Tuesday 8 April 2014

Anyone for Herring?

With the recent upturn in the weather we had been eagerly awaiting our first outdoor Funny Little Wars game of the season, the plan was to run an amphibious landing, set during the "Herring War" between Norway and Denmark, with a fortress assault in the style of Port Arthur.  Alas, the best laid plans of mice and men etc..... the weather turned, rain stopped play and the game was taken inside:

The layout of the table after the first few moves had been made, The Norse have occupied some of the houses and dug in along the tree line at the far end while the Danes tentatively approach the town.

The plan now was to try out some rules for fighting in built up areas, the scenario was to occupy an inland town with the objective of taking the strategically important coaling station.  AM and JW lead the Norse while PW and I played the Danes.

As the game unfolded, snipers became increasingly active.

Danish Jaegers advance supported by the Royal Guard and heavy artillery.

The artillery might have dominated the game if not for the erratic marksmanship displayed by both sides!

A shell bursts over one of the houses which has already been pounded to rubble.

Lessons learnt: troops sheltering in houses attract heavy bombardment and the concentration of so many men leads to high casualty rates, by contrast the resulting piles of rubble provide a bulwark that can subsequently be easily defended.  A fast furious game played with about 100 infantry and three guns a side it turned into a real slugfest with lots of hand to hand melee among the ruins, great fun and all done in about three hours.

I'll leave the reader to identify the figures used, the Danish expeditionary force was cobbled together from various units in the spirit of Put Everything on the Table.

13 comments:

  1. Splendid stuff! And I'm glad to see that it's not only my marksmanship which can't cope with a smaller playing surface.

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  2. Fascinating. I like the sparkler 'shellburst' - brilliant!

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  3. Fear not Tim, on past performance you have a long way to go before your marksmanship plumbs the depths we achieved yesterday!

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  4. Hello Archduke, Incendiaries and live explosives always bring an edge to the game.

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  5. A great looking game Brian- a splendid little war indeed!Do tell me a little more about the Norwegian figures. I am currently painting up some Danes and Norwegians in 1/72 scale using Airfix for my own wee Herring War,or rather frozen herring war...

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    1. The Norse are a compilation by the Padre from several makes, many are castings from Tradition, painted as Brunswickers and pressed into the Norwegian service.

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    2. And jolly good Norwegians they make too.I also enjoyed the pyrotechnics and hope for more...

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  6. Splendid.

    Love the metal chaps in the 2nd picture. I am afraid for all of their good qualities and sterling service the modern plastics just lack a bit of style.

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    1. How right you are, you can't fault a toy soldier that will face a hail of shot while standing to attention!

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  7. Thank you for another wonderful battle report Brian! I always enjoy them. I too love the sparkler, what a great idea! Hopefully I won't set my toy soldier room on fire when I try it out! Take care, Brad

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    1. I've just discovered Mrs C's secret stock of sparklers so we should we lots more fireworks in future!

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  8. Danish Jaeger movement tray looks good and very practical also...

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    1. The Jaegers are from an embryonic Austrian army but I thought they looked a bit Danish-ish so they stepped into the breach! The movement trays are from those super efficient chaps at Warbases, these trays take figures mounted on a 2p piece.

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