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SARANTAPORO (1912)
I kicked off with the first of Konstantinos Travlos's epic collection of 15 scenarios for the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913. (You can find all these draft scenarios, and others he has created for other wars, on his Leadhead, PhD blog, as well as in the files of the BBB Yahoo group.) I've invested the princely sum of £150 in a custom-painted Greek 1912 army from Irregular Miniatures, whose services I cannot recommend highly enough. We blooded them with their first outing against my Ottoman Turks at Sarantaporo.
Newly painted Greeks poised to storm Sarantaporo. The line infantry are British WWI figures;
the evzones behind them (in slightly anachronistic red hats) are French WWI Chasseurs Alpins.
I have yet to flock their Warbases.
Sarantaporo sees about 50,000 Greeks attacking half their number of Turks, but well entrenched in very mountainous terrain. The Turkish line is very thin, so it will eventually be penetrated and overwhelmed by the Greeks, but the question is whether the cordon defence and the Turkish reinforcements can delay the Greeks long enough for a Turkish victory in game terms. The game played swiftly, and we played it twice in 5 and a half hours.
#1 was a draw, a really good close game. The first half of the game went against the Greeks. They were getting terrible movement rolls, and the Turkish fire was deadly; the Greeks hardly caused a casualty before turn 5. But when they eventually got enough troops deployed and engaged, their numbers told, they killed off Turkish units and took a couple of objectives. Lots of exciting ebb-and-flow and will-they-won’t-they as the end of the game approached. The Greeks did just manage to take the 3rd objective they needed to salvage a draw right on the last turn, thanks only to an exploitation after assault. More active use of Turkish reinforcements might have thwarted that and earned a Turkish victory.
Game #2 was again a draw, but started very differently from Game #1 as the fortunes of war dice flipped completely. Turkish shooting was rubbish, Greek was deadly. The fort garrison in Lazarat got blown away on Turn 1. The left flank unit on Skopia hill fired once before it too fell victim to massed Greek fire.
Despite this, the difficult terrain delayed the Greeks long enough for Turkish reinforcements to intervene. The Turks used them a bit more aggressively this time, counterattacking up the central valley and towards the Skopia hill. The Turks came within an ace of preventing the Greeks taking Livadero in the centre, but couldn't quite do it - so it was another draw. (Though the casualty ratio was turned on its head. Game #1 Greek losses were about triple the Turks’; game #2, Turks lost a lot more than the Greeks.)
Both games were really good fun with challenges for both players. We were worried pre-game that so many repeating rifles and so little cover would make it just a massacre. In fact, while there were plenty of casualties, it turned out to be a game with plenty of maneuver and action. The steep slopes everywhere, casting shadows that limited LOS, helped this and presented interesting tactical decisions for both attacker and defender. The difficult terrain on most of the table did cause the Greek players some frustration, but it worked very well to make it an even fight, to stop it being too easy for the Greeks to exploit their huge numerical superiority, and to introduce some entertaining unpredictability into the game.
The Greeks have quite a lot of freedom of deployment, and it is important that they use that to make a good plan. Especially so as the difficult terrain means it will be very hard for them to fix things if they find they have deployed troops in the wrong place. They have to decide where to mass artillery, where to concentrate effort, which units to keep in march columns, when and where to deploy into line.
The Turks have very few troops so are forced to set up a thin cordon defence with just their cavalry and a couple of late reinforcements to serve as reserves. Like the Greeks, they have some latitude in their deployment, and how they set up is important – if they leave gaps or expose flanks, Greek numbers will flood through and kill them. When and how to fall back, and where to commit reserves, are also important and interesting decisions.
All in all this was a really good game and bodes well for Konstantinos's "Bloody Big Balkan Battles" collection to generate plenty more.
A couple of photos on Flickr.
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Chorrillos & Miraflores (1881)
The War of the Pacific has fascinated me ever since I was at school learning Spanish. Chorrillos and Miraflores are twin battles in which the Chileans breached successive Peruvian defensive lines outside Lima, to storm the capital and force the Peruvians to sue for peace. (The Peruvian president refused to accept defeat, and a vicious guerrilla war festered for several years more until they finally came to terms.) Several years ago I created a scenario that combined two battles that on their own would have been rather dull frontal assaults into a much more interesting game with higher-level decisions for both sides to make.
One of our Oxford team members, Nigel, is a very well-travelled chap who has been to some Latin American battlefields and wanted to try the C&M scenario. I was happy to oblige, so he and I took the part of the Peruvians, while Bob and Mark J were the Chilean aggressors.
The scenario features a number of the technological innovations that marked late C19 warfare: machineguns, mines, railway guns, as well as naval gunfire support for the Chileans. Our MGs did give the attacking Chileans some grief but the mines were all damp squibs. The Chileans smashed through the left of our first line. My reserves formed a second line to delay their advance on Lima, while Nigel threw our right-flank corps in a bold attack against the Chileans' exposed line of communications on their extreme left. This was repulsed, but it did distract enough Chileans for long enough that it probably swayed the final result.
The Chilean army was greatly superior to the Peruvians: better troops, better commanded. Our second line troops were really third-rate reserves, who if I remember right were mustered in characterful divisions based around trades: divisions of tailors, or of accountants, or of IT project managers (OK, maybe not that last one). By the end we were mostly crushed, and all our artillery had shot off its limited ammunition and quit. But one brave division held out long enough in the lovely resort town of Chorrillos to prevent the Chileans storming the coastal fort of the Morro Solar, and thereby denied the Chileans victory.
The game was great fun, but the scenario needs just a little rejigging. (Current version is in the BBB Yahoo group files.) As it stands, the Chileans have the option of whether to invoke the Night Interval representing the day of truce between the two battles. I will probably make the NI obligatory but let them have some latitude about when it happens; and add a turn to the game length; and add another objective, to allow more ways to win the game (always good).
Some photos are on Flickr.
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SPOTSYLVANIA (1864)
Games with Night Intervals are often particularly interesting and good fun. The NIs break the game into distinct phases, they present the players with a pause and the opportunity to change their plan. Spotsylvania, sequel to the battle of The Wilderness, is one of these. The scenario actually covers multiple Union attacks over the course of some 11 days, as Grant repeatedly reorganises and redeploys to renew his attacks, and the Confederates keep shifting across and thwarting him. (Scenario in the BBB Yahoo group files, of course.)
Mark will be running this at Historicon next month and wanted to have a dry run with us. We were happy to oblige. He's created a beautiful custom battlemat for it and painted up lovely armies to match, along with tasteful casualty markers, historically accurate buildings for Spotsylvania Courthouse etc, nice flag labels and so on. Some guys at Historicon are in for a treat.
I may say that Bruce and I marshalled our Union hordes patiently and well. The fortunes of war favoured us in that Bruce shot up a Confederate cavalry division early on, while my US cavalry under Wilson were able to evade the Rebs and take an objective on their line of communications. When the first NI arrived, we therefore chose the ahistorical option: rather than sending our cavalry and the enemy's off on a ride to Richmond (the one that ended with JEB Stuart's death at Yellow Tavern), we opted to let the Rebs have all their cavalry but to bring the whole of Sheridan's cavalry corps on-table - which we were able to do in the enemy rear. This really cramped where they could deploy their reinforcements, created a threat that distracted significant numbers of their troops for significant time, and gave us space to extend our main body and take advantage of our numerical superiority.
Given that the Union army was a rather ponderous machine, it still took us a little while, but eventually we got the steamroller into gear and took Laurel Hill. Things looked grim for the Confederacy. Undaunted by these setbacks on their left, the Rebs launched a bold counterattack on their right. This succeeded gloriously, Burnside was sent reeling back, and our own line of communications was threatened and with it defeat.
We were obliged to call a Night Interval, a pause in our attack, so that we could reorganise our battered forces. During this lull, the Confederates won the initiative roll and were able to steal a march on us to pre-empt a possible raid by Sheridan on their LOC.
So it came to the last turn. Burnside had steadied but was still under pressure. Could JEB's cavalry push him back and claim a Confederate victory? No! Their infantry let them down, the rebel horsemen attacking alone were not just repelled but destroyed. What about on the other wing - could the Rebs retake Laurel Hill? No! But they had a good try. So to the very last dice of the game. Could we storm Spotsylvania Courthouse for victory? Two of our divisions charged in against one of theirs; their fire failed to halt us; it all came down to the assault - and we bounced off. A draw! But a really see-saw game, tremendously good fun. It may be a challenge for Mark to finish the game in a 4-hour slot with 6 entirely novice players, so I hope he gets some who are already familiar with the rules, and that everyone has a good time - I'm sure they will.
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