My PIAT does it's job and the paras charge forward and take a 2nd objective

My artillery thins out the German infantry

3 tokens not enough to break. It was a long game and the Paras won in the end against a gentleman of an opponent. My first victory of the weekend.

Conwy Wargames Club Feb DBA games

Ian hosted a DBA game. I confess I am a great fan of Hail Caesar and before that Tactica, when DBA came out I took a dislike to it because it looked like chess and DBM didn't win me over. Now both these views of DBA and DBM were purely based on seeing games at shows, reading the multitude of articles that came out in the magazines at the time, but never playing them.

Since Ian has joined the club he's done a couple of games and the players have really enjoyed them, especially the DBM game. I realised there is no point being snobby  about a set of rules if you've never played them so in March I gave DBA a go.

Ian hosted providing a Roman and Sassanid army and Pete brought along an Alan army that could be adjusted to represent Visigoth.

Game 1
I took control of the Romans and Pete his Alans

Both sides deployed

Lovely Alan horse archers, which to our shock don't shoot arrows! Base to base contact is required. It took some getting used too, but I see the logic of short range horse archery abstracted in to close combat.

More lovely Alans

My Romans

My horse archers

My legionaries and auxiliaries

Sticky combat as we both manoeuvre to get an advantage 

As defender I got to place terrain and my use of these fields denied the Alans any swift flanking movement

I won the game, and really enjoyed it. I found some of he mechanisms familiar from Hail Caesar, and my mind adjusted too the small unit size quickly and I felt I was playing a real wargame and not chess. I enjoyed the tactical challenge, helped by not being familiar with the rules.

Games 2
Pete took over as umpire and Ian played the Sassanids and I took over the Alans. Sadly I took no photos, but it proved another enjoyable game. I used my speed to take the terrain and we clashed almost simultaneously as both our single lines met. I was able to exploit a gap created partly by Ian's lack of pips and partly by my winning a combat to get my cavalry behind Ian's line. This was exciting but it wasn't all going my way and we both were down to losing 1 more unit and we'd lose. This time it was me, done for by an elephant I was assured my horse archers could take, but rolling 1's is not going to help.

Another great game. I still love Hail Caesar but I'd definitely play DBA again.

Conwy Wargames Club Cruel Seas games

Mel and Dave co-hosted a Cruel Seas game taking it in turns to ref while Tony played in both games. 

They managed 2 games over 4 hours and really enjoyed it. I was surprised how long the errata was that had been issued by Warlords Games, definitely a sign of game rushed out for Christmas. The chaps were also puzzled by the torpedo rules because eligible target were based on size and their interpretation meant everything they were playing with was too small. One to look up post game I think.

Game 1 

 Game 2