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.
