Last nights game at HQ, ACW 28mm, John Sheldon with the rebels, Jim and myself the Union. Same orbat minus the cavalry from Ream’s station, brigade Fire and Fury. Set during the last days before Appomattox. Interesting game, the Confederate grand battery proved quite effective. However the Gods of Dice played their hand and rolled poorly. Fierce fought game with a draw as both sides ran out of troops to secure the crossroads.
Friday evening, early start to Lion Rampant 36 points each, Parthian/Anatolian force against Muslim Arabs. Tough fight, loads of poor dice rolling for both of us. However the forces of Islam prevailed, never look down on the light cavalry and skirmishes. Well done John. Next week ACW.
High over the English Channel, two groups of fighters meet for a battle they won't forget.
John Geary's Bf109s were out on the prowl again, looking for fresh meat to take from the sky. In three elements of two they had spotted two elements of Hurricanes. Unluckily, the Hurricanes got first blood with the squadron ace bravely zooming in on the tail of a 109, after a quick kill. Shots were near target but not close enough to down the aircraft. By the time his wingman caught up the 109s were out of range, chasing their own prey.
Little did the Germans know that there were two Hurricanes in high cover. Unfortunately, by the time they joined the fight they had a long way to chase the enemy before getting a shot in. Jerry was playing havoc in the swirling dogfight, giving the plucky Brits in their heavy and unwieldy Hurricanes a hard time. Things were getting tense with four boom chits on each side; a single downed aircraft would send the other squadron home and win the game. This was not a time to get a run of bad dice rolls.
Unfortunately for the British, even the German Chicken Ace showing his tail to their gunsights was not enough to offset the disdainful gaze of the Dice Gods and with a run of poor dice rolls, the British hopes diminished. By expertly tailing and then downing just one Hurricane the Germans, to their surprise, routed the Brits and sent them home with their ragged tails between their undercarriage.
A great game as Blood Red Skies always is, with John getting good experience of winning despite my best efforts.
Friday evening, Tom's Brits against the Germans somewhere in France. Tom used one Firefly and three Sherman 75's plus infantry supports. I used one jpzr4 L79, two pzr 3Ls , one Stug.
See how Panzer IIIs fared against Shermans. Not good. Firefly too good, took out my Jagdpanzer first turn, bit of a bummer. Still good game as Bruce used to say. Looking forward to next game, ACW 24th Sept.
Thanks Tom.
This is our third ECW game and each one gets bigger and better. It started as a Birthday bash our Tom organised for me. We chose as a guide the battle of Montgomery and laid the game over 3 tables. The town of Welshpool, the Castle and town of Montgomery and the battlefield between the river Camlad and the Severn. The table was 24' x6' which about the longest we can do in the club! The Royalists lead by Paul Ireland were a brave crew with Colin Smith, Steve Cornes, John Sheldon and Tom Corbett. Parliament was under the control of James Garland, Dave Shergold, Andy Collyer, Ian Steventon, Charles Singleton and myself.
