Nailing the Colours, Battle of the Vanguards - Kiss Me, Hardy

Last Saturday I spent a very pleasant day running two Kiss Me Hardy games of my scenario 'Nailing the Colours, Battle of the Vanguards' recreating the fight between the Batavian-Dutch and British vanguards at Camperdown.

Devon Wargames Group - Clotted Lard 2024

The Battle of Camperdown was a story of two separate actions, one between the British and Dutch Van Squadrons and the other between the British and Dutch rear squadrons, with the Dutch centre attempting to support both and not really achieving either, thus while the Dutch rearguard was overwhelmed by British numbers and guns, a more equal combat was being contested to the north. 

There the combat was centred around the two flagships, Duncan's Venerable engaging De Winter's Vrijheid eighteen minutes after Monarch broke the line to the south which saw a separate fight take place between the opposing ships that lasted about an hour until reinforcements from Onslow's squadron, Director 64-guns, Powerful 74-guns and Veteran 64-guns joined Duncan's ships to seal the British victory.

The highlighted portion of this view of the battle just before it commenced indicates the portion of the Battle of Camperdown, Nailing the Colours represents

At the height of the combat, the colours and signal flags on Venerable were brought down by cannon fire. To ensure that there was no suggestion that the flagship had surrendered, a sailor named Jack Crawford scrambled to the top of the mainmast and replaced them as the battle raged beneath him. 

The battle between the British and Dutch flagships, Venerable and Vrijheid as depicted by Thomas Whitcombe, with the latter about to become dismasted in this exchange of fire.

Casualties in the battle were very heavy on both sides, attributed to the Dutch tactics, mirrored by the British, of firing at the enemy hulls rather than attempting to disable their masts and rigging as with other continental navies, with the worst hit of the British ships being Ardent 64-guns with 148 casualties, and Belliqueux 64-guns under Cpt John Inglis with 103 casualties.

In total, British losses were recorded, depending on your sources, after the battle as somewhere between 203 to 228 killed and 622 and 812 wounded, including 16 of the latter who subsequently died. Many of the British ships were badly damaged, taking on large quantities of water through damaged hulls. One of the worst hit was Venerable, which had to be completely dismantled and reconstructed after returning to Britain before the ship was ready for active service again.

Batavian-Dutch losses were later reported as 540 men killed and 620 wounded, with Vrijheid the worst hit with the loss of almost half of its total complement. Among the losses were Captain Hinxt of Beschermer and Captain Holland of Wassenaar, both of whom were killed early in the battle. Also lost were Captain Van Rossum of Vrijheid, who was struck in the thigh by a cannonball and died shortly afterwards from the effects of the wound. There were also large numbers of wounded among the Batavian-Dutch fleet, including Rear-Admiral Story.

Admiral Duncan receiving the surrender from Vice-admiral De Winter at Camperdown - Daniel-Orme

One of the few Dutch officers to escape injury or death was De Winter himself, who later commented

"It is a matter of marvel that two such gigantic objects as Admiral Duncan and myself should have escaped the general carnage of this day."

The scenario focusses on the attack by the British Vanguard under Admiral Adam Duncan before the arrival of elements of the British leeward division under Vice Admiral Onslow after they having quickly overwhelmed the Batavian rear and driven off the centre.

The table set-up as depicted in the table plan, with the Batavian van in battle-line spaced 9cm between their bases and their light ships looking to cover the gaps.

Camperdown like Trafalgar offers itself up to being broken down into separate actions that are squadron on squadron fights within the context of the larger battle, and if so inclined this scenario could easily be extended through to the arrival of the three British reinforcements should players have the time to fight it to that point.

Admiral Duncan's British squadron are set up in their line of bearing each aiming for a gap in the Batavian line having been signalled ten minutes earlier to break the enemy line and to engage closely.

That said I was content to play this in its basic format to play test the concept and learn any changes that would improve things, such as bringing the British closer in the second game and moving the Batavian line closer to the centre of the table thus shortening the British approach to bring on the fighting more quickly and to allow the Batavian's more room to manoeuvre to deal with British ships breaking in among their two lines.

The table all set up for our game at Clotted Lard - Let battle commence

The Batavian ships are rated as Sans Culottes in KMH, the usual rating for French, but their tactics were somewhat dissimilar from the French as described in the accounts above in that they preferred to reserve their fire to medium range or closer, concentrating on hitting the enemy hulls rather that attacking their rigging, a point noted by British observers who had been on the receiving end and the casualties it caused, quite unlike battles with the French or Spanish.

The example of the ship record card for the Batavian flagship Vrijheid rates them as Elite Sans Culottes, gaining the extra dice, but no additions for long and extreme range rigging shots

To better model the Batavian tactics, I removed the rigging shot bonus dice added to Sans Culottes crews and raised all the Batavian squadron, except Vrijheid, to elite for firing but, again excepting Vrijheid, to average for all other occasions such as sailing and morale.

The Vrijheid, already being an elite ship, didn't gain from the change but given her flagship status and the more robust morale rating that implies already makes her less likely to succumb to British firing than other ships within her squadron, and better able to stay in the fight as she did historically whilst also very capable of dishing out a lot of hurt to any British ship that comes alongside.

The British van squadron are ready to advance.

The two games were quite different in that in the first game the British got the rub of the chit draw often managing to get their fire chit out first and before their movement whilst also succeeding in getting slightly over half their ships to break through the enemy line and issuing raking fire as they did so.

In the opening exchanges of our first game, extraordinarily, the Venerable has failed to break the Batavian line and has turned away to begin a short range exchange of broadsides with Rear-admiral Story's Staten Generaal. Closest to camera the 74-gun Triumph opens up with bow-chasers on the 64-gun Wassenaer.

However this British success was offset by an unfortunate roll for 'Getting Choppy' that was later reversed but that caused these successful British attacks to be reduced to partial broadsides and thus much less damaging than they might have otherwise been.

Similarly the choppy waters didn't do the Batavians any favours, with their fire to leeward already reduced to partial, recreating the comments of many of their captains reporting that the conditions forced them to close their gunports on that side, perhaps related to their ships being of much shallower draft, but with the choppy rolling conditions rolled for further reducing their firing to partial, partial broadsides.

The typical rolling attack of a British breaking the line manoeuvre in line of bearing pinning any attempts for forward units to wear and come around in support of those behind.

We only had a morning and afternoon session to play each game and with firing reduced, the battle in the first game was going in favour of the British but more likely after a much more prolonged fight than might otherwise have been. Knowing what I know now, I might leave 'Getting Choppy' out of the chit draw if time to play is limited.

The Wassenaer has her angle of broadside template out to assess when to open fire on the approaching Triumph.

In the afternoon game the chit draw was not so kind to the British and they to managed to get choppy conditions, but this was coupled with an inability to combine their movement and firing into raking passes, later inclining their command to attempt to close, to board opposing Batavian ships, that had not been adequately softened up with broadsides, and not unsurprisingly seeing British boarding parties driven back by stalwart Batavian crews.

Further along the line the first British ships have broken through and are engaging to leeward whilst also returning the salute from the smaller Batavian ships.

A fire has broken out aboard the British flagship Venerable, that was extinguished in the next turn

That said despite the problems imposed on the gunnery attacks by the weather, KMH still produced its drama with the odd fire breaking out here and there and several high officer casualties suffered that would eventually cause a successful strike test to result on one Batavian ship of the line.

Venerable, extreme right is in the thick of the battle with Staten Generaal, now having put out an earlier fire but dealing with a shot away helm as the 'Out of Control' marker suggests.

Even some of the Batavian frigates corvettes, and brigs opened fire as the British broke in among their lines, and were in the main saved by the choppy conditions.

The Lancaster 64-guns, Isis 50-guns and Belliqueux 64-guns, bear down on the Batavian line having successfully rolled to break it and pass through to leeward.

These battles within a battle make for great ways of exploring these historical actions and make for great club games for several players to take commands within each group of opposing ships, and I will likely take this one along to club and attach a copy of the briefing I prepared in the wake of Clotted Lard adding the alterations based on that play test, together with the ship record cards for printing out to get playing straight away, provided you have your models ready to go.

There is a link below for the scenario PDF.

JJ's Wargames - Kiss Me Hardy Scenario, Nailing the Colours

In terms of victory conditions, I include the usual break-off rules to assess win or loss, but in the actual fight, the Batavians put up strong resistance with the flagship Vrijheid fighting for about an hour and losing several masts in the process, only striking with the arrival of the British reinforcements relatively fresh from their fight with the Batavian rear.

If you translate the approximate time scale of KMH to two minutes per move this equates to thirty turns, however I tend to work with a four minute battle time scale, incorporating ideas about a sliding time scale based on varying winds and ship movements that averages the move time to about a four minute move.

If you have the luxury of fighting over a longer time, then I would work to fifteen turns as a maximum scenario length in which time it is assumed the British reinforcements have arrived. If the Batavians are still fighting with no break-off inflicted then they have matched De Winter's result and a game victory, if they have caused a British ship to strike and are still fighting that should equate to an outright victory otherwise the British should be accorded the win at their end of the line, probably after a hard fight if history is anything to go by.

As a postscript I only had one battle damage casualty from our two games, my little 32-gun Batavian frigate Heldin.

The 32-gun fifth rate Heldin undergoing repairs in the riggers yard following Clotted Lard

The loss of the fore jib resulted in the model being manoeuvred by holding the bowsprit and causing the stay to break. Nothing to worry about as these are wargaming models not museum pieces.

'Ship-Shape' and 'Bristol-Fashion'

I've run lots of games now with these models, and generally they prove very robust to handling, and like their historical counterparts are amenable to repair to rigging as required as seen here twenty-four hours later and ready for the NWS meeting at the FAA Museum, Yeovilton next Saturday, and, as they say 'the show goes on'.

I'm off on my travels again soon and this coming weekend in the next run-out for the Camperdown Collection we will have the whole thing out on the table as we prepare to play The Battle of Camperdown with all fifty models at the NWS Meeting at the Fleet Air Arm Museum, Yeovilton, this time using David Manley's rules, 'Far Distant Ships', so if you fancy a day out seeing the fantastic collection and displays in the museum, your access will also enable you to come along and see the naval wargames on show as well.

As always I will post an AAR with plenty of pictures of the day together with a look at the other naval games on show.

Plus I will be looking back to this time last year and my Bantry Bay scenario with another post looking at the Bantry Bay cannons at Cardiff Castle, courtesy of Ollie after Carolyn's and my trip up to the Welsh capital last week to visit her and Will, so more to come here on JJ's.

As always more anon

JJ 

Operation Market Garden Eightieth Anniversary - Lest We Forget

My son Will, pictured next to the monument to Guard's Armoured Division, in Hechtel, Belgium
JJ's Wargames - Hell's Highway, Holland 2017

 

If you are an historical wargamer it likely has not passed your notice that this week marks the eightieth anniversary of the start of Operation Market Garden and the ill-fated Allied drive to Arnhem in the forlorn hope of ending the Second World War in Europe by Christmas 1944.

How often that has been heard in the annals of military history, 'it'll be all over by Christmas' and how many regrets have followed such a bold pronouncement? 

There is not much celebrating registered on Dad's face on the 18th September 1944, as he sits in the drivers hatch of this Sherman OP tank of 55th Field Regiment, amid very happy Dutch residents of Eindhoven celebrating liberation from the Gestapo and Nazi occupation. He had lost good friends in this war, with his CO, Captain Wilfred Good, killed about a week or so before this picture was taken.

The anniversary this week, no doubt prompted by copious email promotions from several military book vendors advertising yet more new tomes analysing the campaign, not to mention numerous encouragements to build a collection for Bolt Action for Arnhem, brought back a lot of personal memories of time spent with my own Dad touring this part of Europe as a lad growing up in the seventies with only a minimal understanding of what experiences my father's generation had gone through; to a more mature me following the route of Guard's Armoured Division with my own family in 2017 as we visited the places so vividly captured by the army photography team that recorded the deadly progress of the Guards along what became known as 'Hell's Highway', for very good reason, via Eindhoven and Nijmegen.

The smouldering remains of knocked-out Guard's Shermans pushed to the side of the road as the advance to Eindhoven presses on.

In an era where modern generations will struggle to be able to tell you what D-Day was and it's implications for the modern world, it was important to me that both my sons had a thorough understanding about what their paternal grandparents went though and indeed a broader understanding of British history in general, so poorly taught in our educative establishments today.

Before and After, Eindhoven 2017 - 1944

Thus our tour from the Belgian border from Joe's Bridge to Eindhoven and later on up to Nijmegen is an experience I know they both recall very well, and our pilgrimage to Leopoldsburg Commonwealth War Cemetery to lay a family poppy and cross at Captain Good's grave emphasised the privilege that we enjoy in Western Europe having been free from war and tyranny for the last eighty years but that vigilance is needed always and the cost can be high when 'Good men do nothing'.

JJ's Wargames - Dear Captain Good

On the anniversary of our visit to Holland, Carolyn and I drove up to Cardiff to stay with Will and his girlfriend Ollie to enjoy some family time, walking, talking and eating, with a thoroughly enjoyable day exploring the coast from Ogmore on Sea to Dunraven Castle, coupled with glorious weather and scenery, and I reminded Will of our trip back then and the picture of his Grandpa taken eighty years previously to the day, and it was really great to pay our own respects to 'The Greatest Generation' as we were able to enjoy such a lovely day together.

Glorious weather out on the coastal path from Ogmore to Dunraven

Next up: I'm off to Clotted Lard this weekend to run a couple of games of Kiss Me, Hardy among other things, so an AAR of events to follow.

More anon

JJ

Colours 2024 - Newbury & Reading Wargames Society, plus a bit of Birthday Reading

Well another year in the hobby is fast approaching its close and my show calendar for 2024 has ended with a trip up to Newbury Racecourse for Colours 2024 in this the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the Newbury & Reading Wargames Society; so with my hat on as Chairman of the Devon Wargames Group, only in our 43rd year, may I extend our congratulations on reaching this significant milestone and here's to the next fifty years.
 

I travelled up from Devon with Steve M who very kindly offered to do the driving this year, to meet up with pals from the DWG, Mr Steve, Steve L and John R, as we enjoyed the delights of Colours, one of the well established shows in the calendar and one I have posted about for several years now, going back to 2013, and looking back at that post, I'm pleased to say my style and technique at post composing has come on a bit since then.

JJ's Wargames - Colours 2013

As I am want to do, I like to get my shows off to a walk around the trading floor to see what's new and grabs my eye, and picking up any pre-orders awaiting my attendance which this year saw me calling in at Pendraken to collect some resupplies from Dave and Lyn Pengilley for my paint stock of Vallejo colours.

https://www.pendraken.co.uk/

Then I popped over to Battlezone Miniatures to sort out my requirements for a few colours from the Coat d'Arms range of paints that they now carry, my old pots not showing their colour code labels, and a bit of colour comparison needed to get the right shades of blue, red and dark grey.

https://www.battlezone-miniatures.co.uk/

Thank you to both for your kind and helpful service.

For a wargamer, there is nothing quite like the anticipation of a new show, and despite fifty years doing them I still feel that excitement about meeting and chatting with traders, game organisers and everybody who shares an interest in this daft hobby which at its heart is a very sociable pastime. 

Given that this was a personal anniversary that I share with show's organising club, I had a certain nostalgia for seeing some rules and games featured that figured very much in my earlier years in the hobby, none more so than Peter Pig and Poor Bloody Infantry I, that I picked up from a show in Weymouth many years ago, or PBI as it became more commonly referred to, with me still having my stapled copy of PBI I in my library as a memento of my first foray into regular WWII gaming.

Part of my WWII collection in action using my rules based on PBI II

I quickly set about using PBI as a format for developing my own set of rules based on them using hex terrain rather than squares, with an example above of an early D-Day Juno Beach game that I ran using them.

So it was with great interest that I stopped amid the Peter Pig inspired games to enjoy chatting to the chaps from the Friends of Peter Pig and their Monte Cassino inspired game which is not an easy type of terrain to represent on the wargame's table, but I thought captured nicely the ruggedness and immensity of it.

The Friends of Peter Pig & Rules for the Common Man - Monte Cassino using PBI 2024

The game was run to demonstrate the latest incarnation of PBI developed this year and I gather intended for imminent publication and although I don't play much WWII these days, I have a great fondness for this innovative set of rules.

It’s interesting to note the games that have changed the way we play wargames over the decades from the IGOUGO style of rules with their copious lists of combat and morale check factors that were the fashion in the 70's and 80's with the introduction of different types of activation rules, pioneered in many ways by the Lardies with 'I Aint Been Shot Mum' and perhaps influenced by board game designs prompting others to nod to the idea of friction with rolling to see which side had precedence of play.

Other innovations have been in the mix and I see Peter Pig with the 'zone-type' of play one of those key influences, in this case squares, but others have used hexes and now we have rules like 'Too the Strongest' and 'Command and Colours', brought to tabletop from a boardgame, very much part of this style of playing.

As well as checking out this game I very much enjoyed watching Martin running through the mechanics of play with his more recent set of rules Conquerors and Kings for Ancients to Medievals with some pike phalanx and hoplite action demonstrating the rules which were very entertaining.

https://www.peterpig.co.uk/rules.html

Wargaming Headquarters - Fallschirmjäger vs US Paras using Rapid Fire Reloaded

Another game that caught my eye, close to the Monte Cassino game and featuring another set of rules I cut my teeth on in my early days in the hobby was this very nicely turned out WWII set-up using Rapid Fire Reloaded.

I remember seeing this style of playing WWII games when visiting Peter Gilder's Holiday Centre back in the late 70's and then building my own armies to these rules.

One of the key aspects of Rapid Fire is their ease of play and the ability for new players to quickly pick up the way they work and was one of the reasons we chose to use this set of rules in a recent 'Big Xmas Game' at the DWG where we had lots of players with differing levels of knowledge about WWII, but all participating in a multi-table game and as expected they worked very well.

A nice looking table with well turned out models only enhances the look of the game Rapid Fire can produce, and this very well done table exemplifies how relatively straight forward it is to produce a table full of eye-candy such as this with a small collection of terrain and figures.

I also loved seeing the rubberised horsehair trees and hedges, pretty well the turn-to option back in the day for games at this scale, which even in these days of multiple terrain choices available, still look very good, and an option I use in my own collection.

The addition of telegraph poles as seen here and perhaps the odd road sign to compliment French advertising boards are an easy way to make a table like this pop. 

Nice game chaps, and well done. I really enjoyed watching the play.

Wargames Association of Reading - Illipa 206 BC using DBMM

This rendition of Illipa from the Second Punic War by the Wargames Association of Reading was an eye-catching table, not just for its imposing length but the the look of the terrain boards that seemed to really suggest an arid Spanish vista, and would work just as well creating a Tunisian one around Carthage itself.

Two large armies arrayed along its length added to the look, and I'm always going to stop for a Punic set-to.

Shepway Wargames - Russo-Finnish Winter War using Chain of Command

I'm always impressed with what folks can do with teddy-bear fur when it comes to terrain, but I can't remember the last time I saw it being used for a snow clad winter look before.

The chaps from the Shepway Wargames had managed to create this rather good snow clad look for their Russo-Finnish Winter War game that really did a great job at suggesting the frozen and bitterly cold battlescape portrayed by the books that had inspired this creation.

Loughton Strike Force - Borodino 1812, The Raevsky Redoubt using General D'Armee 2

I'm always going to stop for a well turned out Napoleonic set-piece and Borodino is just the ticket if you love seeing massed cavalry, infantry columns and big guns holding redoubts.

Not only that but 18mm is one of my favourite scales to see big battalions and regiments portrayed in and I have seen Dave Brown and the Loughton chaps turn out some excellent looking General D'Armee games in previous years and this ranks up there with them.

This table had lots of lovely cameo shots, so needless to say I spent a bit of time enjoying the spectacle.

Blood Red Roses, Game Demonstration - Society of Ancients

Finally, my attention was drawn to the Society of Ancients table, with two very interesting games they had being demonstrated, the first being a new to me map-game entitled 'The Saxon Shore is Burning' that looked very interesting with a lovely map and some very nice counters to match.

Set in 4th century Roman Britain and the Barbarian Conspiracy of 367 A.D, the Romans struggle to fend off a looting and pillaging series of attacks across the province from an alliance of the Scotti of Ireland, Atacotti of Western Scotland, Picti of Eastern Scotland and the Saxoni of Upper Germany/Lower Denmark. At just £15 this game looked very appealing.

However it was the other offering that grabbed my full attention, namely 'Blood Red Roses' written by Adrian Nayler.

 

https://soa.org.uk/joomla/games2/236-blood-red-roses

I had the good fortune to have Adrian talk me through what his creation was all about, and with a large stock of Wars of the Roses Perry miniatures occupying much of my to-do store room I was naturally all ears.

I have to say I was very intrigued with the ideas behind the game and its mechanisms for creating the armies for one-off games or quite readily usable for scenario based ones, as well as the combat system, using a combination of stances adopted by the player commander, Retire, Hold, Advance, Attack, and Assault and cards to influence the success or not of those stances from the ensuing combat, be that shooting, hand to hand or effectively a combination of both.

The rules are scale agnostic, so although 15mm are portrayed here in the demonstration, I can easily use my 28mm in a similar fashion, and finding the SOA chaps had sold out of the copies they had brought to the show, which was a good sign of enthusiasm for them, I ordered the rules when I got home, that come with a set of 72 playing cards, used for mainly generating the armies but that includes 18 x Happenstance cards and 18 x Leadership cards that are used during play, together with the printed rule book and reference card.

https://www.soa.org.uk/joomla/games2/236-blood-red-roses

Additionally copies of the reference sheet, stance counters and the complete card deck can be downloaded from the SOA page in PDF format and Adrian has also created a Board Game Geek page for the game that has additional downloads for playing it together with ideas for multi-player use, this game principally designed for two player use, and the number of companies required to fulfil the maximum size armies that can be generated by the cards.

https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/423716/blood-red-roses-a-game-of-battles-in-the-wars-of-t

It was great to chat with Adrian about his thoughts behind the design of this game and I came away as much enthused by his obvious passion for this project, as for my own ideas for using the rules with games I have in mind, and the basing involved for the armies that will allow me to use Blood Red Roses alongside other rules I have a liking for, plus I think they will work well for some campaign ideas I have in mind.

So there we are, my very personal take on this year's Colours show, which was a thoroughly enjoyable day, in good company and a great way to bring another show season to a close here on JJ's.

Finally, I spent a very pleasant time last weekend celebrating my birthday with friends and family which saw me being gifted with some wonderful books to add to my reading list over the foreseeable months followed by some book reviews here on the blog.

As you can see the current 'All at Sea' theme features large and I have already started delving into the delights of Anson's Navy by Brian Lavery and Sailors, Ships and Sea Fights from Nicholas Kaizer et al and Helion, so more anon with my impressions of these reads to come.

This kind of reading very much underpins my hobby and efforts at trying to better capture the events/aspects they describe in the games I like to play, not to mention that it is just another enjoyable aspect of the hobby.

Anyway that's it for now as thoughts now turn to getting ready for a bit of Kiss Me, Hardy at Clotted Lard next weekend.

More Anon

JJ