The Road to Ledbury

Recently I was unexpectedly given leave by my good lady to go and play toy soldiers. Luckily Giles was free and so we decided to give the Brigadier 38 rules another bashing, including this time the initiative and command points system, where each commander rolls a D6 to see how many orders they can issue per round.

The scenario (quickly knocked up by Giles) of this battalion level game was thus:-

After opening up a route into Ledbury in the battle of Happy Land, the BUF decided to force another passage into the town’s outskirts. King Offa’s Legion was therefore tasked with breaking the local defences.

The layout (Blackshorts at the bottom, LDV at the top)

Advancing diagonally along the board, the Blackshorts had to defeat the MHC / LDV force at the opposite end.

The Blackshorts' starting positions

The fascists quickly advanced up the road and were on top of the LDV before they could react (thanks to some good dice rolls on my part and some not-so-good rolls on Giles’ when it came to the command points).

Quick advance to the centre

The layout of the terrain meant that both sides found themselves funnelled into the centre of the table. An attempt by the LDV to outflank the Blackshorts by a rapid march to a hill on the fascist right was quickly dealt with by the Metropolitan Blackshorts, who, wading through a swamp, opened fire on the exposed militia, driving them back.

LDV flank attack as firing hots up in the centre

The rest of the Blackshorts took up positions on and around the hill dominating the centre, enabling them to pour a withering fire on the defenders, who returned fire as best they could while sheltering alongside a building. Both side’s armour – in this case the newly arrived ‘Evelyn’ improvised armoured cars, duked it out with no discernable effect, but in the end the defenders of this route into Ledbury were whittled down by the luckier Blackshorts.

Flank attack driven off and heavy casualties for the LDV

Eventually the militiamen conceded defeat and a second road into Ledbury was open to the fascists.

The game lasted a mere 3 rounds, mainly due to the large disparity in command points. This proved that Brig 38 rules are really for larger amounts of figures than what we had on the table. And thus, with plenty of time left we scraped together as many miniatures as we could find and with the time remaining to us, put on a brigade level game – the LDV counterattack!

More photos can be found here.