Framlingham 2016 – Day One

Another LAW gathering. This time in Framlingham, Suffolk (again) and ably organised by Tim Hall. Ten of us gathered for a most excellent weekend of gaming. Day One, Saturday, saw The Two Tim’s hosting a 54mm FIW game using Tim H’s lovely collection.

It did, as ever look excellent. I believe the game was played twice with the victory shared.

The other six of us (Gary, Alex, Dave, Simon, Peeler and myself) partook of a large DBN game of Vitoria. I’ve played DBN a couple of times before and rather enjoyed it. I do have this minor craving to do the bases using 3mm figures rather than 15mm but I have to concur that once the game is underway the scale of figures becomes irrelevant. The rules give a good, fast moving game that FEELS like a battle.

The French were deployed historically, myself taking the role of Gazan. Peeler was overall CinC and Simon took the role of Reille(?). The decision was really how long to try and hold Wellington/Hill on the left before the bridges were forced to the North.

I tried to pull back gracefully but the dice were not kind and my sacrificial units, although fully embracing their sacrifice role, died a little too quickly!

Rather carelessly (and assuming a modicum of honourable behaviour from the British) I left Gazan a little exposed while cordinating the withrawal and a battery of horse artillery rode up and poured canister into the poor chap!

This rather impeded my plans and allowed the British to push forward. I still managed to get my troops back to the designated line of resistance.

However this was not without cost….

Meanwhile, Peeler and Simon were battling valiantly to defend the bridges and although inflicting heavy losses the crossings were forced.

The game was to last 22 turns and in that time the loss of 22 French stands would spell defeat. Come turn 20 a sequence of rather bad rolls by Peeler saw a quick succession of losses. This was to prove too much on top of the losses of Gazan’s Corps and victory went to the Allies despite the French being well placed for a last stand!

It was good fun. I did roll a lot of 1s and lost a lot of combats that should have lasted a turn or two more. But in the end, the excessive losses from the retreat, and the loss of Gazan was the decider. So close…

Thanks go to Alex for the scenario and ‘running’ the game and to Peeler for creating the excellent table! An excellent day! All the pictures are in this gallery: Framlingham Day 1