The Battle of Hawkes Farm at Little Wars 2019

A couple of weeks ago I ran a Sharp Practice game for six players at Little Wars using the American Civil War collection.

The scenario was that the Confederates had been using Hawkes Farm as a supply depot, but an outflanking manouver by Union troops had forced an hasty abandonment. Both sides now realised that the farm should be recaptured so set out to claim it.

The game was played as a standard battle scenario, but each commander was given a major and a minor objective of their own that they were not to share with any of the other players.

In many of our Sharp Practice games we forget some of the role-playing aspects of the game and just get on with the battle, so these minor and major objectives allowed us to re-engage with that side of the game.

Each player had a play sheet denoting their troops and special rules along with their own objectives.

Confederates:

Red 1: Captain James Turnbull (Leader, Status III) leading three groups of eight infantry with rifled muskets. You are accompanied by a Preacher.
Red 2: Sergeant Jake Woodward (Leader, Status I) leading a group of six skirmishers with rifled muskets

Major Objective: Lieutenant Carter is a cad and a bounder, without making it too obvious he should not survive this battle.
Minor Objective: You and Lieutenant Carter vie for the affections of Molly Golightly, if you were to suffer a minor wound, she would be sure to favour you.

This command was played by Kevin.

Red 3: First Lieutenant Daniel Carter (Leader, Status II) leading three groups of eight infantry with rifled muskets
Red 4: Sergeant Elijah Barnes (Leader, Status I) leading a group of six skirmishers with rifled muskets, one of them is a ‘Cracker’
Your force is deployed from a fixed secondary deployment point.

Major Objective: The cracker must enter the farmhouse at Hawkes Farm and pick the lock on the desk drawer and retrieve the cash (Task value 16)
Minor Objective: The cracker must survive the game.

This command was played by Allan.

Red 5: First Lieutenant Nathaniel Eppendorf (Leader, Status II) leading two groups of eight cavalry with mixed weapons
Red 6: Second Lieutenant Jonah Fish (Leader, Status I) leading a group of six skirmishers with rifled muskets.

Major Objective: Beat an enemy group or formation by at least ‘Defeated by 2’ with a mounted charge
Minor Objective: Escort the cannon and limber off the southern road.

I initially played this command as we had a player Pat, who was completing an earlier game then he took over.

Blue 1: Captain Horatio Jones (Leader, Status III) leading three groups of eight infantry with rifled muskets. You are accompanied by a Musician.
Blue 2: Sergeant Jebediah Hawkins (Leader, Status I) leading a group of six skirmishers with rifled muskets.

Major Objective: The colonel does not hold you in the esteem that you believe you should be, you need to burn the farm house and barn to the ground. Your men are equipped with tinder boxes and supplies to do this.
Minor Objective: If you are going to lose the game it would look better for you if you were incapacitated, if you lose the game and have been wounded this is a minor objective, not if you win.

Played by Chris.

Blue 3: First Lieutenant Francis Kennedy (Leader, Status II) leading three groups of eight infantry with rifled muskets
Blue 4: Second Lieutenant Pearson Blake (Leader, Status II) leading a group of six skirmishers with rifled muskets

Major Objective: Chicken dinner tonight, secure three bases of chickens from Hawkes Farm and the surroundings

Minor Objective: Any chicken shall do, get at least one base of chickens from Hawkes Farm and the surroundings

Played by Liam.

Blue 5: First Lieutenant Gary Keller (Leader, Status II) leading two groups of eight cavalry with breech loading carbines.
Blue 6: Second Lieutenant Jonah Fish (Leader, Status I) assisting.
Your force is deployed from a fixed secondary deployment point.

Major Objective: Cause any group or formation of Confederate horse to break and run either by fire or steel.

Minor Objective: Escort any civilians to safety

Played by Drew.

The game played out well, initially the players were getting their troops into place and starting the first firefights, it was lucky that I started off playing the Confederate horse as the players soon twigged that I was running the cannon off the table and started to get into achieving their own objectives.

After that it was a free-for-all while players both concentrated on winning the battle, but also achieving their goals. Allan soon had a team in the farmhouse ransacking the safe while Chris was firing the barn. Liams men went hunting down chickens and Drew was escorting civilians to safety all the while the battle raged.

I felt quite sorry for Kevin and shall have to revise Turnbulls objectives as they are rather out of his hands.

Much of the action occurred around a small outbuilding where two Confederate soldiers had gone to present their cards after an 'event', two of Liams Union troops where rounding up chickens and the Union horse were trying to convince the farmer and his daughter to leave all the while Kevins troops were firing volleys into it.

A sharp firefight was taking place on the southern edge of the farm and the Union troops under Chris initially had the upper hand but as his commander was elsewhere the Confederates of Allan were better able to manage their shock.

The firefights, and the battle, were resolved by a Confederate cavalry charge into the Union foot causing the foot to break and the Union morale to collapse.

On the Union side, as the farm was on fire and he had been wounded Chris was our star player having achieved both his objectives first. Liam had captured two bases of chickens. Drew had escorted one civilian to safety.

For the Confederates, Kevin had not achieved any objectives, but that is more my fault than his, Allan had both cracked the safe and made it away with his cracker alive and Pat/myself had scooted away the cannon and performed a victorious cavalry charge.

Many thanks to chum Drew who took most of the photos, I found that I'd only taken a handful during the game.

War of the Spanish Succession English and Danes (2)

More terrain and troops for our War of the Spanish Succession games, this time a windmill, some English horse and Danish foot.

Firstly the terrain piece of a windmill and outbuilding.

This comprises two resin buildings from Leven Miniatures, firstly the Dutch Windmill and the building is an 'Ancient Cottage' piece. The crates, sacks and barrels are from Perfect Six Scenics.

The sails on the windmill are free rotating on a piece of brass rod. I thought that if I glued them on they would likely break very easily, hopefully if they are removable they may be a little more resilient.

The base is a 60mm x80mm MDF from Warbases. Like the farm and churchyard painted last week, I think they are lovely models that will help set the scene for our battle fields.

Next completed was a couple of squadrons of English horse representing Lt. General Lumley’s Regiment with blue cuffs and turn-backs and yellow saddle cloths and lace.

All the figures are from the Baccus War of the Spanish Succession range.

The paint job is a simple base-coat with some highlighting then a wash with a mix of Tamiya Smoke and Tamiya Clear varnishes.

The French and Bavarians have been getting a lot of reinforcements in my most recent updates, so this time I decided to add a unit of Danish foot in English service. I'm unsure of the actual regiment, but the scheme is taken from a plate in the Marlborough's Army 1702–11 book with a rather nice red lace on their tricorns.

I'm now cracking on with some more terrain pieces as well as some French horse and Bavarian dragoons, hope to get another update out later this week.

Maximillian 1934 (4)

This pair of Eureka Miniatures figures for Maximillian 1934 have lain on my painting table for several months, primed and ready for painting but pushed aside while the Hundred Years War collection got all the attention.

The chap on the left is "Driver running with pistol" while on the right is Maximillian himself with his trusty mutt. Both really nicely sculpted with bags of character.

These were a really simple paint job and probably took less than an hours total 'brush time' for the pair of them, don't know why I did not get them done sooner.

Battle of Guadalajara 1937

I attended Little Wars this past weekend and was fortunate to be able to play in Liam Hardings Battle of Guadalajara 1937 Spanish Civil War scenario using the Big Chain of Command rules alongside the Espana supplement.

The scenario we played was a Nationalist attack on a Republican held walled manor house.

Three of us would play the Nationalists attacking with a force of CTV infantry and tanks and a Falange while the defenders had militia and International Brigade, I commanded the CTV tanks, thre CV-33 and a CV-33 flame-thrower. The scenario was the Hasty Defence from the new 1940 supplement.

All units rolled very low for Force Morale and it looked like it would be quite the challenge for us all.

During the Patrol Phase we pushed hard on the left flank and did very little on the right, two of our jump-off paints for the Falange were well over the half way mark on the right hand edge of the table and our CTV would deploy in the dried river bed. The CTV tanks I would command came on a road that marked the left of our deployment zone but was in actuality about the center of the table.

The Nationalists would go first, as a part of our supports we had purchased a pre-game bombardment, meaning that we had a least one phase of disruption on the Republic before they either spent the Chain of Command dice that they started with or they allowed it to continue.

As suspected the Republic did spend their Chain of Command Dice to end the barrage, but the first turns effect was good enough. We had set up a good fire base opposite the manor and were pushing a patrol through the woods towards a vulnerable jump-off point on their left flank.

The Republican militia deployed into the manor and some effective overwatch firing from both the CTV and Falange saw five dead and a whole load of shock on them. Also the threat to their second jump-off from the Falange patrol meant that the Republicans had to commit the remainder of their militia column there rather than in the manor.

The Italian tanks moved onto the board and started to cross the stream and advance on the manor under the cover of some woods, a well deployed Republican anti-tank gun made them act with caution and a T-26 was on the prowl.

The T-26 took some inaccurate shots at my CV-33 tanks but was driven off by a shot from our 65mm howitzer leaving the Italian tanks free to advance on the manor. Effective fire from our infantry, tanks and support weapons had sorely reduced the defenders and a couple of blasts from our CV-33 flame tank saw them break.

With the International Brigades still rushing from their positions on the Republican right to reinforce the militia the Falange crossed into the compound and took the manor house expending a Chain of Command dice to end the turn and therefore win us the game.

Liam had organised a great scenario for the game and as you can see in the few images I captured his terrain and figures look brilliant. We had been very fortunate in the Patrol Phase, then the terrible dice that Allan had rolled for the hits on those militia in hard cover had really weakened their defences.

War of the Spanish Succession French(7)

The Hundred Years War project has stalled at the moment due to a lack of unpainted figures so this week the War of the Spanish Succession project gets some love with both a couple of pieces of terrain and French horse and foot being painted.

First up is a church and graveyard that I'm rather happy with how it turned out. The church model is from Leven Miniatures and is a very nice model, well cast in resin. The walls are also from the same manufacturer.

The gravestones and statuary are from Perfect Six Scenics, again lovely castings and a useful range of accessories in this small scale. I think this will be a great addition to our battlefields.

Next is a small farm comprising a couple of buildings again from the Leven Miniatures range. The well is from Perfect Six Scenics and adds a little character to the set.

I have enough other pieces from these two manufactures to knock out another four bases of terrain and you should see the results over the next few weeks.

On to the figures, firstly a regiment of French French Chevau-légers bringing me up to 20 bases of horse for the French, you can never have enough cavalry in grey coats with red cuffs and turn-backs, super generic as just about all French Chevau-légers looked the same in this period.

 I wanted to do the whole regiment on black horses, with just greys for the musicians, I do like how they look 'in real life' but think they came out very dark in these photos.

I also completed another infantry battalion for the French, this one represents Regt. Normandie, grey coats with black cuffs and turn-backs and white waistcoats and hose. I must have been having a black period this week.

Again they look rather darker in these shots than they do in the flesh.

I'll never get to play with them though, Drew always bags the French for our games, I must paint some more allies for the Anglo-Dutch, maybe a Danish regiment.....