General d'Armee Learning Game

For my SIXTH Face to Face game within 4 weeks Scott brought some of his simply enormous Napoleonic collection over for a game of General d'Armee. 

We played an 1809 game with my heroic Bavarians and their noble French allies fighting off the invading rapacious white-coated Austrians. 

We set out two identical armies. 12 battalions of infantry, 1 battery of medium guns and 4 regiments of light cavalry. The Austrians had 2 battalions of veteran grenadiers. I split the allied cavalry into two 2 regiment brigades, giving me an extra ADC.

Center brigade 

French cavalry on my right wing 

Franco-Bavarian cavalry facing 2:1 odds!

Right hand brigade with artillery

I learned that allocating ADCs to the artillery can be very useful. 

Learning about charging squares, for reasons 

A lot of doings on the flank

Austrian cavalry putting in a couple of charges

A lot of time looking things up.

Overview towards the end. French hussars that charged the square are off picture to the lower right

Charge! Bavarian Cheveauxleger thrash some Austrians 

My first infantry attack is repulsed 

Franco-Bavarian left looking a bit tattered 

"C'mon, if you think you're 'ard enough!"
Much reduced Bavarian cavalry still shouting the odds after holding against 2:1 odds. Beer and medals all around for those lads.

So some good work learning the basics of command, subtleties of ADC allocation, movement, charge mechanics and shooting. We will have to add skirmish lines and more complex terrain later. Now that I've got a couple of games under my belt (although the first one was over a year ago!), I should reread the rules.

Of course now I realize that I'll need more skirmisher figures to make the separate skirmisher stands for the Bavarians, Russians and Prussians! G d'A generates  ~1 stand per battalion in a brigade. I suppose I could just use the flank companies, since casualty and stand removal isn't strictly necessary to track casualties if you have other mechanisms to use. I guess it would be cheaper/faster/easier to make some numbered chits or get some of those fancy dial counters.

sigh

Vive l'Empereur!

Wierdy-Beardy gave me this Foundry Napoleon when I was buying the start of my Napoleonics expansion from him at the beginning of the summer.

I don't really need the Big Man himself, but my friend Scott's French army is large enough that I think having Napoleon present is justified. Especially now that I've nudged Scott into building the Imperial Guard too.

So to repay Scott in a small way for his generosity I painted the Great Tyrant up for him. Scott is getting some ADCs etc painted to base him with in order to make a suitably grand imperial command base.
 

"I Ain't Been Shot Mum" Game

A banner weekend! People were available so I serendipitously had my FIFTH face to face game in THREE weeks!

This past Saturday Scott brought his never played with before WW2 Americans up for a game of I Ain't Been Shot, Mum. Americans attacking over some generic Normandy type terrain. They got 6 platoons to the German 4. They also rolled well and got a Forward Air Controller. Mikey helped Scott run the Americans and Patrick helped me with the Germans.

Scott took an American Armored Coy HQ plus 2x tank platoons and 2x Armored Rifle platoons, a MMG platoon and a platoon of M10 tank destroyers.

I took a Grenadier Company HQ with MG42s, 2x infantry platoons, a Pak 40 AT gun platoon and a platoon of Tiger 1s.

German blinds

Americans attacking from the far end

American blinds are super close. Shit's about to get real!

Tigers come off blinds and start hammering Shermans. 

The M4A3 with 76mm however survived the first couple of rounds and got some revenge. Annoyingly whenever a Tiger hit an M4A3 it rolled really well on it's armor dice.

The Americans are putting all of their attack on their right

"Achtung! Jabos!" Scott is excited to get his sexy P47 on the table for the first time

Oof! Tiger Zug leader is brewed up. Remaining Tiger shifts to engage the flanking Sherman platoon.

German flank, a section of grenadiers and an MG42 ambush the American platoon crossing the field. Scott will call down some 105mm howitzers on them and extricate what's left of his platoon.

I redeployed two of the Pak40s on my right to cover American thrust on the left. But this then left a platoon of M10s free to get around to my rear. One Pak40 killed one of them but still. 

American infantry in the orchard firefighting with occupied buildings

Too many Yanks!

A clear, but bloody American victory when we called it at midnight. The Germans had lost about 30 KIA (including AT gun and tank crews), a Pak40 and 3 Tigers, but they'd be lucky to get the remaining two Pak40s away I think. The Americans had lost about 45 or so KIA (including tank crews) and 6 tanks with another heavily damaged, all of which will probably be replaced within the week.

A Day of Lard

Canadian Lardies have been knocking about the idea of a Too Fat Lardies themed games day for a couple of years. Saturday one finally happened thanks to the efforts of Chris Robinson (@TheLegendaryNoiseMachine on Twitter) and Barnaby Ore.

The first Lard, Eh? was held in Hamilton at the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry Veterans Association hall, which is the same venue as the super fun Broadsword gaming days that I can never seem to get to because of scheduling conflicts. 

I was happy to not pack a game and just pay my money and play, which gave me a chance to try Infamy, Infamy! in the morning and then O Group after lunch.

Some of the pictures are mine and some are reposted with permission from Barnaby. In all there were I think 10 games and 20-ish players, since a number of people canceled last minute over the weather (which did get ugly on my drive home). Which was too bad. If I'd known there was room I would have taken Weirdy Beardy along as co-pilot and navigator.

Infamy, Infamy! was quite interesting. A classic British tribesmen versus Romans scenario. Romans need to get the cattle they have collected as tribute off the table. British have taken issue with this. Barbarians getting to attack from ambush and being concerned about Fervor versus the Romans leveraging their drill and armour was quite interesting.

Warriors charge out of ambush to thump the Auxiliaries

Angry youths throwing rocks at the authorities, starting a long lasting British tradition

View of some of the terrain

The fight is going well for the British! Sort of.

Oof!

Legionaries arrive but get charged by the British noble warriors

Things are getting shaky for the British!

But the British light cavalry were able to do an end run and lift the cattle and smash the Auxiliaries guarding them.

Here are some pics of a few of the other games that Barnaby shared on Facebook. Some are from the morning and some from the afternoon.

15mm Russo-Finnish War with I Ain't Been Shot, Mum

28mm War of 1812 Sharp Practice

Chain of Command

20mm ACW using Sharp Practice

What a Tanker

WW1 Air with Algernon Pulls It Off 

After lunch I got to play against the Mad Padre in a scenario set up by Brian using his 6mm collection. This was a historical scenario about the Algonquin Regiment's attack on Soitteville in August 1944. I'm trying to expand the bridgehead over the Seine and take Point 88 so that German FOOs will stop shelling the crossing points. Engineers haven't constructed a bridge or ferries yet, so I have no armoured support. I don't even have the battalion Carrier Platoon.

Brian is explaining something to me

German defenders of Soitteville

Trying to establish along the railway embankment

7 and 9 platoons charge in on the right

Meanwhile B Coy attacks from the left. Notice I've infiltrated a platoon to the rear of the town up in the woods. Totally sneaky move. Wasn't sure what to do with them though....

Finally getting D Coy up

Mike launches a counterattack on my flank which is barely held by the FOO and my attached Vickers MMG platoon

It was a fascinating game. Mike and I both felt like we were battalion commanders. But both noticed it was very easy to get sucked into the details of individual company firefights and throw all of your orders into those efforts and forget about the rest of your battle. I still had two companies to bring up, which once I remembered about them and got them forward I was able to extend my right and make Mike's position untenable.

I'd like to play more O Group. I just need people to play it with. It's a very different game which takes some thought to wrap your head around.

There was a curry dinner afterwards, but I was tired and wanted to be home. It was the best fun I've had for $10 in a long time. Plans are already being made for another one.

The Mad Padre's overview of the day is here.