Charge! - English Civil War

I had a quick ECW battle today but instead of using Warhammer ECW rules I used Charge.

 Parliamentarian soldiers. The toys are a mix of Foundry, Essex,QT, Hinchcliffe and Irregular.

 A Royalist foot regiment.

 A cavalry clash is imminent.

 Hampdens Greencoats ?.

 A view down the battlefield, Royalists on the left.

 A Royalist regiment look on as the horsemen clash.

 A fierce melee ensues.

 Cromwell getting his ear bent by a puritan preacher.

 Surprisingly the larger Royalist cavalry unit are defeated and the survivors fall back.

 The victorious roundheads rally in place.

 The infantry lines are closing up now.

 A small unit of firelocks attack a Royalist gun crew!.

 But are seen off by a blast.

 The infantry firefight continues.

 The Parliamentarian cavalry threaten the Royalist flank.

 The Royalist Green regiment are defeated, the enemy cannon close by did not help them.

 In the middle of all this our son John came home from school in a stretched limo, just for having good attendance, he had a nice time though.

 The cavalry charge the gun and put the crew to the sword.

 Another Royalist regiment is defeated.

Great game!, fast and furious, I used my amendments to suit the smaller table and rolled dice to see if pikemen or musketeers were hit. The amendments are on Pauly Waulys Wargames Blog (see link) which is entirely devoted to 18th century battles using "Charge!, or how to play war games" by Lawford and Young.

CWC 1973 - Saturday nights game

After a series of good command rolls the Egyptian battlegroup rolled forward but in subsequent turns they failed to manoeuvre and spent the rest of the battle shooting from static positions.

In contrast the Israeli command checks were mostly passed and that made all the difference to the outcome. The IDF CO had a command rating of 10, the HQs 9, while the Egyptians CO was 9 and the HQs 8, not a lot of difference on paper but a big difference when the dice fly.

 The Israeli infantry hurtles forward and occupies the village.

 Israeli bazooka fire is very successful against the BMPs.

 The Egyptian T-55 unit comes under fire from the IDF tanks.

Egyptian air strike suppresses the Israeli carriers but fails to do much damage.

 Friendly fire from the Egyptian BM-21 unit makes the situation even worse.

 The tank battle in the centre sees many Egyptian T62s ko'd

 An Israeli air strike finishes off the BMPs.

 The T-55 unit is done for too.

 Israeli artillery impacts.

 Boom!.

 Some close ups of the toys.

 Irregular Miniatures trucks.

 BRDMs with SAGGER missiles had an early success but failed to act afterwards.

 Israeli M113 carriers.

 Israeli command tank passes a burning BMP.

As a game it was okay, but it didn't inspire me much. Previous games had seen the Israelis totally outmanouevre and outgun the Egyptians so I did tweak the command rules by using the "Black Powder" form whereby only one command roll is made per unit and all units in range and LOS get to shoot once. I thought that this would balance the game much more but it was still a walkover for the IDF.

I'll give it another go sometime and maybe make the command ratings equal.

Cold War Commander 1973

 Looking south in to the desert the Egyptians and the Israelis deploy.

 Israeli infantry - GHQ vehicles and Irregular Miniatures US Vietnam period infantry.

 GHQ Centurions

 Israeli Phantoms buzz the oasis - Heroics and Ros models.

 Most of these models belonged to my cousin Brad from Australia who bought them while visiting us in the UK  probably about 1977, he took them home with him and very generously gave them to me to bring home when I visited them in 1981.Well travelled models,eh!.

 Egyptian BMPs GHQ with Irregular Soviet infantry.

 Egyptian T62 tanks.

 Egyptian command and artillery.

Egyptian SU-7 - Heroics and Ros model.

 BRDM1s with SAGGER missiles.

 Egyptian T55s.

Roaring overhead shaking those palm trees around!.

Game on tonight, but first I'm going to do some work in the garden.

COMMANDO!.

 More nostalgia for old Paul, I have owned these soldiers since I was about ten years old.

 I fancied a fast, not too serious game with them.

So I made up some very simple rules as I went along.

 And I wrote them up later, see below.

 Germans behind the hedgerow.

 Defending the workshop.

 A new box of 14 Airfix Russians.

The Russian box has a lot of sub machine guns!.


COMMANDO!
                                                                 

WORLD WAR TWO WAR GAME RULES FOR AIRFIX 1/32nd SCALE TOY SOLDIERS

USE ONE BOX OF SOLDIERS AS YOUR SQUAD YOU SHOULD USE THE WHOLE BOX AND NO MORE - WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU GET!.

SET UP THE BATTLEFIELD AND ROLL TO SEE WHICH SIDE YOU DEPLOY YOUR SOLDIERS ONTO.

ROLL AS BELOW TO BRING YOUR SOLDIERS ON STARTING WITH THE SQUAD LEADER.


ROLL 1 D6 TO DETERMINE THE NUMBER OF ACTIONS YOUR SQUAD MAY MAKE . IF YOUR LEADER HAS NOT BEEN HIT ADD +1 TO THE SCORE.

EACH SOLDIER MAY TAKE UP TO TWO ACTIONS PER TURN.

ACTIONS ARE : 
 A MOVE UP TO 9"

CLIMBING OR CROSSING A LOW OBSTACLE

SHOOTING OR LOADING A WEAPON

THROWING A GRENADE

FIGHTING IN CLOSE COMBAT

REPLACING A HIT MACHINE GUNNER OR BAZOOKA MAN TAKES TWO ACTIONS



SHOOTING:
ROLL 1D6 PER SHOT TO HIT

SCORE 4 OR MORE IF THE TARGET IS IN THE OPEN OR HIT BY EXPLOSIVE
SCORE 5 OR MORE IF THE TARGET IS IN SOFT COVER
SCORE 6 IF THE TARGET IS IN HARD COVER

WEAPON                                              

PISTOL   RANGE  9"    SPREAD  -      SHOTS 2

RIFLE   RANGE  36"  SPREAD  -      SHOTS 1

SUB MACHINE GUN   RANGE  18"  SPREAD 4" SHOTS 2

LIGHT MACHINE GUN   RANGE  36"   SPREAD  9"  SHOTS  3    REQUIRES A SOLDIER TO ACT AS A LOADER OTHERWISE ONLY GETS 1 SHOT

GRENADE  RANGE  9"  SPREAD 5" BLAST CIRCLE     SHOTS  ALL SOLDIERS UNDER THE TEMPLATE

BAZOOKA   RANGE   18"   SPREAD  5" BLAST CIRCLE   SHOTS  ALL SOLDIERS UNDER THE TEMPLATE

LIGHT MORTAR    RANGE 18"  SPREAD  5" BLAST CIRCLE     SHOTS    ALL SOLDIERS UNDER THE TEMPLATE





CLOSE COMBAT: ANY SOLDIERS IN BASE TO BASE CONTACT ROLL 1D6 THE HIGHEST SCORE WINS AND THE LOSER IS HIT.



GRENADES ARE THROWN AS A SHOOTING ACTION AND MAY ONLY BE THROWN BY A TOY SOLDIER CLEARLY CARRYING ONE. THE TEMPLATE IS PLACED WITH ITS CENTRE UP TO 9" FROM THE THROWER BUT IT DOES NOT EXPLODE UNTIL THE OTHER PLAYER HAS TAKEN HIS MOVEMENT WHICH MAY GIVE HIM A CHANCE TO AVOID THE GRENADE.    


MORALE: THE FIRST SIDE TO HIT TEN OF THE FOURTEEN ENEMY SOLDIERS WINS THE BATTLE!.

HMS Suffolk 1941

Airfix 1/1200 scale, full of cold and a bit bored, I played about with the photo editing in an attempt to make it look a bit like a contemporary photograph of the real ship