Cattle Raid in Old Britain

Simon and I played the cattle raid scenario from TFL's "Dux Britaniarum", with Simon's Romano-British vs my Saxons. My objective was to move some ill-gotten animals off one table edge.  Things started well for the Saxons with the forces moving quickly across the waterways, much to the consternation of the Romano-British, which only managed to push an advance force of 2 units onto the table.

 

Undaunted the Romano-British Lord, his elite Comitatus and a unit of warriors charged towards the ford to block the invader. The Saxons turned to meet the oncoming force but were butchered thanks to the Romano-British champion and some decent cards.  Also, thank God for the shieldwall which ignores the first kill.

 

However, the Saxon Lord and his Hearthguard were moving menacingly down the table……

 

Battle was resumed at the ford which resulted in the two Saxon units breaking and running for it.

 

The Saxon elites charged the warrior and levy who had lined up to block the route to the ford; javelins were thrown but again the luck was with the Romano-British as only one shock resulted. They then crashed into the shieldwall. Oh dear!

Miraculously the shieldwall survived, again thanks to “Shieldwall”, but were pushed back.

However, the Saxons could see their objective slipping away. Not much chance of a single warrior unit taking on the Romani-British Lord, champion and two veteran units. They began to retreat back up the table along with the ill-gotten gains.

 

Back at the other melee the Romano-British forced a defensive line of two intact levy and two pretty badly-mauled units. However the Saxon Lord and seen his units hit hard and soon saw the folly of carrying on.

 

Victory to the forces of Christianity over paganism.

Escape from Paradise

We return to the island of Buchansmay and Captain Alderan has managed to sneak into Atatoni's lair and escape with the Governor’s Daughter. However, the port next to the fort was full of undesirables so Alderan and his party of 95th Rifles and Marines took off to cross the isle to find a more suitable landing area for the Royal Navy. Finding something suitable Alderan settled into the night in the local church and awaited the arrival of the Navy in the morning. However, a party of locals had also turned up at the port and were now between Alderan and the Navy. Things were about to get dicey.

The ship’s crew swarmed down to secure the main access road to the dock and immediately attracted the attention of Mr Big and his party of unsavoury characters.

Once the Marines signalled their arrival at the docks, Capt Alderan and rather large lady friend, started to leg it from the Church (where they had been hiding) for the dock.

Mr Big charged the sailors and dice were rolled but few died, but his party were thrown back. However, the Tars were having none of this and saw the savages off, rallying to charge the retreating cannibals in the rear. Very nasty!

 

 

Alderan looked around and saw that a party of ugly looking maroons were fast approaching from the rear along with a large column of militia under the personal command of Atatoni.

Meantime the main Marine party formed up to left of the village, to cover Capt Alderan’s retreat. Rather foolishly the two groups of savages pursuing Capt Alderan, decided to stop and trade volley fire with the Marines!! However, this just turned out to be a ruse, to give time for yet another group of savages to leap out of the woods (from a sneaky moveable deployment point) onto the left flank of the Marines. Despite heavy losses, these savages were also driven off. The leader of the savages, Kashandra Karry, was knocked out in the fight and her underlings dragged her back to the safety of the woods.

Alderan had managed to save the Governor’s Daughter and were about to embark onto the ship.

 

 But what's this, the rebel militia column had arrived at the docks and all that stood between them and the ship, was a single group of Marines. The column rolled a massive 15” move and steamrollered into the marines. However, as stubborn as their land based red coated brethren, they threw the head of the rebel column back. The groups behind faltered, as their comrades fled and their general was wounded. The Marines then piled-in a couple of volleys to finish the job.

 

The rebels had one last card to play, as the other group from the moveable deployment point, started harassing fire on the retreating marines. However, Capt Alderan’s red coated skirmishers quickly returned fire. One hit and the rebel leader was flat on his back!? Not the Rebel’s night!!

At this point Atatoni's morale was so low and so few leaders left unhurt it was decided to let the British go and head back to the fort.

The Jack Tars then heaved a couple of cannons over the ship’s side, to make room for the Governor’s daughter and all set sail for home.

Swamp Fox - Game 3

This is the third scenario from the Too Fat Lardies Swamp Fox supplement and again we have Swamp Fox Buchanan pitted against Major May.

In this scenario the Crown Forces have set up a roadblock outside the local tavern, hoping to catch the rebel forces unawares. The rebel forces were in turn determined to push on through the roadblock.

The rebels deployed initially with a large force of militia, under the command of Major Bowe, marching down the road looking to quench their thirst in the tavern, when lo and behold they spotted something unusual going on. Why had the innkeeper piled his rubbish across the road?

Suddenly a group of skirmishers ran out of the tavern and hid in the woods in front of the militia.

Then came the provincial troops, who decided that instead of defending the roadblock they would take the fight to the rebels.

The rebels deployed into line and waited for the onslaught.

On came the provincials and the rebels let loose a volley which caused few casualties but shook them into retiring back to the roadblock. Unfortunately Major May tripped over something nasty and spent the rest of the game nursing his leg.

 Meanwhile the rebel skirmishers arrived to lend their support to the militia.

With the provincials retiring to the roadblock the ranger skirmishers felt a little isolated and retired back to the cover of the sand pit.

Now Swamp Fox Buchanan turned up and marched his column of militia to attack the exposed right flank of the Crown Forces.

On seeing the provincials turn and run Major Bowe ordered his miltia forward.

Major May looked around and was relieved to see some reinforcements arrive to bolster his right flank.

Major Bowe pushed his militia to the edge of the sandpit and poured fire into the Rangers hiding there, forcing them to rapidly retire towards the safety of the tavern.

Meanwhile on the rebel left flank the Crown reinforcements caught some skirmishers in the open and with devastating fire caused them to turn and run.

Swamp Fox Buchanan seeing this formed up his militia into line and pushed forward to engage the Crown militia. After a few rounds of fire the Crown milita fell back in disorder.

The rebel militia in the sandpit were pouring fire into the provincials hiding behind the barricade and soon they too had to fall back. With little hope of holding the roadblock and tavern the Crown forces retired and left the field to the victorious rebels, who celebrated with a pint or two in the tavern.

 

Operation Martlet – Attack on the Hauptkampflinie

Another game from the TFL Operation Martlet supplement. This is scenario 3 in the campaign

At this point in the campaign both sides were low on troops with the British missing 9 and the Germans missing 10. With their support points the British had available another section, a Vickers team, 3" mortar support, a medic and an adjutant. The Germans with their limited resources took a rifle team, an adjutant and three entrenchments for a team.

The patrol phase was about even for both sides with the British managing to get jump off points quite far forward with the Germans not able to get into the Barn on the outskirts of the village. The British deployed first with two sections; one in front of the barn and the other next to the woods in the south. 

The Germans deployed their support MkIV and a full section just behind the barn. 

The Germans were able to get into the barn (just) whilst the British section moved up under the cover of smoke. 

Instead of close assaulting the Barn the British poured fire through the doors and windows into the hapless defenders. Luckily not many casualties were taken but the defenders thought better of staying and bugged out into the farmhouse.

The MkIV opened up on the Barn with H.E. and caused enough damage to make it unstable and thus ensuring the British would think better of using it as cover.

Meanwhile the section to the south had crept up into the building to the south of the Barn and were threatening the German deployment point. 

The British section at the Barn now threw smoke grenades to cover their crossing of the road.

 Unfortunately the Germans managed to end the turn (thus removing smoke) and now the British were left vulnerable in the middle of the road. 

The MkIV opened up with MGs as well as the two MGs in the farmhouse and another MG that deployed in the house to the south. This should have been very bad for the British but they were very fortunate only to lose the section Bren team.

The British section in the southern house then close assaulted the solitary MG team but things were going from bad to worse as this failed and the survivors broke and ran.

The British mortar spotter finally got his head out his funk hole and called in a very accurate barrage on the farmhouse. Things were looking very dicey for the few remaining survivors and thus they thought it would be better to find somewhere else to hide. Thus the Germans managed to retreat out of the village but there had been severe casualties on both sides and morale wasn't good.