Showing posts with label Mexican War. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mexican War. Show all posts

Tuesday, 5 January 2010

For a Fistful of Pesos II- the Battle


Before Xmas I showed some shots of the deployment for the Muswell Militia Xmas game.  A brief account of the game follows...

The game broadly split down into two separate battles; the French assault on the village (below) on their left wing, and a holding action on their right wing.



A couple of turns in, the French left rush towards the village which is their objective.

 

The brave poilus reach the buildings.  The red dice with the 6 shows that one unit has taken a terrible pasting from revolutionary artillery fire.

 

Above, the Legion occupies a building which was subsequently assaulted by the revolutionaries.  Although they repulsed the first assault, their supporting troops were driven back and General Georges, their commander, started to look rather concerned!

 

On the right the infantry element of my holding force (above) advanced...

 

And then was shot to pieces and ran away!  Dave roleld some fantastic shooting dice...   My blighters wouldn't rally.  I found myself facing 7 revolutionary units with my three squadrons of cavalry.  To my left, the battle for the village looked lost.  I broadly had two options; "charge of the light brigade" or...

 

..."discretion is the better part of valour"; I legged it!  I couldn't see much point in the senseless effusion of more French blood.

At the end of the previous game we'd made some changes to firing and morale, which made firing more effective and morale more challenging.  Taken together, these made the firefights extremely bloody and also made it very difficult to rally units.  Now we need to tweak the rules to reduce the effect of fire before giveing them another go.  We did learn some useful lessons about turn sequence from this game.

Friday, 18 December 2009

For a Fistful of Pesos

The Muswell Militia Xmas game (see previous post) was another battle between a Mexican Government army (mainly French, but also including some Mexicans and Austrians), and sundry Republican rifraf.  The forces were broadly similar in size, including roughly 7 battalions of infantry each, 3 squadrons of cavalry and a couple of guns.  Both sides were trying to capture a village; perhaps, from the enthusiasm with which they later assaulted it, it  was rumoured to contain a paychest full of pesos...

This game was to be the second playtest of the rules which Dr. Simon is designing; all the figures are his, and there is info about them on his blog.



Above, on the left are the Government forces; I commanded the cavalry (left foreground) and a couple of units of infantry just beyond them, and General Georges the five units of infantry and the guns in the left distance.



Above is a closer view of General Georges' Government infantry and guns.  If I recall correctly, the majority were French, including the Legion.  The hacienda in the distance is my Roman villa!  Dr. Simon has included a lot of cacti on the bases, of various kinds, which help build the Mexican atmosphere.  The guns feature some fine succulents.



Above, commanding the Republicans were General Ian (furthest from the camera) who commanded a vertiable phalanx of revolutionary infantry and guns facing the village, and General David who faced (and marginally outnumbered) my wing.

 

Here is a closeup of General Ian's revolutionary scum who contested the village with the brave poilus.

 

Both cavalry wings included a lot of lancers; mine were mostly Chasseurs d'Afrique; I'm not sure what General David's (above) were but they looked extremely scary with lances as long as kontos! 

Tomorrow I'll run through the battle.

Thursday, 17 December 2009

Muswell Militia Xmas Game


Tonight we gathered for the last game of the year.  We had pretty well a full turnout of the local (as opposed to virtual) membership of Muswell Militia; the clubhouse was packed!  From left to right Wabby George, Dave, Dr Simon (who brought all the Mexicans), Ian and yours truly.

Dr Simon has written about the miniatures in his new blog.  An account of the battle (or should I say rout?) to follow. 

Friday, 20 November 2009

Down Mexico Way...


Last night we playtested Dr. Simon's Mexican War rules; all the above figures are his, and rather splendid they looked too.

The above shot is from behind the Maximillian Government's lines.  Government lancers have just charged up the hill in the foreground and are about to rout their Republican opposite numbers.  The infantry in the forground are Mexican regulars, and facing them are elite Republican units (sorry I can't recall the unit names and backgrounds).  I had ex-Confederates in one unit in my army, and the enemy included a fair number of French.



Here's a shot from behind the Republican lines, with my irregular cavalry moving up in the foreground.  Shortly after this shot, the Government lancers broke through and captured my general who was commanding them.  The game turned out to be a draw with both sides being ahead in some sectors, and we came up with some useful tweaks for the rules that Dr. Simon is writing.