Thursday Game: VBCW with a Scottish Twist.

The Thursday game this week saw me get a chance to use the Very British Civil War figures that I bought at Carronade a few weeks back.

Taking inspiration from the Armies And Enemies Of  The Scottish Republic by Solway Crafts and Miniatures, I developed a scenario. It was a test of the FUBAR rules, as VBCW is only a background, with no set rules.

The scenario was set somewhere in the Southwest of Scotland, where the BUF and their Unionist allies are active, but rub against Republican control. The local Unionists had been plagued by some Republican deserters. They had used their influence to have a section of BUF troops assigned to support two groups of farmers and farmhands and the local laird and his staff in removing the threat.

At the same time, a Republican patrol was investigating a tip off about a Workers Militia arms dump in the area.

The arms dump is at the top left, while the deserters are holed up in River Bend Farm, middle right.  Forces: BUF 2 fire teams of 5 with Lt Kyle, a veteran of Spain, in charge; The Laird and 5 staff; 7 farmers and farmhands and a Carden Lloyd carrier with MMG.
Republicans: 1 section split into two fire teams of 4 rifles and an LMG team.

Both sides were aware that there were civilians in the area and to avoid shooting the innocent ones!

Both forces arrive on the table. The BUF rush to get to the deserters, whilst the Republicans quietly patrol their way onto the table.

The irregular forces blaze away at the first thing they see, causing a potential casualty in the Republican patrol, which are now supported by a light tankette.

 

The three pictures above show the firefight between the Unionists and the Republicans. The tankettes fired at each other. The BUF tankette suffered a movement hit then had it's main gun damaged. The Republican tankette had it's LMG damaged.

In the centre, the BUF forces advanced, and after a sharp firefight, pushed the Republicans back.

A sympathiser from the League of St Andrew is discovered and, despite wounding one servant, is shot by the Laird!

To complicate things, the Workers Militia turn up to collect their arms shipment. One of the servants tries to stop them, with predictable results!

But, their cache had been discovered! Pushed back under fire, the farmers assault and overwhelm the two reds guarding the stash. The pictures below show the end state. The Republicans fought to a standstill, but reinforced by their, probably temporary, allies: the deserters. The BUF were fought to a standstill. We didn't have time to finish the game.

Rick was Republican, Aidan BUF and I controlled the random element with the odd event happening! I overcomplicated the scenario: with too much happening; the terrain was too dense (only 7 deaths on both side all night!) and too much role playing?

An enjoyable evenings gaming!

 

Thursday Game: Experimental Fubar.

My Thursday group have been searching for a common set of rules to use with our figure games. We have been using FUBAR for several periods. A few weeks ago, Rick ran a game using FUBAR principles, Hexon and Warmaster figures. There were difficulties with the melee/close combat system, so after some tweaking, this was another test game. I took th Mountain Indian army facing Aidan's Macedonian.

The initial setup and a general's eye view. I don't intend giving a blow by blow account, but will add some photos for flavour.

Early moves. My intention was to draw the Macedonians into my centre, where I could use my archers to disrupt the pikes enough to unleash my elephants. Note the dice, these are important. One dice per unit was rolled (different colours for different classes of unit). Dice that exceeded the activation number were allocated as desired. This meant that there was some restriction to the godlike ability of players to move as they desire each turn. Also dice were lost as units took losses, making an army less flexible and adding morale, after a fashion.

A General's eye view of the Macedonian attack.

First clash: an overview of the combat. We were using DBA factors for combat. The Macedonian attack was repelled. The hill on the Indian left was attacked. After a hard fight, the Indians were forced off the hill and fell back towards the centre.

 

The Macedonians rushed forward and finally beat the Indians quite easily!

All in all, an interesting game and a valuable test of the rules. We will discuss the outcome and, no doubt, agree some changes.