Thursday 31 December 2009

Sheffield Wargames Day 30th December 2009

As is traditional, a special meeting of Sheffield Wargames Society was held yesterday. Rather than gathering at our usual time of 7pm, the club premises (The Polish Catholic Centre on Eccleshall Road) were available from noon. Soon several games were in full swing including a sci-fi game with a staggering number of spaceships and two 15mm Napoleonic games. One was a re-fight of Waterloo where the Prussians showing up quite quickly didn't prevent the French capture of both Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte and a dangerous looking French thrust round the Allied right flank. Sadly I'm not sure how the game ended - can anyone enlighten me?


The other Napoleonic game occupied 8 players along a 24 foot long table. Again I'm not sure how it ended but when I last looked the French centre was being drawn into a threatening bulge.


Nick Mitchell, Martin Rapier and I played no fewer than 3 games before we departed at around 7pm. The first was a re-fight of Magenta (1859) using rules adapted from those of Richard Brooks. Nick and I were the French while Martin (who had organised the game and provided all the kit) commanded the Austrians. In other words he sat around eating chocolate biscuits.


Above: The heroic General MacMahon (me) leads his corps into action.



The attack of the French left wing under the inspired and heroic leadership of Gen MacMahon initially proceeded well and resulted in the capture of the Austrian General Clam-Gallas. In retrospect this probably did the Austrians a favour... After the rest of the French Army made contact the battle slowed to become a slogging match with both sides losing men in vast numbers. After some sticky moments caused by dodgy dice rolls (my fault more than Nick's) the Austrian defence finally crumbled and Magenta was ours.

Above: The French left advances hot on the heels of some fleeing Austrians.



2 comments:

Wg Cdr Luddite said...

I reckon we had more casualties that day than the real battle.
It was interesting that the Austrians actually made a fight of it for a change. So instead of running away they died where they stood and took a lot of Frenchmen with them.
My Imperial Guard was down to a strength of about 3 regiments by the end.

Nick Mitchell

Tim Gow said...

I think we helped the Austrians considerably by the early capture of Clam-Gallas. He normally seems to help the French quite a bit!