Monday 23 November 2009

Crimean War French

Here's our French Army for the Crimean War.  Again put together from a variety of sources, different odds & ends.  It would be nice to add some Cuirassiers and Guard Infantry.  SmoggyCon a Game show in our local town is due this weekend, so we'll be looking for those special extra pieces to finish off a few armies. 

Crimean War French
1 General, 8 x Rifles, 2 x Cavalry, 2 x Artillery


Ze French!



 


Ground level view of the French


French  Rifles


Foot Artillery & Limbers


The superb Chasseur d'Afrique Cavalry.


French Line Infantry

Wednesday 18 November 2009

More Crimean War Brits

Our forces for the Crimean War are coming along nicely.  The British are completed, apart from flags (our colour printer has ran out of ink, there's another cartridge for an horrendous amount of cash...ggrr).  The French has been put together, pics of them later.  The Russians are on the paint table now & hopefully will be completed in a couple of weeks.

Here are some pics of the British force, first up personalities from Eureka Minis available from Fighting 15's.  They are 18mm and obviously BIG next to 15mm, but I reckon we can get away with them.  Anyway they are a lovely figure to paint.  http://www.fighting15sshop.co.uk/300cmw41-british-command-set-985-p.asp

The cavalry are shown next, we just need some more Heavy Dragoons to finish off the Heavy Brigade.  Plus there's some artillery, I've been obsessed with collecting limbers for every artillery piece.  Odd as limbers play no part in DBx rules, but there you go & they look nice.


Eureka 18mm Crimean War British Command


Raglan & Lucan 


CARDIGAN! & naughty Nolan


ADC & Scarlett


The Light Brigade in all their glory.
(They've been put together from odd leftover figures).




"NO NOLAN that won't do!" 





Scarlett leads forward the Heavy Brigade.
Royal Horse Artillery provide support.


Royal Horse Artillery looking lovely.


Foot Artillery


The Fine & Dandy Naval detachment.

Sunday 1 November 2009

HITT WW1 British vs Germans - Big Push Part 4

The Breakout!
So, the Brits have pushed through both Trench lines, but time is running out, could they capture the last objectives before the end of the day to secure Total victory?   

We've played 14 turns up to this point, the Initial attack was very good, however progress slowed during the passage through the second trench.  The Germans managed to slow the British advance down a lot, but the loss of the German Aeroplanes was a disaster!  Now it's time for the British Cavalry Force to push on into enemy territory.


British Assault troops bash some more Germans..

Last Huzzah for the German Cavalry!  In they go to stem the British onslaught.

It's a fierce battle on the left flank.

Biggles strafes the German Tank!

The last German Heavy Artillery is about to face it's doom.

Ginger attacks the German Infantry sheltering in the orchard.

The German Cavalry are taken out, the advance continues!

But the other German Cavalry fare better.

Oh no! Biggles is sent packing & he flees from the combat.  Back to base for him!

HoRaaH!  Another kill for the Infantry.

It's going well, BUT the sun is beginning to go down..

Here it comes.. Clash of the Monsters!!!

The Brits push back the Germans.

Overview from behind the German lines.

DAGGA DAGGA DAGGA... Allez Pierre Pascal.

The monsters engage...

The Germans fight back.. Just briefly.

The German Infantry now fall back pursued by the Brits.

Some British Cavalry push on, whilst the rest mop up.

One last bunch of German soldiers hold out.

The monsters just push each other back & forth..

The Germans are legging it from the field.

Whoops, Ginger is off as well now!

Some more German casualties...

The remnants of the German force head for the town.

Another objective is taken with some more German casualties...

So near yet so far!!!

Alas the advance is halted as time is up!

Overall view of the Breakthrough, the British suceeded in capturing four objectives.
The remaining four are circled in blue.

A 'shifty' looking Jack gloats at the success of the British!



So there we go, a Big victory for the British but not the 'War Winning' knock out blow. 
Fresh German reserves arrive overnight and a new front line is established.....

A great game, it shows you can play big games with a nice easy set of rules.  We do like Hordes in the Trenches, they do give an enjoyable game.  It was also good to use Poison Gas, effective against Artillery & Machine Guns, didn't work against Infantry.  Never got to use Mortars, the advance was just too quick.  The Tank vs Tank battle turned out to be a massive pushing back & forth match, never mind.  The Heavy Artillery was ok but not a lot of kills, lots of recoils for them though.

Being a good lad, Jack added up the unit statistics, what British units did the damage & what units were killed. The BIGGEST killer was the British Infantry, closely followed by the Aeroplanes. Totals are as follows:



BRITS                           GERMANS

Infantry -->              5 Infantry, 2 Cavalry, 1 Heavy Arty


Aeroplane-->           1 Artillery, 3 Aeroplanes, 1 Cavalry, 2 Heavy Arty


Sturmtruppe-->         4 Infantry


Tank-->                     2 Infantry, 1 Machine Gun


Poison Gas-->          2 Artillery


Barrage -->               1 Infantry, 1 Machine Gun


Heavy Arty-->           1 Artillery


Cavalry-->                 1 Cavalry


Armoured Cars-->     0


Mortars-->                0


You What? Those figures are very interesting indeed. Particularly when you work out the cost of a unit to what it achieved, kill ratio wise.....

Late Entry...Ooopps, just amended the Element/Kill stats, it now adds up to the correct score, 1 less to the Infantry. 

One thing we forgot to mention... There was a lack of Anti-Aircraft coverage in the German rear areas, in future games we'll add more.  Those nasty British Fly Boys were a right pain for the Germans, though we didn't expect to see the entire German Air Force shot down!