September 1918 : Great War Spearhead Game

Apparently I have the ability to kill my own troops no matter what side  I am on!  Earlier this week I enjoyed another game of Great War Spearhead.  This time its was september 1918. My command was a regiment of German troops, one of two the other being commanded by Alan. 

In the starting position. 

The game started and went ten rounds of revolving door manoeuvre as I chased  Mark and Martin's British around the table. It all began to go wrong once I issued new orders after taking my objective of the town in the centre of the board. Rather than skirting the enemy position and forcing him to disperse his and spread his line. I marched up the centre only to be met by an artillery barrage which knocked the stuffing out of the regiment. By the then there was nothing for it bur to hunker down in the road side ditch and wait for the British guns to run out of ammo.  

My unit taking the village objective. 

I had one opportunity to recover the situation. When Alan's regiment charged to recover the hill it forced Martin and Mark to open fire and expose their positions. At this juncture I rolled to call in artillery support on to the clustered British regiment. Naturally enough  I rolled a one and failed to muster any support. Thereby giving the British the option to fire again wiping out the remainder of Alan's brave boys. Shortly after we conceded the field to the British. 

The British flanking move on Alan's regiment. 

My regiment advancing on British positions.

Spearhead is a robust simple set of rules which after three games  I am getting used to. Looking forward to the next outing. 

The remainder of the regiment hunkered down. 

Romans Vs Ancient British

Last week my early Imperial Romans got a run out against Alan's Ancient British. This was the second time these two armies met. The first encounter was back in August and Alan won convincingly routing my army with some good use of his mobile army.

This time with the rematch he showed up with an even more mobile army comprising of chariots light horse and light foot. I won the initiative and opted for a developed battlefield. Placing down some enclosed fields and a village to break up the open ground which might favour battle groups of chariots to come hammering across causing mayhem.

The placement of terrain 

In the set up both Alan and I placed ambush markers on the gentle hill to my left. His was a fake but mine was real.  Once his light foot advanced they discovered an average legion waiting to get shot at. I needed to get the hill so he could not deploy his chariots on it providing them with a clear run down to my legions.  The obvious flaw in this was they where isolated. What was worse Alan’s light archers managed to disrupt my legion forcing them to charge and isolate themselves even further. Naturally, he evaded long and I charged normal so I failed to hit him in the back with my legion, resulting in even more isolated the legion on  right flank. This quickly degenerated into a foot race to support the legion before they got mullered. This I nearly achieved, nevertheless, the legion was soon dispatched in smart order by Alan's chariots.

Attempting to get support to the isolated legion 

On the left flank I took a similar gamble.  My cavalry was out numbered 3 - 1 by two bases of light horse and one of chariots. I needed to break the light horse and send them off the side of the base. And then with any luck I could draw the chariots on to my light bolt shooters. Again this whole plan depended on the luck of the dice since I expected Alan’s light horse to evade. I need to roll long in pursuit and have him roll short so I could charge him in the rear an hopefully route him off the table. Alias he rolled long and I rolled normal. Resulting in my cavalry isolated and in a spot of bother!!

In the background; my cavalry preparing to charge Alan's light horse 

This leaves me with a third loss out of three games in recent months. In fact, I suspect my legionnaires  might ask me to put them on ebay!!

Photo credits Alan