Russo-Japanese War AAR, Battle of Tawan 1904 or........

.......if I owned Posties shed on that day and Hell, I'd live in Hell and rent out Posties shed!

The Retards Rejects met up a few weeks ago for a game in Posties shed (to be called Hell during summer gaming) and I forgot to do my report after the blog whores BigLee and Ray did their AAR's, so after Postie nagged Ray and then Ray nagged me, here we go then.......

I was lucky and picked myself as c/o of the Japanese forces and picked the position at the doorway to the shed and fecking remained there all day trying to survive in a light breeze, there was a paddling pool in Rays garden that I frequented quite a bit and then there was some fecking about with a garden hose but I digress...........

1st Japanese army under the command of Gen Kuroki has orders to meet up with the 2nd and 4th armies south of Liaoyang a major town in the area and defended by a large (not large enough!) Russian army. To make matters worse the 1st army has been engaged in fighting a retreating Russian army, the main part of the Russian force has reinforced Liaoyang, but a substantial part has dug in to await the arrival of the Japanese 1st army, just outside the village of Tawan,south east of Liaoyang. The Japanese commander must attack the Russian positions as soon as possible and must not waste time.
Meanwhile the Russian commander Lt-Gen Slutshevski (what a great name) of the 10th European Army Corps must hold his position at all costs, if the Japanese 1st army cannot make the rendezvous the two armies will be seriously outnumbered and defeated and the way will be open to relive Port Arthur.

The Russians: Ray, Dave and John.........

The Russian redoubts, all troops are prone in the trenches, artillery is in reserve, all infantry and cavalry reserves are hidden behind these redoubts as well.............

The Japanese: Surjit, BigLee, Postie (contractual shot) and the rarely seen Ian.........

All that lovely blue...........

......and cavalry..........the one is the dice roll required for where reinforcements might and with Postie that's never a certainty.........

Preparing for the assault...........

Ready, ready........

The Russians looking and appearing confident........

How can we fail.........

BigLee been disciplined for his potty mouth...........

Russian artillery begins to appear, these bunkers were close topped, the Russians were slow to this initially but wised up and they had a lot of hit points and only vulnerable to shell.......

We advance.........

Russian artillery starts to cause problems (white dice starting to show)........

Great flags.............

Ray was farting all day and even offended himself........

BigLee has now shed a t-shirt and is starting get a little fruity, Ian never saw it coming.......

The Japanese guard turn up, good morale but nothing else compared to line infantry........

BigLee...when told that the last t-shirt had to stay on..........

The Russian artillery was good but the Japanese artillery was frightening, we were so lucky with dice rolls, the Russian players actually wanted to concede at lunch, shocking cowardice........

My cavalry which survived the battle intact, machine gun bringing up the rear as well.......

Aerial view from my balloon........

Getting ready for the assault, Russian fire had not been effective due to losing artillery early and infantry still prone in their trenches.........

Then Postie said we had walked into a mine field, this was Postie feeling sorry for the fecking Russians, Ray never stopped whining (he was offered a lot of cheese throughout the game to go with his whining, geddit?), the mines were the most effective item on the Russian side........... 

Russian artillery reinforcements turn up and remain behind the hills..........

Japanese artillery trying to counter battery fire.........

BigLee sweating like a page 3 photographer............

An untouched redoubt, we focused our attack on 2 of the 4 redoubts to concentrate our forces.......

They still had a lot of stuff left, cavalry and infantry abound.........

Their right hand redoubt........

.......their left hand redoubt before our assault and then they conceded but we thought they were still a viable force, troops still remained in reserve but Ray convinced the other Russians to concede and the Japanese won the day!!!!!!

Good game for the Japanese but gaming in the heat and Posties shed barbecuing Reject crackers is a tough day but not if you have access to a decent paddling pool................

Going into work tonight on another training shift but it's fecking hot today and reminded me of the game!