Peninsular War - Battle of Gamonol, 1808

In this game, loosely based on the Battle of Gamonal, the French, under Soult, repeated history and broke the Spanish line. The Spanish flanks held well, but the French - despite being held up by Spanish light infantry and guerrillas hidden amongst the light woods, located in the middle of the battlefield - concentrated their assault on the centre of the line, breaking a number of weaker Spanish battalions. 

The Spanish commander, Conde de Belvedere, shamefully left the field as his army crumbled. It was said of the Spanish general that he was "... a rash and headstrong young aristocrat with no military experience whatever. His family influence had made him a general at an age when he might reasonably have expected to lead a company and he found himself by chance the interim commander of an army: hence came the astonishing series of blunders that led to the combat of Gamonal."

Taiping Rebellion, 1850-1864 - 'Chinese' Gordon holds the line

This was the first time that the Taiping Rebellion has made an appearance at the club. This horrendous conflict, that resulted in between 20-30 million deaths, is largely ignored by wargamers, despite the fact that it offers a number of interesting troop types, weapon combinations, larger-than-life characters and scenario possibilities.

In this game the followers of the Heavenly Kingdom swept most of the Imperial Chinese forces from the battlefield with fanatical charges. Only units of the 'Ever Victorious Army', under the command of Charles 'Chinese' Gordon, held their positions. Indeed Gordon was appalled by the ineptitude and cowardice demonstrated by the Qing Dynasty conscripts!

Cyber Punk Inspired Sci Fi Action

This was a fun game, using Firefight rules, with Forge Fathers (Dwarves in Space) against Orcs/Marauders. The dwarves proved too tough for the Orcs and won fairly convincingly. 

The terrain is largely scratch-built, with amazing attention to detail. It was inspired by Mantic Games terrain crates, the movie 'Blade Runner', along with a number of sci-fi city art books.

Russo-Turkish War 1877-78 - Images Found

A number of years ago we had some Russo-Turkish War encounters. I had though that the photos were probably lost, following the move of this Blog from a Webpage. Also, the collection was sold to a wargamer in New Zealand.

Thankfully, this great blog site - 'History in 1/72' - has recorded some of the images. It's a bit of a blast from the past from this under-wargamed period:

http://historyin172.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-russo-turkish-war-1877-78.html

Napoleonics - Tilting at Windmills

An interesting skirmish level game of Napoleonics using 'Rebels and Patriots' rules, that pitted a French force against a British/Hanoverian opponent, The French managed to secure the windmill objective, ensuring victory. The British were badly let down by their Hanoverian allies who fell back, then ran away, as soon as they could.

The Osprey set of rules seemed to work well for this low level skirmish type game.