Its all about the ford !

Today, Steve Clarke and I went back to the Charles Grant rules "The War Game" for some nostalgic fun

I had the Blue army which closely resembled a Prussian force whilst Steve had the Red with suspiciously familiar British uniforms.

The opposing generals met at the ford, the border between the two countries which Red is threatening, where discourse solved nothing at all, so war it was !

Blue drew up their infantry behind the stream and advanced troops where the stream bends around a woods.

Red begins an all out advance, with colours flying and drums beating

Even the enemy commander is wearing red !

Blue has reserves in town which have to be alerted by a courier from the front

Red's first artillery fire kills the colonel of Blue's foremost unit !

The gunners are congratulated by their general

Blue's courier arrives and the reinforcements are put on the road to the front

Red sends Scottish light troops to capture the woods on their left

Blue has other ideas and Frei Korps are dispatched there too

Here's an over view of Blue's lines

And here's the Red array

As soon as Red is in range, the Blue infantry open fire

causing casualties in the ranks

 The tussle for the woods begins

and Blue's reinforcements are on the way

Blue deploys a battery of guns at the bend of the river

As the Red guns open fire again

Red's advance continued in the face of more musket fire

The Red generals are pleased with progress so far

Blue's Grenadiers are now in sight

A furious fire fight develops at the water line

The Scots have driven the Frei Korps from the woods as Blue sends forward a line regiment to hold their right

Blue's guns unlimber and fire

Red's guns are inching forwards and inflicting casualties on the Blue lines

Blue's commander deploys a unit of Hussars on the extreme left in reserve

With drummers to the fore, Red makes for the stream determinedly

Line after line advance in the centre and on Red's right

Blue strengthens the line and the Grenadiers move towards the ford

With numbers dwindling, Blue's fire is reducing

With Red at the water line, Blue changes formation into attack columns

Despite taking casualties from canister fire, Blue's Grenadiers get to the guns and bayonet the artillerymen !

They take the ford

as Blue's artillery punish the Red Grenadiers left of the ford

a Red regiment tries to retake the ford, but the Blue Grenadiers hold firm

A final Red effort is met with more withering fire from the Blue guns, preventing them getting into contact with the Grenadiers

At this point, Red broke off the fight for the ford. Blue had held their borders firm and Red retired to rethink their strategy.

It was good fun to resurrect the War Game rules. We had to make some "house rules" on bits which were not clearly covered in the book, but common sense prevailed and we quickly resolved any grey areas.

Still good fun after all these years and the old glossy painted Minifigs really set the scene.