The English Civil War in Cheshire

Over the winter, I have been revisiting my interest in the British Civil Wars of the 17th century.   Gunpowder, radicalism, and lacework, it has everything.

The usual description given to this period is the English Civil War, which implies something unique, definite, or confined to England, which doesn't really cover the situation but is so well know it can't really be avoided.

Some of the guys at SSWG were starting to paint up figures for this period, so I jumped on the project with them.  We have all picked a bit of a theme for our forces and mine will concentrate on the battles in and around Cheshire, Lancashire and the Welsh Marches.  

I'm an Essex boy now but Cheshire is my former stomping ground, so I'm aiming to do both sides for the battle of Nantwich in January 1644.  I'll probably try to make things a bit generic, and the unknowns allow some wiggle room, so I can cover several of the other battles in the region too. 

My sympathies lie more with the Parliamentarians these days so I have started with the Cheshire forces of Sir William Brereton.   

Later I will add the Yorkshire and Lancashire troops under 'Black Tom' Fairfax that marched to relieve the siege of Nantwich in the depths of winter 1644.  

The Royalists opposing them were mostly English troops from the garrison of Ireland, under command of that 'Bloody Braggaddoccio' Lord Byron.

In preparation I have reading More Like Lions than Men by Andrew Abram and The King's Irish by John Barratt.  Both are excellent, with loads of detail on the units and campaign.  

For background inspiration I have been re-watching By the Sword Divided and The Devil's Whore.

I even manage to squeeze in a visit to Nantwich for this year's Holly Holy Day battle reenactment.

Actually painted figures and more discussion of building the armies to follow...

WW2 Operational Level Rules - Part II

The next major thread of tabletop operational rules are those based on KISS Rommel.  The KISS part of the name thankfully isn't an order but stands for Keep It Simple Stupid, and the combat rules are pretty simple.

KISS Rommel first emerged back in issue 175 of Wargames Illustrated as a set of Simple WW2 Western Desert Rules by Norman Mackenzie.  I don't know if back issues are still available but the original rules, and variants for other theatres, can be found here, here and here.

These rules are a similar battalion per unit scale to Megablitz but more streamlined.  However, the most interesting part to me is the battle set-up system.  Each player has a deck of cards representing the divisions under their command.  In a typical game the player may choose one and is then randomly dealt another four.  One of each deck represents a division failing to arrive or being redeployed, so a player will end up with 4-5 divisions of varying type and strength.  A simple campaign system has the first battle be at Tobruk with victory pushing the location one or two points towards a last stand in Tunisia or Cairo.  It would be easy to graft on a handicapping system like reduced supply, or increased enemy air superiority, as you get further from your home base to represent the famous pendulum of war.

The combat rules are very simple with units making 5+ attacks and the defender getting a 4+ to 6+ save depending on type and circumstances.  Ranges are short except for artillery and aircraft.  Hit units are scattered, not destroyed, if near their divisional HQ and each division may return one unit to the fight at the beginning of their turn.  

These simple but relatively elegant ideas seem to 'just work' and spawned a wave of imitations and variations.  An Italian version Alto Comando can be found here.  An English version called High Command is here.  The WW2 Divisional Wargame Rules from Pz8 are also a development with slightly expanded combat rules and can be found here.

In the above links there are variants for Eastern Front, Greece, Blitzkreig era France, the Pacific and the inevitable Normandy/1944-5 ETO.  

WW2 Operational Level Rules - Part I

After our recent 6mm tactical games, I have a hankering for something more operational level.  I'd like the idea of playing more of a battle and less of a skirmish.  That isn't easy in WW2 as the scale is huge, and arguably operations are better run as board games, but I've been checking out what is available on the tabletop.

The granddaddy of this genre seem to Chris Kemp's Not Quite Mechanised, which emerged from the Wargames Development organisation and their Conference of Wargamers; a wonderfully British and geeky institution.  

Chris has a blog of the same name here and seemingly another older one here.  I think the wordpress one is the current one but I found this old free version of the rules here.  It seems for a very long time NQM was ever changing but a printed version is now available and I have the rules on order from Lulu.

From an earlier version of NQM came Tom Gow's Megablitz as an actual published product.  The book is now long out of print, and the Yahoo group swept away with the others, but I managed to snag a used copy in lovely condition and there is Bob Cordery's old website here. 

Bob also gives his recollections of the development of NQM and Megablitz here and here.  Tim's blog has a lot of old posts and Steven Thomas has some clarifications for Megablitz here.  

Steven also has a wider and in depth look at the whole operational level of game rules here. 

Another development of the NQM/Megablitz stable is a free set by David Kershaw called Assault Gun.  They no longer seem to be under development or played much but are still available via the Board Game Geek file section here.  

The exact scale of all these games varies slightly, with multiple options from company to brigade stands in NQM, to battalions or infantry regiments in Megablitz and Assault Gun, but the general level is that you command whole Corps, Divisions and possibly army groups. Movement likewise varies from squares to hexes to freeform in NQM.  Megablitz and assault gun are freeform but here are some thoughts for Megablitz with squares.  Logistics are included to some extent but without a lot of book keeping.  i might want even more detail here but that might be tedious.  I'm interested to try this level out as something different from the wall to wall elites that usually predominate in WW2 tactical rules.  I'm keen to see how the German commanders cope with inadequate horses to move their heavy artillery, or having to keep their panzers supplied across the vast expanses of desert or steppe.  Games are typically based on historical or hypothetical scenarios.

An interesting aside is how most of them seem to have been played with larger scale miniatures than I would  have expected. 15 or 20mm look to be the norm.  I would have thought 6mm was the natural scale for operational battles but then I suppose we are probably back to the whole question of whether this could be done better as a board game.  

See Martin Rapier's 20mm Megablitz games here vs. Fister's micro armour here.  Both look great, so it's probably my perception/prejudice more than anything else.  

Visually, I like these multi-based 6mm units from Peter at GridBasedWargaming.  I think this might be the way to go but the larger bases mean you need a bigger playing area.  We probably have that but it's something to ponder.  

Next time, I'll pull together the links and thoughts on Kiss Rommel and that vein of operational rules. 

6mm Flames of War in the Desert

For a long time we've had a plan to play some Flames of War in 6mm using the early war desert lists in Hellfire and back! book.  We bought and quickly painted up some troops ages ago and then never got around to playing the game ... until recently.

We are using the old 3rd edition rules, which, as old gognards we prefer and never moved on from.  Battlefront have made all the old third edition books available via this web page here, and for free!  Which is pretty decent of them, if a bit surprising, given their rather commercial reputation.  The files can be accessed directly on this drive here.

This report is for our second game. The first game went very well for my DAK tank company.  racing east from Tripoli they encountered a British armoured force and the panzers destroyed all before them. The swift kradschützen bikers then dismounted to storm the objective for a convincing win.  The victory was marred only slightly by the heroic death of the company CO, Haumptmann Klutz.  He had advanced into 25-pdr range at the end of the battle, to draw fire from the infantry, and paid a heavy price.  The Luftwaffe support had also been quite rampant in game one, with this particularly successful bomb run putting paid to three British tanks.

 

So moving on, we join the Panzers - now under command of the blonde and youthful Leutnant Himmelsplitz - as they push deeper into Cyrenaica and encounter a formidable British gun line of 25-pdr and motor riflemen digging in.  The accompanying Luftwaffe boys dig in their 88 but cannot see the British guns clearly enough through the heat haze to open fire.

The panzers begin a wide flanking attack on the right, throwing up clouds of desert dust.

 

Stukas scream down on the infantry but are driven away by ferocious AA fire from just behind the British gun line.  The Tommies have learned from the first encounter and this is going to be a tougher nut to crack.

Suddenly fire rains from the sky as the 25-pdr make short work of the 88.  “We never even saw them until they opened fire” laments a stunned gefreiter Potz.

The panzers approach their supply dump objective but find it guarded by two British tanks.  They call the Leutenant  for back up and prepare to attack.

The panzers delay costs them time but eventually they go in with a well coordinated attack just as reinforcements arrive.

The original two Britischer panzers are quickly silenced but out of nowhere a horde of Tommy armour appears!

Meanwhile, more DAK reinforcements have taken up positions to defend the objectives they hold (a pair of downed Stukas with engine trouble).

The intense tank fight is brutal but the weak armour of the British tanks means even the 20mm guns of the Panzer IIs are effective.

There can be only ever have been one winner but the cost is considerable and both sides see their burning tanks litter the desert

Things get rather unclear from this point [I forgot to take enough photos] as the fighting went on into the dusk.  A British counter attack of Portee AT guns and armoured cars was destroyed but the light panzers strayed into the 25-pdr's direct fire range and were quickly shown their error.   The last bailed out armoured car was was assaulted and captured by the Kradshurschen platoon.

With only two Panzers remaining Leutnant Himmelsplitz assaulted the dug in riflemen as 25-pdr shells dropped all around him.   The day ended in confusion with both sides claiming victory*.

The test games were quite a success.  The British armour is not great under these rules but we liked the look of the 6mm figures.  I think keeping the ranges but using smaller figures helps with the 'car park' effect you can sometimes get in 15mm Flames of War. 

 *The motor rifles were broken in a second round of assault, which should have broken the British company but we forgot the company morale test and had the 25-pdrs fire, which destroyed the last panzer, which would have broken the unit except the Brits should already have broken.  We called it draw as it was late, we'd had fun and we were on about turn 19 by this point. 

Heliopolis, the first try

This was our first try of the Heliopolis scenario.  We didn't finish the game as we're still not very familiar with the rules but it was a decent test.

Set up initially uses blinds to hide deployment from the enemy.  If the units move they are revealed.  Also, enemy units within 12" of a friendly unit are revealed at the start of your turn.

The French deployed with their cavalry in the centre and advanced towards the forward Ottoman units.

Here, the French are attempting to flank the Janissary trench line, while the Ottoman cavalry launch spoiling attacks.  The Janissaries are losing the resulting firefight.

Two units of Mamelukes gang up on the French dragoons and a unit of Delis charge the flanking infantry. 

French skirmishes and attached artillery firepower breaks the end of the Janissary line.  The Dragoons are thrown back however, and the French infantry hastily form a prepared defence under pressure from the Mamelukes.    

The French infantry on their left storm the trench line and overrun the guns but the village is still help by a garrison of Janissaries.  The unit on the French far left flank held against a Mameluke attack but was forced into a prepared defence.  Another unit of Janissaries charged out of the palm groves and will soon destroy a French demi-brigade in close fighting.  They then pursued the fleeing fusiliers off the southern table edge into Cairo, from where they can raise the Fellahin in revolt.

The French and Ottoman cavalry clash on the right of the field near the ruined mosque.  The Hussars and Chasseurs send some Turkish horsemen packing but the Guides and Dromedaries cannot hold onto their flank.

Lacking infantry support and with the French forming prepared defences the Ottoman horsemen pulled back to regroup with a line of fresh reserves that had come up from the main army.

With time running out and the French heavily on the defensive we called it a day and headed home.

Here are a few bases I knocked up to give the battlefield a bit of ancient character.   They are meant to signify the Roman and Hellenistic ruins that dotted the area.

Not a bad first test.  It remains to be seen if the french can successfully advance in the face so so many sabre wielding horsemen but the rules seem to work well.  We may eventually need to add some house-rules for the "carré d’Egypte." but I think we should persevere with the rules as written for a bit longer.