15mm "Battle of the Boyne" refight for Broadside 2013 teaser or changing history!

The Battle of the Boyne was fought in 1690 between two claimants of the Irish, Scottish and English thrones, the Catholic King James and the Protestant King William across the river Boyne near Drogheda in the Republic of Ireland (not called that back then) which is situated on the east coast of Ireland. The battle, won by William, was a turning point in James' unsuccessful attempt to regain the crown and ultimately helped ensure the continuation of Protestant ascendancy in Ireland!

The Rejects met up yesterday for a refight of this battle which will be our demonstration game at Broadside 2013 on the 9th of June, myself, Smithy and Surjit played the Catholic forces with Lee, John and Dave played William's forces, the game was umpired by Ray (whose figures we were using) and using Beneath the Lily Banner rules.

I won't go too much into the battle as Ray is being very secret squirrel and is only allowing one picture per Reject blog, the forces are accurate (2 to 1 in Williams favour) and the Catholics forces are meant to lose as history dictates but yesterday we gave history a kicking with the aid of some biased dice gods.

We surprised Ray, ourselves and the Williamite forces, ultimately we would lose but on our terms.........

The town of Oldbridge (scratchbulit by Ray) which no longer exists and on the day only lasted 20 minutes under Dutch Blue Guards assault but on our day lasted a lot longer! The Guards can be just seen advancing.............

To see more you will have to go to Broadside 2013 and to read more of the battle you can go here.

.......and swearing at work explained!

Beneath The Lily Banners War of the Grand Alliance Game Pictures...

....and brief report! The war was also known as The Nine Years War, The War of the League of Augsburg and the The War of the Palatine Succession I believe and ran from 1688-1697......

Some of the Rejects got together to play a game of the Nine Years War recently using a scenario that Ray had made up, Richard was the French while myself and Postie were a mixture of British, Danish and Huguenots forces.
We had a lot of British raw units but also British and Danish guard units, the French were a mixture of drilled and elite), we were allowed to set up to our own designs, also warned about the town being very important and that the road at the rear of our lines was important (which we seemed to ignore for some reason, I blame Postie as he was technically in charge).
We were unaware whether the river was fordable or not (as was the French player we found out) so we deployed for battle.....

The initial table as first seen to the Alliance forces with the French to be seen in the distance...

Our initial set up, Postie on the far right and myself on the left.......

My Dutch horse, blade class for once.....

My British horse supporting the line.....

This was as far as we could set up from the bridge.....

We sprinted forward to defend the bridge......

Richard starts his advance (this was hard as his main leader had been classed as a plodder and his second in command was classed as skillful!)......

We arrive and set our status to defend (+1 to firing was all we cared for).....

The plodding advance (having a plodding leader in charge and some awful dice rolls affected Richard badly at the time, you can end up not moving anything or very little).......

Then the French appeared in our rear...where we should have been waiting and watching!

As you see we were looking the wrong way!

But some plodding rolls for poor Richard and aggressive manoeuvring and swearing from myself we got things turned around at least to face them (Richard was hell bent on reaching the town)....

The French on the road, the walls and hedges while been lovely were a nightmare for getting off the road, his artillery couldn't cross at all.....

The plodding leader base...beautiful though!

A view from the French side......

Caught a lot of his cavalry in the flank....

....with the desired effect! (Cue maniacal laughter)

The main assault eventually arrives (the dice gods really had anally invaded him this day)....

Move it, quicker, faster my pretties....... 

The last of the French rear attack meets his end.....

The assault with attached French main leader by this stage (we think Richard wanted him dead as he could then switch to his skillful leader but it wasn't for the lack of trying on our part either but he survived).....

....but the unit didn't and the French conceded, this was influenced by the French unit on the left finding out the river couldn't be forded due to heavy rain in the mountains......

Winner, winner, chicken dinner and another win for the Roll of Fame, as you know when I last played these rules for the first time I didn't like him but they're not too bad a second time around especially deploying yourself at the start of the game.....and the win helped as well!

Ray has whined at me all morning that I have to LINK back to his initial batrep and for the sake of my diminishing sanity and world peace I have!

I'm the good one........

15mm Nine Years War Game using Beneath the Lily Banners Rules.

Ray and Richard invited myself and Postie to a practise Nine Years War game using the "Beneath the Lily Banners" rules they're using for the period/project they are doing between them!

Now I've been mildly criticised by Ray and Richard for not expressing undying love for these rules, I know little of the period as it's the first time I've played NYW, the figures were beautiful, my dice rolling was not, I thought the rules were unduly harsh (routing and disordering) or not harsh enough (shooting after the first firing) but in other ways they were good with the command and control quite well done and made you think a lot.

 I was told that they (the rules) were correct for the period and the most accurate but after one game it's not accuracy that always interests me it's enjoyment and a bit of fun!

Also the first picture may have had some bearing on the game and my awful morale and firing dice rolling (awful just awful!)

Anyway some nice eye candy as Ray and Richard have painted some beautiful miniatures!

Postie bought us a Chinese dinner before the game and there was so much that even Ray brought it to work the next day, we were all stuffed like baby dragons??????

The initial set up with the British forces (Ray and myself) nearest......

Really lovely figures and units......

The bridge which had to be defended and no French unit could cross......

Richards (and Posties) French forces.......

Richard is a very good but time steady painter......

All units had a card like this for troop quality, casualties, morale and firing!

French infantry, 18 figures plus 3 pike at the back.....

Ready to go!

On your marks!

This one of Richards beautiful command stands....

.....and another!

We're off into the disaster that was the British cavalry versus better quality French..... 

Wallop!

Overall birds eye view!

The ongoing melee allows other units to join, this the boys told me had never happened before!

This is my poor boys running away.........disorderd and routing!

The infantry get ready for an exchange of musketry fire!

There was a lot of musketry and cannon fire!

This is the sheet that you use to give your units specific orders by rolling for how much percentage control you have.......

I foolishly try another cavalry charge....

The infantry clash......we put our elites at the back unlike Richard!

Postie still feeling the effects of dinner!

Our infantry heading back towards our lines......the game ended here and we went off for a cup of tea!

As I said the rules didn't rock my boat but Fire and Fury rules still don't either but I'll eagerly play another game of fecking ACW with them as I would with these after learning what not to do (thanks Ray) but great eye candy, company and food on the night!

Have a good weekend if you can?