Maximilian : Attack on the Pueblo

Solo game today - an excuse to get the Maximilian & Mexican troops out on the table !

The Mexican Republicans are camped in a small pueblo out in the countryside

Unaware that an Imperialist force has managed to surround them - French Foreign Legion & Austrians approach from this side

Contras

Belgians

and Imperialist cavalry from the other.

The Mexican Republicans are scattered around the pueblo, a mixture of regulars and militia.

Regulars in summer whites

as well as others in the blue more used in the winter

The French are first to fire

Quickly followed by the Austrian gun

Their allies on the other side of town wait for their moment

The Republican general shouts at his men to take their positions

Can they hold off this enemy attack ?

Not a good start for them - two infantrymen have been hit by the Foreign Legion

Some State militia are sent forward to get into firing range of the enemy cavalry

That creates some shock amongst the mounted men

The Republicans fire their field gun

and hit some of the Foreign Legion

Not before time, as the Austrians have picked off the Republican infantry in the walled garden

This has encouraged the Austrians to advance

The Republican general orders his cavalry forward to counter this

With all this going on, the Belgians use cover to edge towards the pueblo 

The Mexican cavalry crash into the Austrian infantry

Both sides take casualties but the cavalry cause more - but their leader has been hurt in the process.

The Austrians are thrown back for now but the cavalry are leaderless as their officer has lost status with his injury

The Belgians continue to advance hoping these militia will not notice

The Austrian gun fires at the Mexican cavalry casing more damage

Blue coated Mexican regulars are redeployed in the pueblo to counter the Belgian advance

Their fire together with more militiamen cause casualties to the Belgians caught out in the open

This does not seem such a good idea now !

To take the pressure off of them, the Contras advance too

By now the Mexican cavalry have had enough and retired back to the pueblo to lick their wounds

The white coated infantrymen see their leader hit by fire from the Foreign Legion - thats two officers down already but they survive the morale throws.

The Mexican gun keeps pounding the Foreign Legion

and their numbers begin to dwindle as shock increases

The combined fire of the gun and the white coated infantry proves quite lethal

Over on the other side, the Belgians are feeling the heat too - they now have excess shock and will have to retire. This does affect their morale.

So the pueblo holds off the enemy piece meal attacks for now

The Imperialist Contras now charge the enemy militiamen

expecting an easy win, they are given a nasty shock

and are beaten off with heavy casualties

With the Foreign Legion taking heavy casualties and the Belgians and the Contras, Imperialist morale has tumbled. The Maximilian general orders a retreat.

Even solo games of Sharp Practice are fun and unpredictable. A good afternoon all in all.

Edgehill : For King & Parliament game

Martin G has been planning this game for some time and enlisted the help of eight of us from the club as between us we had enough figures to put on Edgehill in 28mm.

Here are the Orders of Battle for both sides

and just a reminder - FK&P rule book.

Setting up time - Royalists are on the left, Parliament on the right

Random views of some of the units

Royalist dragoons behind the hedges

Parliament's right wing

Royalist left wing

General view with Parliament on the left here

Paper marks the units being positioned as per OoB

With around 1,000 figures it took us an hour to set up !

At last we are off - Royalist initiative means they go first

Martin reminds the players of some important points

Graham advances his left wing cavalry 

and there's plenty of them !

First Royalist cannon shot - a narrow miss !

Peter likewise charges his Royalist cavalry on the right of the line

With all the Parliamentarian cavalry adopting "Dutch" tactics, they had to stand and shoot rather than charge

These melees continued all afternoon !

In FK&P, playing cards are used to activate units and then conduct firing and melee too, so lots of cards on the table at times !

Prince Rupert's men are coming !

Another look at the Parliamentary right flank. With so much going on along a fifteen foot table, it was  difficult to keep up with all the action - especially as I was extreme left flank commander for Parliament !

This was my command - the cavalry and dragoons and forlorn hope out on the left flank

Right from the off, we were hard pressed by Peter's attacks

My forlone hope advance against enemy dragoons

Lord Brooke's Purplecoats support the cavalry and field gun

Allan had control of our heavy guns just right of centre (discs represent shots left in supply). They face Marc's troops opposite.

Steve C has control of our right flank and has his hands full with Graham on the attack

Here's the Parliamentarian centre infantry

Cavalry clashes on our left again

Here's a view from behind the Royalist centre

Graham's dragoons clash with Steve's in the fields on the edge of the battlefield

Royalist infantry advance on the left

A view of Steve's dragoons

Looking along the line from Royalist left

Surprisingly, the Royalist foot made little attempt to advance in the centre

They preferred to see if their guns could soften up the enemy infantry first

The King's Lifeguard Regiment stand out in their bright red tunics

Here's the Parliamentarian command

View from Royalist left - you can see in the distance Allan has started to advance the Parliamentarian foot.

Bored with waiting for the Royalists to attack in the centre, Allan's men charge forwards

A fatal mistake ! Up to this point, Parliament had been "shading it" but this charge saw one after another of the infantry regiments falter and then collapse.

I think the points tally was 25 to 20 in terms of surrendered booty (when a unit dies, coin has to be handed over to the other side) so the King won Edgehill today, albeit narrowly.

A much better write up is given by Martin on the Essex Warriors Facebook page for those that are interested as he had an overview as umpire and rules guru.

Most of us are still feeling our way with these rules but will definitely give them another go soon.