It's Never Too Later For a Happy Childhood

        I have watched CALLAN; An Act of Kindness twice already. For me the best part is when Callan walks into  his opponents "wargame room" and looks around like a kid in a candy shop. I must admit that this show and "Battleground" from the same period inspired me to spend most of my free time this week after work painting toy soldiers.  I realized that while I have plenty of Minifigs French figures, I am missing many of their opponents. I have no Austrians, and no Prussians.  While this seemed a problem, another look at Heritage Napoleonettes showed that they are a good match for the Minifigs. I have plenty of both Prussians and Austrians.  This last week has been a big inspiration for me and I have accomplished more in one week than the last three months. All the problems of the day melts away when I start work on my armies. I have been finding myself smiling like a little kid during this time. I put on some military music while painting and I'm in a different world. Now I want to work on scenery. The scenery on the CALLAN show has given me some ideas to be worked on.

   I wanted to get a game in today. I worked out a dice roll to pick a scenario in ONE HOUR WARGAMES. I picked scenario 21;Twin objectives.   The red army is split holding the town and the hill.  The blue army must seize both objectives. In the scenario the red army had 4 units; the blue 6. I gave each armies two more units. I rolled for both armies using the ONE HOUR WARGAME method. The rules are Bob Cordery's Memoir of Battle.

The blue army is at the bottom of the picture, the red army on top.  One unit of red army jagers are in the woods on the hill  on the blue army's left flank.

The blue army advances. One infantry unit assaulting the hill suffers 50% losses.

The red army advances on the  blue army.

The blue cavalry tries to turn the red army's left flank.

The blue army pushes back the jagers on the hill, and the red army in the center is also pushed back.

The red counter attack has limited success. The Brunswickers have made one unit fall back two spaces.

One red unit tries to flee to the town. It is pursued by the 1st Hussars. The hussars first attack kill 2 and rolls a retreat. It's followup attack is shown in this picture; it overwhelms the infantry. 

The blue infantry forces back one unit, which conveniently comes between the red general and the 1st Hussars. (The batteries in the camera died at this point; that is why there is a black line in the photo.)

The red jagers on the hill finally eliminates the infantry on the hill. The other jagers force back the blue's artillery and the Brunswickers kills one and forces the infantry back.

At this point in the game the red army has lost two units to the blue's loss of one. If red loses one more unit, they will have lost 50% and will be force to retreat.  However, blue army has two units on their start line and one unit is down to one. The red general gets the initiative roll and decides to launch all units into an attack. If the red army can force the two units on their baseline to retreat and eliminate the single infantryman, blue will be at 50% strength and will be forced to retreat.

Red army starts their attack.

This picture shows the results. The blue artillery loses one man, but holds firm. The  jagers manage to force the infantry to retreat off the board. The Brunswickers only manager to roll a retreat roll and do not eliminate that unit as hoped for. The infantry outside of the town kills one hussar. 

The blue artillery force back one jager unit. The blue artillery and full strength infantry unit hits the Brunswickers, forcing them back. This move also protects the one man unit from attack.

The blue cavalry brigade attacks the infantry unit outside the town. They kill one infantryman, but the infantry is forced to retreat out of range of the cavalry.

Blue rolls and gets the initiative.  The lancers continue to attack the upper infantry unit (top of picture). The hussars hits the Brunswickers on the flank while the infantry attacks their front. Both blue batteries open fire on the jagers.

The jagers lose one man and is forced to retreat.The Brunswickers lose two men and  retreat. The lancers overwhelm the infantry (at top of photo). The red army is down to 50% and must retreat.

Once again it was a last moment planned game. I must try to plan the game during the week so there isn't the last minute scramble. On Saturday I do work around the house and have a couple of hours to wargame.  To waste time on planning the game cuts into the game itself.