There is a new series of books that might interest people:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1472806549/ref=pe_1456381_164726121_em_1p_3_im

1914 Squarebashing on Thursday. I fought using the Russians vs Bobs’s new Germans. We used Rays new ‘stick method’ , replacing the countdown to battle, which worked well – and we we determined the attack defence in about 5 minutes. Despite trying to attack, I lose that, and the stoic Russians were on the defence. I had imagined another cinematic Cossack sweep down the empty flanks. But I got neither the event nor the first turn! Defending also means you have to take the full brunt on the depletions. Its not like the small professional BEF who can cram into the object squares and hope to get lucky with the reduced dice.

Pre Depletions

With 7 depletion dice per square the losses were savage, with the Russians ending up with over 10 battalions off the table. Any plan for envelopment was put to the side, and it was a holding on game right from the start.

Post Depletions

The game started slowly , both Bob and I did not get assets where we were committing 7-8 dice to the throw. This somewhat stymied Bob’s attack and the missing point effect barrage prior to his central assault meant that the attack was repulsed (just! a draw!) This had the usual bogging effect on the game and both sides sat back after initial loses, trying to blast somewhere with fire and artillery to gain advantage. The fact that the central areas of the table had villages lessened the casualties that were inflicted on the Russians. The Russian reserves dribbled on not in any spectacular way, but always a battalion or 2 arriving into the centre where the fighting was fiercest. The attack was very narrow , across only 3 or 4 squares and those columns became filled with troops. The game was quite unusual in that aspect, and has wide areas in the flanks that had very thin defences.

One German battalion has strayed out of the cover of buildings into the open and was the target of a glorious cossack charge. Isolated and unsupported the infantry were swept from the field and the cossacks wore their ‘winning the fight’ like a badge of honour – it doesn’t happen often!

With the German attack blunted it reached a stalemate. Where the germans had broken into row 3, it was not an objective, and either side defences and machine guns kept the worrying threat of a flank charge honest. The game to a close with little ground gained. The Russian losses were quite bad – and maxed out on 20 bases lost. But strangely neither side had lost any whole battalions. With the Russians still ensconced in 3 out of 4 objectives meant a solid victory for the czarists.

Another enjoyable game with the Russians, they seem to play out really well. Having a largely reservist list looks weak on paper and you’ve got to expect a lot of losses. But playing with morale higher command and a few judicious ‘hold the line’ orders and really they are not going anywhere. I suppose I was lucky when the the dreaded suppression barrage came, in as that is the reservist nightmare. If they take a casualty from that (likely) then you have 5 squares which with typically have a 3 dice test. This has a real risk of getting a ‘retire’ result, stuck under suppression meaning you can’t move and take the extra 6 hits. Whole bases are coming off in that way for Reservists.

Squarebashing always seems to give a good game, even it what might seem to be uninspiring circumstances 🙂

For the next competition Martin has very generously offered £40 of Peter Pig Vouchers as first prize.

This competition will run from now til 1st Jan 2017. For full details go here

Last night was the debut for the Russians. As part of a horse trade deal a long time ago I didn’t have many options of composition. The 620pt force being

• 3 regular
• 10 reservists
• 1 professional cavalry
• 2 regular cavalry, 
• 2 reservist cavalry
• 4 MG
• 4 Artillery

So a veritable horde… with more cavalry than I’m used to.

 The game was against Rays 1914s Germans, and his army was larger than normal with 3 units of his own cavalry and , no professionals at all. 

With our usual lackadaisical start neither of use invested much effort in the countdown to war, just using the normal default values. Through slightly better dice the Russians won and ended up attacking – reconnaissance in force.  Things to note

• Ray rolled low twice on the events chart and ended up deducting 6 from his artillery assets
• On the events I scored the opponent cannot deploy in the 2 end columns (on one side) & one turn of no scenery penalty movement. 

So, the game. As attacker I tried to move all the terrain to my side of the table and hopefully time it well with the movement event. This worked  reasonably successful.  The master stroke was that having 5 units of cavalry allowed me to utilise the vacant columns in the first turn – this was a real game winner. Moving first meant big columns of Cossacks racing down the flanks with relative impunity.

The mob of Russian  infantry lurched out of all the bad going, and was looking frighteningly powerful as after the depletions of the German left flank left them looking fragile.  A well placed point effect on the German positions meant that they would have a rather painful morale phase.  It might all be over for Christmas!

However, the cruel mistress that SB is had other plans. The German turn saw a suppression barrage placed skilfully over the whole Russians advance. With 13 units of infantry it hard to disperse them to reduce effect. While the suppression barrage is not ‘a killer’ in as much as the casualties it inflicts are smaller. The Reservist saves usually mean that there is a casualty and therefore cause for a moral test. This is really exasperated by the factors of reservists, under barrage with casualties… the morale dice just rack up.  The Russian duly failed most of the tests  – AND  – then because they are suppressed cannot retire and take another 6 hits … again with terrible reservists saving throw.  It started brilliantly and turned to **** in one turn. It looked like the entire infantry assault had stalled due to one suppression barrage!

The Cossacks were have more freedom running around the German rear. They had already destroyed one unit of German cavalry and were looking for  targets of opportunity.

The Germans were holding on and took some rather risky strategy with their reserves which did not pay off, they ended up with their artillery exposed in the line allowing the stoic Russians to press in those two places. However , the dice dictated against it ,even with a couple of guns they beat of a sizeable Russian infantry assault. The guns had good support and the dice were wacky.  So rather than breaking the German lines in two places, the Russians stalled and ended up standing right in front of the German lines.

The Russian cavalry in the rear delivered a textbook flank charge on the German reserves after a textbook point effect barrage preceded it  – damaging the MG – UUUrah! The Germans scattered off table , losing bases left, right and centre. Moving off table was probably best thing for them as while taking a savage beating they were still ‘at strength’ and now safely in reserve so victory points that could be gained would be limited.

As the game concluded the game looked favourable to the Russians, and fate had seen big swings in fortune in this game. The Russians has achieved 2 breakthroughs , captured 2 out of 4 objectives and occupied the max allowed squares in rows 2 & 3.  However, this was countered but a frightful 27 bases of ‘killed’ troops and Ray having some re-roll events on the objective scored. SO, it ended up with a +7 to the Russians – Minor Victory. The Russians, while on paper look poor and their army rating of 27 reflecting that, have some good synergies. The cavalry and empty flank zones is a great combination. The sheer mass of reservists gives them great resilience … but not for the feint hearted as you cannot make an omelette without breaking some of those Russian eggs.

Great game. Squarebashing always delivers a fun evening with lots of twists and turns.

With a drum roll….! The date for this is Sat 10th December 2016.

The venue is now Battlefield Hobbies in Daventry.

Hopefully the centrally located venue will help those on the periphery of the country. The entry fee is £10 per player. This includes lunch 🙂

The theme will be “up til the guns of August”. The period will from 1900 up to, and including 1914. It will be a team event (entries permitting). The armies are divided into 2 Pools, grouped by conflict. Each team must pick a pair of armies from a single conflict.

The allowed lists are –

There will be 2 games, Team against Team (As vs Bs). For each game he sum of each team score will be added to the team total. To encourage using under valued armies the sum total of army rating will be deducted from final score.

The terrain will be pre set , other than its RAW. All painted figures please, we want it to look nice!

If you want the full experience there is a t-shirt accompany the event. Profits from which help to finance the RFCM forums (£2)

RFCM shop

Thanks Simon