Wargame action: March 2017

I’ve had the good fortune to have played two excellent games in the last three weeks.

The first was organised brilliantly by my annoying friend Andy, who not only supplied the armies and most of the terrain but also sorted the venue and the catering. The venue was a riding school in the suburbs of Newcastle upon Tyne so there was a certain horsey ‘atmosphere’ to proceedings.

There were five of us from the Loose Association of Wargamers forum (me, obviously, Goat Major, Simon; W2D, Dave; Marshal Ney, Ken; and, Count Belisarius, Andy) and a marvellous time was had by all, before, during and after the game. I’ll let Andy describe the events here.

My second game was on Sunday when I was very pleased to accept an invitation to visit Rob Grace.

I was immediately smitten by the loveliness of Rob’s War of the Austrian Succession collection when I stumbling upon pictures of it on the Spencer Smith website. In fact, Rob designed the Spencer Smith WAS range, the figures from which form the bulk of my Gateway Alliance army. I hope Peter at Spencer Smith won’t mind me linking to the article Rob wrote about building his forces and his version of the classic action at Blasthof Bridge.

I’ve wanted to get my hands on these chaps since 2010 but I never thought it would happen.

The game was a simple affair with roughly equal numbers but with my infantry having more staying power. This was a crucial advantage given my objective which was to force a river crossing and hold a bridgehead.

As it turned out, while crossing the river, which I did in strength on my right flank, was easy enough, staying there was a different matter. Casualties were horrendous and charge after charge of Rob’s horrid cuirassiers meant that at best I was hanging on.

However, the cuirassiers were at last wiped out (as were their supporting squadrons of dragoons) and my last available regiment of foot bravely took its place in the bridgehead.

That’s where we stopped. Not because the game was over but because I thought this was an opportune point to ‘notice’ the time and recall that ‘I’ve a prior appointment on the other side of town’. Rob didn’t fall for this of course and I had to agree that his counter attack would surely throw the bridgehead back across the river. We agreed to call it a winning, losing draw…..which I’ve never heard of before but which I was happy to accept.

Rob’s collection is stunningly gorgeous and I can now place another tick on my bucket list. I hope I haven’t blotted my copybook on our first meeting and that I get invited back.