Battle of San Lorenzo - 8th May 1863

 

After having deluged you in May and June last year with loads of posts on my Mexican Adventure figure collection, I entirely failed to add a post on their first appearance in an actual game!  So apologies for the delay but here it is.

For this first outing I decided to use the Zouave II rules by Bob Jones (the original author of Piquet) which incorporate a rondel mechanism (which is something I have seen in boardgames before but not in miniatures wargame rules).

Having carted almost everything up to the club I realised I had managed to leave my hills at home - and given they are are crucial element of the game some improvisation was needed (hence the slightly unusual shapes!).

Here are the briefs:

French Briefing

Your main forces are currently besieging Puebla but the Juaristas seem determined to relieve the garrison. General l’Hériller saw off the first attempt at San Pablo del Monte on the 6th and the Juaristas have fallen back. General Forey has decided to take the initiative and strike the enemy before they can mount a second attempt at lifting the siege. At one o’clock this morning General Bazaine led a column northwest up the road to Cuatlincingo before striking out across country towards San Lorenzo. He bluffed his way past a Republican outpost but encountering a second decided to neutralise it and then push rapidly across the remaining 2 kilometres to San Lorenzo and the enemy. 

French Objective

Force the Republican forces to withdraw.

French Order of Battle

General de Division Achilles Bazaine (CinC)

1-2/1st Guard Horse Artillery

General de Brigade Louis de Bertier 

3rd Zouaves

51st Regiment de Ligne 

81st Regiment de Ligne 

Tirailleurs Algeriens 

Colonel François Charles du Barail 

1st & 2nd Chasseurs d’Afrique 

12th Chasseurs à Cheval

Mexican Dragoons

Republican Briefing

Your main forces are currently attempting to lift the siege of Puebla. French General l’Hériller saw off the first attempt at San Pablo del Monte on the 6th and your forces have fallen back. General Comonfort has decided to split his force into three Divisions before regrouping in order to mount a second attempt at lifting the siege. Your’s is the first Division under General Echeagaray encamped in and around San Lorenzo. At five o’clock this morning your men report the approach of a French column.

Republican Objective

Force the French forces to withdraw.

Republican Order of Battle

General of Division Don Ignacio Echeagaray (San Lorenzo)

1-3/1 div. Line 

1st & 2nd Artillery 

General of Brigade Frias (Panzacola)

1-2/2 div. Infantry

General of Brigade Basilio Garza (Ocotlàn)

1-3/3 div. Militia 

Colonel Quiroga

3 x Squadron Lancers

2nd Squadron Lancers

3rd Squadron Lancers

And some photos from the game:

Whilst the Mexicans defended valiantly the French assaulted up the hill and took San Lorenzo itself.

The rules were both interesting and fun and will be coming back to the table again.

The Relief of Shah Wadi Wadi

I just realised I hadn’t posted anything on the blog regarding the game I put on at the club a few weeks ago.  It was a trial of the Sudan amendments and first scenario for Sharp Practice from the latest Lard Magazine.  Here are a few photos:

Whilst we all had a fun game I must admit I’m not sure the amendments quite deliver what I was hoping and I remain uncertain whether trying to use Sharp Practice for this period (as it’s not really intended to cover this late).  I do have several other sets of rules to try out so expect so see some of those turn up at some point.

Mahdist War: The Mahdi

 No Mahdist War project would be complete without the man himself - the Mahdi!

These are figures from Perry Miniatures, painted by Roger and based by me.

Mahdist War: Osman Digna

The Beja forces needed a leader - so here he is:

Yet another figure from Perry Miniatures, painted by Roger and based by me.

Mahdist War: Mahdist Commanders

My Mahdist forces were lacking some obvious commanders to lead them into battle, so here are the three I have now added:

The figures are from Perry Miniatures, painted by Roger and based by me. 

Mahdist War: Imperial Commanders

 My Egyptian and Sudanese troops needed some commanders to lead them into battle.  So here are the three mounted officers I had added to my collection:

The figures are from Perry Miniatures, painted by Roger and based by me.

Mahdist War: Egyptian Cavalry

 I thought my Egyptian and Sudanese infantry needed some mounted support:

The figures are from Perry Miniatures, painted by Roger and based by me.

Gaming in Lockdown: Zoom and the Battle of Fatehpur Redux

 With us being unable to gather to game face to face I decided to try to run a tabletop game over Zoom.  To make life easy I run a scenario we had run before, the Battle of Fatehpur, using Sharp Practice and only 2 player.  I set up two laptops (an actual upside of having to have two for work), one at each end of the table and used my phone both to talk and use for close ups including some photos:

Generally the game worked pretty well, all things considered, but the image quality wasn’t quite good enough for the remote player to see everything on the table.  Having the remote player knowing the rules, the scenario and making their own dice rolls certainly worked so I decided I would have another try but on a smaller tabletop - but more of that in another post!

Skirmish 2019: Second Battle of El Teb, 29th February 1884

Once again I volunteered to put on a game at the Skirmish Show in Sidcup in March last year.

I decided on 28mm again but this time with a colonial theme - the Second Battle of El Teb on 29th February 1884.  Having still not found a set of rules I have been entirely happy with I decided to go a little left field and make some adaptations to the Too Fat Lardies' Sharp Practice black powder set.

Here are a few photos from the game:

Surprisingly enough the rules actually worked quite well and we had a very entertaining game with the Mahdists managing to hold up the square for most of the game but failing to break it.

A Tale of Two Skirmishes

As I was putting tog ether the forces for our club game at the next Skirmish show in a couple of weeks (the Second Battle of El Teb, 29 February 1884) I realised that I hadn’t written anything about our second visit last year.

Setting out the figures for El Teb

As to last year’s games, for the first show we had decided on a 28mm Vietnam game based on a hastily mounted search and rescue operation for a downed helicopter crew (You can find the relevant blog post here).

Our second visit to Skirmish later in the year was another 28mm affair but this time winding back to the Great War.  In this case our game was set early in the war, featuring a certain Erwin Rommel and taken directly from his own account of the action in his book Infantry Attacks. In his own, admittedly potentially self aggrandising narrative, after advancing west from Hill 325, Lt. Rommel stopped his platoon in cover in a field and took a scouting group ahead.  Making use of cover and the foggy conditions, they passed one farm and found their way close to the Mussy-la-Ville road.  As the scouting team approached they spotted a couple of French squads relaxing along the road.  Rommel decided to attack rather than wait to bring up the rest of his platoon.  Surprised by Rommel’s bold attack the French put up little resistance and then surrendered. In our scenario the player who took Rommel was somewhat less bold and when he encounter the French decided to fall back and gather his platoon before attacking.  Unfortunately for him that meant another French squad had arrived before the Germans returned and they had more of a fight on their hands!