A Good Dusting

 Today saw the War of the Triple Alliance game postponed from last week take place, we would again be trying out Valour and Fortitude on my 6x4 table. The Paraguayans would have two brigades and the Coalition forces three brigades. We liked Norms idea of only having one Fate Card in hand at any one time, I amended this to two cards which allowed if you held two to discard one that was not useful and draw a different one in the Fate Phase.

Paraguayans on look out duty.

Bringing up the guns.

Deploying for action.

The Coalition camp with Argentine and Uruguayan troops moving out.

Coalition troops deploy for action.

Mounted and dismounted Paraguayan cavalry probe the Coalition flank.

The Paraguayans play a surprise attack Fate Card and charge the Argentinian lead battalion before it can form square!

However with supporting fire from the Uruguayan battalion in square they force the enemy to retreat!

However in the centre things are not going the Coalitions way a Brazilian battalion is routed but the brigades morale holds firm.

More success for the Argentine/Uruguay brigade the dismounted Paraguayan cavalry break, despite being shaken the supporting mounted cavalry hold.

Over on the Coalition left the Paraguayans surge forward and prepare to charge, the Brazilian battalion with supporting canister fire from the mountain battery will put paid to them. Err, no!

Back on the Coalition right the Argentines charge to no avail, the dice scores highlight the sorry tale.

On the Coalition left the Paraguayans charge home and break the Brazilian battalion.

Back on the right the Argentine battalion loses the continued combat, with this it is all up for the Coalition a resounding victory for the Paraguayans.

The game lasted just over an hour and a half not bad we thought for a game where once close combat is joined battalions can easily break, the Coalition brigades were lucky in that they managed to pass a couple of Fortitude Tests along the way so the game may have been shorter. I shall have to dig more figures out from the pile of potential to paint for next time.

Until next time…………………………KBO

Bring Up The Guns

 I appear to have been in gun mode the last two weeks having completed three guns and crews. Here in no particular order.

A War of the Triple Alliance Brazilian Whitworth 12pdr breech loader from Perry Miniatures on a Warbases base.

Next a Paraguayan howitzer again from Perry Miniatures on a Warbases base.

Finally a Soviet 45mm anti-tank gun with a partisan crew, figures are Britannia via Grubby Tanks the gun is a Zvesda plastic kit on a Warbases base of course.

All being well the Triple Alliance guns will hit the gaming table here at OHQ next week.

Until then…………………KBO

Way On Down South

Today saw us revisiting the War of the Triple Alliance again using Black Powder rules 

The Brazilian forces are marching to join up with their Argentine and Uruguan allies, the Paraguayan force as been tasked with heading off the Brazilian advance brigade before it can join up with it's allies thus splitting them in two. 

The game was set at our now standard twelve turns, there is an advanced Brazilian guard of two battalions and an attached mountain gun battery covering the possible advance of any Paraguayan incursion. The rest of the brigade will be required to pass an order test to join them after turn two, the allies will test to appear in turn five.

Time is obviously of the essence for the Paraguayans, unfortunately this does not seem to have been passed down to the brigade commanders or the ground is tough going. It is turn three before they get near to contact, which doesn't succeed to well both infantry and cavalry assaults are repulsed in swift order by determined Brazilian resistance. By turn eight the allies had arrived in force and one of the Paraguayan brigades was broken, the attack was called off.

Although Dave had a sound plan the dice gods yet again deserted him this day.

TTFN & KBO

Late Finish

Despite my misgivings I managed to finish this unit of dismounted Paraguayan cavalry for the War of the Triple Alliance before the year end. An eight figure small unit in Black Powder terms mounted on two 50x50mm bases from Warbases.

Over the year I painted 343 figures, 39 vehicles and 27 pieces of terrain. Here in OHQ I played sixteen recorded games, I am not sure how many I played over at GHQ, on the show front I visited WMMS, both Partizans and Colours. A satisfying year on the hobby front I thought.

Yesterday I popped over to Dave's for the first game of the year where I managed to scrape a win, be sure to pop across to Takes From GHQ for a fine report of how the game played out.

Until next time I wish you all a Happy New Year and as ever KBO.

Alliance Ascendent

The first game using my Triple Alliance collection took place here at OHQ yesterday.

A straightforward encounter game to start with to get a feel of both forces and influence the next additions.

The Alliance forces left flank brigade, two Argentinian battalions and the small Uruguayan Libertad battalion.

The Paraguayans had two brigades of three battalions, the right supported with a 12pdr smoothbore battery and the left three battalions supported by a cavalry squadron.

The Brazilian contingent consisted of, in the centre a brigade of three battalions and on the right a brigade consisting of an infantry battalion, a cavalry squadron and a 4pdr mountain gun battery.

The Alliance forces won the initiative and advanced along the entire front to form a line between the two areas of boggy ground.

The Paraguayans advanced along their front also but sent their cavalry around the boggy ground the threaten the Alliance right flank.

Has can be seen above the Paraguayan advance became a little strung out. The little smoke puffs denote that the unit as yet to first fire, which gives them an added fire dice when first doing so.

The Brazilian cavalry in the bottom corner have been sent to counter the Paraguayans cavalry attempt to turn the flank.

The Paraguayan cavalry duly charged, they had been given the terrifying charge rule, this means the charged unit must take a break test, I realised on reading it's description for the blog that I had tested the Brazilian cavalry before contact when it should have been done on contact which may have had a different outcome on the game. The Brazilian cavalry retired and the Paraguayans decided not to follow up and risk the passing fire from the Brazilian gun battery. Then again it sounds odd has the Brazilians being cavalry could have counter charged before taking test🤔

Meanwhile in the centre the lead Paraguayan battalion was taking heavy fire and failed their resulting break test, the Paraguayans had the stubborn rule which with the addition of one to their usual stamina of three makes them very resilient, which they were, they did not give way easily. However on this occasion the re-roll was exactly the same score as the first!

The left Paraguayan brigade also came under heavy fire first one and then another becoming shaken. This resulted in both brigades being broken and retiring from the field.

A most enjoyable first outing lasting five turns and just under two hours of play.

The following were given to the Paraguayans to reflect their historical nuance's as used by Alan Perry for their games.

Stamina of four.

Terrifying charge.

Stubborn

Tough Fighters 

Terrain wise crossing the marshy areas we deducted a D6 from any movement as we had already halved the movement rates due to 5x4 table being used. We also adopted the one move and fire rule from the Glory Hallelujah ACW supplement.

There are now army sheets for the War for Valour and Fortitude so we may give them a run out next month. Until next time..........

TTFN & KBO

Battle The First

Table all set for our first game of The War Of The Triple Alliance later. 

Game on.

TTFN