Valour and Fortitude I

 When I first read through Valour and Fortitude rules my immediate reaction was that they didn’t appear to have much that Black Powder didn’t deliver in game enjoyment terms. On top of of this I had serious doubts about playing on a 6 x 4 table with the corresponding lower unit count and folk saying that they were quite bloody, but then seem to enjoy them, so after all they are free and with army sheets for the periods I game I felt we should give them a try.

This week I put on a First Carlist War game to try them out, Dave took command of the Isabelino forces while I commanded the Carlist forces.

The government forces.

The Carlist forces.

The Carlists win the initiative and begin their advance.

The Isabelino forces move off to attempt to get around the Carlist left flank, this will take time as the terrain is heavy going, it does however pin some of the Carlist battalions who must holdback to counter it.

Dave sends the British Auxiliary Legion in to pin the Carlist right centre and flank.

Meanwhile the Carlist left centre has come to a halt with having to counter the advance of the Isabelino infantry and heavy cavalry.

The Auxiliary Legion lancers having already forced the Carlist Ontario hussars to retreat of table play a Fate Card, surprise attack! They charge headlong into the Carlist remaining cavalry flank routing them.

A simultaneous attack by the heavy cavalry is repulsed by the steadfast Carlist Navarre battalion in line! Dave needing 3+ and rolling 1 and two 2s!

The Carlists were now hemmed in and threatened with two cavalry units and a horse artillery battery plus the approaching battalions from the right they threw in the towel.

What did we think of the rules? Well we both thought there was lots to like, I particularly liked that different levels of troops had different firing, melee and morale values, with BP one has to use separate rules to reflect this and remember to apply them. They are definitely intended for use with large multi player games, do they transpose to smaller two person games? The jury is out on this at the moment but we will give them another run out using my Triple Alliance forces in a couple of weeks time. By the way they do play fast we managed five turns in just under two hours not bad for a first game we thought.

Until next time……………KBO 

Away Day

Yesterday saw my First Carlist War forces make the trip over to GHQ. Dave set up a suitable table, for a change Dave took control of the Carlists while William and myself took the Isabellinos. The Isabellinos consisted of two divisions the British Auxiliary Legion division was commanded by William while I commanded the second, Spanish division. Dave split his Carlists into three smaller divisions.

Dave will post his customary report over on his blog sometime tomorrow LINK be sure to pop over to read all about it. In the meantime here are some photos to tempt you further.

Cavalry Clash

The Carlists Arrive In Town

This Is Going To End Badly Chaps

Contact

Carlist Cavalry Threaten The Flank

It looks All Up For The Carlists Or Is It?

Until next time................

Toddle pip & KBO

Soldiers of Don Carlos

For this week's game I gave the First Carlist War collection another run out. For this game we would be using the Soldiers of Napoleon rules, I knocked out some troops stats based on on what I have read about the forces involved, gleaned mainly from Conrad Cairns articles in WI and his book published by the Perry brothers and Edward M. Brett's "The British Auxiliary Legion in the First Carlist War" I should also mention that Mr. Cairns has a Wargamers guide to be published by Helion, due out in the New Year.

As we are still getting to grips with the rules we did not use the tactical advantage and deployment faff prior to the game. We did however use the How Went The Day part of the rules to determine who had the initiative, this went to Dave commanding the government forces, who also gained two Victory Points due to rolling triple the Carlist score.

I unfortunately didn't take enough photos to do a coherent annotated picture report, here are some photos anyway, and if you are not bored, at the end of them a brief description of how the game went.

On the Carlist left flank both sides cavalry brigades faced off one another for most of the game, with the tide turning against the Carlists elsewhere in the field the Ontario hussars attempted to charge the Isabelino line cavalry and failed.

In the centre both sides advanced cautiously while over on the Carlist right their newly raised volunteers hotly contested the advancing British Auxiliary Legion advance, both sides losing battalions a calm came over that side of the field with neither having the strength to attack one another further. While this was going on the Royal Marine rocket battery was giving the Carlist cavalry some nuisance fire, I should really have dealt with them. After the break for lunch the tide turned in the Isabelino 's favour, the Carlist hussars finally charged and came off worse and the Carlists fruitless attempts to rally gifting the enemy victory points. The disruption points piled up breaking two Carlist battalions in the centre in turn five giving the government forces victory.

Until next time........

TTFN & KBO 

Blunders

 Dave duly arrived on Tuesday for our planned First Carlist War game, again using Black Power II rules once again taking command of the Isabelino forces in the role of Generalissimo Juan Cornetta.

The Carlists would again be defending the approaches to the city of Rawnsla against the approaching Isabelino forces hoping to capitalise on their steadfast defence in the previous game.

Now who was to know that this game would see two game records, namely five yes five blunders and so many failed order rolls by Dave that I certainly lost count, to make matters worse we were once again trialling half movement rates! By the time the Isabelinos had shaken out into some semblance of an attack the fire coming from the Carlists had took its toll first one and then two Isabelino battalions breaking which broke the Spanish brigade leaving the equally tardy British Auxiliary Legion the vain hope of carrying the Carlist position, with no choice but to withdraw.

Below are some photos and comments of the action or inaction perhaps😉

The Isabelino Spanish brigade deploy.

The Carlists await their advance.

All quiet on the Carlist left, and long would it remain so.

The Carlist centre and right still waiting.

The Isabelinos advance! Finally.

Fire is exchanged as the Isabelino advance gets sort of underway.

The Royal Marines second rocket explodes in situ, there is a pattern emerging here 

The British Auxillary Legion lead the way.

The Carlists are ready and waiting.

The Isabelino attack starts to get into gear.

British Auxillary Legion lancers move up to support the line cavalry.

Turn ten and the Isabelino brigade breaks leaving the Carlists in control of the goats and the road to Rawnsla.

Although we did not really get a feel for how the half movement panned out we did not feel it would work without changing the firing ranges too, this would we feel slow the game too much. We may try limiting moves to two and a unit only being able to move once and fire next time.

TTFN & KBO

 

Commanders

While I was going through the First Carlist War "extras" box I unearthed a Carlist command group, part of a Christmas gift from Dave. A tad rude of me not to have painted them yet I thought, so after completing the two skirmish units featured in the last post I set to.

I don't think we ever found out the manufacturer or if we did I have certainly forgotten, any ideas Dave?

En Avant!

General de Brigade, Pierre Bauduin, killed leading an attack on Hougoumont at Waterloo.

A freebie figure from the 2015 Partizan show I painted a while ago.

He will be leading a brigade on foot (unlike the real life Bauduin who lead the attack on horseback)in my new project, though somewhat earlier and more southerly.

My new project was inspired by Dave's new endeavour and reading Warwick's campaign reports using his Soldiers of Napoleon rules on his Move to Contact blog. I am revisiting the Napoleonic period having previously had a French army in 15mm many years ago and a half hearted attempt at a Russian army in 25mm just before that.

It begins

I have also, much to dismay of the war purse, stocked up on some GW contrast paints to help speed up the process, encouraged and given some handy tips from Dave's son Matt who gets stunning results on his Napoleonic armies.

Also on order is a copy of Soldiers of Napoleon together with the new Peninsular supplement.

Wish me luck.

TTFN & KBO

Skirmishers

Not sure about you but when I get a collection out for a game I get an urge to paint and add something to the collection. The recent First Carlist War game was no exception, luckily I still have several figures in "stock" so it would not frighten the fighting fund.

Rather than paint a large unit for one side I decided to paint a small skirmisher unit for both sides.

For the Carlists some Valencian volunteers.

For Isabelino forces British Auxillary Legion riflemen.

We played a Post Roman Britannia game earlier in the week unfortunately the poor light quality that day made taking photos a none starter. Just for the record the Saxons avenged the demise of Pendafud in the previous game with a victory.

Although I have projects in progress something new this way comes...............

TTFN & KBO

The Road to Rawnsla

After the Isabelino forces cleared the pass in the previous game the advance on Rawnsla can commence once more. The Carlist forces, to buy more time for the defences of Rawnsla to be strengthened have blocked the road on the main approach, taking advantage of the difficult terrain.

The game will last for eight turns, if the Carlists remain undefeated they will retire under darkness having bought valuable time for the defence of Rawnsla.

The Isabelino assault got off to a slow start with orders just not getting through or slowly acted upon, not good when time is of the essence.

It was turn four before the Isabelino forces got into position, time was running out.

Despite it's success in the earlier encounter the rocket battery did not do well missing it's target every time and only hitting another unit by chance.

The British Auxillary Legion was tasked with pinning the Carlist left while the Isabelino regulars turned the weaker right flank.

Their slow approach put great pressure on the BAL, luckily the early Carlist fire was found wanting.

Although the BAL routed a Carlist battalion increased Carlist fire broke the brigade forcing them to retire in turn seven. The Isabelino forces were still entangled on their left, leaving the Carlists to retire as night fell after turn eight their job done.

This game was also a test for future War of the Triple Alliance games, all the table apart from the road was deemed difficult terrain and the movement halved. Movement in the swamp area would be diced for, one D6 giving the distance and a score of one meaning the unit would have to turn back, the way ahead impassable. The Carlists were given a stamina of four to reflect their do or die stance, I will apply this to Paraguayan units to reflect the fact they rarely ran away.

We are already debating terrain effects to make them a bit more random and it's effect on cavalry movement. Onward!

TTFN & KBO