Three Featherstonian Battles: #2, the Battle of Platt's Vale

The second battle in this Featherstonian trifecta is a scenario modified from the Horse & Musket scenario in Wargames, the Battle of Plattville. My version, the Battle of Platt's Vale, is set in the War of the Spanish Succession instead of the American Civil War, although I am using one of my favourite sets, the Polemos: Ruse de Guerre set, which are reasonably generically Horse & Musket, to keep in the spirit of the thing.

 

 

The Forces:

Red Force (the Anglo-Dutch):

3 Infantry Brigades, each of 3 Infantry Battalions

1 Cavalry Brigade, each of 3 Horse Regiments

1 Field Artillery Battery

 

Blue Force (the Franco-Jacobite): 

3 Infantry Brigades, each of 3 Infantry Battalions

1 Cavalry Brigade, each of 3 Horse Regiments

1 Field Artillery Battery

 

Each army has an infantry brigade as an advance guard, entering on the road (south for Blue, north for Red). The balance of each army will arrive after an hour (i.e. on turn 4). 

 

The scenario objectives are a little under-specified in the original, but it seems that a side needs to control all three hills, the bridge, the village and the church to win.

 

The Set-Up: 

 

The village of Platt's Vale in the centre, with the church on the hill just to the West. Plattswood is to the West, and Creek Hill to the East. Crow's Creek seperates Creek Hill from Moleshill (top-centre) and Hare Hill (top-right)

The Franco-Jacobite advance guard: Berwick's, Dillon's & Clare's Regiments.

The Anglo-Dutch advance guard: Lord North's, Ferguson's & Leven's Regiments behind Moleshill.

 

The Battle:

Initial manoeuvring leads to a face-off of the Scots' Regiments on Hare Hill down onto the Irish Regiments in Crow's Creek.

The volley fire of the Jacobite Irish regiments is devastating: Ferguson's and Leven's Regiments are routed quickly. Lord North's Regiment beyond the bridge is wavering also, but it has routed Berwick's Irish Regiment in its turn

The Scots' Brigade of the Dutch Army marches forward toward's Platt's Vale on the other flank

Meanwhile, the English Brigade has arrived in the nick of time to contest the hill, and the Cavalry Brigade has boldly advanced across the stream to threaten Dillon's Regiment in the flank

The French Brigade moves up to occupy Platt's Vale.

Whilst the Franco-Jacobite Cavalry (Lifeguards', Fitzjames', Sheldon's) moves forward onto the hill to counter the Allied Horse; more Irish infantry move up the road to reinforce the Advance guard, but are somewhat delayed by the survivor's of Berwick's regiment

The remaining regiments in the French advanced guard (Dillon's and Clare's) boldly move onto the hill, correctly judging that Lord North's regiment would not stand their approach, given the destruction of the rest of the Allied advanced guard. 

The Allied cavalry manages to shake out into order to face off against the Franco-Jacobite Horse; meanwhile, note in the background that the English brigade has launched an attack on the Franco-Jacobite advance guard on Hare Hill.

Continuing to fight brilliantly, Dillon's regiment routs the lead regiment with its musketry - this leads quickly to the panic and rout of the entire brigade!

The position at the culmination - the Scots' Dutch and the French Brigade are just coming to grips around Platt's Vale at this point.

But with two brigades routed, the Anglo-Dutch Army is fought out and withdraws.

Game Notes:

Great fun this quick game - I just really like these rules! They rattle along but with the tempo mechanic being really easily modified for solo player.  The formation morale rules put a high level of jeopardy and randomnes into the game too, but still giving a strong signal of what is likely to happen. For instance, the Franco-Jacobite advanced guard took a bit of a risk in advancing whilst Lord North's regiment was still in action: but it was a reasonable chance that it would give way without further fighting, and so it proved. In contrast to the Polemos: SPQR game I played earlier in the day, the reduced number of outcome moves and simplified play sequence make it definitely less brain taxing.

Like Neil Thomas' rules, these rules seem simpler than many but they really do produce very similar and at least equally plausible outcomes, with a lot less mechanical fuss. This game did finish relatively quickly, partly due to the exceptional combat performance (i.e. very good rolling) of several of the units; partly due to the relatively generous movement rates per turn*. but mainly due to the smoothness of play. Really enjoyed that! It is a good scenario too, lots of tactical interest as there is potentially a lot for each side to do.

Buildings mainly by Leven, figures from Baccus' WSS range. 

 

(*An infantry unit in Ruse de Guerre moves at the rate of light cavalry in Polemos: SPQR. this isn't necessarily a problem, but it does make the game feel a lot faster. It also means that formations can defend an attack a lot of ground quickly, which changes the feel of the game a lot - reserves can 'get there'. Much of this is to do with the author, Glenn Pearce, designing his rules for big multi-player games, where you need to design speed in if you are going to get anywhere).

Three Featherstonian Battles #1: The Battle of Trimsum

As part of my desultory quest to play all the...iconic? foundational?...wargames scenarios...I had a go at the first battle in Don Featherstone's Wargames. The first battle is an Ancients affair - although amusingly enough it is really more like a battle from Conan than anything strictly historical (for similar reasons presumably - it wasn't so easy to create good matching armies in 1962, so the iconic armies of ancient history were allowed to fight each other!). So the armies of Hyperborea (with chariots and war engines) and Hyrkania (with elephants and war engines) faced off in the 'Battle of Trimsos'.

 

 

 

I am not quite so constrained, so I redesigned the scenario into the Battle of Trimsum, to feature Romans against Ancient Britons. The elephants have disappeared, but the chariots stayed, so obviously the Britons took the role of the Hyperboreans. 

 

The rules used were Polemos:SPQR. It was quite a small battle for this set, typically a small battle for SPQR would be 20-bases/side, rather than this game of 10-bases/side.

 

The Forces:

 

Britons:

4 bases of Tribal Foot

1 base of javelin-armed skirmishers

3 bases of Light Horse

2 bases of Chariots (Elite)

 

Rome:

 4 bases of Legionaries (Formed, Armoured)

1 base of sling-armed skirmishers

1 base of Light Horse

2 bases of Cavalry (Armoured)

2 bases of Artillery (Scorpions) 

 

I adopted the same deployment as the original, more-or-less, although I slightly re-aligned the terrain; I found the relationship between the two a little odd in the original, with the Hyperboreans moving at an angle to the river. This won't mean anything to anyone who hasn't read or played the original, but hopefully it is clear to anyone who has.  I also added in another river to mark the 'end of the world' in the original scenario, so it would have the dimensions I use for a typical One-Hour Wargame-type scenario.

 

Eagle-eyed readers may notice the photos are distinctly darker/worse than in the recent past. This is because I have had to move to a new gaming space within the house, which is not particularly photography-friendly, and I haven't had time to work out how to ameliorate the situation a little. I wanted to test the playing ergonomics a little first. 

 

The Set-Up: 

 

View from behind the Romans - essentially in 3 columns, with legionaries and slingers in the left-column, legionaries and ballistae in the central column, with some Numidian Light Horse and some Roman cavalry on the Right.

A closer look at the massed ranks - the general is leading the central column, the Legion's commander is taking the left column.

The Britons' Left (right) and Centre - two bands of warriors, one supported by some javelinmen, the other by some Light Horse

Light Horse and Chariots on the Britons' Right

View from behind the Britons' Left

And looking towards the Romans

The Battle:

The Romans took the initiative and advanced; the Britons have moved their Light Horse to skirmish and delay them.

The Roman Cavalry push forward over the hill; the Britons have become slightly mixed-up in bringing their Light Horse back over the bridge.

The Roman Cavalry has seen off the first element of the Britons' Light Horse on the hill

Meanwhile, the Numidians and remaining Roman Cavalry engage the Britons on the hill on the left.

The Numidians throw back the Javelinmen with loss, then engage the main body of the Britons on the Left.

To try and restore the situation in the centre, the Britons' chief leads more tribal warriors onto the central hill to battle the Roman horsemen

Initially honours are even on the Left, although the Javelinmen run off; but the British warriors have been pushed off the central hill again

And then all of a sudden, the Roman (and Numidian) Horseman just put their opponents to flight and the sword, just as the first legionaries are coming into action also

The Britons are in full retreat - although their right was barely engaged, so most of those warriors will escape

Game Notes:

It was quite a fun game, although there is always a slightly fiddly element with these rules that I can't seem to eliminate (i.e. hold in my head confidently without checking), to do with combat outcomes and pursuits and so on. But it was basically fine as a game. It was quite swingy though, as a function of the way that the tempo points (similar to PIP points for DBx players) work - with very small numbers of bases it is more likely that everyone will be able to do stuff...but also it is more likely that no-one will be able to do anything. And this is more or less what happened to the Britons. They brought back the Light Horse over the bridge (just as in the game of the original scenario), got disordered, and then could not rally in time, so there were a lump of troops that could not help at the crucial time. Not unrealistic perhaps, but very annoying for the Britons. The Romans look was generally replicated in the combats too, so it was relatively quite a straightforward victory for them. Attacking over the bridge was so low odds that I didn't do it: they did do it in the original game, to relative predictable and well-deserved disaster. I think what I am saying is that I really, really disagree with the Hyperborean deployment! If I do a bigger version of this to completion, expect changes...

Figures and models from Baccus 6mm. 

 

 

The Road to Saint James' Revisited

 I suppose that indirectly, Donald Featherstone's scenario 'The Road to St. James" is one of the contenders for 'things which started it all', as it is one of the scenarios in his War Games. I was looking for a WW2 scenario that was a bit of a break from my normal fare, in order to test a couple of different things out for Gummipanzergrenadier, in particular I wanted there to be some more powerful weapons and crucially, some engineering tasks. The Road to St.James fit the bill for that, since there was some barbed wire defences, but I souped this up a bit by adding a couple of anti-vehicle minefields. This was to have some quite significant consequences...

The original scenario actually looks quite like a Rapid Fire scenario, to my untrained eye. Each company is maybe 10-20 figures strong. A tank company/squadron is maybe 3-5 tanks strong. Anyway, it featured a battalion of British Guards' infantry supported by some Shermans and anti-tank guns, being attacked by a German Regiment supported by some Panthers, anti-tank guns and off-table artillery (undefined). both forces had some mortars and machineguns too.  In my order of battle, I reduced it one level: a British company group of four platoons, supported by a troop of Shermans, a platoon of 6pdrs,  a platoon of mortars and a platoon of Vickers MMGs. One platoon front was protected with wire, and two ploughed areas had anti-tank mines in them.  The German Regiment became a Panzer Grenadier Battalion, with one company in Hanomags and the rest in trucks, with most of the battalion-level support plus 3 Panthers and some 75mm anti-tank guns, with a battery of 4 x 105mm guns in support.

Rather than use my own tactics, I tried to follow the original tactics, or intent, as best I could.

The Set-Up:

Fir tree hill on the left, Copse hill on the right. The 'embankment' in the original scenario has become Red ridge in this refight (right). Red Farm is at the top, and the village of Charlot (top-right) with a plantation feature in front of it. Because Fir Tree Hill is a somewhat different shape to the original, I added Bald Hill (top-left) to make the terrain a little closer. The whole field slopes downwards a little left-to-right.

Company HQ and 4 Platoon on Fir Tree Hill, with a 6pdr ATG in support; 2 Platoon is in front of the hill beind the wire (top), supported by another ATG.

The view from behind 2 Platoon's position, looking towards Red Farm, occupied by 1 Platoon and 2 Shermans (and commanded by the Company 2iC). The right-hand side of this field contains anti-tank mines.

Red Farm and its defenders.

3 Platoon on Copse Hill, supported by a Sherman (left) and a 6pdr ATG (right); a section of mortars are also in support, with an observer and small team alongside 3 Pl in the woods.

Another view. The near half of this ploughed field contains anti-tank mines.

The Battle:

The Germans led with their armoured stuff on their Right, aiming to concentrate on encircling and taking Copse Hill first, holding back the rest of their force for a later attack on the Left past Red Farm.

"But, before I could say don't drive onto a mine...he drove onto a mine"

The German platoon in the minefield dismounts and advances, whilst the Company Commander moves back out of the ploughed field. He send his second and third platoons left and right flanking, whilst the Panthers hold off. The Brits don't shoot, not wanting to reveal their positions early.

One of the outflanking platoons runs into the barrel of a Sherman, which eliminates it pronto.

The 6pdr on the other side of Copse Hill destroys 3 Hanomags in very short order indeed! The dismounted Panzergrenadiers try to silence it with MG42 fire, but they are in turn silenced very quickly when the Vickers MMG opens up...whose crew are then pinned down by the tripod-mounted MG42 on Red Ridge...

...who in turn get their heads pushed down when the mortar bombs start landing, watched in by the mortar controller in the woods.  Note that the other two Hanomags have retired before they even got into the gunsight of the Sherman... (left). Some German engineers have arrived to try and sort out this minefield too...

They start work, but suffer some accidental casualties and work progresses very slowly

As the right-flanking Panzergrenadiers dismount, they are engaged by British infantry from 3 Platoon, as well as the mortar fire observers...half of the remaining Panzer Grenadiers are cut down in seconds..

I am missing a couple of photos here, not sure why. What happened was that combined HE and machinegun fire from the Panthers, assisted a little by some of the Panzergrenadiers and supports, killed the British mortar control team and persuaded 3 Platoon to pull back into the depths of the wood.

Then everything happened in a few moments: the first Panther cam around to see the Sherman in front of it, which was incapable of harming it. But at that point, the Sherman at the edge of Red Farm opened fire and brewed up the lead Panther! He missed the second Panther though, which promptly despatched the plucky Sherman. At that point, the 3 Platoon PIAT team at the edge of Copse Hill then knocked out the remaining two Panthers in quick succession!

With no-one to spot for them, the British mortars are withdrawing towards Fir Tree Hill (left); however, the Germans are pretty much stuck. Rather than press on and launch the attack with the two motorized infantry companies down the Right (i.e. top), I decided the German commander would probably quit at this point.

Game Notes:

Good fun, and good to get this classic to the table for the first time. A mixture of things did for the Germans, most of which was pure bad luck/good British dice-rolling at key moments. However, there were important structural differences. The most obvious was the minefield, although that was mainly just annoying for the Germans than seriously detrimental.  I think differences in rules philosophy made a more important difference: in Gummipanzergrenadier, anti-tank guns are great because they interact with the observation and accuracy rules in a better way than tanks do. 'Don't be seen' is rule #1 here. Additionally, direct fire weapons are somewhat less powerful than in many WW2 rulesets, whereas artillery is somewhat more useful. This meant that Featherstone's tactics, fairly appropriate for his own scenario, were less good for this game - the Germans should have got their observers into place nice and early (and even better, pre-registered the very obvious targets) in order to make life much more difficult for the British. But that said, there was some good shooting by the British anti-tank gunners, tankers and PIAT operators too!

The engineering rules worked well and were easy to understand. Basically, engineers are 'attacked' by mines and booby-traps (if that is what they are trying to clear) and then roll to succeed with different odds depending upon the difficulty of the task. Trained engineers can therefore do more stuff and are less likely to suffer casualties doing it. Engineering times are only somewhat predictable - they are based on chance, so you can work out how long things might take, but not how long they will take.

Anyway, all good fun and looking forward to giving them another go. What this scenario did teach me is that my WW2 collection is in a bad state; things are mixed up, in the wrong boxes, some stuff I  got second-hand I have never got around to finishing off the painting, the models aren't arranged in meaningful chunks so I can just quickly pull out a company or battalion - this is especially true of the infantry support platoons and companies, I am noticing. I should make some more distinctive FOO and FAC and MFC bases. I am also not quite sure I am organizing things quite right for these rules (my troops are basically configured for WRG 1925-1950). I am not quite sure whether platoon commanders should be 'independent' and attach themselves to a section as and when they need to, or whether one of the rifle sections in a platoon should always be considered a command section. And I need to work out whether a 1944 Panzergrenadier squad should basically be two belt-fed LMGs and a rifle group, or just the LMGs. Anyway, some few modelling things to ponder!

Models were a mixture of Baccus, GHQ and H&R. Buildings were from Leven and Battlescale, with walling from Baccus.