Machiavelli summer 1457

This turn saw a massive swing in fortunes. I had realised that my aggressive assault on Florence was going to make me a threat to my neighbours but I had not realised how advanced their alliance was.

Naples, Venice and the imperialist (Austria) launched a combined offensive against me. Naples attacked from the south while Venice bribed my army in Bologna pushing it into Pistoia, following up with a move onto Bologna and a landing in Ancona. The imperialist transported on Venetian boats landed in Romagna attacking the Papal troops there.

My forces continued their assault into Florence taking Pisa and attacking Florence again. I had hoped for another turns grace but it was not to be. These moves brought an unexpected turn as Milan began a line of communication again. Although things look pretty dire I am looking forward to the challenge of digging the Pope out of this mess.

Battle of Florence

Three Papal armies were converging on Florence. The position for looked hopeless and the Florentine commander was almost beaten before the battle.

The terrain consisted of a few woods and flat ground, not best suited to the Papal forces but the preponderance of numbers should see them win. Florence formed up with a massive pike centre in front of the walls to the city. The Papal forces had a pike block centre with auxiliaries on the flanks. They expected reinforcements on either flank, each consisting of three elements from the 12 element army.

The Florentine commander changed tack normal very passive he opted for a slightly more aggressive approach pushing his line forward and sending psilo into the woods on his right flank. The Papal commander (me) attempted to buy time by pushing forward aggressively but not closing to contact in an effort to bluff Florence into holding. The Florentine commander did indeed take the bluff and hold and the left flank Papal army had arrived. As the Papacy attempted to stall and wait for the right hand army to arrive Florence began light skirmishing against the left flank reinforcements. This skirmishing began to escalate as each side began feeding troops in. The Papal commander should have known better instead of a concentrated attack it now became devolved into a piecemeal assault and Florence really grasped the nettle and came out of his box.

Instead of a crushing attack with overwhelming numbers the Papal troops now found themselves getting in the way of each other as the Florentines went on the offensive. It was close run but Florence prevailed to save the capital for another day.

The strategic situation changed little, while the capital held the remaining territories were open for conquest.

Machiavelli Spring 1457

The Florentine force that had moved into Bolongna did not move out as agreed. In response the papal force garrisoning Bologna sallied out to meet them in the field.

The Florentines were drawn up defending a river line. The papal army is not well suited to open field engagements but excels in bad terrain. My plan was to push on either side to split the Florentine defence before assaulting one wing or the other depending on opportunity.

Florence occupied a defensive position on the riverbank, placing their artillery covering the ford. I split my force into 3, a solid pike block in the centre, auxiliaries and crossbow on my left, auxiliaries on my rightand holding my knights in reserve.

As the papal forces began their advanced, Florence pushed troops up to cover his right but left his other flank unguarded. The papal crossbow began harrassing fire from in the river while the auxiliaries pushed forward against the unguarded flank. The knights facing the crossbows were feeling the pain with one stand lost to fire. The auxiliaries crossed the river unopposed,  this produced a reaction from the Florentine centre as a pike unit, blades and some crossbowmen repositioned to protect the threatned flank.

The weakened centre presented the papal forces with the opportunity and they grasped it with both hands. The pike block attacked over the river against the weakened Florentine centre. One destroyed artillery unit later and it was nearly all over. Florentine hopes were pinned on a pike and blade combination but with auxiliaries pouring over the river on the flank and the pike block to their front it was a vain hope.

The battle resulted in the destruction of the Florentine army as it had no path of retreat. The Papal armies now looked poised to complete the destruction of Florence.

Machiavelli Campaign

I have been taking part in my first campaign for years. It is a renaissance Italian campaign using the board game Machiavelli. The game is similar to diplomacy but with a financial element thrown in. We are taking any engagements on the map and fighting them out using dba.

The campaign started slowly with the independents being swallowed up and a mad flurry of emails figuring out alliances. As the dust settles I felt I had a solid arrangement with Florence and Venice. It was app that my interests clashed with Milan which would lead to problems.

Papal conncerns also extended to the south. Naples poses a real threat to central Italy with there only concern being the Turks. I felt I needed to support the Turks to distract Naples.

I launch an illfated naval attack on Bari. I had anticipated an uncontested landing but that was not to be. Naples had moved an army across to cover this and I didn't come out of the ensuing battle well. Because Venice had moved into the sea space behind me I could not retreat and my fleet was destroyed.

The game moved on, a bit more manoeuvring took place and Milan was far more concerned with my position than before. Milan also came out against me by bribing a unit I had raced up to Genoa to secure its revenue. It was a good play by Milan I have to say though I was fizzing.

This really crystalised my focus, Naples needed to be contained but Milan needed to be delt with. I spoke to Florence and Venice to cobble together some kind of arrangement. We reach a reasonable arrangement and Florence pushed troops through to launch an attack. At this moment the ruler of Florence died (went back to uni) and a new ruler was installed.

My first chat with this new ruler didn't fill me with reassurance and further chats really began to concern me. I was faced with a stark choice hope that Florence would be reasonable or crush them. Being the Pope I felt reasonable was for the weak and decided to crush them.

This really was a one off opportunity.

Battle of Talana Hill

Sir George Stuart White, commanding the British division at Ladysmith, had unwisely allowed Major-General Penn Symons to throw a brigade forward to the coal-mining town of Dundee (also reported as Glencoe), which was surrounded by hills. This became the site of the first engagement of the war, the Battle of Talana Hill. Boer guns began shelling the British camp from the summit of Talana Hill at dawn on 20 October. Penn Symons immediately counter-attacked. His infantry drove the Boers from the hill, but at the cost of 446 British casualties including Penn Symons. This was the script for our game.


In our game we decided to attack the highest peak on our right, the one without the trees in front of it. The plan was to storm it and then push down the ridge while our guns shelled the middle hill hopefully pinning any Boers there.




Well the assult shoved up the hill taking fire all the way. The two flank battalions pushed on quickly racing to get through the beaten zone as quickly as possible. The centre battalion was failing to keep up the hammer blow envisioned now look a lot more bitty.





The two horns if you like now swung round on each flank of the boer position and launched the assault into the position. At this point we called it a day as we had run out of time.

Prussian force 1813

I am presently putting together a Prussian force for 1813. I have based it on Prinz Mecklenburg-Strelitz brigade in 1813. It consisted of  1st infantry regiment (1st east Prussian), the 3rd infantry (2nd East Prussian) regiment, a Silesian landwher regiment, a battery of artillery and the Mecklenburg-Strelitz Hussars.

320 infantry
24 cavalry
4 guns

I am also doing some of the Prussian reserve cavalry, the Lithuanian Dragoons and the 2nd West Prussian Dragoons, with a battery of horse artillery attached.

48 cavalry
4 guns

Battle of Actium

This was a game played out at the phoenix club in Glasgow. The club run a massed game the first Tuesday of every month and this was this ones! The battle of Actium saw Octavian's fleet under Agrippa beat Mark Antony and Cleopatra's fleet in a decisive engagement ending the challenge to Octavian's domination.

Waterloo two

Well the battle had been running the day before. I arrived to be handed command of the remainder of a division of d'Erlon's attack on the ridge. Things had seemingly not gone well and the two brigades were down to half strength and spent. It seemed prudent to tactically withdraw out of gun range so they fled. The one thing I liked about the advanced position was that one cannon had been pushed up into effective range and was working over a few units.

Whole my troops milled about on the floor of the valley collecting their wits, I cast around to see what artillery I could 'acquire.'

I had also been given command of some cuirassier and some hussars. I used these to tie up my opponents cavalry who were threatening my flank.

The French position as a whole was not good. A string of massed attacks along the line were disjointed and had not put any great pressure on the allies. Napoleon's grand battery was anything but grand, scattered to the winds, it ineffectually lobbed shot about. In the real battle the Napoleon out numbered the allies in guns by 4-3 but it more like the other way round in this.

Me and the other commander of the remnants of d'Erlon's corps began massing all available guns next to the one that had been left up front. My infantry by this time had shaken themselves out and were a semblance of a fighting force again.

This massed concentration of guns had not gone unnoticed and a few worried discussion could be heard behind the allied line. Time was unfortunately against us the Prussians were beginning to arrive and packing up was soon.

As the battery started to do it's devastating work, battering the allied line gaps started to appear. The allies desperately launched the union cavalry brigade to clear away the battery. I had however been carefully husbanding a brigade of cuirassier that I had pinched from the cavalry reserve for just this occasion. In a three foot charge they cut off the union brigade from their target. I did get lucky with the dice it has to be said.

Sadly that is where the game ended, the melee unresolved and the battery not quite finished. The only bright note for the French was the fall of hougoumont, the game was a solid win for Wellington he didn't really need nightfall or the Prussians in the end.

Waterloo

I took part in a fabulous game depicting Waterloo put on by Ian Gayle. Ian fielded all of the Anglo allied army. I provided my French along with Bill Gilchrist, Angus Konstam and Ian. The table was quiet a treat Ian has been working on it for 4 years.

Battle of Vitoria, 21st June 1813

This was a Blackpowder game played about this time last year. It was a massive AB1 event up at Lundin Links in Fife. The scenario was devised by Bill Gilchrist and played over two tables. The larger one represented the main Allied attack against main French position. The smaller table was the allied attack on the French right flank some way to the west of the main battle, centred on the village of Gamara Mayor.
The main French commander was Jim Loutitt while the Allies were commanded by Angus Konstam, although his Wellington impression left a lot to be desired.


I was plonked on the smaller table with Derek Hodge, Dax Robertson and Chris Henry. Myself and Derek commanded the French. Dax commanded the British while Chris had Spanish/Portuguese. The brief for the French was to prevent the allies securing any of the bridges.These two pictures go side by side and show the main action as far as I was concerned . The picture on the right is Gamara Mayor and one of the all important bridges. On the right shows the road leading to the second bridge with Dax's highlanders advancing menacingly forwards.

The French deployed in the villages, 1 infantry brigade in each. 1 Dragoon brigade was placed behind the gap between the villages while light cavalry and light troops held the right flank.

The British began with a general advance across the board and soon began to take a few casualties from artillery. The 95th rifles surged forward and soon began to lap round the village on the left threatening some French guns on the edge of Gamara Mayor. In an attamt to delay this I sent my Dragoon Brigade up to chase them away. This turned into a bit of a fiasco as the 95th legged it and the supporting infantry formed square backed by two batteries of artillery. My prize Dragoons took a pounding and had to pull back without achieving much.

With the threat of the cavalry removed the Highland brigade enveloped the village and prepared to assault. I pulled on of my reserve battalions from behind the village out and placed them to the highlanders flank. I sent the other on into the village in anticipation of the assault.

 I didn't have to wait long, to the skirl of the pipes the highlanders came tearing in. Things however do not always go as planned, villages in Blackpowder are incredibly difficult to take unless you prepare properly, the highland assault came to bloody end. The reformed French Dragoons came crashing in again and sent the British reeling backwards breaking a couple of battalions. At the end of it the British were in a real mess and were desperately trying to reform their line and scrabbling about for reinforcements.

 The British now settled down to a more methodical approach after a bit of a chat about the tactics of taking a village. Leaving the bloody debacle of the other village the British and Spanish now concentrated their attentions on Gamara Mayor. Positioning their artillery to play a prominent role in the assault, the Allied Infantry steadily enveloped the village making sure not to expose themselves to Dragoons lurking round the corner. 

In a string of turns they were steadily rustling the French out of the village. Weight of numbers was now beginning to tell as the French reserves were running dry and there was no infantry left to launch a counter attack to retake that part of the village. Our main commander Marshal Loutitt had committed the French reserve on turn two on the main table, so the cupboard was empty there. Fortunately for the French night was coming and the Allies had not managed to cross the river and cut of the main French army. We had it seemed scraped a tactical victory.

Things in the main game were not going well for the French, despite the protestations of the main commander who seemed to view the looming crushing defeat as some kind of tactical draw. The entire French right flank was fleeing backwards while the Allies were pressing elsewhere.

Thoughts on Standards and Spontoons

Over the years I have had many an embarrassed moment, taking figures out of the box to find that officers and ensigns have lost their equipment. A bit of super glue later and it is all fixed, however happens again and again till I am faced with a hand that has more super glue residue than anything else along with the removed paint work. I also didn't like the fact that I had to store my command stands in separate boxes or on their sides as the flags were too tall.

So I hit on a cunning plan, why not sabot the flags! This involves fitting a piece of brass tube into the ensigns hand and then sliding the flag pole in and out. I could then have nice big flags for the table and fit my troops into the same box for the trip home.

 So what you need is some small brass tubing, you can get this from most model shops. Take one of your flag poles with you to get a rough size, I say rough because the flag poles I had from Bicorne Miniatures didn't fit any straight off. With foundry figures such as this fine chap the hand hold was always much bigger than the flag pole it turned out to be perfect for the tubing though.

Now the tricky bit snip said tube to the right length and then grip in a set of pliers. get a pin drill the same size as your flag pole and drill you your tubing, I found that it only took a fraction off but it was enough.

Once done you can glue onto position. I found that when you cut the tube it would pinch together and left you wondering how you are going to get your drill in. Careful pinching with the pliers will open it up just enough to get the drill head in then the drill will do the rest.

I was very please with my handy work but it took someone else to point out an additional benefit. Your SYW Klackstien musketeers can become AWI Hessians with a simple addition of an different flag. You can also do your own flags for Imagi-nation and if your beastly opponent captures your flag you can sadly hand it over!

I tried this technique with my spontoons but it was distinctly less successful. In a mad ebay buy, I got myself some extremely small magnets they do some tiny sizes. I figureed if I put one on the spontoon and one in the figures hand then voilà, one mobile connection and no breakages. And that ladies and gentlemen is how it turned out

Battle of Hoaky Creek

This was a American War of Independence game where the scenario was card driven, using Blackpowder rules. Card driven I hear you say! Well one of our new members a German lad by the name of Martin had come up with a universal idea to generate scenarios using a card system to give a quick but influenced game. It proved very interesting the cards become a game in themselves as we experimented with a few ideas.

We played out three card games,
The first had a dug in American brigade on clear terrain with a small stream with a surprise attack. Both sides had various levels of ammunition depletion and each had some extra troops.

The second was an incredibly woody, hilly table with terrible weather.

The third was an open table with fog and ammunition depletion for the Americans along with a spy in the ranks and the British had extra troops.

I foolishly plumbed for the first one as it sounded quite interesting. As we rolled up the table the stream ended up in front of the American lines while they had their dug in brigade on the other side of the stream on the left flank. My reading of the scenario was that the British general had sniffed an opportunity to attack and destroy this isolated American brigade, the Americans had however got wind of the British intentions and had raced another brigade up to counter attack the British.

Well the game did not start too well for the British, I need to get across the table and seal off the bridge to prevent the American reinforcements from deploying too quickly giving me time to roll up the isolated brigade. This to me seemed quite obvious but not too the lads on the ground who decided to wait around for a turn to see what happened. As it happened things were not so good in the American camp as the troops racing to the rescue decided to have a go slow and barely crossed the bridge on the first turn. 

Considering the situation demanded speed and panache both commanders were found wanting, well their dice at least. The next turn saw the British cautiously advancing it was looking more like a trap every minute the lead highlanders came under fire from the dug in brigade losing their crack status immediately along with a casualty, I think I rolled my eyes at this point!

Well it didn't get much better for the British the next few turns saw the attacked reduced to a shambles as the Americans couldn't miss and the British couldn't save. I hadn't even started attacking and my brigade was in a shambles as I tried to sort it out and regain a shred of wargaming honour the relief force got a couple of rapid moves and managed to shake themselves out into line. My artillery was having a hit or miss day but all in all was the stand out unit managing to put some rebels to flight. But it was all too little too late, the British were hopelessly compromised and when the Indians are getting involved you know it is time to run.

This was a fun game and the card certainly made for an interesting scenario. Better dice would have helped but don't all losing wargamers say that!

Encounter at Mierdalona, 17th May 1811

This was a fictional engagement dreamt up form the cerebral depths of John Glass's mind. The premise was that after the battle Albuera on the 16th May the French troops under Marshall Soult were retiring to the south. The British has mounted an uncharacteristic aggressive pursuit of the French forces. Our game has an Allied command consisting of Spanish, Portuguese and British troops catching the French rearguard in an extremely disadvantageous position. The French are defending a two long hills running across the table, at their disposal was 2 brigades infantry with a light cavalry brigade. The allies had 5 brigades of infantry and 3 brigades of cavalry. The ace in the allied deck was a flanking force consisting of the Portuguese with 1 brigade of infantry and 1 of cavalry. The objective of the french was to exit the table at the village of Mierdalona with 75% of their force intact. The allies had to destroy 50% of the French force.

 As the first turn kicked off the French desperately trying to reorganise to face the Portuguese to their right rear this was the flank commanded by Brian Phillips it was looking like a sticky wicket. I had the other infantry brigade and the light cavalry. While the infantry held the cavalry blundered but fortunately went to their right, it could have been a lot worse.

 The allies rolled on with what seemed an endless supply of troops, what had looked like a holding action was altering to a headlong flight and this was turn one. I have to say myself and Brian were starting to get a wee bit concerned.

 More frantic French manoeuvring and cursing of the dice filled their turn as lady luck was definitely missing. The allies poured forward some good rolls sped things along the Spanish in particular shutting down the range. John was getting some assistance from a young boarder by the name of Ewan, he seemed to have come supplied with well trained dice. His Spanish Irish were beginning to threaten the French left flank.

 Some tough decisions were being made in the French camp regarding which battalions were being sacrificed. The Portuguese had managed to cut across a third of the French rear but instead of pushing the advantage they began to attack the rear of the French flank assuring its destruction but leaving enough of a gap to slip the rest of the command out.

Back on the other side John had charged in with his two leading battalions in the ensuing melee one of them broke but the other managed to keep fighting. Ewan's Irish had slipped round the flank of the exposed French battalion and sent them reeling down the hill, the French retreat was starting to look like a real mess

Some scrambling and a wee bit of good fortune for the French managed to resurrect some form of French defence. This should only have been a restbite but some poor Spanish command dice, (young Ewan had left) allowed the French a breather.

While all this had been going on the allied cavalry had swept forward, a few sacrificial squares were detached with the hope of distracting some of them.

The cavalry crashed into the rear of Brian's battalions, they had failed to turn through some really bad dice. The first one evaporated in a whirl of horse flesh, the rest of the regiment looked doomed. We had however run out of time as usual Blackpowder let us play a fast and enjoyable game which even newbies can pick up within a few turns. The game had been a real command problem for the French and we should have started running sooner.

T