Back to the Balkans with The Men Who Would Be Kings

Martin and I had an evening of The Men Who Would Be Kings games at the last club meeting. I really like the Osprey rules sets, I'm sure there are duff ones out there, but all the ones I have played give a enjoyable and fun game. I'd offered Martin to set the games in 19th century Africa or the Balkans in 1912 and he went for the Balkans. We used the skirmish scale (half size units)  which makes for a quick game. We played three scenarios and could have fitted a fourth in, but instead spent the time looking at the other games on that night and annoying chatting to the players.

Marin took the Turks and I had the Greeks. The first scenario was a simple, three objectives along the centre line of the table. To take an objective a unit had to be the only one in contact and spent a turn at Stand To. The game ended when the third objective was taken, in the interim the opponent could swipe an objective back. It was a quick game, due to my slowness and the speed of Marin's Turks. (I kept rolling 1s and 2s for the extra move when I moved At The Double, he rolled 5s and 6s). The ned result was a 2:1 win to the Turks.

The second scenario was A Sigh of Relief. The objective ended up in the middle of a wood and I put my elite Evzone unit out to guard it. Despite losing their leader to the first shot of the game, they held off all comers for some time, routing one unit and sending another reeling back with a bloody nose. Eventually, once they were down to half strength, they failed and rally test and retreated off the objective, but by this time the rest of my force was in the fight. We called it a halt when the Turks were down to one pinned unit and the Greeks still had all four units in play (a lucky roll had rallied the Evzones at the last minute).

Game three was Run For The Hills! with the Turks trying to escape. Martin started well, keeping his units on the move, then only engaging the Greeks with two units whilst the rest made a break for it. It almost worked, I destroyed the rearguard and he got a unit and a half off the table. With his last unit almost on the table edge his luck failed and ther refused to move for two turns. this allowed me to catch them in a crossfire and wipe them out. A 6:4 win for the Greeks!

                                                  Greek Evzones hold the objective

                             Turkish Militia advance, backed up (at a distance) by irregular infantry

                                       Turkish Regulars shelter from the Evzone firestorm

                                                      Greek Irregulars take cover

                                            Greek Regular infantry on the attack


Only two other games this time, a 4-player Warhammer 40K game.

And a 28mm Wars of the Roses bash, using the Crusade rules

The Men Who Would Be Kings for the 1912 Balkans War

SUNDAY
Martin and I drove across to Warfare at Reading on the Sunday with my 1912 Balkans War game. I'd previously demonstrated this period using Chain of Command, but this year I was using The Men Who Would be Kings by Dan Mersey. Although the rules a written for 19th century colonial conflicts, I've found they work very well for the early 20th century as well. The First and Second Balkans Wars, with their huge variety of troop types and qualities, are easily covered with these adaptable rules. Later in the day we were joined by Henry to help out and allow for some wandering time/loo breaks.

Instead of the usual 6x4 table, I was playing this on a 3x3 area, using the skirmish version of TMWWBK (which uses half sized units). Although we were on the show listing as a demonstration game, I was intending this as a "soft" participation game, if anyone showed interest in how the rules worked for this period, they would be invited to join in and see.

It was a simple scenario, there were 3 objective points that needed to be scouted, which ever side scouted the most was the winner!
The Greeks had 4 units (1 elite, 2 regular and 1 irregular volunteers) and the Turks had 5 (2 regular, 2 militia and 1 irregular volunteers).

                                                                  The battlefield

                                                             A view from the other side

                                                              The 3 objectives

We played the scenario three times in the end, and every game had at least one passer by joining in. I'd planned the scenario to last for about an hour, including time for explaining the rules and that seemed to work. Allowing for lunch and shopping trips, as well as a lot of chatting to interested passers by, 3 hours gaming was just about right before everything started to wind down. Out of the three games, we had one Greek Victory and two Turkish.

                                                                Turkish Militia

                       Greek Regulars - The Italian Legion: Garabaldini Redshirts for the 20th Century

                                             Turkish Regulars and Militia prepare to advance

                                                        Greek Irregular Volunteers

                                                               Turkish Regular Cavalry

                                             Turkish Militia seize the central objective

                                    The situation at the end of the game, another Turkish victory!

                                                          Finally, a win for the Greeks

We had a great time and chatted to a lot of interesting people, both visitors and those running nearby games. I didn't spend very much as the one trader I wanted to buy from wasn't there this year!

An added bonus for me was when a father and son stopped by to admire the game and ask questions, when I turned to answer them I realised it was my old friend Nigel, who lives on the Isle of Wight and I hadn't seem face to face in years. We'd first met at a reenactment event about 25 years ago, when we got very, very drunk. It's a small world.

An extra thank to Martin who stepped in at the last minute to drive me and the game over, despite having attended the previous day with a 54mm ACW participation game.

I've also now got Alan's report on the Saturday (unfortunatly no pictures for this one).

SATURDAY
Martin, Ian R, and I took our 54mm ACW participation game to the Warfare 2017 show on Sat Nov 18th. Warfare is a regular slot for us, the guys from WAR always put on a great show and we really enjoy going along.

Once again, the show this year was well attended, and we were kept busy right from the start and most of the day. As we had seen at Milton Keynes earlier in the year, there was a lot of interest in our participation game - a simple skirmish might-have-been scenario, which we envisaged as taking place on the early morning of July 2nd 1863, somewhere near the Peach Orchard on the Gettysburg battlefield.

Our use of 54mm figures for the game drew a lot of attention, and many visitors to our table were keen to know where we had obtained the figures and whether they were available for sale at the show. Unfortunately we had to disappoint them, we didn’t see anyone selling 54mm figures at the show, and Martin and I had picked ours up at a museum in Atlanta on our ACW tour trip last year. However, we received numerous favourable comments about using  the larger scale on a 5x5 table, and it proved very popular with the gamers who gave it a try - something we will definitely be taking into consideration when planning our show offerings for next year.

Over the course of the day we played the game about a half dozen times, with plenty of time for chatting with the gamers and passers-by as well. Several had commented that there did seem to be fewer participation games on display this year, which is a shame, although there were some beautifully-crafted large-table games on show as well.

An added bonus – we were approached by a gamer who has recently moved into our area and is looking for a club, so we will look forward to welcoming them to  one of our regular Friday evening meetings.

Overall, a very enjoyable day, and a big thank you to the guys at WAR for organising a great show.

Balkans War Demo Game Army Lists

There was a lot of interest in the First Balkans War Demo Game we put on at Warfare last weekend.
Several people asked for the related Army Lists, so here are links to them.

Note, these are Army Lists for platoon level games using Chain Of Command rules by Too Fat Lardies.

Balkans Armies for Demo Game -  both sides for the Demo Game we put on this year.

Balkans Greek Army 1912-13 - more options for the Greek Army for other scenarios

Balkans Turkish Army 1912-13 - more options for the Turkish Army for other scenarios

Background and Battle Report - here is some background information about the First Balkans War and The Epirus Campaign featured in our Demo Game. There is also a Battle Report

Vanquish 2016 and our Balkans War Demo Game

Vanquish is a new wargames show held in May 2016 at Bourne End in Buckinghamshire. It was a fairly small show, but very well supported with a Bring and Buy, good parking, refreshments available and a bar.
There was a good mix of traders, about 15 I think, plus some Demo/Participation Games.

Our well planned Demo Game had to be hastily rethought when we found the gaming tables were round. Actually it worked very well especially as we had a terrain cloth instead of tiles to play on.

We ran our First Balkans War Demo Game using Chain Of Command rules by TooFatLardies. Several people came and showed interest in the game and the club and some club handouts were taken.

Other Demo and Participation games included a Frostgrave game, The Charge of the Light Brigade and a Napoleonic Participation Game.

Frostgrave Demo Game in the background

At the end we thanked the organiser and asked if he plans to run Vanquish again next year. We were pleased that he does so we asked to be included in the plans.

Thanks go to the Vanquish orgainser from Newline Designs in the background.

These photos, plus many others, were taken intended for a Battle Report but then I realised I've already done one during the testing of this Demo Game. So I've tried to use the photos I have got that give some impression of the show. The Battle Report that was done for the test game can be seen here.

First Balkans War Demo Game

Greek point of view. 

In 2016 Tring Wargames Club are running Demo Games at several local shows.

We have two Demo Games planned for this year. One is based on the French invasion at Fishguard (1797) using Donnybrook rules. The second is set during the First Balkans War (1912-1913) using Chain Of Command rules.

Here's some info and a Battle Report for the First Balkans War game.


THE FIRST BALKANS WAR 1912-13
This game depicts a skirmish near the city of Ioannina, by the shores of Lake Pamvotis, in the spring of 1913, using the CHAIN OF COMMAND rules by TOO FAT LARDIES.
All miniatures used are from TIGER MINIATURES.
The First Balkan War occurred due to the Weakening of the Ottoman Empire; which had just lost the Italian- Turkish war in North Africa, and the determination of the new Balkan League (Greece, Serbia, Bulgaria and Montenegro) to resolve their issues of National unity.
Turkish hopes to transfer an army from Syria to the Balkans were abandoned due to Greek naval strength and operations in the area. So the Turks had to rely on troops already in the area, some of whom proved to be of poor quality.
Montenegro was the first member of the league to declared war on 5th October 1912. The official start of the war was the 17 October 1912 the same day the Bulgarian Army Crossed the border and attacked Eastern Thrace.
The conflict can be divided up into areas or ‘theatres’ for ease.

• Eastern Theatre (Thrace)
• Western Theatre (Macedonia, Albania and Epirus)

The Epirus Campaign
The Greek army of Epirus crossed the border on 19th October moving northwest it occupied the town of Philippias on the 26th October. Dividing the force one part moved to Preveza and laid siege to the old fortifications, which held out until the Turks surrendered on 4th November.
The second force headed north where Greek forces encountered heavy resistance, this slowed their advance. After the surrender of Preveza on the 4th November Greek forces were reinforced with an Italian volunteer corps under the command of General Ricciotti Garibaldi, son of the famous Giuseppe Garibaldi. Strong resistance meant that the Greeks didn’t arrive to lay siege to the city of Ioannina (Janina) until 25th November. Reinforced by volunteers and irregulars from Crete and Greece, the Greek army faced a heavily fortified city; which itself had been reinforced with Albanian irregulars and Turkish troops retreating from Macedonia.
Despite skirmishes and assaults the defenders held out and the siege continued until the end of the war.
The war was ended with the Treaty of London in May 1913. The following month the Second Balkan War broke out when Bulgaria attacked its former allies, Serbia and Greece.


BATTLE REPORT
This Battle Report is from a test game played at the club in preparation for the first showing at Vanquish. Rules used are Chain Of Command by Too Fat Lardies.

Table viewed from the west.
Jump Off Points - Red for Turkish, Blue for Greek
For the Turks, the area from the sunken road to the bridge was about to be their main deployment area.
For the Greeks, the rough ground area outside the bend in the river and the woods inside the bend in the river were of main use.