War Stories

I'm very pleased to report that the Wellington Warlords' Call to Arms 2024 event was a smashing success!

I decided to dress the part, naturally (photo courtesy of CT, the husband of the delightful DT and her son J who stopped by to have a look)..

While I was channeling Brigadier (Rtd) Terry Grantstone-Bath, c. 1964, His Dastardlyness had opted for the prog rock WRG wunderkind look, c.1973:

In the main hall the competition and other games were something to behold (photos courtesy of the Baron von Driberg).

Our section was pretty much given over to the Old Schoolers, who were all playing ancients of one sort or another:

So what were we up to? Well, the plan was to play through yet another of Charles Grant's iconic Table Top Teasers, this one being TTT No.3: "The Advance Guard Action", which appeared in the June and July 1978 editions of Battle Magazine. These have been digitised by Steve the Wargamer and are viewable on his splendid Random Musings Blog here: The Teasers.

This promised to be an exciting affair involving two small infantry forces with sizeable cavalry support, with the potential for substantial reinforcements halfway through the game. Grant himself thought it was one of his most successful scenarios.

The objective for the French (played by yours truly), seen here on the left, was to seize and secure the village before launching an offensive to take the river crossing. Driberg's Prussian objectives, unsurprisingly, were the opposite: secure the bridge and then capture the village.

Much to my consternation, The Garde zu Fuss and the Lutzow Lancers immediately made moves towards the village.

While on the Prussian Left, the 10th Infantry Regiment and 9th Reserve Infantry marched resolutely across the fields towards the bridge, with the 2nd Dragoons in support.

The French response was to make a dash for the village with the 45e de Ligne, while the 4e Chasseurs made a vaguely threatening advance on the extreme Left.

Meanwhile, the 61e de Ligne and the Irish Legion made a two-pronged advance towards the centre and the bridge, with the 8e Cuirassiers trotting along behind.

A turn or two later, and things were definitely starting to look interesting.

Heavy artillery fire was doing nothing good at all for von Driberg's Silesian Schutzen in the small copse in the centre, and was also causing problems for the Lutzowers ...

... while the Irish had beaten the Prussians into the wooded slopes above the bridge. The 10th and 9th Reserve formed line, but were starting to get picked off by the French voltigeurs.

Things only really started to fall apart, however, when the 9th Reserve became disordered. Nansouty immediately charged with the 8e Cuirassiers.

It was all up for the 9th, of course, but the 8e were then immediately countercharged in flank by the 2nd Dragoons.

This did not go well for the 8e, but there was further trouble in store for the Prussians as the French reinforcements, in the form of Empress's Dragoons, came galloping onto the field.

Driberg's reinforcements, the 52nd Foot, could only look on in horror. Not only only were the 2nd Dragoons being crushed, but the 10th Infantry Regiment were then suddenly attacked and routed by the Irish Legion charging out of the forrest.

And the same incident again as seen from from von Driberg's telescope!

With the Prussian left collapsing, things hadn't been going all that well on the right either when the Lutzowers were pounced by the 4th Chasseurs and sent fleeing from the field. In the excitement I failed to get a picture of this, but you can probably more or less guess how this unfolded from the picture below:

We decided to call it a day at this point as we were exhausted, not least because so many people had popped over to have a gander and a bit of a chinwag. There were quite a lot of Hinton Hunts in New Zealand back in the day, I was told. I wonder where they all are now.

Day two was a replay of the scenario, but with me playing the Prussians and a very nice chap who was a friend of Driberg's taking on the role of Davout in command of the French.

Things went much as they had on day one, except that I went all out to seize the woods next to the bridge, and even managed to kick the Irish Legion out this time.

This seems to have annoyed Davout a bit as he responded with a desperate charge by the 4e Chasseurs, but as the sun of Rossbach rose over the table, it was clear this was not going to end well. This was very unlucky for Davout as he was not to know that this was moment when two battalions of Allied reinforcements were due to arrive.

As the RGL artillery (acting as horse artillery) scuttled out of the way, it all went a bit Charge of the Light Brigade.

I think the game could still have gone either way as there were a lot of reinforcements coming onto the table, but as we'd had even more people coming over to talk to us, and had to pack up a bit earlier than the day before, that was about it I'm sorry to say.

This was all gloriously good fun and wouldn't have happened at all without my good friend DF (aka von Driberg) encouraging me to do it. It was an absolutley brilliant way to meet some of NZ's wargaming pioneers and stalwarts and to get the word out about the Hinton Spieler. I gave away dozens of flyers over the two days. A fair few of my friends and colleagues from work came out to have a look too, which was extremely pleasing. It was great to see you JC, AS, NB and family, SH, and DT and family.

As a final shot, herewith von Driberg's photo of some of the vintage packaging that I use to carry about my Merit trees and hedges.

The trees, I should point out, were specially reinforced with green-painted metal washers so that they wouldn't fall over on the green hessian cloth I was using on the table top. This was Rob G's idea and worked brilliantly.

Yours truly,

WM