Lasalle tournament Barcelona 2012

We were invited to play in a tournament by our friends from Barcelona a few months back. They were organising a convention of all things to do with Napoleonic wargaming, this including different scales and different aspects of the war including naval.
One of the problems in Spain is the distance to travel between the different cities and from Alicante to Barcelona was around a 6 hour drive. In the end three of us from Alicante decided to go.
Myself and Jose would drive up on the Friday after I had finished work. We would meet at the Hotel with Javi who had been working in Toledo and Fransua who had come up from Valencia to watch.

A view of the convention from the stage, the Lasalle tournament is on the right hand side.

After a good nights rest and a coffee, we went to the convention, unfortunately before we could start we had to wait for the guys from Mallorca who unfortunately had originaly booked with "Spanair" who had gone bump. They were able to get another flight but it was going to get to Barcelona about an hour later.

For the Lasalle tournament we had twelve players competing 6 French and 6 Allied. I had just finished painting my Austrians, and so was eager to see how they faired in battle. All optional rules could be used and normal setup rules were used with one difference. Because all the six tables were put next to eachother. A dice throw was decided who would be on which side of the tables, this meant the French would all be down one side and the Allies on the other, this was to cut down to much moving around of the participants and figures. Obviously this affected who would deploy their figures first, so the player who has to deploy first was the player with the least cavalry units.

My first battle was against the legendary Paco from Mallorca who had won two tournaments that I had participated in before. My army was an Austrian Liberation Infantry Division plus a brigade of Hussars for support. Paco had the French Liberation Infantry Guard and Polish Lancer Brigade for support, this gave him one extra Infantry and artillery unit than normal, but the drawback was the infantry were classed as amateur which could make a big difference when throwing for reactions etc.



Paco, with only three cavalry units against my four had to deploy first. I noticed that he had placed all his Lancers on his left flank, so I split up my Cavalry to worry both of his flanks. My artillery were deployed on my objective and all the infantry behind the infamous stream that I had bought with me.

Due to my guns being sited after the French had deployed, Paco wisely deployed his infantry into the slower attack columns. To give him something to worry about I unleashed both of my Cavalry forces on to his flanks.

Due to my stream his artillery had to deploy close to my line, but with infantry being six base units they were able to take the punishment well enough. The French Infantry were also having a tough time against my artillery due to taking hits and Paco finding it hard by having to throw two dice "four or more".

Disaster struck, Paco charged over the stream with a unit of lancers against my Infantry. I countercharged with my hussars. Being supreme commander he had first choice and it was infantry against lancers. I had decided to fire instead of going in square because he would already have to halve dice because he was engaging two units. He had four dice against my
six dice , I rolled and not a single hit. Paco rolled one hit and my Infantry had been massacred.

Never mind I still had my Cavalry , but my throwing was lousy once again and I scored one hit, Paco of course got two hits and I was all of sudden two units down. The only good thing was that I had an Infantry in reserve to plug the gap and Paco´s Lancer unit was on three markers and so could not charge.

On my left flank things were going a lot better, my hussars had halted the attack, and even broke a fresh Guard Infantry square and routed a cavalry unit. At turn 15 we stopped the game as time was running out and Paco conceded to a draw. Although due to the French Guard having to win decisively, it was a marginal victory for me. I had collected my first 5 points.

After we started the second game we stopped half way through for dinner. We were taken to an Italian Restuarant where the Pizzas were an impressive one metre in length as can be seen by these photos, on a side note I was equally impressed that the plates came from my hometown, Stoke-on-Trent in England.

My second battle was against Javi from mallorca who had French Peninsular and Light cavalry support, it was on the third table and had the river setting which is in the Lasalle book. This table is not a popular choice at my club (I have played it twice before) so when now at the club when we randomly roll it, we make a reroll for another table. We both wanted to be defender so had a dice off which I won. When I placed my extra terrain( streams again) Javi said he didn´t want anything . I thought this was strange not wanting a bridge or ford, it then turned out he thought the river was a large stream. I checked with Jose who had played his first game on the table and he had said it was an impassable river. It was only when we had stopped halfway through and were eating our pizzas that Javi had found out from the organisers it was supposed to have been a large stream all along. Sorry Javi for the confusion, in fact I would have preferred it to be a large stream truth being told.

My troops are deployed once again behind the stream, although I had sited my artiller poorly, to far away and only covering one bridge.

Javi managed to get his Light cavalry over to worry my left flank, this was my second mistake as I had put both of my weaker infantry units there, instead of my larger units.

On my right flank, Javi fearfull of my artillery, still hadn't crossed the bridge with his infantry, so I decided to cut off the bridge with my cavalry and infantry.

Javi's light cavalry attacked my infantry on my left flank and once again a square was destroyed.

My other infantry stood firm and my hussars chased his cavalry back over the stream.

My right flank had advanced far enough to cut off his reserve and threaten to flank his troops on my side of the river.

With my left flank stabilised and my right flank advancing on the attack I had great hopes for a win, however once again we had to cut the game short due to time constraints and we called it a draw. I had another three points.

Due to having to wait for other games to finish, I took this time to have a quick look a the other games, unfortunately most of my photos came out blurred because I was rushing , but below are some that turned out ok.

A view of one of the demonstration games, I particulary liked the modular terrain they used it was quite effective.


Our friends from Murcia were also there to put a demostration of their newly published wargame rules.

This a demo of campaign games, I also like the field effect of the table cloth, very effective.

A Napoleonic naval boarding wargame, they seemed to have great fun playing this, as we could hear the cheers and shouts from our side of the room during the afternoon.

The traders seemed to be busy all day

My last battle was against Joan another gamer from Mallorca, he had the same army as Paco so I knew he would have the same problems with reactions and recovering. I was defending and so once again used my streams. Joan, not realising that his artillery would not be able to reach my troops from his side of his stream set out a wall to protect his artillery.

I was short of space and so compressed my artillery and sited them to hit his troops as they advanced over the stream right of his wall that had caused him a slight bottle neck.

He advanced his cavalry brigade over the stream and an infantry and artillery unit came into my artillery crossfire. I threw fourteen dice on his infantry and scored nine hits killing his unit. For his artillery I threw seven dice but still managed to get enough hits to destroy the artillery as well.

My hussars once again moved across the table to worry his infantry and to stall his attack.

My cavalry formed attack formation and charged his infantry, they were caught attempting to form square and routed, my cavalry continued on threatening some French limbered artillery.
He quickly unlimbered, but before he could attempt to fire my artillery destroyed it. He was now 1 point away from reaching his breakpoint and it was only about turn 10 or 11. Time had flown and it was getting late and once again we had to stop. It was a marginal victory again for me and I finished on 13 points.

My friends Jose and Javi from Alicante both came joint first with 16 points each- Excellent news. Paco from Mallorca came second.

Third place was mine on 13 points.



Marc in last place recieved the wooden spoon, with his Prussian 1815 army which is quite worrying because that is my next army project for this year.

We had an excellent time, putting faces to names and meeting new players. We finished around 8.30 Saturday night and drove straight back to Alicante, I finally rolled into bed about 4.30 Sunday morning exhausted.

Thanks to all the organisers, sponsors, players and visitors for making it a truly memorable experience, I cannot wait for the next one.

Rorkes Drift

While we were off for the Christmas holidays, I decided to put a couple of games on at my house with a barbeque between the games (luckily in Spain it's barbeque weather all year round). I decided for the the morning to put on a refight of the Battle of Rorkes Drift again. I had played it last Christmas as a solo game and once with Jose, but this time I would be playing with four others. As usual I left a few things until last minute, and one thing was the rules. I had an idea to mix and match the home grown rules I used last year with some of the Sword of the Flame Rules that we had been using this year. I was going to work out the fine details a few hours before everyone arrived., but I woke up feeling terrible with a headache and sickness and so I spent the time trying to recuperate.
Everybody turned up on time and so we started the game. Myself and Miguel were the Zulus. The Zulus were split into 4 units of 100 figures representing the left horn and left Head and loins commanded by Miguel. I had control of the right horn and right head and loins. Jose, Javi and Kiefer controlled the British. Jose was Lt Chard, Javi was Lt Bromhead and Kiefer was Lt Ardendorf. There was roughly 70 British figures that they split up equally between the commands. Also there were "hero" figures such as Pvt Hook, Pvt Dunbar and Colour Sgt Bourne etc. Each British player took control of a sector of Rorke Drift to defend.

The intial setup, in the foreground are Miguel's left horn and on the the right the head and loins, just below the heights of the Oskarberg is my right horn (ooo-er missus).

The initial setup of the British looking from the kraal, there were quite a few troops in the centre attempting tp build the redoubt, but they soon scattered when the Zulu marksmen started firing. Each unit of the Zulus had to be activated and they had to go through 4 stages before charging from resting, standing, chanting , beating of shields and finally charging this was decided by a 1D6. That way it was harder for a Zulu player to be able to co-ordinate all of his units to charge at the same time. The problem was our Zulus were very reluctant to be activated (needing a four or more to be activated). This meant for the first hour of battle time there were no charges. Battle time was decided at the end of a completed turn, a D6 is thrown and for every number 5 minutes is moved on the clock.

Zulus of the right horn preparing to charge, above them the Zulus with rifles are firing down fron their vantage point. The firing rules were quite simple and easily remembered with no need for charts using a 1D20 for each figure firing.

The right horn as they neared the Mission started to take casualties from the deadly British rifle fire.

The first part of the Zulus contacted the store house and I quickly scrambled around for some close-combat rules to use, I settled on some I used before that have the same mechanism with the game Risk. Depending on who has the the advantage they throw more D6s than the other fellow, highest number wins this may lead to death, wound or just being pushed back. The Zulus managed to enter the store house and killed 3 British soldiers. Heroically the last two soldiers managed to kill the rest of the Zulus before the second wave of Zulus were able to reach them.

The main assualt hit the barricadess and the British right flank was pushed back into the compound causing a few casualties. Again reinforcements were at hand to push the Zulus back and the first attack had finished. The timer dice was thrown and a "1" meant all this action had lasted only 5 minutes. A setback for the British was that Pvt Dunbar, the sharpshooter, was killed. (He can just be seen in the photo above, last man on the right of the ramparts, wounded surrounded by three Zulus)

Next it was the turn of my right head and loins to charge the Hospital. I´m afraid there were not any other photos of this action. I think I was to busy trying to enter the building. Surgeon Major Reynolds removed the wounded into the compound with help from some reinforcements. But he didn't need to worry because my attack was repulsed and the hospital was not set alight. (Due to me forgetting that particular rule until the game had finished.)

At last Miguel's Zulus woke up and attacked, although causing the British some casualties on their left flank when a few Zulus managed to jump over the barricadess and into the compound. The dead included Corporal Frederic Schiess.

At last the time reached 7.00pm and dusk settled. The three British officers set about working out their defences for the next days action. They decided to give up the Hospital and to consolidate their position in and around the storehouse. Surgeon Major Reynolds started to come to the aid of the wounded. This was worked out using 1D6 on a wounded man, 5 or 6 brings a wounded man up to full health however a 1 means he died on the operating table. As it happened Surgeon Major Reynolds was quite a butcher during the night including killing off Lt James Ardendorf. During the night, unmolested by the Zulus the British were able to build the Redoubt.

Not long after sunrise the first Zulu attack came, which was a coordinated attack of both parts of the head and loins of the Zulu force. With no defence by the Hospitial the Zulus poured over the defences like a flood into the compound.

Miguel's Zulus received most of the deadly fire whilst my Zulus ran almost unhindered towards the storehouse.

Soon all of the British defences were surrounded, with Miguel's Zulus attacking the kraal which contained the seriously wounded that had been evacuated from the Hospital.
The attack was eventually beaten off with many British casualties meaning that even the outer perimeter barricade could not be defended and most of the British retreated to the redoubt.

Miguel´s Horn attacked again, Lt Bromhead fired from the redoubt with Lt Card giving support from the store house.

The Zulus were temporary kept back by the rifle fire but some had entered the Kraal again and attacked the last few survivors including Surgeon Major Reynolds.

The Zulus had finished of the last defenders in the Kraal and were now stabbing the helpless wounded lying on the ground. More Zulus jumped over the barricades and attacked the redoubt. Special note here for Commissary Dalton who had been supplying others with ammunition when they had ran out (A "20" on a D20 when firing.) At first he was outside the redoubt due to their being no room for him inside. However he managed to kill two Zulus even though he could only throw 1D6 to their 2D6 and was able to jump inside the redoubt for the final stand.

Sadly the last few soldiers in the redoubt including Lt Bromhead were slaughtered by the victorious Zulus. The Zulus now attacked the storehouse but the walls were too strong and the attack finished. It was around 6.00 a.m and the players thought it was good time to finish. (We could start smelling the barbeque.). But Jose who was playing Lt Chard wanted to carry on to the bitter end.

The last attack came from my right horn who had not moved since the initial assault the day before. Lt Chard led a stiff resistance, but there were to many doors and windows to protect and soon the Zulus were inside and he was torn to shreds by the assegais. We diced for the time, it was 6.35 a.m when the last British man died . Another 25 minutes until Lord Chelmsford`s relief column would appear.

Conclusion. This turned out to be a great game, with all that participated having a great time. The rules were simple to remember and soon the players who had no previous experience of colonial gaming were able to perform firing and close combat with no reference to the rules or myself. It was quite bloody but this was mainly because I didnt use the morale rules for the Zulus because it becomes less interesting and disheartening for players playing the Zulus seeing their attacks being repulsed before they get to grips with the enemy most of the time.

After the first attack I also put the film "Zulu" on for a little background noise and entertainment for the guys who weren't heavily involved in the combat at different times. Javi was still whistling "Men of Harlech" at 8.00 o'clock that night whilst we were playing our Napoleonic game of Lasalle.

Battle of Ali-cante

On December 17th we met at our local club to play a large Ancient game using the Impetus rules. Originally we were going to play a 6 player tournament, Romans against The Enemies of Rome, but one had to pull out due to other commitments. Instead we played a fictional battle on a 12ft by 4ft table. The Romans had three players each with a 300 points army and the other side were two players with a Carthiginian and Moorish Army of 450 points each.

The two battle lines were drawn up, the Romans on the left side and the moors and Carthaginians on the right

I had the honour to control the center of the Roman line and was overall commander of the Roman Army. Although with only playing a few Impetus games during the summer (and losing). I wil admit that I leant heavily on the advice of my two flank generals Guillermo and Toni.

Guillermo's impressive objective camp stood on the edge just behind my position. I just hoped I didn't knock it off the table.

The Roman's right flank, which was controlled by Toni. He began advancing against the Moors controlled by Cristian. Toni due to his bad luck threw four "ones" in a row putting most of his troops disorganised. Cristian however was able to move his light cavaly from his left flank all the way to his right flank without any problems.

I steadily moved my Roman line forward towards Miguel's Carthaginians.

The Allied Objective (A small town) was placed on their far right flank, behind Miguel's Carthaginians. They were faced with Guillermo's Romans and he was soon charging across the plain to try and capture the objective.

My steady advance in the centre was beginning to break down and to further compound the problem, the Moorish Light Cavalry was bearing down to threaten my right flank. Although Toni was supporting me with two units of his cavalry.

The Moorish Cavalry all of a sudden turned away and the threat had passed. I was able to reform my line, just as the Carthaginians started to advance to meet me.

With the Carthaginian support gone from his left flank I was able to position my troops to outflank him.

The Carthaginans crashed into my legionnaires, although I took a few casaulties, I gave as good as I got and held them at the front whilst my right flank began to turn their flank.

View of the Roman right flank, Toni has started to engage the Moor's units in the rough ground, but most of the Moor troops are rooted to the spot neat their table edge.

With the help of Guillermo's troops on my left flank we start to destroy the large warrior double units.

My ballister acts as the starting point for my troops to act as a hinge and begin to close the door between the Moors and Carthaginians.

Although some of my troops are taking more casualties, they are starting to double up on the enemy units and even starting attacking enemy units in the flank.

On the Roman right flank, things have come down to basically a stand off, with no real gain and with the Moor main line refusing to move to meet the advancing Romans.

With the successes in the centre and the Roman left flank the Carthaginians reach their breakpoint of 50% losses and begin to flee the field. The Moors are still well formed and almost untouched, however they have lost 1 unit. This means now the Carthaginians have all fled the allies have now suffered over 50% losses and must leave the field to the victors, The Romans.

Conclusions

This was a very enjoyable game and I was very satisfied with the use of my troops ( I didnt lose a unit). However I was dealing with mostly legionnaires and a few skirmishers and If I had to use other troops I would have probably got into more trouble. For me the action that decided the game was Cristian stopping his Light cavalry from threatening my right flank. Like myself he hadn't played Impetus a lot and had deployed his troops too close his own table edge. Had he advanced his main line it might have lifted a little pressure from his allies the Carthaginians.