The Battle of Blasthof Bridge (or a 'Blast' from the past}

    I set out the troops as close as possible to the book and tried to follow their manoeuvres as near as I could .

The rules are very simple and it was nice not to have to keep consulting them constantly , unlike some modern rules.

The Artillery proved quite effective and it was important to get it into action as soon as possible.

The Electoral Foot cross the River Blast upstream from the bridge . 

The Imperial Foot start taking casualties from the enemy guns 

The game after about 4 moves , both sides have deployed their Artillery which are starting to cause casualties.

The Imperial Artillery take casualties - so bad that the Office has to help to man the gun.

There where several Cavalry clashes and the action swung back and forth with the Imperial Cuirassiers getting the worst of it .

The remnants of the Imperial Cavalry retire across the bridge . I had decided to play the game for 12 moves and by then the Imperial Forces had  lost most of their Cavalry and about a quarter of their Infantry and although the Electoral Force had not captured both ends of the bridge they had the least casualties so I gave the victory to them ! .An interesting game, I would perhaps increase the move distances and the musket ranges because of my larger table , but a very enjoyable game and a real 'blast from the past' 

 

 

 

Blasthof Bridge a Homage Battle.

 

Having just obtained my hardbacked copy of 'Charge' I thought it would be a good idea to reproduce the iconic battle of Blasthof Heath from the book . Here we have the battlefield , the objective is to seize and hold the Blasthof Bridge.

The troops are deployed as in the book (or near enough) The Imperial Army nearest the Camera and the Electoral Army at the top of the photo.

The Count De Fru-Fru is taking the part of Count von Kornberg .

General 'Jung Fritz' Swartenberg commands the Electoral Army instead of Soubise .

The Electoral Army deployed.

The Imperial Army , the figures are home casts from my 40mm SYWish collection and I will be using the Elementry rules as in the book. To be continued ....

Mrs K comes up trumps again.

 

My dear wife found these at her stint at the charity shop this morning wooden nutcracker toy soldiers only 50p each ! , a bargain!

A lucky find (the wargaming goddess smiles on me)

My wife does a bit of voluntary work for a local charity sorting donations etc and she rang me and said that a (quote) 'toy soldier book' had come in and did I want it !? . She sent me a photo and I immediately replied 'YES' ! . I have the reprint paperbacked copy but have always wanted a original hardbacked edition . I remember borrowing a copy from the library in my early wargaming days but was put off by the large 60+ units and so favoured Featherstone's 20 figure units and rules.

The charity have a chap that evaluates books and other potential valuable items and he looked up current prices which was in the £50-£60 price on eBay , however for cash and seeing she was a volunteer he said £30 !  - a bargain ! - he thought it would be unlikely to sell in their shop (being a bit obscure) . It is a first edition (I don't think there was a second?) and cost 55/- shillings back in 1969 , rather expensive the following year my first take home pay was £5 ! , so I'm rather chuffed at the moment !  

 

Well that didn't go as I expected !?

 

Well I've just been playing the N.W. Frontier game I set up and it didn't quite work out as I thought it might ! . Firstly the Afghan unit which was under fire from the Mountain gun suffered heavy casualties as well of loosing its leader and broke and fled refusing to be rallied !

I had been using a deck of event cards for TSATF and the Afghans drew this card that meant the right hand unit retreated off the table, which rather snookered the Afghan war effort ! 

All that was left to do was the British to order a general advance and with no reinforcement in sight the Afghans called it a day and quit the field ! . A rather odd game but enjoyable none the less and reminds me of the reason I still like these old rules.

A return to an old favorite !

 

I was sorting through my rule sets and came across my copy of 'The Sword and the Flame' and thought - "it's ages since I played a game using these rules !", and it had to be the North West Frontier - classic Colonial gaming !.

General 'Creepy' Crawley oversee the siting of his Mountain Gun himself . His force of the Blackwatch and Indian Colonial troops must push through and across the board as fast as possible 

However the Afghan Chieftain Bungit Din (see Carry on up the Khyber) has other ideas !

He has had his Tribesmen construct Sangers - the terrain piece was constructed many years ago from cat litter and have stood the test of time ! 

To the skirl of the pipes the Blackwatch advances .

Captain Smyth orders the Punjab Infantry into skirmish order and to advance . The piles of pennies are the units ammunition reserves .

The Burpa Tribesmen ( again see the above comedy film) rush to defend their homeland . These figures where painted over 30 years ago and their high gloss finish has protected them from the ravages of time. Hopefully there will be further report .......

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Franco-Prussian Artillery .

 

Due to the rather wet weather I've got my remaining Artillery painted up , here is the final French gun and crew , again Irregular Miniatures.

There is the Prussian one , I always assumed the Prussians only had cast iron/steel guns but came across pictures of bronze/brass barrels (?) . I have two more French and Prussian infantry units to collect and a unit of Cavalry per side and this will finish off my project . An order has gone of to Irregular for my next painting fix !