Thursday 27 October 2011

Beneath the Lily Banners 2 - A test game.....at last!!

La Couronne
 As some of you may know I've been painting up an Allied army for a Nine Years War game, while my pal Richard has been painting up the French. We finally had enough troops to play  what we thought was small test game a couple of evenings ago. It was great to finally get a game under our belts and to test the rules out. Richard set his force up and I mirrored his deployment, we kept the scenery to a minimum just for ease. Rich has had a few small test games on his own and made up a deployment and movement sheet instead of using the movement markers as per the rules, this worked quite well as you didn't know what your opponent was up to.
 William's centre and left

 The extreme French right, with the elite class Picardie regt on the far left.
The French deployment - Richard had 2 brigade of infantry with three regts in each, and 2 brigades of horse with four squadrons in each. We picked 1 infantry and 1 horse (both squadrons) to be an elite regt, he chose inf regt Picardie on the extreme left of the pic and the Mounted Grenadiers of the Guard, (i think I got the name right), which is at the back on the far right. We also had to pick 1 regt to be raw, I never found out his raw regiment!!

End of turn 1. My elite regts were the 1st Guards, which are in the front line third up from the bottom and the Dutch Guard te Paard were my elite horse, don't strain your eyes but they're  the two squadrons in blue in front of the mysterious green mountain, otherwise known as a tape measure.

In the initial setup we both threw for our commander ability, Richard was Skilful while I was Competent, I did originally throw a Plodder, but we changed it so we could have a reasonably balanced game. 

The Allies advance to the farm, while the French hide behind the hedge (and Fran was nowhere to be seen, sorry an in-group joke!!)

Richard's lovely painted horse advancing. 
Princess Anne's Horse, the Guard te Paard and in the background
Waldeck's  Horse all advance
Another shot of the French Horse.
I threw well here and could move all my troops, so boldly charged two squadrons onto the French Horse, who I believe were the Musketeers of the Guard Royal Eccosse. (Rich has painted a lot of guard!!)
French Infantry Second  battalion  - One of these must be the raw unit??
After my perhaps over confident charge, Rich moved a Horse unit ready to move in to attack if his
Scots  Horse survived the Guards charge.
And here's a close up.
Another close up, as above only I smashed Richard's horse,  he countercharged both his units but  this one failed to move the 3 inches needed to gain the charge bonus, (he he!) So I wiped his unit out to the man and captured his colours. I took 2 casualties. We were a little unsure what my regt would do now?? Having destroyed the unit, I was now in a strange position, after consulting the rules we were still unsure, so we decided that my unit would pursue forward in a straight line rather than stand or take the ground, I'll have to email Barry Hilton, for his views on the situation.
The French did move over the 3 inches in the other melee above and kicked my butt bigtime
and this was the result, Previously the 2nd Princess Ann'e Squadron was forced back after taking
casualties from artillery fire, it was then joined by the 1st squadron, who lost the melee.
An overall pic of the battlefield.
My left of the battle field. Richard threw well in the movement...I didn't!! Mt raw unit can be seen
at the bottom of the photo -The Scots Fuzillers.
The middle and right of the above pic, I've manoeuvred inf regt Prince George of Heesen-Darmstadt, to get a fire on the  Royal Eccosse Horse who are in forced pursuit.
The right of the field, the second Guard te Paard and the 2nd Royal Eccosse have charged
 each other, the +6 dice for the French Horse is a real killer!!!
An overall pic at the end of the game
Light faded and the enemy broke of for tea and crumpets.

We both really enjoyed the game, hopefully very soon we'll have another bash!! We both realised that the what we thought was a small game wasn't. The first 3 turns wizzes along, but once melee ensued it slowed down quite a bit. There were several things (like I already mentioned) that we were unclear of, Richard wrote some questions down to send to the League of Augsberg Fighting Talk forum, unfortunately, I left them at Richards, he said he'll join up the forum and put the questions to Barry and the other guys from the site. So hopefully we'll clear them things up before the next game.
Cheers
Ray 

35 comments:

  1. A very nice display of two well painted armies and their submission to the Lords of Dice and Rules. Good read and pics, Ray.

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  2. Nice game, there's a lot painted now, will you need much more and Ray you have always been a plodder.

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  3. those flags are awesome. :)

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  4. Cheers Lads!!
    @Fran - Not a whole lot needed now, Rich needs another 3 infantry units and perhaps the same in Horse, while I need the three horse. Of course I will paint far too much than I really need but I just can't help myself..........

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  5. Great report. Sounds good all these regiments n stuff. Can't wait to see more

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  6. Always good to see and read about a period I've not got into myself and the layout reminded me of Leeds city centre, as its not got any trees either.

    Great stuff

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  7. It looks fabulous, and Paul's right the flags add a lot. It's always fun trying out a new ruleset, just because it pushes out of our comfort zone, means using the old grey matter more than we're used to. And it's much more interesting than crosswords..!

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  8. I meant Jay of course. Paul's right not only about Leeds but most town centres. Local authorities in general seem to have something against trees. Probably the sweeping up of leaves or the roots eating messing about with the buildings. Personally I'd rather have the trees and accept structure lifetimes are shorter. Oh well.

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  9. Always fun to finally take the new minis out for a fight! Nice write up Ray, everything looks great including your scooter in pic #2... ;-)

    Cheers
    Jason

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  10. Thanks for the batrep, Ray. I wonder is BtLB2's core mechanics are anything like Hilton's 'Republic to Empire'? I found that his rules often suffer from being a little too verbose and overwrought at times. Nonetheless, we had some good games with the rules.

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  11. I think your right, in the rewrite of the rules, Barry took some of the mechanisms of RtE and incorporated them into BLB2. I've never seen a copy of RtE, but I like the rules, they're very different to what we normally play, its quite difficult to do what you want to do and its definitely a challenge to all the senses.

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  12. @ Der Feldmarschall - Unfortunately Richard's Harley is in the menders, so he has to use the scooter!!!

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  13. I'm amazed at all the work you guys do. All the details and time and at the end of it, you don't even get to eat the minis.

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  14. thers still ppl standing... how is the game over ?

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  15. Those are two very pretty armies. Havent tried BLB yet myself !!

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  16. Good looking game and AAR. Glad you were able to play a game. Is this a good representation of the size of battles during this war?

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  17. Great post...great looking figs and a great way to play test a new set of rules! I've always like the period too!

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  18. Awesome Blog mate, link added

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  19. Great set up. You guys have the best looking tables.

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  20. Great report, thanks Ray.

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  21. Great read and lovely photos. Thanks Ray.

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  22. That is seriously impressive Ray; a fantastic set up and report.

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  23. Cheers agian for the kind comments chaps!!!
    @Mike - Most battles of the war were much larger than this at The Battle of the Boyne for instance ,William III had approx 26,000 infantry, 8,000 Horse and 50 guns. At the Battle of Steenkirk the French had approx 57,000 men while the allies had a total strength of 70,00!! So to re-fight some of the games we may need double what we played the game with......I think!!

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  24. great battlefield, I would love to have that space in home to do stuff

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  25. Nice looking game and great report Ray. Looks like a fun game was had by both players. Great looking figs too.

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  26. Very nice report and pictures Ray!

    Greetings
    Peter
    http://peterscave.blogspot.com/

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  27. Sorry got ahead of myself in the other post, what do you think of these rules? Looks like a fun game was had btw...

    Cheers

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  28. @Razor - After reading the rules several times to try and drum the them into my head, I thought they would play well and I wasn't wrong, they make you play to the period, I play loads of other rules for all different periods, but the the I like about these is the helicopter view is gone, meaning you can't always do what you want to do, which for us is a change for our little group!!

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  29. A great report, Ray. I am very interested in this rulebook and your game helps to understand the mechanisms of game.

    Cheers,
    Juan

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  30. Thanks for the BatRep, Ive been looking at getting a set of these rules and diving into the period, so every little review helps. Its not about the money so much, as the intellectual commitment to adopt and use any given ruleset. They do sound rewarding.

    Have you tried GaPa as well ? Just wondering how the 2 compare.

    Oh yes - the Bf109G flying over the edge of the field in one of the middle pics - had to smile when I saw that one :)

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  31. Not tried GaPa or any other rules for the period, we both liked these so much it didn't seem to matter about other sets, I'd recommend BLB to anyone, they're a great set of rules with lots of little subtleties that fit the period and make you play the way you should.
    Glad you liked the plane, everybody else seemed to missed it!!!

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