Multibases for "Charge!".

Inspired by Prince Lupus at the Wars of Wine and Cheese blog and frustrated at the length of time required to play "Charge!" due to the singly based soldiers I've decided to base the close order troops into eights and threes for infantry and cavalry respectively.

Prince Lupus has some rule amendments to allow for this, especially for cavalry melees.

I thought I would mark casualties with dice until there is enough to remove a whole stand.

I'm on holiday for most of this week so I must get cracking!.

Vorwarts.
 

Lobositz using Black Powder

 The Austrian centre.

For this battle I used my Altstein and Eisenburg-Essling soldiers in place of Prussians and Austrians. I used The Wargame Companion by C.S.Grant, a wonderful book, for inspiration and information. Units were broken down into 14-16 figure infantry battalions and 8 figure cavalry regiments. I used Black Powder rules substituting centimetres for inches throughout, effectively making my 6x4 table into a 15x10. 

 "Croats" occupy the Lobosch.

 Austrian infantry between Lobositz and Welhotta.

 The Prussian advance guard.

 The Prussians advance against the Croats on the Lobosch.

 The rest of the Prussians arrive.

 They advance rapidly.Leadership was set at 9, Austrian leadership at 8.

 The cavalry clash in the centre of the field.

 The rest of the Prussians bypass the Lobosch.

 Austrian dragoons defeated, the die scores tell the tale.

 Prussian dragoons defeated.

 Prussian Hussars defeated.

 The result of the cavalry battle, not good for the Prussians.

 Close combat!.

 The Austrians cross the Morellenbach.

 And threaten the Prussian right flank.

 The Prussian infantry are under a lot of pressure.

 The Austrian infantry having crossed the Morellenbach in force outnumber the Prussian right flank.

 Charging home!.

 Rolling up the flank.

 Enfilading fire is very effective.

 The Austrian dragoons are broken.

 And the Prussian Grenadiers break too.

 The doughty Croats are in a spot of bother.

 As is this unfortunate unit.

 The Prussian dragoons race to protect the right flank.

 The Croats are done for.

 Close fighting in the centre.

 The units are somewhat battered by now.

 The Austrian C-in-C. (Looks like Prince Johann).

 Look out!. The Prussians launch a desperate charge.

 The Uhlans are routed.

 As are the last of the Prussian dragoons.

 In this game I chose to pose broken units as routing before removing them from the table.

 The Prussians on their far left are too far away to help their comrades.

The Prussian infantry are enfiladed and defeated.

Game over!, a narrow Austrian victory, this battle took most of the day and I was quite exhausted from all that marching and counter-marching.

Heads up for HaT !.

Hat SYW Prussians, soon to be released.

I'm very tempted to try some of these to make some new units for Altstein and Eisenburg-Essling. I hope the plastic isn't too soft as I find the Zvezda/Italeri plasic much better at retaining paint than the softer Revell.
Having said that I have'nt lost much paint at all due to the initial coat of PVA and two or even three coats of Klear/Future covering the paint job.

I can't even find the Italeri French AWI soldiers nowadays, it is lucky that I jumped in when I did as I had noticed that some retailers stopped listing them around July 2009 so I bought them from Modelhobbies.
Not long after I noticed they disappeared from Modelhobbies site and they've never reappeared.

Well P....d off !.

Bloody Blogger !, I can't comment on anyones blog, each time I try I have to sign in over and over again.

Does anyone one else have this problem ?.

Toy Soldier Wargame Rules - Playtest

 1/32nd scale soldiers in action.

These are a couple of shots from my other blog (top of the Links section ).

Toy Soldiers - on my other blog!.

 Just a "heads up" for my 54mm Toy Soldier "Little Wars" style project on my other blog (link over on the right).

These are Armies In Plastic WW1 Germans painted as 1900 uniforms.

The Battle of Korbrucke - I love wargaming!.

The Battle of Korbrucke, fought yesterday, was one of the most enjoyable wargames I've played.

I suppose that not having played a game of "Charge" for about five months is a part of it, a timely reminder of what a fine set of rules Charge really are.

But also the campaign setting really worked well in this instance, the geography for my campaign is based on the area where I was born and have lived and worked all my life.

Korbrucke is based on Corbridge in North-East England and as I drove past today I could see where my toy soldier battle took place. I could see where the armies would have deployed and advanced and where the Jager company bravely charged and captured the guns and where they crossed the Teiner (Tyne). The Tyne is shallow there in summer and you can see anglers with waders on right in the middle of the river so when the opportunity to cross came up I allowed the Jager company to do so.

By this time the gun battery was set up and preparing to enfilade the Altstein Grenadiers which may have had a crucial effect on the battle.

As the Jagers advanced they came under canister fire, I rolled double six,  halved to six  and the Jager company was down to half strength, being light infantry they could lose up to two thirds before routing.

On they pressed and took more fire from the guns... double one came up!, only one casualty and the Jagers could carry on to take the guns. 

 This was a crucial moment which had a far reaching effect on the battle and the whole campaign.

There were other moments of drama ( the cavalry battle was decisive ) and the whole battle was very entertaining.

It isn't like me to write so much (I'm a man of few words ) but I enjoyed the game so much I thought I would expand upon yesterdays post.