OHW Scenario 14 - Static Defence or The Battle of the Lonesome Pine

I've had this scenario all prepped and ready to play for a few weeks now, but simply have not had the time to get it onto the table. Last night with the weather forecast looking grim for the next day (and by God it has been) I pulled my finger out and got the basics all set up. So all I had to do this morning was deploy both sides and I was ready to go.

As before with the OHW scenarios, I've upped the number of units, using the table from Thomas' 'Wargaming 19thC Europe', which gives a better game IMHO, but more on that later. The results were as follows:

Red - Defender

4 x Line Infantry

2 x Skirmishers

2 x Cavalry (can fight dismounted)

2 x Artillery

Blue - Attacker

4 x Line Infantry

1 x Skirmishers

3 x Cavalry (can fight dismounted)

2 x Artillery

With the plan for this years Cotswold Wargames Day game to use BPII as the ruleset, I decided to give these a run out to get au fait with them again as it's been sometime since I used them. As before I will be using the Glory Hallelujah! supplement tweaks, which work really well. So without further ado:

An overview of the table, with Red at the top, Blue the bottom. Blue just needs to be in control of either the hill or the town to win the game.

Roughly half the Red force in front of the town.

The Red Skirmishers in hedgehog defence in the wood.

The rest of the Red force on and around the Lonesome Pine Hill.

Blue's force ready to push forward towards the hill.

The Cavalry in the centre with Skirmishers covering their flank.

The end of Turn 1. The Blue force moved off smartly but having advanced so far, were unable to fire (I forgot that units in March Column get a free move even if they fail their order, so the left flank could have moved). Red reacted to the threat and opened some effective fire, a good start for them.

The Blue Skirmishers shaken & disordered.

The Cavalry having dismounted line the fences.

Disaster as combined fire sees the loss of one Red Line Infantry unit!

The end of Turn 2. Blue's left flank caught up, whislt the rest held their positions more or less. Some good shooting was offset by morale save right across the board for the Red troops! In response Red only managed to KO the Blue Skirmishers in the ploughed field.

Another unit lost so early on in the game.

The Blue left flank marches to the sound of the guns.

The end of Turn 3. Blue's left flank deployed into line as Red moved forward to pressure Blue's right flank. Neither sides shooting was anything to write home about!

Blue's left flank has deployed at the Bloody Angle as it would become known as.

The end of Turn 4. Sadly another Turn of neither side hitting the proverbial barn door.

Blue's Cavalry has moved to refuse the flank and has been disordered as a result by Red's fire.

The end of Turn 5. Neither side moved, just carrying on with the firefight, although Blue was beginnning to accumulate hits on Red, but still not enough to cause units to break.

The hits are beginning to mount on the Red troops.

The end of Turn 6. Finally the dam bursts and Red loses a Skirmisher and Line Infantry unit, giving a glimpse of hope to the Blue force that they might achieve a breakthrough. Red tries to respond but fails to do much damage to Blue.

Skirmishers in the wood break...

... as do a Line Infantry unit at the Bloody Angle.

The end of Turn 7. With time running out, Blue mounts up their Cavalry where they can and move round to the left flank in the hope they can reach the hill in time to claim victory. Shooting forces a Red Cavalry unit to retreat to reform and a charge by Blue sees the loss of a Red Line Infantry unit.

The Blue Cavalry retreat through their comrades to reform.

Blue's Line Infantry break through Red's and make a sweeping advance towards the hill.

Blue's Cavalry poised to exploit the opening made by their Line Infantry.

Red react by moving their Cavalry onto the hill to try and keep control of it.

The end of Turn 8. Blue desperately manouevre units to try and shoot Red off the hill, as the Cavalry fail to move far enough to reach it.

Blue's Line Infantry move forward to shoot at the Red troops on the hill.

The Cavalry unable to reach the hill, dismount to shoot.

Red just manage to hand onto to the hill to win the game!

End of the Game

Blue just failed at the last hurdle, but it was a bloody and Pyrhhic victory for Red, given the losses they had suffered.

Post Game Thoughts

A funny old game for several reasons, but nice to finally get the scenario onto the table and to give BPII a run out again. Some thoughts on it all as follows:

• Well I was certainly rusty with the rules, so good to get them out again and try to get them comfortable in my head. A lot came back to me, but not as much as when I play HoW or BKCII, the latter which feels like second nature to me now. Certainly a good case for limiting the rules you play!
• On some other Blog posts of late, there have been quite a few games of Valour & Fortitude and how they compare to BPII. Whilst I think V&F are too short for my tastes, with key info contained in one sentence which can easily be missed, on the otherhand BPII is too wordy, often making it hard to track down that key phrase. Both have their place in our games, but whichever you like, playing them to the point you are comfortable with them negates the aforementioned 'negatives'.
• Having upped the unit count from 6 to 10, I really should have made the table area larger and kept more units having to stay within 12" of the hill or town, as per the scenario conditions. It felt a bit cramped, plus the units by the town didn't feel out of the game due to the ranges in BPII. If I had played this using HoW, then I feel it would have felt like I could defeat one objective or the other in 'detail'. Here it felt like a normal game with a big wood in the middle of the table. Lesson hopefully learnt when using BPII.
• With both sides unable to hit a barn door for 2-3 Turns, I must admit it got rather boring, as nothing was happening. Just one of those games where the dice rolls were poor for a lot of the time.
• The Cavalry were fun to use and beign able to act light mobile infantry, gave a nice new dynamic to the game. They will feature in our CWD scenario for sure, so expect them to feature in more games in due course.
• Whilst this wasn't a big game by any means, I think I will try some smaller actions to get the core mechanics of BPII under my belt, before trying something on this scale again.

In Other News

With Easter in a few days little gaming or anything related to it is highly unlikely to happen. At least there will be plenty of chocolate to be consumed! I have been making some terrain for the CWD and adding some more units to my 19thC ImagiNations forces, but have yet to paint them. Whilst checking what I had, I discovered 3 units of Infantry that I had completely forgotten that were painted maybe a year ago. They just need flags and flock and they are ready to go. But more on this another time.

Today we also learnt that our son has finally got his own flat and that it has all been signed off. All we have to do is sign the tenancy aggreement and then I have the dubious pleasure of dealing with the DWP for his Universal Credit and Housing Benefit, plus a host of other things too. At least the company who own thr property are very happy to help me with all this! So I expect that April is going to be taken up with paperwork and slowly getting the flat furnished and ready for our son to move in. After so long trying to find a place it still seems a but surreal that it has finally happened.

What this does mean is that I will get my own small wargames room, where I can leave games set up, have my own paint station etc. Like many gamers this is something I've dreamed of for years, so look forward to it taking shape. Sadly I know that a lot of time will be spend decorating the house, something that is long over due, but with just me and SWMBO, it should be a fairly quick job, famous last words!

TTFN.