Wednesday 7th August.
Tonight's rip roaring one sided game saw us back in the early 20th century with a delve into the Russo-Japanese war with a four sided game and a stack of figures.The Russo-Japanese war is one of Colin Jack's fav periods and he didn't let himself down as he produced yet again another scrumptious table for us to fight over.
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| Little Korean village. |
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| The two Japanese commanders-One very good,the other not so good. |
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| Russian gun debating what to miss. |
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| "Banzai!" |
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| Typical Russian disorganisation. |
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| Flattering to deceive. |
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| Not as easy as it looked. |
Colin's original plan was for five of us to be scrapping whilst he adjudicated but alas due to flooded roads and other trivial excuses it was down to only four of us but that didn't stop us from having a great evening.The table was set up for our arrival so we got stuck right in with Mr Ray taking up the reins of the Russians with Colin and myself ably guiding the Japanese forces of right.Andrew Easson joined us during our sojourn to the Garvald Inn for our customary pizza washed down by a pint of foaming ale.
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| The Russian hordes. |
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| Andrew's cavalry mustering. |
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| My second squad also with a samurai clad officer. |
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| The loneliness of leadership. |
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| "Banzai 2" |
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| "Don't I look smart?"(in Japanese) |
My plan was to charge straight to the top of the Russian garrisoned hilltop and scatter the defenders to the four winds and basically that's how it turned out.We were using the Bonnie Blue Flag rules which are pretty easy to pick up the only original part being that the defender rolls for attacks instead of the attacker with the results coming in the form of percentages.
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| Backing up the first squad. |
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| Russian squad sneaking up on Colin. |
We had first go due to winning the initiative dice roll and headed straight towards the objective in typical Japanese style, samurai clad officers to the fore.Ray's Russians as in the real war weren't exactly the most experienced so began to waver right from the start.
There was only one route for me up the hill so up my first squad went ably covered by my artillery piece keeping the heads of the Russian gunners down.
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| "Somewhere My Love!" |
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| With a little help from my friends. |
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| Beat that drum! |
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| Charging up the hill. |
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| "Into them!"(in Japanese) |
Colin meanwhile was sending his squads up the other side of the hill even although his machine gun decided to retreat a few metres albeit only for one turn.I did question why his cavalry were hanging back but since he had written the scenario he knew that Cossacks could appear anywhere.
Pizza break was announced and so we trooped off to the local for a refreshing ale and a homemade pizza.We were joined by Andrew Easson and after finishing the pizzas we headed back to continue the game.Andrew took charge of the forces in front of me and was ready to push the invading Japanese back into the sea.Well that idea was immediately shot down as the only consistency Andrew could come up with was bad dice rolls.Colin was making excellent headway on the other flank as he had a Russian unit heading for the hills straight after the restart.
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| The Cossacks arrive |
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| Pushing my sailors back. |
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| The stramash on the bridge. |
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| The result. |
Andrew at last had a piece of luck and was rewarded with the arrival of Cossack cavalry behind the Japanese lines and he was left with a choice of targets.He chose my sailor squad and charged into their rear.Could this be the turning point?Nope!All that happened was that my sailors retreated across the bridge and turned to face the cavalry.His cavalry were now stuck in no mans land with potential attackers on all sides including the newly arrived Japanese cavalry.
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| Wheeling and dealing. |
To add to Andrew’s grief my infantry went charging in to his infantry and sent them reeling and the next turn my lads wheeled into the next Russian squad sending them the same way as the previous squad.To add to his misery my second squad done away with his artillery.The icing on the Japanese cake was provided by the disappearance of his Cossack cavalry .
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| The end is nigh! |
The game was over as Colin’s lads had reached the top of the hill doing away a Russian squad on the way and the end was nigh for the Russian Empire at least for the evening.
Great game especially for the Japanese player-not so good for the Russians.
All the figures,scenery and scenario provided from Colin’s vast collection.
Hopefully having a nice silly game next week.Watch this space!
