One Hour Wargames - Triple Line

 The hot weather has finally broken and it's cool enough to go back in the wargame room so we thought we'd get back in the swing of things with a game from One Hour Wargaming by Neil Thomas.  We chose scenario 26, Triple Line and here's how it went:

Overview of the battlefield, 6'x 6' with a road running through the centre and a bridge offering the only means to cross the river.  The English hold the left (Northern) bank, a banner of Knights have secured the bridge while two more prepare to support them from the treeline, a body of Archers make up the third line of defence on the hills behind them.

The sudden appearance of the French from the South has caused alarm and disorganisation in the English ranks, to reflect this the rules specify they may not cross the river and individual units may not move until the French come within 12" of them (firing is unaffected).  The winner will be whichever side is in undisputed possession of the Northern Hills at the end of 15 turns.  

The French army drew four banners of mounted Knights, a unit of armoured Men at Arms on foot and a body of light footmen from the Levy.  The opening move sees the French arrive from the South with the Men at Arms marching swiftly along the road while the Knights scout the flanks and the Levy bring up the rear.

The game gave me an opportunity to show off my new wargame mat which is actually a " green meadow tablecloth" from Temu, I bought two in this design which together cover 11'x 6', the join being hidden by the road.  There are several designs available, I also ordered one with a rocky desert pattern and a fourth printed with a river, bushes and paths, made from polyester they cost about £8.50 each with free postage from China.  The material is very thin and light so I laid them on my regular plain green baize cloth to act as an underlay, this prevented any slippage and for the price I would thoroughly recommend them.

The English Knights are all furnished by Timpo while their Archers are Airfix.  The French Knights are from Britains Herald range while their Men at Arms are Britains Deetail conversions and the Levy are 54mm Elastolin swoppet Saxons.  

The French Men at Arms rush the bridge but are checked by the English Knights and a melee ensues, the Knights carry a combat bonus but the heavier armour of the Men at Arms protects them as they batter their way through the tightly packed horsemen.

Having cleared the bridge the Men at Arms lead on up the road allowing the Knights to cross and fan out into the open ground around them. 

Seizing their opportunity, the second line of English Knights raise a cheer and thunder into a charge, they ride down the weary Men at Arms and punch their way into the supporting French Chivalry.  

Already it's becoming clear that this is a contest of attrition, the Men at Arms performed a forlorn hope to open the bottleneck at the bridge but now the turns are passing quickly and time is running out to reach the hill.  With so many Knights on the field the combat is fast and furious, the casualties are mounting at an alarming rate.

The gallant English Knights vow to sell their lives dearly, honour demands they hold back the French horsemen to buy time for the Archers on the hill.  The fierce melee churns around with no quarter given or asked, fortune ebbs and flows with every turn of the dice and the clock ticks ever onward.

Until finally the flower of English chivalry is trampled under foot and the French Knights face a hail of arrows from the archers on the hill.  With a final desperate lunge the Knights mount the hill and fall on the fearless Archers in the fifteenth turn, but it's too late, time has run out.

And so the day ended with honours even, a Draw.

The game lasted three hours but felt much less, it was heavy on combat but light on firing and manoeuvre, this I would put down to the type of troops in play.  For those not familiar with One Hour Wargames, each individual scenario in the book dictates the number of units for each side, players then dice for random allocation of units relative to the period being played.  Units are eliminated from the game after acquiring 15 hits from combat and firing, we use 1p and 5p coins to keep track of the hits to each individual unit.  

Scoring 15 hits on a unit can take an interminable length of time, but not on this occasion as seven of the ten units in play were mounted Knights, which carry a +2 addition to their combat scores, so it was inevitable there would be a lot of melee and a high casualty rate (once in melee units cannot break off from the fight).  Being mounted the Knights are highly mobile but their manoeuvrability was restricted by the terrain, the necessity of crossing the river by only one bridge, thus creating a bottleneck, and the impenetrable woods shielding the English line from any flank attacks. 

The Men at Arms have an armour bonus and their casualties in combat are reduced by 50%, this made them the only unit on the board strong enough to force a breakthrough at the bridge, spearheading the attack made sense even though it left them fatally weakened.  The lack of Archers was keenly felt by both sides, fewer units of Knights in favour of more foot and bowman would have given the game a very different dynamic.

At the start of a game it's always tempting to rush into contact and then find your focus drawn into the ongoing action as happened to us here, in hindsight we thought the English would have done better to put the Archers in the second line and pull the Knights at the bridge back to give them extra support. They could then use their firepower to degrade the French units before counterattacking, it was all about playing for time and slowing the advance on the hill.

Jacobite Rebellion - One Hour Wargames with 54mm toy soldiers

Subsequent to this year's Plastic Warrior Show, Anthony has acquired the greater part of a Jacobite 54mm wargames collection created by our old friend Eric Kemp.  Needless to say, we couldn't wait to get them out on the table.  We turned to our default ruleset for such games, One Hour Wargames by Neil Thomas and selected Scenario 6 - Flank Attack.

This post is really a shameless opportunity to show off some very pretty toy soldiers, for which I offer no apology!

The scenario opens with the Jacobite army on the road home to Scotland, their path blocked by two units of Government troops, while another 4 units are approaching on the east flank. 

The basic rules were tweaked to reflect national/tactical differences so that Highlanders have a longer move distance and can charge but not shoot they also gain a +2 in melee, regular infantry can move or fire but not both and can't charge. 

This makes for a fast moving and very bloody game so we actually managed to play the scenario twice and this was the first game

Two units of Highlanders in the van followed by artillery and a unit of French allies (their only regular unit) approach the Government regulars.

The blocking Government troops get off a volley before they are hit by the Highlanders charge, once in melee they are unable to disengage.

The Government troops out on the flank include a unit of loyalist Lowlanders who have the same movement and combat features as the Highlanders.

The regulars and artillery on the flank advance into range and begin to pepper the attacking Highlanders.

The French regulars turn to face the threat from the flank.....

......and defend against the charging Lowlanders 

The Highlanders have the advantage in melee but need to engage quickly before they take too much punishment from the musket volleys, flexibility in changing formation proved to be the key to the game.

In the second game the Government drew a unit of cavalry, together with the artillery they blocked the path of the Highland army.

Cavalry follow the standard OHW Horse and Musket rules, they can charge but if they do not eliminate the unit attacked they are bounced back half a move.

The collection includes Jacobite cavalry in the form of Bagot's Hussars but sadly they didn't get drawn when units were diced for, I think they would have made a substantial difference to the dynamics of the game.

With the Highlanders enhanced movement both sides moved rapidly into contact and very quickly became depleted in combat, these were without doubt the fastest OHW games we have played to date.

The Government troops carried the day in both games but they were each a very close run thing.

The figures themselves include a large number of conversions, particularly among the Highlanders, makers include: Replicants, Armies in Plastic, A Call to Arms, Accurate, Barzo, Marx, Cherilea and Timpo.

What have the Romans ever done for us? Part II

 We left our Roman Cohort battling against overwhelming odds, surrounded on three sides by the Germanic tribesmen.

Outnumbered three to one, with more tribesmen ready to join the fray the Romans can see two more cohorts of their comrades racing over the northern hill to rescue them. 

Too late, the Romans are cut down to a man.  

Victory conditions for the Tribesmen is to get 3 units off the table via the road to the south, so technically the game is over at this point but we couldn't just leave it there, it's not about winning, it's all about playing the game.

Just when it looked like it was all over, a unit of Roman auxiliary cavalry thunder around the woods to the north west in hot pursuit of the fleeing Tribesmen.

At the same time the alarm is raised as a body of Roman skirmishers and seen working their way through the woods.

The Roman cavalry witness the massacre of their infantry and spur headlong into a charge.

The Tribesmen reform to meet the threat from behind while their archers find easy targets among the advancing enemy cohorts and cavalry.

Back in the woods, the Germanic skirmishers have sprung an ambush on their Roman counterparts, both sides are expert at fighting in loose formation and making full use of cover, they slug it out but with little progress and few casualties on either side.

The Tribesmen have turned to face their pursuers and throw themselves into the attack, more Roman infantry are approaching from every direction but their attacks are made piecemeal and the Germans break them up systematically.

In the end the Tribesmen have taken a lot of punishment but have seen off the Romans and now continue on their way, to lick their wounds and fight another day.

The game ran to about 12 turns and reached a surprising but satisfactory conclusion, in summing up we felt that the slower ponderous movement of the cohorts was the deciding factor, if they could have caught the tribesmen as a cohesive force rather than entering piecemeal then their armoured front wuld have won the day.  As it was we both learned a great deal about the importance of pinning the enemy and then delivering flank attacks, something which is difficult to achieve in later periods with OHW where firepower is more dominant.

And it was great to play with such nice toys!

What have the Romans ever done for us? Part I

 Well they gave us roads!  And here's a nice straight one, just the job for scenario 13 of One Hour Wargames (OHW) by Neil Thomas.  After several grid based games in recent months we decided it was time to get back to a more traditional style of play.  That's not entirely true, Anthony has recently built up a very nice 54mm toy soldier collection of Romans and German Tribesmen, and we were both itching to see them on the table.  Here's how it went:

One Hour Wargames is an ideal game system to use with 54mm toy soldiers and requires minimal amounts of terrain, we chose scenario 13 which sees a German raiding party returning home chased by a Roman Legion looking for vengeance!  

The battlefield is split sown the middle by a fine straight Roman road running North to South, in the north corner is a small hill and on the other side of the road, a little further south is a sizeable forest.  The opening position sees 6 German units following the road from the north and discovering their route home blocked by a Roman cohort on the road to the south of them.

We used the OHW "Ancients" rules but incorporated the Warband features from the "Dark Ages" section, as it better reflects the nature of the German tribesmen and gives them greater mobility with a combat bonus to offset the armour advantage of the Romans.

The Germans drew 4 Warbands of warriors, 1 of Archers and 1 of Skirmishers.  The Romans drew 4 Cohorts of infantry, 1 of Auxiliary cavalry and 1 of Skirmishers.

The Roman Legionaries here are modified from A Call to Arms figures to make the poses more realistic, all the figures in the collection have been expertly converted by Rupert of  Drum and Flag toy soldiers.

As the German tribesmen charge headlong up the road two of the Warbands peel off to move around the flanks of the Roman cohort blocking the way.  The skirmishers have already moved into the woods behind them to protect the rear, with OHW skirmishers have little combat value but are good for holding rough terrain, from which they can dominate the surrounding area with fire while remaining relatively safe.

The Warband figures are converted from several sources including Weston Toy Co Mexicans, and Expeditionary Force Early Germans

Here the German skirmishers (converted from HaT figures) have taken up position in the woods to protect the Warbands from any pursuers.

Two more Cohorts from the Roman Legion have now appeared on the hill to the north east and charge in support of their beleaguered comrades. 

The Roman Cohort blocking the road has been retiring in order, maintaining a steady line while the Tribesmen bear down on them.

The leading Warband slams into the Roman shieldwall while two more hit the flanks.  Can the Cohort hold out long enough for their comrades to reach them in time?

A Crimean One Hour Wargame.

 A few  weeks ago we decided to hold an impromptu socially distanced game before the Powers that Be extended the lockdown to prohibit meetings of more than one household again.  These are strange times. The 2 metre wide table and a few other simple measures ensured that proper social distancing was observed, it's not difficult when there's a will and common sense prevails.  

Scenario One, Pitched Battle, was selected from OHW and toys suitable to the Crimean War were quickly garnered together.  The scenario called for a minimal terrain, the British drew units of infantry, skirmishers and cavalry while the Russians were favoured with infantry, cavalry and artillery!  Here's how it went:

Without any artillery the Brits had little option other than to pitch straight into the attack before the Russian guns ground them down.  "Into the Valley etc. etc."

Threatened on the flank, the Cossacks charge home but are bounced off by the doughty Dragoons of the Heavy Brigade, an immediate counter attack sees the Cossacks dispersed and routed.

Russian regular Infantry and Rifles wheel about to enfilade the advancing British line, they deliver a devastating volley that shatters a Regiment on the English right.

The thin red line holds and delivers it's own volley, both sides are now taking punishment and the British skirmishers have been brushed aside.  Here the British deploy their long range measuring tape.

The Battle began to pivot as the British faltered on their left but made gains on the right, at this point honours were even and it was still anybody's game.

Having seen off the Cossacks the redoubtable Dragoons followed through and rode down a Regiment of Infantry, only to flounder beneath the Russian guns on the ridge.  The withering Russian fire now began to tell and the British attack ground to a halt.  

The game lasted 8 moves, probably the quickest we've played, usually we go the full 15 rounds, but at least we got a game in, it was good to see toy soldiers back on the table and who knows when the next game will be?

One Hour Wargames in the Dark Ages

With the Christmas break a distant memory it was time to get the new gaming season off to a start, and as Anthony had recently acquired a collection of Saxon and Viking toy soldiers made by Expeditionary Force of Singapore we had to give them an airing.  Here's how it went:

We chose to play Fighting Retreat, (scenario 20) from One Hour Wargames by Neil Thomas, which sees a small Viking warband falling back while delaying a larger force of pursuing Saxons, thus allowing the main body of raiders to escape to their longships laden with the plunder.

Above, the raiders have crossed the river and their skirmishers have occupied the woods ready to surprise the Saxons who are just approaching the ford in the river.

Here the mounted raiders are putting distance between themselves and their pursuers while the slower moving footmen, realising that they risk being ridden down, have turned and formed a shieldwall.

We have used this scenario before for a medieval game (OHW link on the right should find it), but this time it played out very differently.  The thing we like best about OHW is that it uses the same basic rule structure for every historical period, but there are subtle changes to how the rules work, within each particular period, to reflect the developments in weaponry and tactical practice as military science evolved.  

The Saxon host cross the river at the ford, cavalry in hot pursuit, followed by fleet footed skirmishers and finally the mass of infantry.

So the basic game is very quick and easy to master, but what intrigues us is testing out the effects of those subtle changes to see how well they reflect the chosen period.  In this case we found the unit movements were much more fluid and less formal than in the medieval period, also the skirmishers of these Dark Ages were much less effective than the bowmen of the later period.  But the most notable difference was the resilience of the infantry formed up in a shieldwall, which was very hard to crack.

The Viking shieldwall braces itself for the impact of the Saxon cavalry, but holds without difficulty. The supporting infantry, following close behind, are forced into a bottleneck created by the ford and don't have enough room to manoeuvre around the melee.  Looks like I didn't think this move through  very well!

The Viking shieldwall has finally broken, but the Saxons have lost their cavalry and time is running out to prevent the raiders escaping, the Saxons surge forward and easily brush aside a unit of skirmishers.

The Saxons form sheildwall and face the remaining Vikings, they realise that the main body of raiders are clean away with the plunder, and that they will be advancing uphill fighting at a disadvantage...........so they decide to pack up and go home for tea.

These plastic Expeditionary Force figures are described as 40mm but they are clearly bigger than that, we compared them against my 40mm Elastolin Vikings and they towered over them (should have taken a pic for comparison, sorry about that!).  They come factory painted in the neat flat style you see here, personally I would give them a wash of brown stain (which is what Elastolin used to do) to give them a bit more definition, but they're not my toys so that won't be happening.

Anthony has mounted them on circles of MDF which provides greater stability on the table and also give them more of an "Old school" look.  This is the full range here; cavalry, infantry and archers for both Vikings and Saxon, that's the full extent of the range, shame they didn't extend to Normans but as Expeditionary Force have now moved upscale to 54/60mm figures this may be all we'll ever see from them in this size.

These were the first range issued by Expeditionary Force and were aimed at wargamers, the sculpting is excellent and while the plastic weapons look rather fragile they are in fact very robust.  Just wish we could find some other ranges (plastic or metal) that would compliment them, A Call to Arms Normans are a little too large, while the old Kellogs/Rubinstein "Warriors of the World" figures are about the right size but they are limited to just one Viking and one Norman.  Ho Hum.