Capturing Ceasar's Camp: Action 01 - Attack on Hedgehog Wood

Two first's today - the first battle of the Too Fat Lardies' Capturing Caesar's Camp pint-sized campaign, and also the first game using the published version of 'The Farquhar Version' - John D Salt's creation of the 'missing link' in WRG WW2 company-battalion level tactical rules, to match the 1979 'Modern' set.

 

 

This first action features B Company, 4th Cameron Highlanders attack on an outpost of the German 217 Infantry Regiment. Each side must try and defeat the other and drive them from the field...

The British Force:

A Platoon, D Coy, 4 Cameron Highlanders

1 x Rifle Comd Gp

1 x 2" mortar team

1 x Boys ATR team

3 x Sections of 2 x Rifle Gp, 1 x LMG

Attached are:

1 x 2" mortar team

1 x FOO and 3" mortar section

1 x Bren carrier

The German Force:

A platoon from 217 Infantry Regiment, supplemented with two engineer groups, a 37mm anti-tank gun, a car with a rifle group, and a sniper.

Both sides are attempting to recover some documents and possibly some survivors from a disabled scout car on the road.

The British have already bombarded Hedgehog Wood. When any troops are activated in the wood, they are 'instantly' attacked to represent the effects of this.

The Set-Up:

Hedgehog Wood to the top-left, the Cameron Highlanders will approach from the bottom. Difficult to see, but the abandoned scout car is on the road (top-right)

Easier to see here

The Battle:

The action begins pretty much instantly - the leading section of the Camerons' is ambushed by a German squad (centre); the Camerons' 2 Section accompany the FOO through the wheatfield (left); incidentally the Bren carrier has already driven up the road to get to the scout car - the Germans clearly held their fire to avoid giving away their positions.

Six of the Camerons are cut down in an instant!

Luckily 2 Section (bottom) is in position to begin some enfilading fire to suppress that German squad but, if you look...

A second squad on the far side of the wood

The flanking suppression has allowed the Camerons' platoon commander to bring the remainder of the platoon up; and it has taken a little while, but the FOO is just about to bring down the fire of his mortar section onto the troops

It does little harm to the forward German squad, but the rear squad has been devastated by the 3" mortar fire.

This cues up the assault of the Camerons, which wipes out the first German squad. Note that the Bren carrier came back and forced the remainder of the rear squad to surrender too.

A weird cameo! A car with some Germans in turns up! (top)

The Bren carrier shoos it away with some pretty inaccurate fire

2 Section and the FOO advance somewhat gingerly through the wheatfield, whilst 3 Section and the Platoon command element (which has taken the remnants of 1 Section under command) go right flanking, covered from the wood by the hedges and trees

Eek! the Bren Carrier comes face-to-face with a German anti-tank gun!

The British actually get the drop on the German anti-tank gunners, but the fire from the Bren carrier is wildly inaccurate!

The German gunners make no such mistake and destroy the carrier; the crew is then killed or chased off by the British Lieutenant and his Sergeant

The German Platoon commander is at the edge of the wood, but no-one can quite see each other properly. He seems to have escaped the preliminary bombardment just fine,

The British Platoon sets up its base of fire in the hedgeline.

The German platoon commander has his own base of fire in the wood. But 3 Section is snurgling up behind the hedgeline.

There are a couple of photos that apparently didn't turn out too well. Essentially, there was a firefight which caused few casualties on either side - and then the 3" mortars arrived and caused lots of casualties amongst the Germans

The remaining Germans bug out. A few of them surrender to the advancing 3 Section.

Position at the end of the action

first game. for posterity!

Game Results:

A hard and well fought victory for the British. The Germans lost 34 (8 Killed, 26 POW, including 18 WIA) and the 37mm anti-tank gun. The British lost 3 killed, 6 wounded and the Bren Carrier.  The Cameron' platoon commander and platooon sergeant, and the attached FOO, really carried a lot of the battle. And as a plus, the British managed to recover the documents from the scout car too.

 

Game Notes:

Really good fun, with both the rules and the scenario. For solo play, I am using my system which had its roots in the 'The Threat Generation System'. In this case, it effectively generated a forward ambush on the Cameronians, which devastated 1 Section. Only the slightly fortuitous positioning of the FOO enabled the British force to concentrate direct and indirect fire and then turn the tables.

Obviously I have switched from playtesting John's other WW2 tactical rules back to this set. Happily, once I had played for about 10 minutes it was pretty easy to get back into the swing of it. It is very much of a fit with the two WRG WW2 sets designed for this level, slightly more complex than first edition but less complex than the second edition. The things you would expect to see are all there, and the basic systems are all very similar. But I will write a full review in due course.

Models mainly by Baccus 6mm, with a couple of the vehicles from Heroics and Ros and a couple of figures by GHQ in there.

The Farquhar Version Released! The 'new' set of WRG-ish WW2 rules just dropped.

John D Salt let me know today that his creation of the 'missing link' in the WRG WW2 company to battalion-level rules has been published on Lulu today. Regular readers of this blog will recall that I had the good fortune to assist with some of the playtesting of this set during 2022 and 2023. I got lots of questions/comments on various forums and on the blog asking when this might be published, so great to see it finally in print! I do recommend it, it seems to me both a faithful representation of the WRG-thinking of the time after 4-5 years of experience with their first WW2 and Modern sets, as well as introducing some minor but useful clean ups to the equipment and the artillery and anti-aircraft mechanics. It is a little more complicated than the original first edition 1925-1950 ruleset, but less complicated than the late 80s 2nd edition. I will do a full review and some more games as soon as my copy arrives!

Narrative OHW Campaign Battle 2: Battle of Lochmire

Campaign Briefing, Battle 02:

Following the success of the Dutch Army at Fernbrae, its leader, General de Ruyter ordered a somewhat leisurely pursuit of the Spanish force towards its Lochmire, where it was besieging that important town, its castle and its Scottish garrison. The Spanish commander, General Sarsfield, covering his retreat with his powerful cavalry arm, moved his main body back towards Lochmire to focus on the siege. However, De Ruyter, screening the Franco-Spanish cavalry with his own, conducted a surprise march to attack a portion of the Spanish lines outside Lochmire.  Sarsfield scribbled an order to an aide, telling him to present it to the commander of his brigade of Dragoons and to return to Lochmire post-haste. Meanwhile, his troops prepared to resist the Dutch attack.

Forces:

The Dutch Army:

C-in-C: General de Ruyter

1st Brigade (C. Murray): Colyear's, Lauder's, Murray's Foot Regts

2nd Brigade (D. Saxe-Weimar): Portmore's Foot Regt, Saxe-Weimar Dragoons, de Vries' Foot Battery,

Garrison: 42nd Foot

Murray's and Colyear's regiments are Veteran, Portmore's is Raw.

The Spanish Army:

C-in-C: General Sarsfield

HQ: Siege Battery, Clermont's Battery

1st Brigade (Reding): Limerick, Ultonia, Royal Eccosais, Light Artillery Battery

2nd Brigade (Meagher): Leon, Toledo

3rd Brigade (Cortes): Mahony's Dragoons, Crofton's Dragoons, Ferrari's Dragoons

The Toledo regiment is Veteran, everyone else is Trained

 

The Set-up:

The garrisoned town with castle to the SW; the advancing Dutch Forces to the West (left); the defending Franco-Spanish Forces to the East (right, centre, top)

A view of the garrison

Saxe-Weimar's Brigade

Murray's Brigade

The Limerick and Ultonia Regiments of Reding's Brigade

Two batteries and the Royal Eccossais garrison the entrenched camp.

Meagher's Brigade

Another view.

The Battle:

As de Ruyter has decided to attack with his Left (top-left), Reding's Brigade tries to redeploy under some irritating artillery fire

Murray's Brigade forms up for the assault

Numbers and skill tell - a couple of devastating volleys and the Spanish brigade is routed!

Reding's troops are making some heavy weather of the redeployment, partly due to the artillery fire but partly sheer incapacity and confusion. However, the French artillery is playing effectively on Saxe-Weimar's Dragoons (centre-left)

Cortes' Brigade of Spanish Dragoons (okay, Italo-Irish!) arrives, hopefully to stem the tide!

Another view. Two regiments are mounted, one on foot.

Reding has at least got his units deployed to protect against any river crossing

Things go from bad to worse for the Spanish: one of Reding's battalions guarding the bridge breaks under artillery fire

Desperate to restore the situation, Cortes' leads his dragoons in a desperate charge

Whilst Dutch (i.e. Scottish) infantry attempt to splash through the river, Reding reforms his troops

The musketry of Murray's brigade beats back the attacking Dragoons

Some success at last! Colyear's regiment breaks under the heavy French artillery fire; however the dismounted Spanish (okay, Italian) Dragoons are about to succumb to the effects of the Scots' musketry (top-right)

Cortes orders his surviving troopers into one more charge...

Which is no more successful than the last! Crofton's Dragoons are destroyed...

And Mahony's Dragoons ride for the rear!

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Spanish Army has had enough and its broken units flee, its unbroken units retreat

View at the end of the battle.

Game Notes:

 The Spanish Army will have to retreat and re-group after two defeats at the hands of the Dutch. The invasion of New Dalrydia is misfiring badly! Hopefully I will get to part 3 soon...

 

A fun game and a reasonably comprehensive victory for the Dutch: most things they tried worked, most things the Spanish tried did not! Ruse de Guerre gave a good, swift game although it is very generically 'horse & musket' - in particular the artillery is probably a little too powerful, although it isn't the biggest issue in the world. You wouldn't think it perhaps from the game but I did slightly change the firepower calibration to requiring a 7+ to shake an opponent (although I kept at 10+ to break, still wondering if I need to move that to 11). More specifically, the Spanish kept on getting awful tempo point allocations on key turns, mimicking quite well the 'shock' that armies can experience when attacked in surprising and impactful ways. So it worked quite well as part of this mini-campaign.

 

 

Very well done to anyone who twigged the scenario this was taken from: it as an NT-esque adaptation of the Castillon scenario from back in Miniature Wargames 02 - it seemed to take the treatment quite well and the broad scenario fitted quite easily into the campaign narrative.

Figures by Baccus 6mm, mostly the buildings are from Leven, and the fortifications are from Irregular.