Historic Battles – two firsts

I like to play a game which attempts to recreate an historic battle.  They are usually a fair bit of work to organise so I don’t do them as often as I would like.  However both of my last two Monday night games at the Falkirk Club have fallen under this category, with not only my first ‘historic battle’ air game but also my first ‘historic battle’ naval game.

This Monday gone was the Battle of Ortegal, a set to between British and French squadrons in the aftermath of Trafalgar.  Four ships of the line were making a dash for a friendly port and were intercepted by four British ships of the line with some frigates in support.  Myself and Doug took the French and Kevan and Mark the British.  In the terms of the Kiss Me Hardy rules we were sans culottes and they were jolly jack Tars.

John, who had organised the game, evened things up a bit by giving the French crews a higher rating than he might but all to no avail.  Kevan skilfully used a frigate to slow us down (even if he did eventually have to strike) and Mark kept his ships together to give us a pounding.  Three of the French ships were attempting a slow exit when British reinforcements led by Chuck arrived and pretty much finished us off.

All in all an enjoyable game.   We were probably outplayed but the fall of the cards (typical TFL mechanism) was certainly cruel.  Very much an historical result.

A week earlier Doug had brought along CY6 Jet Age for another Indian Pakistan set to.  This was a scenario form the book entitled ‘Stake Through The Heart’.  It recreated the action on 1^st September 1965 over Kashmir.  The Indian army was in danger of being overrun by Pakistani tanks.  In desperation the Indians threw in some elderly Vampires to try and throw them back. The first wave got through but the second was intercepted by Pakistani Sabres (we used Mig 19s).

Doug took the Indians and launched a successful attack knocking out two tanks.  As the Pakistanis pounced some unlucky throwing of one’s meant that 3  of their opponents were unable to jettison their rockets which both slowed them and made them less manoeuvrable,

The superiority of the Pakistani aircraft soon told with 2 vampires biting the dust early on.  The air to air defences then came into play.  Not being able to distinguish friend from foe they let rip at the nearest aircraft.  A Mig 19 was hit by a burst of fire from one of the Vampire’s but then almost immediately had to jink heavily to evade ground fire (from his own side) and tore his wings off.

The outclassed Vampires broke for home but both were brought down, the last by a lucky long range shot.  All four Indian pilots were killed but the Pakistani pilot managed to bail out successfully.  When victory points were totalled up it was a dead draw with the early brewing up of the Pakistani tanks as well as the downing of the Mig 19 offsetting the loss of the 4 Vampires.

Two great games – thanks to Doug and John for organising them.  Both games I am keen to play again in 2013.