Lasalle - Epic scale Quatre Bras?

 

I think of the excellent Lasalle 2 Napoleonic rules as being ideal for small and medium sized games - a few Brigades per side. Tactically rich and engrossing at this level.

I also associate Warlord Epic scale figures with really large - perhaps unfeasibly large - Corps sized games which call for Valour and Fortitude rules, which excel at focusing on the grand sweep of action across the entire battlefield.

So why on earth did we experiment with an Epic scale game of Lasalle? Well I've been collecting Napoleonic miniatures in a variety of scales since Christ was a Corporal so its all very well for me to associate a particular scale with a specific ruleset... 

A French infantry brigade of 5 battalions

But for younger players, or for those persuaded to enter the world of Napoleonic's owing to the cheapness and ease of painting Epic plastic strips, they want to try several different rulesets, and game sizes, with their new collections.

Hence our game of 'Epic Lasalle', loosely based on Quatre Bras. Despite our Epic models being based on 60mm bases, we kept our traditional 15/18mm Base Width units at 40mm. 

I say loosely based, but Daniel deployed his Brunswick brigade historically, adjacent to the Bois de Bossu:

And I came on with the French in the 'same old style'!

The Brunswicks lost no time in inching towards my flank... Pah! I shall carry on regardless!

I sent the French light cavalry off to explore my right flank...

The Allies countered with a brigade of Netherlands Light Cavalry...after some cut and thrust the Dutchmen seceded the field to allow their artillery a greater say.

At this point our respective reinforcements arrived.

The British heavy cavalry were used to reinforce the allied centre.

My Cuirassier Brigade...

Was sent off to secure the left flank.

Throughout the game I was hampered by a severe lack of Momentum points which slowed my attack to a snails pace...

Which meant that further allied reinforcements...

Were left plenty of time to deploy at leisure...

I had plenty of reinforcements too, but a real, and historical, command paralysis meant they were kept idle!

Eventually, after I conceded the game in the face of a packed and solid defence, we reset to allow a couple of my French infantry brigades to charge the allied line to test that aspect of using 40mm Base Widths.

The mechanics adapted pretty well. Overall we found that the game would have played better by adopting the stipulated base widths of 60mm as the unit of Base Width (Derrr!) Playing on a wider table than is usual for a 15/18mm game of Lasalle would also have helped with the geometry of wheeling and deploying. But no serious obstacles to playing Lasalle in this scale...

Team Yankee: Pied Piper - the defense of Hameln

At our Christmas Drinks, Declan, one of our youngest members, requested more 'big Team Yankee games' for the New Year...so what better way to start the year's gaming?

The game took on even more meaning when, the table laid out, another, slightly older, member came up and told me this area was where he used to deploy on exercises with the British Army's Senior Infantry line formation, The Queen's Regiment! (I grew up in the area as my father did repeated tours with 28 Amphibious Engineer Regt RE also based in Hameln.)

The table looking east from the outskirts of Hameln. I dread to think how much of my pocket money was spent in that McPizza Hut!

We omitted the railway lines that meet in Hameln, since, running parallel to the axis of advance, they were tactically insignificant. Looking north:

The Buying Time mission is a favorite of mine - it allows big games to be concluded in a short time.

For this scenario the Warsaw Pact attackers had twice the points of the defender. So Declan and Peter had 140 pts of NATO Bundeswehr, with at least 90pts spent on FA15+ tanks, Ed had the same of East Germans and Daniel 140 points of  Soviets. Unusually for us we included air and AD assets.

The Soviet force also had a small company of Motor Rifles in BMP3s:

Peter's West Germans primarily consisted of Leo 2s, put he also brought a troop of Leo 1s, and, giving us great cause for concern...

Plus a troop of the dreaded Leopard 2A5, which the formation commander and his deputy also used.

Below, Declan on the left, surveys the scene. It was all his fault...

To balance out the player numbers, Daniel, on the right, was persuaded to come across to the dark side, giving us the NATO plan!

Our plan was an early Suppression of Enemy Air Defences, targeting the Roland SAMs. We rolled well for Air support but not so well for hits!

With only 6 turns to seize an objective we set off anyway...

As always with a Warsaw Pact horde shaking out into tactical formations was a challenge:

And the Luftwaffe took full advantage with their cluster munitions!

The German artillery was pretty useful too, hampering our mine clearing efforts...

At this points the Bundeswehr were feeling pretty relaxed...

The Soviet T-80 force, with its better armour, focused on the relatively open left flank whilst the NVA with their T-72Bs advanced down the covered right flank. Covered from everything except air strikes, that is!

I don't normally bother with attempting to lift minefields, but Daniel was up for it: 

He had been telling me our T-80s couldn't penetrate the L2A5s frontal armour, but in the excitement I didn't really register the implications that we would also benefit from a covered approach on this flank...

Our second airstrike faired much better and we knocked out both Rolands, leaving Frontal Aviation free to start whittling away at the Leopards...

We were on top of the left hand, near, objective by the end of Turn 3. Astute placement of our artillery marker by Ed steadily knocked out the L2A5s in the woods facing the objective, so we were set fair!

Then the Germans sprang their ambush - a platoon of venerable Leopard 1s were able to get sideshots into the side of our lead wave of T-80s with disastrous results!

However once again Ed came to the rescue with the offending Leo 1s themselves taken in the rear by his T-72s!

With our Frontal Aviation leisurely picking off Leopards and Daniel's T-80s also coming in from the rear of the objective, the Bundeswehr team conceded at the end of Turn 4.