There were just four of us at the last games night – Myself, John, Chris S and Terry. We were playing through a D-Day scenario again – Chris trying to get off the beach in the face of Terry’s defences and John and I swapping roles from the last time we played this through – he was US Airborne, I was German Panzers.

It was a good night, although John and I both agreed we needed to play a bit more often as we keep forgetting rules!

Some pictures of the games:

First up, Chris’ boys on the beach. Terry’s defenders in the trenches.

Meanwhile, the paratroopers that survived the drop (about 75%), find themselves in a perilous position with guns on three sides – most of them in armoured vehicles!  Time to get the bazookas out boys!

The Rangers assault the fort at the end of the beach.

Panzer IV reserves come on and hose the Paratroops that had assaulted and knocked out the AA quads.

The last few turns. Here the Panzer IIIs have outflanked the paras and the end result will be a mini-Cannae with the last surviving platoon being the Mortars in the centre left of the picture.

And a final shot of the chaos on the beach.

Terry and Chris’ game wasn’t quite as decisive as that of John and I. The paras were pretty powerless against the tanks, although the bazookas did take their toll. The 37mms achieved nothing, and the HMG platoon was totally pointless. The mortars had a bit of luck. John never dug himself in, though, or tried to fortify any areas. He basically sat back and let the Germans dictate where his troops would go.  This wasn’t helped by the fact that we never placed any objectives!  We are noobies at this after all!  As stated above, John and I are eager to play a few more games just to get a proper grip on the rules.

Nate

The games room – John has a double garage devoted to wargaming, and a very understanding wife devoted to feeding us – look at the pizza Chris H is feeding on! Thanks, Rose!

The venue was Irregular John’s games room, and we had 10 players in total. The plan was to run two Napoleonic games and a Flames of War game split up into 2 sides of the table.

The first Napoleonics game was a test of the new Foundry Napoleon rules. I ran this game against Keith, who kind of joined in because he was there. This was the first time he had ever played a wargame, so it gave us the chance to try out the rules without any prior prejudices influencing how we interpreted them.  I have to say that the verdict is that these rules do need some clarification, that the game play was OK, but that there are a lot of areas to improve on. Keith enjoyed them, and even began to understand hope they worked, and we gained a result relatively quickly, which are  important points in their favour. However, I will now go back to my plan to modify the 1644 rules for Napoleonics, I think.

Nathan looking not a little perplexed as to why the rules aren’t quite giving the right results.

Chris H’s game used his standard SLOT rules, but with a fast play dice chart in order to simplify the game a little. As usual, two quite large armies scuffled over the tabletop, with the French gaining a win over John’s Austrians. Sean joined in for this game to try out some Napoleonics and seemed to enjoy himself.

Chris H explaining the intricacies of Napoleonic rules to Sean.

The Flames of War games were played by Paul, Richard, Chris H, Terry and Pierre. This was Pierre’s first taste of wargaming, and from all accounts he enjoyed himself. It was another titanic struggle between the forces of good and evil (evil being whichever side Paul is on ), with the forces of the United States taking on Nazi Germany’s big cats. And the winner – well Germany 1 – US 1. A one all draw!

Chris S and Richard – typical US commanders (where’s my artillery…?).

Terry, Paul and Pierre. Terry is wondering why burning Tigers smell so bad…

So another fantastic night, well-catered with inspirational surroundings and terrain. It is always fun to have John’s helmet collection nearby to get us into role – he just needs some Napoleonic headgear now!

Next game will be in November – sometime.

Nate

The next game is scheduled for the 19th September, so my promise is a full battle report then!

Above, left to right: Irregulars Nathan, John, Paul, Terry, and Chris S. Doesn’t von Terry suit that helmet? ‘Vere is his little tank?’ And Chris ‘Blood and Guts’ – the epitome of an American General! Only person that doesn’t suit their helmet is Nathan – much better off being a Roman Centurion I think…

With 3000 points a side, it was Chris vs John and Terry, and Nathan vs Paul. Admittedly we were allowed to support each other, but in the end this hardly happened. John and Terry lost BOTH of their Tigers in the first turn. After that it was merely a mopping up operation for Chris S. The battle between Nathan and Paul was much more hard fought, and the eventual victory to Nathan can be traced back to Paul’s rash decision in one of his turns to fire his smoke first and then realise that he couldn’t move anything anymore!

Paul and Nathan didn’t finish their game until 2 hours after the the Chris/John/Terry flank had become a done deal!

Meanwhile:

Nathan is smiling. Is it because of all the ones he is rolling on the black dice or because he’s just about in his ’I'm a little teapot’ pose? Never mind. With a switch to the white dice, the low rolling disappears and voila – instant sixes.  A wargamer who isn’t superstitious is a very strange wargamer indeed!

Many thanks to Rose who dished up some supurb treats for the boys as they battled their way through the night. What a great night’s gaming. I think everyone came away happy, even those that might have come second!

John purchased himself a very fetching Roman’s Centurion helmet, and being the poseur that Nathan is, he had to have his picture taken. The results of the Irregular day out are here:

Centurion Ioannes

Centurion Natanus

and the Harem (apologies to ladies pictures).

Bloody hard to fight in that thing is all that I can say! All in all, a very satisfactory day out.

Next up, two reports – the Napoleonics game played at Chris S’s place, and the end of the battle of Montebello (spoiler alert: the French win!)

So the Fourth game was duly arranged at Chris Hill’s house, to be a Napoleonics affair. All well and good, but it is obvious why we call ourselves the Irregulars. Of our growing membership, Chris H, John and myself were the only ones who could make it! Never mind, we made the most of it, and Chris set us up a nice scenario based on the battle of Montebello-Casteggio in 1800.

I was meant to bring some trees to liven up the battlefield a bit, but was in a hurry and forgot them. At least I remembered my camera! Chris umpired while John and I played for the first few turns, and then Chris brought on the Austrian reserves under his command.

Above: Deployment. The French 17e Legere march down the road towards Montebello, but the Austrians are deployed on the hills around the village of Mairano (left). The advance guard of the 12e Husards looks rather lonely with two threatening regiments of cavalry sitting waiting. General Lannes (Me!) decided that the hill had to be neutralised before any advance on Montebello.

Above: 3rd turn and the combats have begun! I decided to pin John’s cavalry with a charge while the Legere advanced in open order to assault the Austrian lines. What I didn’t count on was that John would countercharge with his leading squadrons and send his reserve squadrons towards the helpless skirmishers of the 17e. About half managed to get back to their supports whilst the others were ridden down. Not a happy circumstance for my poor boys! A knot of the 2nd battalion stood in the way of the next Austrian move. Meanwhile a drawn cavalry combat was occuring between the 11e Husards on one side and the Nauendorff Hussars on the other. The Bussy Jager zu Pferd were arriving to provide back-up.

Incidentally, the white cards are our SLOT cards – order markers for simultaneous movement.

Above: The 17e assault the Austrian light infantry on the hills, having charged the Hussars and made sure that they cleared off. The 11e Husards break and run, pursued by the Austrian cavalry. In the middle the 3rd battalion of the 17e Legere stands in line like a stonewall (well before a similar event of 61 years later!). It is a pity that I can’t skirmish my Elite skirmishers, but there is just too much cavalry around!

The 17e secure the hill and the village of Mairano. A column of the 28e arrives and marches on to reinforce the flank where a column of Austrians have been spotted approaching. Forcing the Horse battery from the hill has given the 3rd battalion a new lease on life and it assaults the Austrian light battalion in the centre.

Meanwhile on the right flank the 43e and 96e demi-brigades arrive. John’s light horse were blown and forced to regroup, meaning that the rear of the 17e was luckily not threatened. In the time it has taken him to reorder and wheel about the 11e Husards have rallied (right) and boy are they pissed off!

The game ended at 10pm last night with this situation. Above is the left flank of the French army. A lone battalion of the 28e in line looking at the Austrian column consisting of IR18 and IR57 as it advances from Casa il Giardiana towards Mairano.

The heights are controlled by a battalion of the 28e and the remnants of the 17e. 3 companies of the 17e garrison Mairano. On the right the 3rd battalion of the 17e has deployed into open order to assault the Austrian lights.

And on the right flank of the French line we see the 43e in line and the 96e advancing beside the road towards Casteggio. The 11e Husards have rallied and are facing down the Austrian light horse. I have in mind exactly what I plan to do next, it will be interesting to see if we finish the game. I’m hoping that we will sometime this week, or at least play through a few moves. I have to say that the presence of two units of cavalry on the Austrian side made my primary objective of taking the hills and protecting the Montebello road for my reinforcements a particularly difficult and bloody one. I would also say that defending those gains will not be easy in the face of large numbers of Austrian reinforcements.

So a good game overall, so far. Hopefully a few more regulars will make the next session!

Nathan

The venue was Nathan’s house, and the game chosen was a 3000 point Flames of War battle between Paul’s Early War German army, and Chris S’s Early War French army. John would partner Paul in the Blitzkrieg whilst the two Chris’ defended La Patrie. Nathan acted as umpire and drank a decent amount of the wine as well!

We had to scrape to get the armies together, using unpainted figures and a few mid war infantry additions in order to make up the points, but we had enough and the scenario began. We played a ‘Hold the Line’ game. The Chris’s left their armour off in reserve in order to have a mobile counter-attack, but they regretted this later when they came face to face with the Panzers. For John and Chris H this was their first Flames of War game, and I had to admit that I was very rusty on the rules, but Paul and Chris S knew what they were doing, and with the aid of my rulebook, we were able to get through the game.

Below is a panorama of the battle:

In the end John’s troops burst into the town on the right flank of the German advance and the Chris’s were effectively turned. We all learned a good deal about the rules, Chris S is keen to get his French finished, Nathan has sped up his painting of his mid-late war Germans and Paul is finishing off his Germans too. There are a number of other Rotorua gamers eager to get into Flames of War, so lets hope we can keep encouraging them!

Man of the match: The French AAA – kept taking those Stuka’s down!

Decisive moment: The French infantry dug-in on the hill failed to stop Paul’s Panzers advancing.

Most tense moment: ‘We’ve been playing the aircraft rules wrong I tell you…’

A couple more shots just to show off the miniatures being used:

Paul’s Panzer’s burning it up on the left flank.

Some of Chris S’s French Armour – too late to save the day

Paul’s pretty little tanks. I think they’re Pz 38ts, but not 100% on that. Paul’s the Panzerfiend!

And just to prove that everything was above board, Nathan’s daughter Cassandra tests out the dice for tampering after the game!

The core founding members are: Chris Hill, John Norton, Chris Shorthall, Nathan Ward and Paul Whittaker. We are open to any other gamers to join.

Our main periods are 15mm Napoleonics, and 15mm World War Two (Flames of War), but our members also have 28mm ancients for Warhammer Ancient Battles, 28mm Napoleonics and World War Two, 28mm English Civil War, 28mm World War One and a variety of other periods. We are always open to new gamers.

The idea of the Irregulars is that each of the core members takes it in turn to host a game at their place. It is up to the host to decide what game is to be played, what rules are to be used and to organise the armies and terrain. The host is also responsible for refreshments for hungry and thirsty players, and has the final say in any rules disputes.

One of the things that worries us is that by not getting down to the club often enough, a number of younger or new players are missing out on historical wargaming when there seems to be quite an interest. By making this group, we hope to get a few of these newcomers involved and enthusiastic.

So once a month or more this blog will be updated with the latest game and any news from the Rotorua Irregulars. We’ll start off with our inaugural meeting on Friday 3rd October.