Day of Battle

While the end of last year was notable for how few games we managed to fit in, 2015 has begun in very encouraging style. On Thursday of this week we managed to get myself, Phil, Jon and John together for a whole day of gaming here in GHQ. As John has to come up from near Cheltenham I opted to play two smaller games, one either side of lunch, so he would get the possibility of two wins to cheer him on the return leg through the M6 rush hour chaos! In the morning we staged an Ancient game using my Late Roman collection, pitting Jon and myself against Phil and John, as a part of the ongoing history of Pompus Maximus {the rightful Emperor} and the usurper Baldinus! We used a slightly modified version of Neil Thomas' Two Hour Wargames rules for our game, which unfolds in the following photographs ~

The rival armies drawn up for battle

The Imperial army advances to crush the rebels

Baldinus advances his cavalry on his left flank

Pompus anchors the centre of the line

While his small cavalry force block the flank attack

Pompus hold the centre while the Dux Platipus {Jon} leads the attack
on Cheltamus's forces

Pompus position looks very strong at this stage

The rival infantry clash in the centre

Germanic allies face off Cheltamus' sweeping cavalry assault on the left flank

Baldinus' cause is lost as the right and centre are destroyed and his infantry
on the left never engage the enemy!

After lunch we played a Burma 1943 game, pitting myself and John against Phil and Jon and using Bolt Action as the rules. John and I took the Japanese and Phil and Jon the British. Phil chose as the game's objective the holding of the central high ground at the end of Turn 8 ~

A general view of the tabletop battlefield

The British advance centres on their tank

Japanese tanks, supported by infantry and artillery, advance to counter the
threat

The action begins to unfold

Japanese infantry cover their left flank against attack

Gaining the objective quite early in the game the Japanese infantry take heavy
mortar fire in their stride

Despite heavy losses the Japanese cling to the objective, scoring a very
narrow Victory!



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Both of the games were quite close at times, but in the end in the Ancient game the victory was decisive with over half of Baldinus' army destroyed. In the WWII game it was very close for the whole eight turns, but in the end the British losses to their smaller squads hampered them from driving the Japanese off the objective. Our first unit on the hill eventually accrued 16 Pin Markers but it did its job of holding the objective, enabling the supporting infantry squad to move onto the hill when it was finally destroyed by concentrated mortar and HE fire!
Our next four handed game is planned for May, by which time GHQ should have relocated to the garage conversion. Next week its over to Phil's for some Great War CoC!