Royal Navy Officers of the SYW - new book!

Written by Cy Harrison, a member of Sheffield Wargames Society, this book has recently been published by Helion. It’s a hefty tome with lots of detail if you have an interest in this subject.

Available now from Helion: link

Amphipolis, 422BC...

...or 'Come and have a go if you think you're Greek enough!'
Last week's game was an outing for some of my venerable 25mm Ancient figures using Command & Colours.  The battle of Amphipolis was fought between a Spartan army under Brasidas and Athenians led by Cleon.  The latter had been sent to capture the city but when Brasidas refused to emerged for a fight, Cleon stomped off in a huff.  The wicked Brasidas waited until the Athenians were marching past then emerged and set about them.

As usual, many of the figures were truly ancient!  The Spartan unit behind the General  - made up of Garrison hoplites with bendy spears - are the first metal figures I ever owned.  Bought in c1978 for £0.10 each, already painted!

 The field of battle.  The game offered further work for my (15mm!) Hittite city walls.  The Athenians had to get their troops off three hexes (not yet marked with red counters) on the left side.

 We've heard about some other dodgy old ancients, so now let's meet the teams.  Martin and Diego (left) were the Spartans, while Tim C and John were the Athenians.  The chap at the far end is Diego's Dad - a very welcome visitor.  Martin and John are indulging in some 'wargames pointing.'

Athenians voting about what to do next.

 Spartans hurtling forth.

 Battle was soon joined.  The Spartan hoplite units were particularly nasty.  Cleon and the Spartan general Clearidas are both in the front line!

 The Spartans pushed steadily forward in the centre.

 The Athenian left was heavily engaged to prevent them escaping.

 Dead - particularly hoplites - piled up on both sides, but the elimination of this Athenian unit (top right on the photo) clinched a victory for Brasidas.

Even better, my veteran Spartans were still in action!  Just.
A very quick game and an unusually clear victory - most of out C&C games have been much closer-run affairs.

Long ago in a wargames club far, far away....*

*OK, it was June 2019 and 14 miles away.

This week Martin ran a sci-fi game using a selection of Star Wars figures he and John had accumulated.  The players represented rebel factions attempting to clear a section of a planet of Imperial forces.  The players were Jerry, Graham, John, Diego and your humble correspondent.

My own faction consisted of a Hans Solo figure (in black above) with a speeder, a bloke in an orange suit (he'd missed the lecture on camouflage) and of course....

 ... a small droid.

 We all entered from different directions and investigated various locations marked with the green chips.  These could be
1. a leader - usually Darth himself hatching some diabolical plot - who would have to be fought
2. cash or other valuables
3. an ambush - usually storm troopers - who would have to be fought
4. a trap - from which the character would need tor try extricating himself or be helped to do so.
Victory would go to the player who ended the game with the most chips.  Martin's briefing mentioned the need to co-operate - which immediately set us against one another...
Above can be seen me (as Hans Solo) speeding up to check out another chip atop a mountain.  Of course it was a trap...

 ...in the shape of this massing dinosaur type thingie.  Luckily my tiny dustbin-like droid was soon on hand to rescue me.

Darth pops up again (his forth appearance in the game) and is assailed by Diego's wookiee.  Never thought I'd ever have to type that.

 Dustbin droid wonders how the hell to get down off the mountain.

 By now the race was on for the last chip. I got there (just) first and of course it was another bloody ambush.  Hans got stunned by the Imperial Gebirgsjager...

 ...but orange suit man zapped them from a distance and grabbed the chip jest before John's Princess Leia lookalike arrived.  This clinched my victory, as I had six such chips to Diego's five, thus making it a good game.

And so ended an action packed film.  Er, I mean game.  In the silence just before the credits rolled there was a crash from off-camera.  Yes, Dustbin Droid had fallen off the mountain...

Pegasus Bridge - Operation Deadstick

As many readers will know, Sheffield Wargames Society meets on a Wednesday.  Therefore our nearest meeting to the D-Day anniversary was last night (the 5th).  John had prepared a game about the assault on Pegasus Bridge and had even gone to the trouble of scratchbuilding both the bridge and the local chateau in 1/300 scale, with the rest of the toys from his 15mm collection.  Our briefings were based closely on the information provided to Major Howard, the CO of the operation.
We had six Horsa gliders each carrying a small (c20 man) platoon and a 5 man Royal Engineer detachment.

 John ran the game.  The players were me, Richard and (in the photo) Jerry, Tim C and Martin.  John, Jerry and Martin sported very smart red berets.  Lacking such headgear, I wore my Catering Corps beret. 
I'm no good in a fight but I make a great pot of tea...

See also Richard's report here.

To keep things simple we numbered our platoons 1-6 and allocated missions for each.  Everyone was. however, briefed on all of the missions so platoons could be easily re-ordered once on the ground.  If we survived that long.  The landing would take place in pitch darkness.
To help with orientation, most of my photos were taken from the NE corner of the table.
The missions were:
1. Take the bridge(!), sappers to neutralise any demo charges and make safe.  (1 Plt - Jerry)
2. Take the pillbox N of bridge (suspected to be the control point for the demo charges).  2 Plt (me)
3. Clear the East Bank  (3 Plt - Richard)
4. Secure the defensive works  (5 Plt - Tim C)
5. Take Ranville Bridge (just off-table on the road to the East) (4 & 6 Plts - John & Martin)
First though, we had to build and land our gliders....

1 Plt and Maj Howard prepares to land (the white pipe cleaners mark the LZs - 'X' in the South, 'Y' in the North.

 And he's down.  A well-aimed landing by Jerry!

 Richard's 3 Plt touches down

 Tim C's 5 Plt lands

 A couple of photos now on my own creation which, if I say it myself, flew and landed beautifully!

I even added some 'period' markings...

 All 5 gliders (1/300 models provided by me) on the ground.  Only five?  Well yes.  4 Plt was last seen heading well to the East....

 My toys, so I chose the artistically crashed model.  These Horsas have been around since the mid-1980s and were originally owned and painted by my old friend Scott P.

 We stumbled out of the gliders...

 ...and got ourselves organised for our missions.

Some German MG42 fire was swiftly dealt with (the chaps on the far side of the canal) and many of the foreign (Italian, Polish etc) conscripts fled.

 The East bank and the bridge were quickly secured, and a platoon pushed forward to secure the west.

 As we sorted out a defensive perimeter, noises were heard.....

 ...and a couple of tanks rumbled very slowly down the road towards us.  While each glider had been loaded with a PIAT and a stock of Gammon Bombs, only two of the former had survived the landing and none of the latter could be found!

 After some anxious moments the fourth(!) PIAT round struck home.  Having all the players shout 'twang' seemed to make all the difference to the die roll.  (The PIAT being a spring-powered device).  The other Panzer buggered off at this point and we settled in to await the arrival of 6th Airborne Div and/or Lovat's Commandos.

 A German patrol boat appeared from the North and was dealt with.  Then as it git light we came under distant sniper fire.  The captured AT gun next to the bridge was brought into action but shelling the chateau led to no slacking of sniper activity.  A couple of rounds at the nearby water tower seemed to do the trick though!

 Eventually British armour appeared from the North and Lovat, led by his piper from the East.

Our work here was done.  A well-researched and run game from John, helped enormously by the good-natured role playing of the players.
Our own very modest contribution to the D-Day commemoration.

Battle Ravens - game three

Last night I ran the game again, this time with actual players!  This took place at the new home of Sheffield Wargames Society at the Farm Road Club in Sheffield (every Wednesday from 7pm - new members and visitors welcome!)
Jerry (left) led the Norse army with Tim C (right) as the Anglo-Saxons. Watched and egged on by John (off camera) and Diego (centre). Diego is a recent arrival at SWS and had downloaded and read a copy of the Battle Ravens rules. Which at least meant that one of us knew what was happening...

In the game, Tim favoured hefty 9-point attacks while Jerry did a lot more shuffling of troops. In the end and despite some gratuitous wargames pointing from Jerry, the Anglo-Saxons prevailed.

The game took about 40 minutes. Next time we’ll try out the tactics cards. 

Sheffield Wargames Society bring & buy day

Sheffield Wargames Society Bring and Buy Day - 10/10/2018

Sheffield Wargames Society is holding a bring and buy day as part of its meeting on Wednesday 10th October 2018 from 7.00pm at Woodseats Working Men’s Club, The Dale, Sheffield, S8 0PS.

Visitors from other groups in the area would be most welcome.

For those who want to sell six foot tables are available for £5 (SWS members pay £1 but are asked to contribute an additional 10% of their takings).

Goods should be labelled clearly with details of price and vendor. Sellers may either man their table or rely on the honesty of purchasers.

GOODS ARE LEFT AT THE OWNER'S RISK, AND NEITHER SHEFFIELD WARGAMES SOCIETY OR WOODSEATS WMC ACCEPT ANY RESPONSIBILITY WHATSOEVER FOR ANY LOSSES OR DAMAGE SUFFERED.

Bring & Buy event - Sheffield Wargames Society

Sheffield Wargames Society is holding a bring and buy day as part of it's meeting on Wednesday 25th October 2017 from 7.00pm at Woodseats Working Men’s Club, The Dale, Sheffield, S8 0PS.

Visitors from other groups in the area would be most welcome.

For those who want to sell six foot tables are available for £5 (SWS members pay £1 but are asked to contribute an additional 10% of their takings).

Goods should be labelled clearly with details of price and vendor. Sellers may either man their table or rely on the honesty of purchasers.

GOODS ARE LEFT AT THE OWNER'S RISK, AND NEITHER SHEFFIELD WARGAMES SOCIETY OR WOODSEATS WMC ACCEPT ANY RESPONSIBILITY WHATSOEVER FOR ANY LOSSES OR DAMAGE SUFFERED.

Just some of the thrilling scenes at the previous Bring & Buy evening!

A Great War?

A couple of weeks ago we made our second attempt at this game.  First time out we played through a couple of turns just to get the hang of the mechanisms so this time we had hopes of making good progress with the war!

We managed to assemble a full set of five players who, as far as I recall, were as follows:

GB & USA - Tim C

Russia - Martin

France & Italy - John 

Germany - Jerry

Austria & Ottoman Empire - your humble correspondent

I opted for the declining empires as I figured this would leave me plenty of time for furiously leafing through the rules!  More ominously Martin volunteered to be the Tsar as he expected to be leaving early...
Things started well for Austria with a successful punitive campaign against the wicked Serbs.  I was then able to overrun the rest of the Balkans.

The Russians seemed more concerned with the Germans while the Italians took a while to get going.  So some acceptable history!

Things picked up further when the Turks came out to play - even that Russian fleet in the Black Sea didn't rain on my parade.

Speaking of fleets, it was soon possible to cross the Adriatic by stepping from hull to hull across a line of Austrian ironclads. The Italians were further incensed by the failure of the 93rd battle of the Isonzo which let me (well OK, Rommel) into North Italy.

By now the Russians seemed to be in retreat in the west, if not in the east...

The Kaiser and I still had a comfortable lead.  41 VPs to the Allies' 31.

The US presence was starting to take effect - a rather longer chain of dreadnoughts than that in the Adriatic had formed in the Atlantic!

Did I mention that it's a visually pleasing game?

We wrapped things up at the end of 1917.  The Brits had made a success of Gallipoli and the Russians were in Armenia so the Turks were on the way out.  And I'd run out of cards!  But still the Central Powers clung to victory.
It's a very nice game - easy to pick up and with lots of nice little touches.  For such a high level and abstract game the grim realities of attrition battles are well represented.