Napoleonic's: The Bank Job, part 2

Last time we played we left the battle fairly evenly poised with the British feeling they had the slight upper hand. But all was still to play for as the daylight saving meant extra time before night fell on the final battle in our Spanish excursion.

Things however took a sharp turn in the favour of Major de la Croix and his French forces. In the past the 2nd Hussars had generally died without gaining much in return. They where about to repay the continued faith Major de la Croix had shown in them in magnificent style.

Below we can see them massing in the distance, with the British ready to unleash the usual fire as they ride forwards.

In Shakos & Bayonets you activate units by drawing their card from a deck, most unit types add 4 cards to the deck which get re-shuffled once the 3rd Clock card is drawn. Unbeknownst to Major Berkeley the Hussars had been ordered to act decisively due to Major de la Croix have three of their cards in his hand. So the Hussars charged forwards and the normally reliable British firing missed badly.

This lead to a unit of Centre company infantry being removed in a flash bringing memories of Battle of Albuera to the North Gloucestershire men. But the Hussars where not done yet and they ploughed on into some light infantry next.

Less casualties this time and the British survived to run away. Again the British fired on the French and again they could not cause casualties, the French lived a charmed life. So once more they charged on again into the unit manning the wall.

Here we see the aftermath with the French finally taking enough casualties to knock them out of the battle but not before they had also forced the infantry by the wall to flee as well.

With the British attack nullified in one glorious charge the French infantry went on the attack to try and seize the gold in the compound.

They managed to clear the second wall of the compound and commit enough units into the area to take control of the gold.

The British did manage to hold the river crossing objective but at only 2VP's to the French's 3VP's it was a French win.

This result helped the French to close the gap but they still trailed 9-16 in campaign points so Major Berkeley probably won't be drummed out of the army in disgrace even if he did allow Major de la Croix to get hold of the British pay chest.

Extra Extra Extra!

Sadly no game this week so we've not been able to complete the Napoleonic battle yet but I do have a few bits of painting to show.

First up we have some models for my Kingdoms of Men from Max Mini to use as a Beast Cavalry Regiment. I'd been looking around for models to use in the army and these seemed to fit the general dragon vibe of the rest of the models. 

In game they will add an extra layer to the army as they can see over the normal cavalry units and they have nine good quality attacks.

The models are of good quality resin which did need a bit of filling around the legs but for £20 you cannot really complain. Ambush is going to be in our gaming rotation probably after Firefight so these may see the table this year.

The rest of the painting is for Deadzone/Firefight with a second Master Creeper joining the Veer-myn ranks along with some normal Creepers.

With the likely changes to the Veer-myn Firefight list incoming I'll probably need some more Maligni with special weapons so I painted up a few more of those as well.

You can never have enough Nightmares so I've painted up four more with the ranged options being included this time as well. I don't think you'd generally want to use the ranged options as the Nightmares are such melee beasts but I do have an idea around an almost all Nightmare Deadzone list they would be useful in....

Night Terrors aren't my top pick in Deadzone but they can add a nice melee boost to a Crawler unit in Firefight so this chap may see battle soon.

Lastly we have an out-sized Sgt Howlett painted up to be most likely used as terrain, I got this as part of a group buy on Facebook and you can see from the last picture that he's pretty sizeable. 

Napoleonic's: The Bank Job, part 1

For the final adventure in our Napoleonic campaign both sides have converged on the bandit stronghold with the intention of securing the pay-roll. The French have the cannon with which they can knock down the gate and pierce the house wall. We planned to play this game over 2 weeks and increased the points to 800 a side. 

The Spanish would shoot at the closest enemy within 24" on each clock card and needed to be cleared from the walls to stop them doing this.

Due to the number of troops on each side we deployed half the units we had on the table at the start and then would be able to bring on the rest once the 3rd clock card had been drawn.

Both sides left their cavalry off table and deployed their infantry with the aim to move towards the compound and also seize the wagon. The wagon could be used to transport the gold much faster than if it was being carried by hand.

The opening moves saw the French lay down accurate cannon fire that quickly breached the gate and then the house wall. The French line infantry also forged ahead with a series of rapid moves in column towards the compound whilst the British infantry was rooted to the spot.

This meant that a unit of French Grenadiers was first to enter the compound whilst other French Line units reached the wall running along the road whilst the British had barely left their starting posistion.

The French cleared one wall of defenders but took several causalities whilst doing so.

The French consolidated their position outside the compound but their shooting was largely ineffective as whilst they managed to score several hits on the British their powder must have been wet as they could not convert these into kills.

By this time the first three clock cards had been drawn and the off table troops started to move onto the table. The British line had also started to get into the action and they advanced towards the French lining the walls.

It was going to be a tough ask for the British to shift the French from their walls but they positioned themselves to unleash volley fire into the enemy.

The double volley didn't cause many casualties but the leading French unit's morale did waver and it retreated back from the wall closer to it's friends.

Further fire from the British Light's caused more French casualties and the Fusiliers retreated further back allowing the British to advance themselves.

On the British right the Light Dragoons had seen the French lining up their cannon to fire on the advancing line troops so they dashed into combat and put the French to flight. This did open them up to fire from the Voltigeurs massed on the French left who thinned their ranks.

In the compound things had turned to the worse for the French as Spanish fire started to take it's toll and the unsupported Grenadiers made a run for the exit.

On the French left more fire from the Voltigeurs emptied saddles and the Light Dragoons looked to be in very bad shape.

In the centre things looked better for the British as their infantry gained the wall along the road and their reinforcements started to arrive as well.

This is how the battle stood at the end of the session with all to play for still. The French have taken the greater casualties but neither side holds an objective so it's all still very much in the balance.

Extra Extra!

As well as the Napoleonic campaign we are currently playing I've also been working through some extra models for a few armies.

First up we have the Hammerfist Drop Troopers for the Forge Fathers. These are based off the Forge Guard models but with some resin parts for the jump back and inferno drill. 

The unit can be used in both Firefight and Deadzone with it dropping onto the table in both games. In Firefight the unit can be dropped onto the table in the open during the first two turns so this gives the Forge Father player an interesting unit to play with that can be used to give their opponent a nasty surprise if they aren't careful. It's 12" range inferno drill means it can drop in and shoot on the turn it lands with a good number of high quality shots. 

The Deadzone version gets to drop onto the table before the game starts and is equally adept and ranged and melee combat. 30 points is pretty expensive though especially in a faction full of high price models.

I've also painted up another unit of ten Stalkers to add to the Veer-myn. My suspicion is that I'm going to need a fair few of these models once we start playing towards 1500 points.

Lastly I've rebased some models I first painted a long time back for my Twilight Kin so they can be used in Mr T's Abyssal Dwarfs. These are the last of the models needed for the list I sketched out to Kings of War: Ambush. This is a smaller game of KoW with forces in the 500-1000 point range and the army building rules slightly changed.

It is probable that this unit will be dropped from the Twilight Kin army list when Mantic relaunch them later this year with new models. The army is going to be more closely aligned with the Nightstalkers rather than the Abyss as it was before.