Valhalla, Farnborough, June 21st 2009

Yesterday the Thames Valley Wargamers put on a display game using beneath the Lilly Banners. The game was set during William of Orange's war against King James in Ireland.

The game involved William's forces attampting to break through the Jacobite defences but fortune seemed to be with the jacobites on the day as the first roll to determine the commander quality left William's force with a Plodder as a commander and the Jacobites with a Good commander.

This seemed to set the tone of the battle as, eventually, the jacobites managed to stop William's force achieving their goal.

What follows is a series of photos taken through the game.

To the woods-an FIW game

The British column advances flanked by the light companies

For the first time in a long while we played a French Indian War game using Parkfield’s Rolling Thunder rules with companies of eight figures.

The British column of two line companies and two light companies were to advance through the woods, cross the river and collect fresh supplies from a small farm occupied by militia.

The French, whose Indian allies had been tracking the column, had to stop this happening. Indians set up in ambush along the track and the two light companies advanced through the woods to attack the column in a pincer movement.

All went well until the French players drew the correct card and managed to spring their ambush whilst the Coureurs de Bois and Compagnie Franche de la Marine advanced to the edge of the track to fire on the British.

Meanwhile, due to exceedingly bad die rolling, the French regulars failed to appear and on hearing the sound of far off gunfire decided that this wasn’t for them and ran away.

Meanwhile, on the track, the first Indians charged the column, took casualties from a snatched volley and totally failed to gain an advantage, but did cause some casualties, but the column continued. The light infantry from both sides exchanged volleys and then closed to hatchet distance.

With the hatchet fight going on, the second Indian unit charged into the fray and, after causing a few casualties including one of the British officers, decided they had done enough and disappeared through the woods, as did the French lights, leaving one British company depleted enough to take no further part in the action.

Meanwhile, the Scots withdrew, towards the farm as it was away from any enemy and met up with the militia who had, at last, decided that as the battle was almost done it was time for them to join in.

The last minutes of the attack before the Indians withdrew into the woods

All in all a fun game with the British players thinking they had it easy until the Indians sprung their ambush. The British gained a victory only because they managed to get the remainder of their column to the farm to resupply.

The Scarecrow

Smugglers in the mist

We tried the Gloire rules out last week at the club pitching a gang of smugglers led by the Scarecrow against the revenue men. Each of the four players controlled one grade three figure, one grade two and one grade one figure, with a number of ‘extras’ milling around.

The game started with a boat tied up along the river and a couple of smuggler types unloading the contraband into a waiting wagon alongside which was the fish wife who took the initiative and attacked an advancing revenue man with her boat hook.

Meanwhile elsewhere the revenue men, led by an army captain home on leave, attempted to get between the wagon and the village but were attacked by the Scarecrow and his minions. The Scarecrow, although wounded, put up a valiant fight alongside his comrades and managed to fight the revenue men off and began to back away towards the village as the wagon approached. Unfortunately the two men on the wagon lost their hold and fell off leaving the horse free to approach the local minister who got it under control and led it into the village where the goods could be stored away from prying eyes.

The revenue men were at a loss now and attempted to get close to the squire but the fishwife intervened with her boat hook and wounded the revenue leader whilst the squire backed away and a sneaky smuggler managed to untie the boat and take it to safety down stream.

The game was a lot of fun but in hindsight I think there were too many figures on the board and if we play this game again then fewer figures will be used. The game is very dice heavy with rolls to hit and to determine the location of the wound as well as the possibility of attempting to stave off any damage. With fewer figures I think that it could have been easier to keep track of individual figures but all in all a fun game with plenty of laughs along the way.