Steam Punk Battle, Hermany Versus Blusia

 Hermany's Army Black has invaded Blusia and threatens the town of Champignon.

BLUSIAN FORCES: Six infantry regiments, including two elite BFL and a zouave one, two cavalry, including heavy elite cuirassiers and light lancers, two super heavy cannons drawn by armored steam tractors, a medium gun and a light gun. The general and his two staff were mounted. Two infantry units and two cavalry were in reserve to come from off table.

HERMAN FORCES: Five infantry regiments, including Guard unit and Rifle unit, two lancer regiments, machine gun team, one heavy cannon, one steam walker with medium cannon, submarine. The cavalry and one infantry unit were in reserve. The general and staff are on foot.

  A Herman submarine appears in the harbor. It is armed with torpedoes and a Gattling.

 A  Blusian super heavy lines up the Herman steam walker.

                                                            The Blusian army:

                      The Herman walker advances:

  Blusian columns attack the Herman right flank after initial screening advances by zouave and Blusian Foreign Legion skirmishers.

Blusian skirmishers on Pleasant Hill suffered from machine gun and rifle fire. The unit had to withdraw.

Super heavy lines up the walker

                                                  Blusian super heavy lines up the walker:

 Blusian infantry advance into the wood on its right flank.

  The walker takes multiple hits, primarily from the Blusian rapid firing light artillery. It falls in a creaking heap.

Herman infantry and cavalry move to meet the attack on their right flank.

     A super heavy shell lands in their midst, nearly wiping out the infantry killing all the artillery piece crew and killing some cavalry.

  Earlier the Blusian Foreign Legion ad withstood a shell from the walker. Their open formation limited the damage.

  Blusian zouave skirmishers exchange fire with Herman elite Guard skirmishers in the wood.

CONCLUSION

The matchstick firing guns initially lacked promise. It was beginning to look like the walker had a force field as shells passed over its head, to its side and between its legs! However, its reckless advance up the road ended in its destruction. On the other hand, it protected other Herman forces from further damage as line of sight was blocked by its wreckage.

 For the first part of the game Blusian forces suffered high casualties due to the careful positioning of Herman units to concentrate fire from rifles and machineguns. The Hermans also knocked out the crews from a super heavy and a medium gun. Then the Blusian light and remaining super heavy guns did some tremendous damage. The Herman heavy gun was destroyed before it could do harm.

  Herman cavalry, although held back, were decimated by rifle and artillery fire and played little role in the battle. Some firing, with carbines, from horseback killed a small number of the enemy.

 The submarine suffered a loss of two hull points but did some excellent service in clearing Pleasant Hill.

 The Herman infantry forces advanced, mostly unopposed, along one side of the harbor.

  The Herman Guard infantry in the wood next to the road kept up an effective fire in reducing the advancing skirmishers to their right.

  In the closing hours of the battle the Blusian cavalry columns emerged from a bottle neck to drive Herman infantry before them. Other Herman infantry was redirected to meet the threat. At that point the dice gods ended the game after 12 moves.

  We had each suffered the same number of lost units but with Blusian man-power loss somewhat greater than Herman. Both sides were disputing a table quarter, leaving one each in their hands. Neither side attempted to take the gas cylinder but if I had not moved my guard infantry to leave line of sight for the sub and had instead moved forward, I could have got it! Ah, hindsight! The battle was declared a draw.

FIGURES AND VEHICLES

Armies in Plastic provide the backbone of the armies but also other brands including Britains, Cafe Storm, Hat and Timpo. The steam walker was a Star Wars one with new gun and smoke stack spare frm an Ork Gargant (I think). The steam tractors are conversions from modern made tin-plate and a Thomas the Tank Engine.

RULES

We used a slightly modified version of Funny Little Wars by Paul Wright. I added some custom rules for the steam walker and sub. The sub was only allowed to pivot on the spot as I did not want to work out where it was in the table access gap (which represented the harbor).

  Lastly, I accidentally uploaded doubles of some pics and did not work out how to remove them without beginning again!

  NEXT GAME

This will be a similar game or the beginning of our Fantasy campaign.

PROJECTS

These include the epic fantasy campaign. Other projects include painting  ElastoWit and other assorted figures and making resin figures from gelatin molds. When I get my camera, any day now, I'll take some photos. Photos for the game were taken from Mat's smart phone. One of my resin projects is making modified copies from Lone Star Royal Marines. They are to some extent fantasy marines as they have battlefield equipment combined with ceremonial uniform. That is fine for me because I have fond childhood memories of playing games with them battling Timpo cowboys on my friend Stuart's front veranda. I didn't own any of them until adulthood. Also in progress are various SF and mutant conversions.