Desired scans : Black Powder - Rebellion Rank and File supplements Harpoon 3 & 4 supplements Force on Force supplements Hind Commander At Close Quarters War and Conquest
Liam Collins
25th of November in military history:
1120 – The White Ship sinks in the English Channel, drowning William Adelin, son and heir of Henry I of England. 1177 – Baldwin IV of Jerusalem and Raynald of Châtillon defeat Saladin at the Battle of Montgisard. 1491 – The siege of Granada, the last Moorish stronghold in Spain, ends with the Treaty of Granada. 1758 – French and Indian War: British forces capture Fort Duquesne from French control. 1783 – American Revolutionary War: The last British troops leave New York City three months after the signing of the Treaty of Paris. 1795 – Partitions of Poland: Stanisław August Poniatowski, the last king of independent Poland, is forced to abdicate and is exiled to Russia. 1826 – The Greek frigate Hellas arrives in Nafplion to become the first flagship of the Hellenic Navy. 1863 – American Civil War: Battle of Missionary Ridge: Union forces led by General Ulysses S. Grant break the Siege of Chattanooga by routing Confederate troops under General Braxton Bragg. 1864 – American Civil War: A group of Confederate operatives calling themselves the Confederate Army of Manhattan starts fires in more than 20 locations in an unsuccessful attempt to burn down New York City. 1876 – In retaliation for the American defeat at the Battle of the Little Bighorn, United States Army troops sack Chief Dull Knife's sleeping Cheyenne village at the headwaters of the Powder River. 1917 – World War I: German forces defeat Portuguese army of about 1200 at Negomano on the border of modern-day Mozambique and Tanzania. 1940 – World War II: First flight of the de Havilland Mosquito and Martin B-26 Marauder. 1941 – HMS Barham is sunk by a German torpedo during World War II. 1952 – Korean War: After 42 days of fighting, the Battle of Triangle Hill ends as UN forces abandon their attempt to capture the "Iron Triangle". 1970 – In Japan, author Yukio Mishima commits ritualistic seppuku after an unsuccessful coup attempt.
Camden Phillips
It is 839 years since the Battle of Montgisard was fought between the Ayyubids and the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The 16-year-old King Baldwin IV, seriously afflicted by leprosy, led an out-numbered Christian force against the army of Saladin. The Arab force was routed and their casualties were massive, and only a fraction managed to flee to safety.
Saladin had planned and invasion of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from Egypt. Learning of Saladin's plans, Baldwin left Jerusalem with only 375 knights to attempt a defense at Ascalon, but was stalled there by a detachment of troops sent by Saladin who had 26,000 men. The true numbers are impossible to estimate, since the Christian sources refer only to knights and give no account of the number of infantry and turcopoles, except that it is evident from the number of the dead and wounded that there must have been more men than the 375 "knights". It is also uncertain whether the so-called knights included mounted sergeants or squires, or whether they were true knights. Just as uncertain are the numbers of their opponents. An 1181 review listed Saladin's Mamluk forces at 6,976 Ghulams and 1,553 Qaraghulams. However, there would have been additional soldiers available in Syria and elsewhere, while auxiliaries might have accompanied the Mamluks. Whether these would have added up to a total of 26,000 reported by William of Tyre is impossible to say.
Saladin left part of his army to besiege Gaza and a smaller force at Ascalon and marched northward with the rest. Accompanying Baldwin was Raynald of Châtillon, who had just been released from captivity in Aleppo in 1176. Raynald was a fierce enemy of Saladin and was King Baldwin's second-in-command. Also with the army were Baldwin of Ibelin, his brother Balian, Reginald of Sidon, and Joscelin III of Edessa. Odo de St Amand, Master of the Knights Templar, came with 84 Templar knights. Another Templar force attempted to meet Baldwin at Ascalon, but they remained besieged at Gaza.
Ayden Miller
Saladin continued his march towards Jerusalem, thinking that Baldwin would not dare to follow him with so few men. Because Baldwin was supposedly not a danger, he allowed his army to be spread out over a large area, pillaging and foraging. However, unknown to Saladin, the forces he had left to subdue the King had been insufficient and now both Baldwin and the Templars were marching to intercept him before he reached Jerusalem.
The Christians, led by the King, pursued the Muslims along the coast. The location is disputed, as Ramla was a large region that included the town under the same name. Saladin was taken totally by surprise. His army was in disarray, part had been held up by the mired baggage train while another part of his force had scattered into raiding parties across the countryside. The horses were tired from the long march. Some men had to hurry to collect their weapons from the baggage train. Saladin's army, in a state of panic, scrambled to make battle lines against the enemy. King Baldwin ordered the relic of the True Cross to be raised in front of the troops. The King, whose teenage body was already ravaged by aggressive leprosy, was helped from his horse and dropped to his knees before the cross. He prayed to God for victory and rose to his feet to cheers from his army.
The Jerusalem army attacked the hurriedly arranged Muslims, inflicting heavy casualties. The King, fighting with bandaged hands to cover his terrible wounds and sores, was in the thick of the fighting. Egyptian effective command was under Saladin's nephew Taqi ad-Din. Taqi ad-Din apparently attacked while Saladin was putting his Mamluk guard together. Saladin's men were quickly overwhelmed. Saladin himself only avoided capture by escaping on a racing camel.
King Baldwin's victory was total. He had utterly destroyed the invasion force and had captured Saladin's baggage train.
Zachary Gonzalez
Baldwin pursued Saladin until nightfall, and then retired to Ascalon. Deluged by ten days of heavy rains and suffering the loss of roughly ninety percent of his army, including his personal bodyguard of Mamluks, Saladin fled back to Egypt, harassed by Bedouins along the way. Only one tenth of his army made it back to Egypt with him.
Baldwin memorialized his victory by erecting a Benedictine monastery on the battlefield dedicated to St. Catherine of Alexandria, whose feast day fell on the day of the battle. However, it was a difficult victory; Roger des Moulins, master of the Knights Hospitaller, reported that 1,100 men had been killed and 750 returned home wounded.
Despite an intervening year of relative peace, by 1179 Saladin was able to renew his attacks on the kingdom, including his victory at the Battle of Marj Ayyun that year. This led to almost another decade of warfare which culminated in Saladin's victory over the Crusaders at the Battle of Hattin in 1187.
Montgisard is a quintessential "Crescent and the Cross" type wargame, with two of the most famous commanders of the Crusades leading classic knight and ghulam armies. A better prepared Saracen player could present a serious challenge to the Jerusalem army, and a historical result is by no means certain.
On 25 November 1941 at 4:25 p.m., while steaming to cover an attack on Italian convoys in the Mediterranean, HMS Barham was hit by three torpedoes from the German submarine U-331, commanded by Oberleutnant zur See Hans-Diedrich von Tiesenhausen. The torpedoes were fired from a range of only 750 yards providing no time for evasive action, and struck so closely together as to throw up a single massive water column. As the ship rolled over to port, her magazines exploded and she quickly sank with the loss of more than two-thirds of the crew. Out of a crew of approximately 1,184 officers and men, 841 were killed. The survivors were rescued by the other British ships.
Tiesenhausen was forced to dive to evade the escorting ships before Barham exploded, and heard only the detonation of the torpedo. He could not be sure whether he had sunk Barham, or if she had merely been damaged and left the scene before he resurfaced. It was not until the Admiralty's admission on 27 January 1942 that Barham had been sunk and described the circumstances that Tiesenhausen knew that he had sunk her. He was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross that day.
A Royal Navy Court of Enquiry into the sinking ascribed the final magazine explosion to the detonation en masse of 4-inch anti-aircraft ammunition stored in wing passages adjacent to the main magazines, which would have detonated the contents of the main magazines.
The sinking was captured on film by Pathé cameraman John Turner, aboard HMS Valiant. In consideration of public morale and to protect the families who had lost loved ones, the Admiralty decided to keep the film secret until the end of hostilities in 1945. The film has been used many times as stock footage in documentaries. It has also been used fictionally in films such as Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (as an American destroyer), Task Force (as a Japanese carrier), The Guns of Navarone, "Up Periscope" (as an Japanese destroyer) and The Battle of Okinawa (as Yamato).
Ethan Gray
This month's community project is a food/drink-related mini or unit.
Hudson Lopez
graviteam tactics is so hard. Ill never understand it
Josiah White
Someone asked about Steam Sale Games in the last thread, so I'll list some stuff.
It's old. It's clunky. It's in desperate need of an update to bring it up to the standards of the original version. It's also not discounted, but might be over Christmas. It's a real-time WW2 game where you order squads and tanks and weapon teams around. It's simple to control, it's also groggy as fuck and you will really appreciate real-world tactics when you realise that however hard you yell, that fucking squad is not listening and you're going to have to send in a reserve to flank that fucking machine gun or they'll lie behind that hedge all game.
Not especially good at simulation, but a fun game for running chits around through hexes. You control a "nation" and cities produce stuff which you form into forces that go off and fight. Supply matters, and can be a horrendous pain in the arse. The AI is... ok. Multiplayer PBEM is more fun.
Crusader Kings 2 now lets you promote a horse to be your doctor and also become immortal, so that's great fun. You can also turn off supernatural stuff entirely in the options now, and with the latest expansion you can watch everybody die to the fucking black plague and then aztecs invade France because you bought that DLC and left it switched on. Still an excellent game.
Super Hexagon: you like hexes, right? no chits involved, just hexes.
OK, enough of that. Back to reading Napoleon's Campaigns in Miniature, a surprisingly good book even if the wargame rules included are not at all to my taste, and I don't particularly care for Nappies either. The material on campaigning and logistics is fascinating.
DLC scenario packs aren't on sale. Still tempted to buy the brexit one.
Jordan Campbell
>UNUSUAL ACTIVITY
Caleb Perez
Dammit, the one week im broke as shit.
Jacob Campbell
Christmas sale coming.
I get paid tomorrow at least.
Lucas Bailey
lucky you. ive had my eye on command for a while but never for full price
Jose Wright
It goes on sale every so often. isthereanydeal.com is a nice site - it'll import your steam wishlist and email you when stuff's on sale on steam or on other sites that sell you a (legal, legit, not grey-market) steam key.
But anyway, how about them miniatures. Apparently Warlord are talking about bringing back the Wargames Factory War of Spanish Succession plastics next year? If they're not too jacked-up in price I'll be all over that shit.
Hudson Watson
>Apparently Warlord are talking about bringing back the Wargames Factory War of Spanish Succession plastics next year? I think they mentioned a revamp...bringing the infantry up to the standards of the cavalry and artillery would be fucking nice. Even if it's just a headswap because the infantry heads look particularly derp.
John Miller
>Back to reading Napoleon's Campaigns in Miniature, a surprisingly good book even if the wargame rules included are not at all to my taste, and I don't particularly care for Nappies either. The material on campaigning and logistics is fascinating.
It's an idiosyncratic book, that's for sure. Bruce Quarrie (whose usual gig was WW2, especially the SS), was very much a student of the Peter Gilder/"In The Grand Manner" school, having charts and tables for everything. I always disliked his insistence on a mini-to-man scale of 1:33.3; it looks good when you base them but the battles seemed far too small. As you say the research is superb, and presented in a really interesting way. His campaign rules are excessively complicated but provide a perfect basis for developing your own. Certainly, it's still required reading if you want to get serious about Napoleonic gaming, and that's an impressive achievement for something written forty years ago.
Just build up a bunch of soviet cavalry too (2 boxes of Strelets regular cavalry RKKA). I'm going to use the guys with helmets as Chinese, as the helmets look identical to German stalhelm. The 2 boxes (24 cavalry total) will make 8 bases for the Chinese, and 4 Bases for the Soviets - the guys with soft caps that are distinctively soviet.
My painting schedule goes: >finish 4 bases of Italian Assault Infantry >paint 12 bases of WW1 German infantry >work on the WW2 Chinese (infantry, cavalry, SDK.222, and 4 Vickers Mark Es which hopefully will have turned up by then)
I feel you, brother. I want to love it, I really do.
Luis Sanchez
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Nathan Lewis
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Jonathan Smith
Will these be in the plastic box? If so they'll make wonderful figures for various Victorian pulp games like In Her Majesty's Name.
Dylan Bailey
The thing about graviteam is you can't treat it like you do most rts and expect it to make a lot of sense straight away.
Graviteam really pushes the whole "war is very confusing" angle quite hard as it only gives you vague, sometimes incorrect, information on enemy movements and positions.
Good recce is absolutely vital as knowing where your enemy is provides a significant advantage in both the defense and the offense.
In short, you really have to treat it like you're an actual battalion commander rather than a game of company of heroes.
Dylan Robinson
I believe that is the plan, yes.
Christian Robinson
To the user who was looking for an A-19 in 28mm: there's a guy in the US who just made a 3d printed one on Facebook, look for Tim Spakowski.
It will be available there soon. I already talked with Tim a couple of days ago about it.
Levi Murphy
very nice work user!
Noah Roberts
I somewhat ponder starting either Bolt Action and/or konflikt 47. Now i see a large number of resin/metal tank being sold out due to these 20%off deals. Is it an only for the duration of the sale thing, or do they clear their inventory and i should engage in a panic-buy? link for the curious store.warlordgames.com/collections/tanksgiving-20-off-resin-tanks
Jason Cooper
Simple Black Friday sale, no need to commence panic. They frequently offer their stuff for much lower prices.
Go for standard BA, you can expand into K47 from there.
Hunter Bennett
They clear their stock for the resin tanks.
They will be available again after the black friday sale is over. (no longer for 20% off of course)
This. Go for BA and later you can add Weird units if you like.. or not. You can play K47 with a regular BA army just fine.
Btw, i suggest to wait with an order for at least until tomorrow. First they offered 25% on plastic tanks (still available) and a day later the 20% on resin tanks came. I highly suspect that they do one or two more specials tomorrow and over the weekend. So it might be a better idea to wait until the weekend and see if you can save some more money. (Last year they sold single sprues at 50% discount which is a really nice deal)
Carson James
thanks for the answer. Naturally the tank I want is not among those on sale (KV-85) I dont know if I abuse the historical general with it, but: the konflikt 47 rulebook does not have the KV 85 listed as possible unit. Bolt action rules however can be found in the russian armybook. Will many K47 players be ok with it?
Sebastian Moore
That is an absolutely tragic and depressing video to watch.
Elijah Jackson
Paid full price.
Still worth it.
Landon Watson
Those are really nice. Footsore?
Dominic Robinson
They are Footsore, yes. The chaps thread is up on Lead Adventure and has a few more pics.
Dylan Nguyen
What was that MSPaint looking ships game, and where to get it?
Nolan Richardson
Rule The Waves. Google it, gotta buy it from the publisher's website.
Jonathan Powell
Is there any his wargame with minis you'd actually want to look at?
Lincoln Barnes
If it WW1ish naval combat, its "Rule the Waves, if it is
its is "Command:", can be purchased on steam. IN fact, on a big sale right now.
Adam Johnson
I don't really understand the question.
Lucas Reyes
Most wargames posted here have buttugly minis. I'd like to know if there are some where this isn't thee case
Jose Bennett
Surely you are mistaking the "games" for the "private collections". Games tend not to have specific miniatures, for example Black Powder could be played with 28mm Victrix, or Perry, or maybe 10mm Pendrakens or 6mm Baccus and Adler or Heroics and Ros.
Then of course there's the skill (or patience) of the guy who painted them.
So really it's quite a complicated question you have asked, frankly I think there are plenty of great looking game boards for a lot of rules.
Christian Stewart
most wargames posted here have no specific miniature manufacturer. You use whatever figures you want based upon quality, price etc.
So find a period/ruleset you like. Then find figures for it.
Carson Wright
There are lots of great looking historical minis out there. If you don't like the style of a certain company, pick a different company with minis from that time period.
Those turned out really nice! The only issue I'd take is it looks like your decal went a little hazy by the ramp on the front one. Some Solvaset might help that. If it's just weathering forgive me, I'm on a mobile and I can't see it in the best of detail.
Levi Evans
>de gustibus non est disputandum
Adrian Mitchell
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Ayden Williams
>order german winter 10,5cm howitzer with the coupon a while ago >wait 9 days >order finally arrives >crew members are awesome sculpts >gun itself consists of 16 metal parts >no instruction with the kit >none available on the warlord website >look in their forum: Its says there is non
T-thanks Warlord Games.
I don't understand why they produce plastic tank kits for tanks like the M3 Light tank (which almost nobody uses anyway) while basic stuff thats part of every single list like artillery, mortars or heavy machine guns are still a fucking metal kit with no instruction sheet available.
Angel Brooks
because tanks are cool and crew served weapons are for nerds.
Colton King
>not playing in 1:72 with glorious PSC Heavy Weapon boxes
Scrub.
Ian Morgan
For me the most fun in this hobby besides reading is painting miniatures, and for that purpose 28mm is a better choice in my eyes.
1:72 is great if you play alot i guess, but not for me.
Julian Parker
Latest version of Fear Naught from the last thread. Changed a few bits and pieces around.
>Hits determined by fire control not gun calibre.
>Ship movement speeds re-worked.
>Adjustment to turn sequence and how long range gunfire works.
>Morale ratings adjusted.
>Damage chart re-worked
>Added smoke generators for destroyers.
Jaxon Ramirez
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Levi Peterson
Cant speak for everyone but i wouldnt care dude. Bolt action and k47 are all good to go in most k47 games ive seen or played.
Landon Gutierrez
And here's an introductory scenario.
Carter Wright
Mark A Whippet
Henry Bell
Hello night time /hwg/. I can't sleep, entertain me or rivet count at me so I get dozy.
Ryder Lee
What's your favourite tank? Why?
Hudson Hill
>night time its 2:08 in the afternoon and beautifully sunny.
Have some banzaaaiiii!!! miniatures
Jack Phillips
user, I think you'll find its currently ten minutes past one o'clock in the morning
Blake Hernandez
Crusader. Me and another chap here a few years ago posted many pics was the good times.
>why I like North Africa for WWII. It looks sleek as fuck and like a 'tank'. I like the fact that it was an underdog in terms of armour/gun etc.
I think you'll find it is twenty past 1 in the morning.
Nicholas Rodriguez
>living in the past >living at night >probably living in winter too suit yourselves friendos
Oliver Gonzalez
Whippet good!
Dylan Wilson
...
Joseph Edwards
Lulu (home of many a printed rulebook, including Fistful of TOWs and a bunch of the History of Wargaming Project) is doing 33% off, BFRIDAY33.
Justin Nelson
Has anyone seen Bill Lamming's medieval campaign rules, or is there a scan of them floating around? I know there's a reprint (thanks john curry) but there's not too much on the internet about the originals except a brief overview and some complaints about the amount of bookkeeping.
Apparently it basically has players as nobles sailing to a newly-discovered island and colonising it, squabbling over resources and trying to build shit.
Ryder Bennett
you're a bro. Thanks
Nathaniel Jones
Sorry for shilling, but since lots of people in here seem to enjoy this time period...
This is a free WW2 naval wargame suitable for various scales, at least from 1:1800 to 1:3000. In contrast to many other rulesets, it's very much a game that aims to capture the feeling of these historical battles rather than a simulation while not being quite as simplified as, say, Axis & Allies Naval Miniatures. It's also a living ruleset, so things will continue to expand and any broken stuff will be fixed up once it's encountered.
With this release, the games has five orders of battle that each provide force construction options and points values for a certain historical force or campaign: Coral Sea 1942, including both carrier and surface forces on both sides. Dutch East Indies 1942, including the British Force Z and the ramshackle forces of ABDA vs most of the IJN order of battle. France 1940, representing the Marine Nationale before the armistice. Italy, May-July 1940, representing the Reggia Marina at the start of the war. Norway campaign 1940, covering the British and German forces involved there, up to and including the battleships (and in the British case, carriers).
In addition to the vessels in these OoBs, various notable ships (including most iconic battleships) have also had their stat cards created so they can still be used in historically-based scenarios. They simply don't have an associated OoB with points values yet. More of these are on the way, with the priority determined by what people ask for. You can even help them become a reality more quickly by helping out in the research.
Ayden Gonzalez
That storm (i presume) marker could look like some War of the Worlds shit with a different colour scheme.
Jack Bell
Why did they place the bed right on top of a mudhole?
Ian Richardson
Fun fact: in Baroque you have to take an area of the board as baggage for the army. It can be captured, you can pay points to fortify it, and you can also spend points to supply it with prostitutes to increase its VDT by a couple of points, which makes the army slightly harder to break.
That's not mud.
Anthony Russell
>VDT ?
Robert Morgan
Demoralisation Value Total. Units contribute to the overall morale of the army, but not equally, so it works on having a total value that drops rather than just counting units lost or a percentage of the total points cost of the army.
Josiah Hill
Some games originating in other languages use acronyms from the native version when translated, because it makes life easier for the publisher and doesn't make that much difference to players once they get the hang of the rules.
Jonathan Cooper
I've also seen pictures of Chinese cavalry in soft caps and putees that the HaT WW1 British cavalry world work well for if you want some variety.
Luis Scott
Just ordered my A-19 howitzer. Finally a piece of artillery for the soviets.
Jace Fisher
Just finished painting my 155mml Stalingrad themed unit. Only the spotter left
Gabriel Ward
ADATS
William Bailey
post some pics m8
Camden Cook
Is that lady from Hasslefree?
Isaiah Davis
Weird to think of all the people who went to see those old movies and probably thought, "Wow, excellent trick photography," when they were actually watching real men die.
Anthony Robinson
yep second best female 28mm miniatures out there
Jacob Perry
>Venereal Disease Total Obviously
Chase Kelly
I'll say! Ding dong!
Tyler Cook
Reading some of the reviews on CMANO's official website, it makes me chuckle: >It’s a simulation that’s as close as many of us will ever get to real Pentagon simulation. Any government that isn't retarded does Operational Research. Jobs for peons/civilians where you can spend all day playing and analysing these simulators, or hex-and-chit wargames, do actually exist.
You're closer than you think to "real Pentagon simulation", all you have to do is search for the job postings.
Parker Brown
Hey Naval War user...while my uncle's in town for the holidays (got me into gaming; ex-TSR editor, played everything I can think of), we're going to try a scenario tomorrow to see how the system works.
Unfortunately, I don't have a lot in the way of WW2 minis. I have a bunch of rebased Axis&Allies:WAS minis - the entire OOB for both sides of the Battle of Midway. I was going to take some of those minis and do a scenario, and I was wondering about good game sizes.
Right now, I'm looking at a Japanese force of: -Soryu (2 Ftr Sq, 1 Dive-bomber Sq, 1 torp Sq) -Hiryu (2 Ftr Sq, 1 Dive-bomber Sq, 1 torp Sq) -x2 Tone-class cruiser (Tone, Chikuma) -x1 Nagara-class CL (Nagara) -x6 Kagero-class DDs (Maikaze; Hamakae; Isokaze; Nowaki; Hagikaze; Arashi)
And then roughly equivalent forces on the US side, probably most of TF 16 (Enterprise, Hornet; 3 New Orleans-class cruisers, 6 Farragut-class DDs).
How's that for a starting game? Too big, too small?
Gabriel Stewart
Most of my games so far have been cruiser (+DD) battles; I've done fairly little with carriers and pretty much nothing with BBs because of the limits of my collection, sticking to 200-250 points for that. Having more than 1 carrier will probably make things very air-heavy and I'm not sure how that's gonna work out for a starter match.
I'd start a bit smaller and with a mostly surface battle, leaving the airpower for a round 2.
The Dutch East Indies and Coral Sea orders of battle have the points values you need for the minis you mentioned, at least.
Jumping straight into airpower might be a bit tricky, but considering your level of wargaming experience, it should be doable if you really want to.
Thomas Powell
Copy that.
OK, then what I think I'll do is drop the CVs for the first game. Figure out stuff re: surface combat using a force mix of x3 cruisers and x6 DDs. Then add in ONE carrier to each side (keeping everything else identical) for game 2.
That sound a bit more sane?
Jordan Gomez
Followup questions: the point values for ships are not on their datacards. Is there a reason for this?
Also, do you have point values for the Atlanta-class CLs and the Benham-class DDs? I've managed to pull out point values from your scenario packets for everything else, and I'm somewhat shocked at what I'm seeing here. For reference:
Enterprise (83 pts) New Orleans (31 pts) Vincennes (31 pts) Atlanta (??? ~19 is my guess based on ratio between Tone and Nagara) x2 Benham-class DD (??? ~18 is my guess) x2 Porter-class DD (20 pts per) x2 Farragut-class DD (17 pts per) TOTAL: ~274 (probably somewhere between 265 and 290)
PVs for the IJN ships are largely taken from your OOB: Dutch East Indies, where it does indeed list Tone-class CAs as 51 points. USN PVs are taken from OOB: Coral Sea. Are those PVs all accurate? I would have eyeballed this as a roughly even scenario, but that's essentially a 33% point bonus on the IJN side.
Sebastian Morris
Played a game of Blucher against my regular opponent today, bit of a fantasy match of Austrians vs Prussians (not TOO far from the realms of possibility, if things had shaken out differently).
We rolled up an unusual battlefield, smattered with loads of urban bases, but with no elevation and only 2 areas of rough terrain, one forest stuck off to the side and a field smack in the middle of the battlefield. Our armies were very different, mine featuring a solid infantry core (mostly of which were conscripts) backed up with 2 units of Grenadiers and lots of artillery combined with a smaller cavalry contingent of elite Kurassier and Hussars. Against this my opponent bought a smaller but very elite army, including 5 very powerful Heavy Cavalry and the Prussian Avant-Garde brigades (a unit comprised of Skirmishers, Fusiliers, and Light Cavalry).
On my left flank I advanced into canister range of the Saxon brigades pushed in front of the expensive Prussians so that my massed artillery could begin to take effect. This they did fast, wearing through the Saxons in only a few turns of shooting. Behind this front line Austrian Grenadiers and some Conscript Landwehr began to advance in order to help overwhelm the weakened Prussian Infantry.
The centre was dominated by a tight grouping of small towns and a field, which limited the combat there. The Austrians in square there would never move again (although one unit would be wiped out completely by the artillery firing at them, although the Dragoons to their back would turn to face off against the Prussian Light cavalry who had managed to sneak through to threaten the Austrian second objective.
Finally, on the right flank elite Austrian cavalry found themselves in the rare situation of being outnumbered by even stronger cavalry than themselves, and facing a battery of Horse Artillery to boot. The noble (brightly coloured) heart of the Austrian army would spend the game falling back in the face of the Prussian heavy horse.
Jonathan Turner
The battle quickly spiraled out of control at for my opponents Prussians from this point. His Infantry were smashed apart by a mix of infantry charges and the close range fire of my artillery batteries. His right flank was now held by a corps of 4 units with a total strength of 6, 3 of which had their backs to my Austrians, leaving the other infantry corps close to completely surrounded. Both units of expensive Avant-Garde infantry had been routed by this point and the remaining Prussian infantry were in no position to even attempt to hold off the Austrian infantry who still included 2 units of full strength Grenadiers.
On the right my cavalry had been ground down quite considerably, 1 unit lost entirely, but were still looking likely to hold up the Prussian Cavalry who were in no position to assist the Prussian Infantry and leave these half strength units to their rear. Despite their significant advantage, (the Prussian cavalry were still at strength values of 4, 7, 6, 5 and 5 {27} against my Austrians on 4, 4, 3 and 5 {16}) it looked likely my cavalry would be able to hold out for several more turns and possibly even escape off the board unrouted.
At this point my opponent threw in the towel, unwilling to watch his infantry be swallowed up by the encroaching Austrians, and seeing no way to break my army, even if he would be able to wipe out my cavalry quickly which seemed unlikely.
The ability of my cavalry to delay his cavalry corps for so long, and the congested centre preventing his cavalry quickly detaching to assist his infantry on his right was crucial to my victory. His expensive cavalry corps (123 points from a total of 250) were unable to decisively beat my cavalry and left his infantry completely outmatched by my own.
