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Thursday, 3 October 2019

Jacklex Russo Japanese game the outcome.

As I suggested in my previous post, the additional Japanese forces made the defences look at bit too strong. We therefore decided that 2 units should form a reserve and I diced for what move they would come on – luckily it turned out to be move 3. Bob also rearranged the Russian cavalry splitting them and pacing regular and Cossack cavalry on each wing.

Given my defensive position it was down to Bob to take the initiative. He diced for brigade after brigade of Russian infantry and cavalry and not a single unit moved! Only 2 moves left until my reserves arrived! His artillery and machine gunners had a bit more like but fortunately I managed to save every hit.

Move 2 saw the Russian cavalry on the right wing fail to response whilst the infantry suddenly awoke and surged across the field. On the left the infantry also charged across the battlefield making the Japanese trenches in a 3 command moves.

This is one of the odd rules in Black Powder. But we lived with it. The Russian cavalry on this flank also decided to hang around and not move! Again the Russian artillery struck, this time hitting one of the Japanese units and forcing them to retire as part of a Break Test and leaving a section of earthworks undefended. Fortunately, no Russian infantry were close enough to take advantage of this momentary success.

The Japanese troops opened fire even with a First Fire bonus they were very ineffective and to cap things off the Japanese machine gun on the left flank jammed! On the Japanese right flank closing fire and a heavy skirmish with a large Russian unit saw draw after draw in the skirmishes but the Japanese kept witling away and the Russians were eventually forced to take a Break Test which they failed badly and were destroyed.

A similar outcome occurred in the neighbouring earthworks with another Russian unit broken.

It wasn’t all going my way as the machine gun on the right flank also jammed. I managed to un-jam it with a D6 only for it to immediately jam again on a D1!!

Another Russian unit on the left flank was hit by artillery and forced to take a Break Test forcing it to fall back. This left 2 Russian Units who in turn charge the earthworks. This time despite some initial resistance the already weaken Japanese unit was forced to retire and their accompanying machine gunners cut down.

However, all this had taken time and my infantry reserves arrived one regiment went to bolster the earthworks on the left and the other turned its attention to the right and the Russians who had made it over the earthworks. The Japanese unit forced from the trenches rallied and returned to the front line.

Things were looking a bit better. One of the successful Russian regiments was routed in a subsequent melee and the other facing fresh troops decided to voluntarily retire covered by the Russian cavalry.

What I can hear you wonder was happening on the Russian tight flank? Frankly
nothing! After an initial rush across the battlefield they came to a staggering halt and just exchanged fire with the Japanese. Neither side causing any significant casualties. The Russian machine guns which had been successful jammed on the same turn and the Russian gunners suddenly gave up on the idea of hitting anything.

Lessons learnt. Even allowing for 2 Japanese units to come on as Reserves, the Japanese were too strong behind their earthworks. We should have allowed the Russians to have recycled the units that were destroyed once from the starting line to increase the number their numbers. With good command rolls they could have made a difference. We need to look at the Rally to Me orders in the Rules to see if whole brigades could be encouraged to move forward rather than hang about. An attack on the earthworks by the 4 units on the Russian right might have made it awkward given the jammed machine guns and the lack of Japanese troops. I only 2 units of infantry and 2 of cavalry until the Reserves arrived.

I re-based the little command group on a round base as the original square base looked a bit cramped.

There is no Russian General so I used the British Mounted Naval Officer who sports a rather fine beard and cut away the lapels on his jacket. The standard bearer is the Russian lancer and the Cossack has his lance arm bent upwards to have a raised lance.

Normal Cossacks

Cossacks Jack made with Lance raised my preference

Jack painted most of the Russian Infantry back in the day and all the Japanese infantry, gunners and cavalry in Khaki. He scratch built the Russian buildings (with the exception of a couple of 15mm resin buildings and the 20mm American Road Side Chapel) using cocktail sticks and foam board. The earthworks are my handiwork and made from Rendera gabions, DAS air dry modelling clay and coffee stirers.

It was great to see these figures on the table after all these years and to try our first Russo- Japanese engagement.

Better still, these wonderful Jacklex figures are available again. You can buy all the original ranges and new figures as well as download the ‘catalogue of figures’ from www.jacklexminiatures.com

Sunday, 29 September 2019

1904 Jacklex Russians and Japanese Prepare for battle - at last!

For those of you who also look at our sister blog ‘All Things Jacklex’ you will already have heard of the saga of Jack’s Japanese Army. Briefly, we have been looking for this army for the last 8 years or so. I had been desperate to photograph it for the blog and to have a game with them fighting the Jacklex 1904 Russians.

The Japanese had been used against my Zvevda Samurai following the release of the film the The Last Samurai and then been reflagged as Mexican Federal troops to battle Jack’s 1916 Americans. After which they simply disappeared. The only conclusion was they were somewhere in the dark reaches of Jack’s loft. Anyway, Jack’s daughter decided that the conservatory where Jack now does all of his modelling and where we occasionally have a game, but almost always sit and have a coffee and a chat needed a good tidy up. In his conservatory is a cabinet with his 54mm figures and underneath it and behind a pile of books she found the Japanese. These had been literally inches and at best 4 feet away from us for all of the 8 years we had sat and discussed where they were!

I grabbed them and Jack's Russian Army and have set up our first ever 1904 Japanese v Russians game in the 20 odd years we have known Jack. Originally the the Japanese were heavily outnumbered and whilst they have a number of machine guns, they were at a disadvantage, so I put them behind earthworks. However, with the help of Mark Lodge the new owner of Jacklex Miniatures who very kindly provide me with a painted unit and a couple of units of Blue coated Japanese I painted some years ago and a new unit painted with my doggy eyes. I have managed to bump the Japanese infantry up from 3 units to 7. The Russians have 10 although 4 of them are 'large units' for our in house version of Black Powder with all the firing and fighting bonuses that come with it. So the Japanese may be a little too safe now behind their earthworks. They are however heavily outnumbered by the Russian cavalry. There may have to be a couple of minor changes before the games starts. We shall see.

Next week or so is a bit manic with a cataract operation and then a trip to the Oncologist to check on the cancer and the week after I am going on a family holiday to Portugal. I still hope to be able to meet Bob for a game before then, but just in case, I thought I would wet the appetite by showing the game in its starting position and some of the units.

The Russian right wing:

The Russian centre and artillery

The Russian left wing

Inspirational ride about by the Russian Commander

The Japanese positions:

Right wing:

held by cavalry; artillery; a machine gun and hastily raised units of Japanese in their blue uniforms.

Japanese centre:

held by infantry and entrenched gun and machine gun. The Bellona gun position is almost as old as the figures!

Two newly arrived units wait as reserves

The Japaneses left wing:

Thursday, 27 April 2017

28mm Pike and Shotte - The Portuguese take on the Japanese

Having used an earlier item to talk about the game we were going to play a gap in the calendar meant that we actually managed to play the game fairly quickly after I saw the table for the first time.

The object of the game was to take and hold a hill on the centre of the table. We used centimetres rather than inches for movement, but retained the ranges in inches - made sense to us in terms of the game play.

So here is the AAR. I took on the role of the Commander of the Japanese forces - the main Warlord and Bob commanded the Portuguese. I diced for my command level which could have been 8 or 9, but I of course only managed to get an 8. Bob also commanded on an 8.

Despite these high command totals the game got of to the usual sluggish start with 'brigades' (loose expression for the 3 Japanese Warlords and the Portuguese groups) spending time just looking and discussing the meaning of life. Only my Asigaru; some unarmoured peasants; some even worse peasants; a unit of archers and some fanatical samurai on my left flank moving forward supported by my cavalry on the extreme left.

Bob's cavalry advanced and after 2 moves of doing nothing, so did his pikes and arquebusiers (very slowly). Bob's cavalry then just stalled and sat watching my infantry advance.

After a bit of a chat we agreed that if they were going to just sit there and with a unit of fanatical Samurai as part of my force it was not unreasonable for these fanatics to charge the stationary cavalry. So that's what I did!

The cavalry did better than expected but lost the combat, the Samurai having 4 units in support to the cavalry's none. The resulting Break Test saw the cavalry roll bad dice, break, and leave the table.

In the centre, my brigade including Samurai archers, more ordinary archers from both the left and right flanks managed to scale the hill and take up position.

Whilst all this had been going on Bob had been quietly unloading 2 of the ships guns and taking up position.

I fancied my chances with a charge by my Samurai Cavalry to get at these gunners.

My charge failed and the cavalry suffered. Not badly but were forced to retire. They then took another hit in the next round and I pulled them back out of range and they played no further part in the game. This left the guns free rein on my infantry who possessed no weapons to return fire . Fortunately, their fire proved annoying but on the whole ineffective.

At last Bob's advancing infantry came in range of my bows.

The Samurai archers delivered a devastating volley on the first of the advancing pike units with 3 sixes! and further hits from the other supporting archers saw the pikes stopped in their tracks.

On the right Bob moved forward with a 'brigade' of heavy infantry with two handed cutting weapons. We didn't have enough units, so we had to 'imagine' the other 2 supporting units. I wasn't worried as I had my Monks who were equally fierce-some!

These boys would ignore everything until they became Shaken!

First round went to the Monks causing disorder but not breaking Bob's infantry.

No problem I thought it is only a matter of time. Oh yes, time was all it took. Bob rolled 4 sixes!! added to the casualty they had suffered in the first round and the Monks were shattered and fled the field! All in the space of 2 rounds!

Somehow, the peasants supporting the Monks managed to survive their Break Test and were left standing as 'the end of the line' and facing Bob's heavy infantry. Disaster loomed!!

On the left in the meantime Bob had managed to deploy his arqubusiers and I was starting to take the odd hit on my Asigaru and peasants.

My archers on the hill came to the rescue inflicting the odd casualty here and there . However, I couldn't just stand and take hits so my infantry got to grips, the fanatical Samuari coming to the fore again.

I didn't have it all my own way and the melee's were close I only won them because of the numbers of supporting units. One unit of Bob's unit finally broke, thanks to some earlier casualties caused by my archers.

But this seemed a side show to what was happening on the other flank. With my Monks disappearing into the sun set, Bob had heavy infantry and pikes against my lowly peasants and archers. Forward came the heavy infantry into a hail storm of arrows 3 hits and no saves. I then managed a Blunder Test which sent my peasants forward fortunately just the one move and Bob did the same, this time charging forward into them.

Heaven know how, but the dice were with me another kill on the heavy infantry and no killing blows on my peasants spelt doom for the heavy infantry. They failed their Break test, as did the supporting unit and with one unit already broken and leaving the table the 'brigade' was beaten. Leaving the Japanese masters of the field.

The archers on the hill made all the difference. They managed to stop the advance of the Portuguese infantry who couldn't get to grips with them and whose slow start gave me the chance to get to the hill first. When the Monks fled I think we both thought it was over for the archers on the hill as they were ripe for the taking. But from 4 sixes to wipe out the Monks to not a single telling blow on the peasants was just amazing (poor dice and good saving throws). Victory from the jaws of defeat!

Not sure I understood some of the Japanese weapons or knew how to pronounce them and Bob forgot to get his sailors of the ship which was an extra unit that could have been in the game, but it was good fun and a chance to use figures in a different scenario.

The bulk of the Samurai are Warrior 25mm figures, supplemented by Dixon, Westwind and Black Hat figures. The civilians are from Japanese and Vietnam ranges. The gate is from Grand Manor and the screens are paper downloads from Wargames Vault. The deck, ramps and dock are scratch built by Jack.

The Portuguese are Bob’s TYW army. The Portuguese standard Bearer and escort are Conquistadores from Outpost Wargames and the cavalry are assorted border reivers. The ship’s guns and the crew who never got off the ship are by Newline Design.

The Portuguese stats were taken from the Italian Wars lists, while the Samurai, Monks and others were all found in an army list on the Warlord Games’ Pike & Shotte forum.