Albuera - 16 May 1811

 

I really ought to post here a bit more, especially having left Twitter, but seem to be using LinkedIn for most work and even work/PhD adjacent hobby stuff - which currently doesn't leave much else. But certainly might be worth documenting some of my XR work here. Will see what I can do.

The Rose Hill Wargaming Group had a great game of the Battle of Albuera (1811) on 22-23 Feb 25. Three big tables giving 20' x 14' of playing area and relatively small forces meant that there was plenty of room to manoeuvre.

 
The game started on blinds, but it was soon apparent that Soult was going for the historical option of the southern flank and the two hills. Beresford had other ideas though and went onto the offensive, storming across the Albuera and catching an extended French northern wing in the flank. Beresford followed this up with crossing over the river just south of the bridges and gradually beat the French back through the olive groves and back up the Seville road! All this though meant that the Spanish had to hold the southern flank more or less on their own. There was a big cavalry battle around the two hilltops, and then the infantry clashed - right on the northern hill as per history.

 
As we left it on Saturday night we thought it was all over for the Spanish, there was even an extreme flanking move by the French onto the western table, but come Sunday morning the Spanish held firm, but paid a dear price in doing so. By lunchtime the French had lost their third Brigade and were about to lose a fourth, and so as per the scenario Soult decided that trying to reach Badajoz was too expensive and it was time to return to Seville. The Allies won a Marginal Victory, their own losses being too great to claim a Decisive Victory. Some bragging rights ensued as we'd more or less switched the commands over from Fuentes de Onoro, which the British won, so some people (no names) had two wins in a row!

We're now planning our next game, which will be Salamanca, with around 3000 20mm figures on at least the same size table - so we'll probably need twice as many players. It will probably be on 21-22 Feb 2026 - so if you'd like to provisionally book a place let us know.

The full photo library is on our Facebook page, but here are a few choice ones.

Quite like this "panoramic" shot of the Spanish and French lines clashing

Another shot of the main fight, looking N to the Spanish line, ENDEX positions

Spanish infantry holding the line

We start the games on blinds so that intentions aren't clear

More Spanish heading into the fight

Note the rain sign - tiles were periodically hit by rainstorms - as happened in the battle

The Portuguese getting in on the action too!

Blake reflecting that the day has gone well

Fuentes de Onoro

 

This weekend it was time for the 4th Rose Hill Wargaming Group annual wargame, and our 2nd in the Peninsular. We had over 2000 20mm figures and a playing surface of around 20' x 14', split into 3 tables. The rules were our in-house Steady Lads Steady, played on a 10cm grid, and whilst there are always tweaks to make everyone seemed to be getting along with them nicely.

Following the superhuman performance of the Spanish at Talavera we decided to start implementing some decent Command and Control rules, beyond our use of ADC cards. Two main changes were made:

• Instead of rolling dice each turn for initiative each side now had a set of playing cards and bid for the choice of initiative each turn - so they could have some attempt at control of the tempo of the game. After a few turns we made the bids completely secret, all they knew was whether they had won or lost, not how much the other side had bid. All worked really well.
• Each Brigade now had an orders block. One the face-up side it gave the type of order (eg stay, advance, move) so that the opposition could police its general behaviour, the face-down side showed essentially the level of aggression/commitment to the order (e.g. assault, defend at all costs etc). Order cards were needed to change orders, and there was a dice throw based on the Bde Comdr command rating, and the CinC could keep cards between turns so as to build up orders ready for a big change. Worked better than we could have hoped for.

Along with the use of blinds at the start for almost all troops there was far more of a sense of the CinC playing a CinC level game, whilst the rest of the players fought their Corps as instructed. 

In terms of how it played the British pulled out of Fuentes de Onoro before the French even got there! The French pushed for the gap between Poco Velho and Nave de Haver, but didn't want to get caught in a confused mess as they passed through the defile, but did get caught in a confused mess as the British extended a very thin red line all the way down the ridge to level with Nave de Haver. There was then essentially fighting along the whole length of the 20' table - a grand sight - and eventually the line provided a little too thin and the French not only turned the S flank but also split the line in two - which would effectively have caused 1st and 9th Divisions to surrender!

One of the really nice things was just there shear amount of space to manoeuvre in. We have about the same table area as Talavera but only about 2/3 rds the troops.

A great game, played in a great spirit by everyone. A few more tweaks for the rules and we'll hopefully be back for Albuera in 2025.

Photos in reverse order, so end of the game at the top!

STARTEX - Almost all the troops on blinds - some are dummies!

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Cityfight2024

 

At VCOW this year I ran Cityfight2024, a massively simplified (and updated) version of the 1979 SPI classic Cityfight. It's a platoon level hex-and-counter game but designed to be played double-blind, so ideal for remote play. I set up each board  on its own Google Slides document, and the players all had voice comms via Zoom. It's a bit like Battleships, except the "ships" can move every turn!

You can find out more about the game on my PhD Wiki.

My control set-up, one screen per side

Red's view of the battle

Blue's view of the battle

Battalion Level Rules Megatest - WW2

 

In October/November I've started on my Battalion-level mega rules test for mechanised rules. I started with those rules aimed primarily at WW2. I set up the Cristot scenario from O Group and played it through with 3 different rules sets, plus my own. As previously noted many of the Coy level rules - see  https://newconverj.blogspot.com/p/rules-reviews.html - would also work at Bn, as will some of the Bde level ones in due course.

Since most of my time is being sucked up by the PhD I've just done this one omnibus, note form, post for the playthroughs. The Modern Battalion rules should be tested 1H24.

TLDR: O Group is the set to go for!

O Group

108pp soft-back, 4pp QRS

How It Played

- Germans deployed well fwd, with A/T gun trained on road and PzrSchrk team in wood by road.

- British went for a broad advance, but A Coy (W) hesitant at start.

- On E flank B Coy came under fire fm farm, laid smoke, moved across neighbouring field and into MG ambush. Never really recovered initiative as battle focussed on W

- Once A coy got act together advanced to wood line, but 3 Pl sent home by en fire. 2 Pl stormed the farm house, took flanking fire but go through, and after couple of rounds melee took farmhouse. 

- German I. Coy tried to counter but pl defeated by fire and pulled back to wood. Germans deploy res pl and MG team into wood. Firefight with farm whilst British move 1 Pl up and Carrier Pl to enfilade the wood

- Meantime Sherman/Cromwell tps move up, but hit by the A/T ambush. The 2nd troop lasts longer, Panther Pl deployed, fires and misses, and PzrShrck firing on flank gets the final kill

- German II Coy pushes fwd W of the road against minimal opposition, risking flanks of both British thrusts

- Germans bring down mortar fire on farm, but twice get OOA. British take several turns to get Fires, but finally bring down couple of turns fire on the woods, which combined with the MG fire finally starts to get KIAs and I Coy effectively wiped out. 

- Called time. ~Turn 10/16. Probably still in balance but unlikely that Brits would get 50% of Cristot in another 6 turns, esp with II Coy fwd

Pros

- really emphasises bn level

- simple die rolls (everything is 4+), rolls+DMs easily memorable

Cons

- shock->suppression->KIA takes time to build up - realistic (in some cases)?

- quite abstract rolls (but Bn)

- confusing terms (orders, unit etc)

- Index, but page numbers hidden in spine

- not 100% logical layout

Possible Improvements

- Smoke on any arty/mortar impact squares and no other firing into before or after

- 4+ for opportunity so 50:50?

- Coy morale?

- Use a Suppress markers once get to 3 shock for less clutter and to emphasise

- Redeploy of sp wpns?

- Use tanks as individuals not sections? Else put on larger bases to emphasise.

Overall

Really nice set of rules. Certainly preferred them to Chain of Command and think the way that the patrol bases works is really good and well worth stealing. The set to beat at this level? 9/10.

Jaws of the Dragon

 

Jaws of the Dragon was a megagame held in London by an academic colleague looking at a potential Chinese of Taiwan. The game postulated that the initial landings had gone well, but now a week or so later the Chinese are starting to get bogged down and the US and other nations are mobilising to come to Taiwan's aid.

Being a megagame the main part was the hall of teams playing each nation and having political discussions and issuing orders to their armed forces. I was in the LOCON team, playing the Chinese Army on Taiwan, and other tables were managing the air and sea battles. A high level set of hex-and-counter type rules were meant to control the combat but in the end we freestyled quite a bit, guided by the rules.

In terms of how the game went, we almost managed to break-through the main Taiwanese defence but the US Marines arrived just in time in order to hold the line. Our biggest issue though was that the US subs had effectively blockaded Taiwan from China, so there was no way we were going to get resupplied or reinforcements. Apparently there was not a surface ship form either side left on the high seas. The US did a strategic air strike against Chinese industrial centres - particularly chip fabs, and the Chinese responded with small nukes against a US base in Japan. The US thought about it, sacked their President, and decided not to respond (or the other way around!). The real winner was probably the Philippines which had now become the dominant Naval power in the region and was wielding a high degree of influence!

My first experience of this type of game and great fun!

The Hall of Nations!

Chinese High Command

The Sea/Subsea table

Our Land table

The Air Table

Close-up of the fighting

The sentiment meter was a key part of the game