A year of living dangerously - Montrose’s Scottish Campaign of 1644-1645

I picked this up recently following an always dangerous recommendation from a friend (thanks Matthew!). It’s a campaign I’ve long been interested in, not least because a fair bit of the action is ‘local’ to where I grew up. 

It costs about £15 and the first (solo) play took just over an hour.

Lovely map and counters. 

Montrose nearly did it!

The game set up to play. 

Detail of the map. My part of the world!

I’ll no doubt have more to say when I’ve played it more.  In this first outing, Montrose came close to victory but basically ran out of troops. He did, however, manage the all-important sack of Dundee!  

Forward to the past!

I have been tinkering on and off with some ideas for an 18th Century toy soldier game for some time.  Recently I decided that it was time to inflict the thing on other people.  Five players - John, Pete, Russell, Diego & Lloyd - assembled and I provided a couple of boxes of 54mm toys.  The 'rules' such as they are, borrow elements from both Funny Little Wars and Charles S Grant's The War Game.  Infantry and cavalry units are composed of 12 and 6 figures respectively.  For this test game the Earl's Army Red had 5 infantry, 1 cavalry and 1 gun.  The General's Army White had 6, 2 and 1.  

The toys are virtually all plastics, mostly BMC and A Call To Arms.

The General's troops soon surged forward into a hail of mostly ineffective musket fire.

Some brave souls ventured into (party popper) cannister range!

Eventually the Whites ran out of steam and shuffled off.  The game took 2 hours and kept all six of us us entertained.  And it looked pretty good.  More importantly, with a couple of tweaks the rules worked!  Expect more of this sort of thing.  Now, where did I put my tricorne hat?

My thanks to Russell, Pete and Diego for the use of their photos.

Verdun again. Assault on Fort Douamont!

PHW ran this game a few weeks ago.  He ran the French while Pete, Russell and I were the beastly Boches, with me as Div Co.   There is a full 3-part report on the Funny Little Wars blog starting here,  so what follows is simply a selection of my own photos, along with a couple nicked from others.  I provided a few French, about half the German figures, all the German aircraft and some of the terrain items.  

My Albadross flying a recce mission over some French artillery positions. 

More recce - my Hannover over the front line…..

…escorted by a Fokker.  Just as well really because….

The enemy have fighters aloft. 

Another Fokker swoops on a French recce aircraft. A French Farman nicely bodged from a 1/48 Vickers FB. 

The field of battle. 

My French ‘hommes soupe’ hurry towards the fort! 

Douamont was another of PHW’s museum-quality pieces. It certainly looked the part. 

The French gun line skulking under camo nets. 

Colonel Driant’s HQ bunker - the objective of the German right wing. It fell to a flamethrower assault. Very messy. 

Stormtroopers advancing!

Alas the fort remained beyond our grasp.  This is as close as we got. 

And where was the CO while all these brave little plastic chaps were at the front?  In my comfortable bunker of course, replete with grand piano and detached latrine.  It’s true what they say, war is hell. 

A great day out.  Many thanks to all involved, and to John H for fetching lunch!  

Vivat Rex

A sad day indeed.  Like most people alive today the late Queen was a constant presence. It’s quite difficult to accept that her long reign is over.  Well done to her for such a long life of service to her people.  

All good wishes to the new King, Charles III.