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 WW1 "Battle of Peronne" Battle Report Part 2.

At the beginning of each turn you also had to roll for who got to go first or second, the British got a +1 each turn to the dice roll because they were attacking (I won 2 of 16 turns!).

Remember the name......

I started emptying the dugouts, the H token represents special tank busting grenades (3 grenades strapped together).

The first tank (French) to approach the wire.....

Infantry racing along the lines, safe from fire as long as they didn't get up on the firing steps...

A captured Mk IV male tank approaches from the village, this is how the Germans countered the allied tanks by capturing any allied tanks they could....

The view from the trenches....

You had to roll to cross the trenches, don't roll high and cue the maniacal laughter.....

The facine this tank is carrying is to fill the gap in the trenches and there are no more trench rolls and access is easier....

My captured tank makes a short appearance, not getting to go first was a chore at times....

The attrition rate for the allies was mounting.....

A close up of a St Chamond French tank....

Every turn you rolled for duds among your off table artillery and you discarded a dice...

This is a bloody lot of duds, the German war machine was suffering....

More maniacal laughter as more tanks break down or are blown up....

2 French tanks (a Schneider and a Renault F17) try the flank and pay the price....

Willy makes it across the wire.....this brought the first and only morale check which I passed!

A Schneider ditches in the trenches, these tanks were dealt with by the infantry with flamethrowers and hand grenades....

Willy is close to the edge.....

I threw everything into the area, I was willing to sacrifice everything to destroy the last British tank...

Another view of the carnage.....

Regardless of all the dice I threw in the last turns (8 attempts at a 5 or 6 on a D6 and even with some Elvis dice rolling) came to nothing as the last of 21 allied tanks limped off the board, It had virtually no crew or officers left but to no avail as the allies scraped the victory....

The winners and their award, smug lucky gits......

WW1 15mm Battle Report "Battle of Peronne" 1st Sept 1918 Part 1 of 2.

"This is a battle that could probably have been fought, as this town was held by the Germans as the British 4th army and French 1st army attacked the Germans at the Somme on the 1st Sept 1918.
The battle has been raging for several hours in the German forward trenches with the German withdrawing after suffering severe losses. All that remains in the area to stop the British and French advance are some reserve German troops who have been resting from front line duty in the reserve trenches.
These troops are now the front line and must halt the advancing enemy forces heading towards them. The British and French tanks are from reserves rushed forward to exploit the breakthrough and have only one mission (Destroy the Germans!).
Can the Germans hold back this fresh mechanised army or are they doomed?"
(Words kindly supplied by Postie)

On Saturday 3 Rejects turned up for this WW1 game put on by Postie, there was John, Surjit and myself, I was the German player defending a massive trench against a combined French and British tank army played by the other two boys.

British: 4 MK IV Male Tanks (2 facines), 5 MK IV Female Tanks (I facine), 3 Whippet Tanks, 1 field gun and horse team, 4 heavy field gun batteries (off table) and a unit of trench raiders. Surjit.

French: 3 Char St Chamond Tanks, 3 Char Schneider Tanks, 3 Char Renault 17 Tanks. John.

German: 3 Battalions of Infantry, 3 HMG's, 3 LMG's, 2 trench mortars, 1 flamethrower, 1 field gun and horse team, 1 A7V tank, 1 Division command stand, 1 Brigade command stand, 6 dugouts, 2 bunkers (1 with a HMG and 1 with a field gun, 5 heavy field gun batteries (off table).

The allied mission was to get 1 tank across the trench and cause a morale check and if I failed I surrendered or get one off table and I automatically surrendered.

21 allied tanks started their engines.....

The initial set up of 8 foot by 4 foot of no man's land...

The town of Peronne, it had seen better days....

The dugouts are represented this way and a list of what's in them is held by the player but one hit will kill all occupants.......

The starting line......

MK IV Male "Black Prince", nearly all tanks were named by their crews.....

3 Whippets and like their name bloody fast.....

The French starting line.......

You had to pre book your off table artillery and roll a 5 or 6 at the beginning of a turn to change it, this pre booking had bad consequences sometimes if you didn't change it...

I kept a lot in the dugouts from previous experience of the rules.....

The first turn and 3 tanks have failed their reliability tests (denoted by a black marker) and are allowed no further movement but can fire their main guns and another has felt the impact of a  German shell, 4 down and seventeen to go!

This is how we denote off table artillery, you roll for duds (don't throw a 1 on a D6) and then roll 5 D10s and the grid number corresponds to the dice number and you get smashed on a 5 or a 6 on a D6....

The French Renault 17, fast French bugger.....

This French St Charmond monster has failed the other test that occurs on even turns which is ditching, the dice denotes 2 turns of no moving, if you want to move a tank you roll two D6 and don't roll high....

More pictures and the conclusion of a bloody close game tomorrow.....