Simplicity in Hexes; Battle of Hook's Crossroads

       For the Bluvian commander, to retreat back to Bluvia was not an option. After such a humiliating defeat, he knew he would lose all, including possibly his head. With a brigade of reinforcements coming up, he decided to try to turn the Verdian left flank. Scouts told him there was a small force at Hook's Crossroads. If he could move fast enough he might just be able to slip by the left of the Verdian army. After the army rested, it was learned that the army lost about 200 men at Apostrophe Hill.  With his army fed, he ordered the army on the move.

       For the Verdian general, he thought the fighting was over. He had next to no losses, most of those injured could return right to the colors.  After the total collapse of the Bluvian army, they must be running back to the Bluvia border. Still, he decided to keep an eye on the retreat. His cavalry was blown from the day's fight. He ordered his dragoons to follow the retreating army.

    The dragoons were surprised when the Bluvian army turned north towards Hook's Crossroads instead of continuing to Bluvia. A dispatch rider went back to raise the alarm. The Verdian general ordered most of the army on the road, leaving a small guard to protect Apostrophe Hill.

The Bluvia army moves forward to seize the vital Hook's Crossroad. 

The Verdian army moves to hold the high ground, and he sends forward his dragoons to skirmish with the Bluvians.

The Verdian dragoons engage with the Bluvian dragoons. A Verdian infantry regiment forms line and starts to engage  the infantry at the crossroads.

The Verdian fire forces the infantry back.

The Bluvian commander decides to try to advance his army in line.

The Verdian dragoons are driven off.

The Bluvian cavalry hits the Verdian cavalry in the flank.

The Bluvian fire continues to inflect casualties along the Verdian front.

The Verdian left launches a strong assault against the crossroads.

The Bluvian dragoons are driven off, however, the infantry holding the crossroads holds fast.

The Bluvian right starts their attack on the hill.

The Verdian cavalry is routed off the field, while one Verdian infantry regiments is eliminated.

At the battle of Apostrophe Hill, the Verdian commander resisted the temptation to advance his infantry off the hill. However, now he decides to try to take out the Bluvian battery with a direct attack off the hill.

He is now hopeful of turning the Bluvian's right flank.

However, the Bluvian forces attack along the line.

They push back the infantry on the road. Worse for the Verdian army, the infantry regiment that advanced off the hill  is broken by the crossfire from the Bluvian artillery and infantry on their flank. Meanwhile, the bluvian cavalry starts working their way around the Verdian rear.

The Verdian general orders a retreat before his army is surrounded. The Verdian army falls back to a chosen position along the road. They have lost 225 men.  The Bluvian losses number around 125.

Simplicity in Hexes; the Battle of Apostrophe Hill

    For the campaign, I am using the Simplicity in Hexes campaign maps and result tree. The opposing armies are the Nation of Bluvia  and Verdia (easier for me than the names in the rules!). The rules are a thrown together set using mainly Battle Cry and See the Elephant.

     The Bluvian army crosses into Verdia, expecting a quick advance. However, Verdia has a good spy ring and know when and where the Bluvian attack is to take place. The Verdian general sends two regiments to Apostrophe Hill, a high ridge on the main road the Bluvian army is going to advance down. Meanwhile he quickly assembles what forces he can to reinforce the two regiments.

    The Bluvian cavalry reports of the occupation of Apostrophe Hill. The Bluvian general decides to deploy his army and launch an attack before the rest of the Verdian army can come up.

The Bluvian army deployed. Three regiments will assault the hill, and the dragoons will charge down the road to either attack the hill in the flank, or try to delay any troops on the road.

The Verdian army advances quicker than the Bluvian general expected.

The Bluvia dragoons attack the flank of the hill, and the Bluvian cavalry attacks the approaching Verdian cavalry.

The dragoons drive off one of the infantry regiments. Meanwhile, the Bluvia cavalry drives off the Verdian cavalry. In the rules I came up with, dragoons act like skirmishers. They can either fire on the enemy, or close with the enemy. However, to melee with the enemy, they must have equal or a greater number of stands to melee. As they only had 2 stands (they lost one stand to Verdian musketry from the hill) as opposed to the infantry's 4, they can only fire on the infantry. Only a unit engaged in close combat can "take ground", so the dragoons can't move onto the hill.  I'm not sure if this rule works, but for this campaign I am sticking to the rules for this campaign.

The Verdian cavalry counterattacks the Bluvian cavalry; another regiment of cavalry attacks the dragoons on the road. The Verdian dragoons move up onto the hill to support the infantry regiments.

The Verdian cavalry causes heavy casualties on the Bluvia cavalry, and the Bluvian dragoons are wiped out.  Meanwhile, the advancing Bluvian infantry suffers staggering losses in front of the hill.

The Verdian cavalry continues their attack. One regiment charges down the road and hits a blue regiment still in column.

The cavalry attack eliminates half the infantry regiment; the Verdian infantry fire from the hill  decimates the Bluvian infantry to their front. The Bluvian general orders a retreat to save what little is left of his command. It has been a catastrophic battle for the Bluvian army. Of course, the general's main concern is how to save his head!

On Campaigns

     This week has been an inspiring week for me. On Sunday I was going through a list of different articles made many years ago. While the original article I was looking for could not be found, there was another in an issue of MWAN; " Campaigns for Lazy People".  At the same time several other blogs mentioned a campaign system atNumbers, Wargames, and Arsing About , along with a set of wargame rules. Just a quick glance of this campaign showed me this is the system for my games. What's more, in his reference section he gave a website with some excellent maps of Europe; a great source for wargame maps .

    Needless to say, I decided to use the campaign outline for some battles, using the GNW armies and my own rules. With his rules his board are 6x6 hexes. I used my 9x9 board.

    The battles are made up from Neil Thomas' One Hour Wargame scenarios. The first battle, "Apostrophe Hill", is OHW scenario 4, which just happens to be the last OHW game I used.

    For this campaign, I used the "Simplicity in Hexes" army list for a 6 unit army. However, I also picked 3 unit reinforcements using the same list. This campaign is going to be a three battle affair. The 9 units each army starts with are the only troops they have for the campaign. The first battle will be fought by the first 6 units picked. The next battle the commanders (me) will pick the 6 units, instead of rolling for them. The last battle, all remaining forces may join the battle. Any unit that is wiped out in one battle automatically loses one base. The rest are rolled for to see how many stands return to the colors. The victor of the battle will get back a stand for each 4,5, or 6 rolled.  The loser must roll a 5 or 6 to get stands back.

The invasion begins.

No Brain Wargame and Scruby's on Parade

  On Sunday the wife went to a bridal shower, giving me a couple of free hours.  I decided to get at least one game in. As the game was going to be a "No Brain Wargame", it was going to be played with no report. The armies used were the small Chinese game pieces. As there are no archers with these armies, cavalry was used to add a challenge to it. It was strictly a melee game.

The end of the No Brain Wargame. I wasn't going to report on this, but at the very end a green cavalryman attacked the orange king. I decided to shoot the result of the attack.

The result. The king is killed.  If the king survived, the surrounding orange infantry would come to his aid, or he could have battled the cavalryman himself (or retreated and lost the battle).

The green army watches as the cavalryman is rewarded by his king.

While picking up after my "Battle of Hook's Farm", I took some photos of the new Scruby's  to see how they work with the 2" squares and scenery. I am quite happy with the result.

Two Wargames

       With the Great Northern Wars Armies nearing completion, I've been finding myself working on odd projects. I did do another wargame using the GNW figures. I wanted to try a couple of ideas from other games to work into my games. One was to limit the number of shots of the artillery, another was infantry units running out of ammunition. The limiting of artillery ammunition  seemed to work; the infantry running out of ammo not so much so.

      I also wanted to get another game in, so I used "The Battle of Hook's Farm" as the basis for the game, and broke out my Peter Laing "Little Wars" army and Boer War British. I used "See the Elephant" rules for this game.

The GNW game in progress. I wasn't going to take photos or mention this game.  However, I did want to mention the rules on ammunition. The rules on the infantry running out of ammunition comes from One Hour Wargames Shotte & Pike rules. I liked how it played out in that game. However, in this game all save one Russian infantry units ran out of ammo early in the game, putting them at a disadvantage early in the game. I would like to work supplies into my games, if nothing else than to use my wagons for resupply.

In this photo, the Swedish artillery supply can be seen. They are down to two rounds. Fortunately, at this point the Swedes had won the battle, so there was no need to conserve ammo.

The battle at the end.

The Swedish cavalry in it's last move nearly drove the Russian cavalry off the field.

The battle of Hook's Farm. The Red army deployed most of their troops towards Firely Church ridge. The Khaki  army had to deploy first, and had spread their forces along the entire line. This gave the Red army the idea to try to turn the Khaki's right flank. In the middle right, by the trees, can be seen some redcoats. This unit was sent forward to harass the Khaki's left.

The Khaki army deploys their artillery on Hook's Hill, and another unit seizes the hovel in the hollow between the two hills.

The Guards grabs Firely Church.

Between the artillery and guards fire, the Khaki's lose 4 men.

The rightmost Guards unit push forward to hit the Khaki's right flank.  On the Red's left, the infantry moves forward to snipe at the Khaki's infantry on that side.

the Guards seize the hovel, and drives off the surviving  Khaki Highlander.

The Khaki's counterattack.

The Guards at the hovel loses two men. The other Guard unit is forced to retreat back to Firely Church.  The Reds Highlanders come up onto Firely Ridge. The Red infantry on the left lost two men and retreated back into the woods.

Another Red infantry unit is at the cottage at the base of Hook's Hill. Between the Red artillery and infantry fire, the Khaki artillery is forced to retreat. Meanwhile, the Khaki infantry loses two men to the Red infantry fire on the left.

At this point, the Red army has a strong force holding Firely Ridge and another fresh infantry unit at the cottage.Besides the Khaki cavalry, the Khaki army only have one infantry unit that hasn't been in the battle. To try to attack Firely ridge would be too costly. The Khaki commanders calls for a retreat.

Both games were enjoyable. I should have a clear idea which rules I'm using and any changes, even for one game, should be written down.