Sparker's Wargaming Blog

Friday, 16 January 2026

Friendly Enemies

Its a nice problem to have, but when a game is so engrossing, so exciting, I get distracted from taking enough pictures to blog the game properly. Which is a shame, cos Daniel's Fate of a Nation scenario was a doozy!

Peter and Daniel were playing the Jordanians:

I was playing the Israelis. We rolled for the scenario - the Israeli's would be the attacker. That suited me fine, because this scenario is a real challenge for the defender!

The attacker gets to lay the objectives down, then defender has to deploy first, and leave 40% of their force in reserve, so the attacker has it easy - put the bulk of your forces in the pocket closest to where you laid the objectives! These started the game thinly defended...

Plus the Israeli Air Force put in an early and devastating appearance, knocking out one of the dread Centurions on Turn 1!

Given this action pitted Centurions against Sho'ts - which let's face it is simply a Centurion with a proper engine - lethality was going to be high!

Short story short, my Centurions were nice and close to the deep objective which was initially lightly held, and under early and continuous bombardment by the Israeli 155s. Once the Jordanian reserves turned up that firefight started getting bloody for the Sho'ts, but a second, even more devastating airstrike evened things up a little....

By which time my venerable old Shermans had dragged their sorry asses sufficiently into the action to take the Centurions in the flank.

A hasty infantry assault cleared away the surviving Jordanian riflemen to seize the objective and end the game!

A short game but riveting - interesting to pit Jordanian Cents against Israeli Sho'ts. The only difference of course being the training, motivation, and skill of the crews:

Does this Israeli victory mean that the man matters more than the machine? Only further games will tell...

Monday, 12 January 2026

Combat at Gilly 1815

Prussian deployment was optimised to hold the two key road exits to Fleurus which were the French objectives. The 1st Abteilung covered the north western exit between the Abbey and the Bois de Trichevre. Then in the centre the 2nd Abteilung took over on the heights of Trichevre to Pironchamps, with the cavalry covering the open flank to the north east. Pironchamps formed two defensive terrain features, each occupied by a battalion of Landwehr, the key point dominating the objective being the Pironchamps Church.

It was a pretty thin 'Prussian blue line' to be honest, compared to the French hordes opposite, but them's the perks of forming the rearguard!

The French? Oh they came on in their usual style:

Scads of infantry doing the grunt work...

And the cavalry milling around on the flanks looking pretty. Things were already behind schedule so an impatient Emperor had allocated a regiment of Imperial Guard Empress Dragoons to this particular skirmish...

But most of the cavalry brigades, including the Immortals, were very reluctant to activate...So, infantry it was, then...first tackling the initial line of defense in front of Pironchamps...

And also threatening the wooded route next to the Abbey:

The Prussian guns and Jaegers in front of Pironchamps put up a good fight:

But eventually were overwhelmed so that the second line of defences could be assaulted.

Slower progress against the woods though...

Finally the French cavalry got moving out on the flank:

With the Lancers leading...

And the Dragoons supporting:

The Prussian cavalry, outnumbered and outclassed, fought back bitterly and inflicted severe losses on the French lancers. Despite despatching a couple of French regiments, eventually numbers told:

But then the 1st Prussian Dragoons (Queen's Own 2nd West Prussian) bounced back, saw an opportunity and seized it to restore the situation on the flank - secondary consideration though it was:

Back to the main event and the outer and secondary Prussian defences had finally been overcome and it was time to storm Pironchamps Church, which dominated the centre objective:

Bitter fighting ensued in and around the Church...

But finally the garrison was evicted....

The French had taken an objective in their fifth turn; game over; the road to Fleurus was open!

But in cavalry terms, forget the Empress Dragoons who covered themselves in glory in the historical battle - in this game it was the Prussian horse that took the honours!

Friday, 9 January 2026

First Kernstown Revisited

The Wollongong Wargamers played 1st Kernstown back in 2022, as the opening game of our Shenandoah Valley Campaign. Back then, we used Black Powder rules, so now I wanted to replay it using Valour & Fortitude...

Despite making the outnumbered Rebels as effective as possible, Veterans vs Greenhorns, this scenario is a hard ask of the Confederate player. Alan volunteered. No, really!

Deployment was historical, which as the Union player was my excuse for lining the crest of Pritchard's Hill with wall to wall rifled artillery - because otherwise it would have been a bit of a dog act!

With hindsight, I probably needn't have backed up all those guns with my strongest - Kimball's - Brigade, but Alan had moved equally fast and furiously on both objectives so they both seemed threatened...

Since each of the two on-table Rebel brigades was targeting separate objectives, even at turn two I wasn't clear which one Alan had decided to go for. I advanced my third brigade up the middle...

To focus on supporting the defence of Pritchard's Hill - which as we know was already very heavily defended by so many guns its a wonder the hill didn't subside...

Aforementioned guns should have had no difficulty in eviscerating those pesky Southrons, but they simply would not break! Maybe this was their main effort?

Meanwhile, back on Sandy Ridge at the other, equally significant objective, the Rebs were coming on strong!

And then Alan revealed his hand - the Confederate third brigade - inevitably - headed for the less strongly defended Sandy Ridge objective!

By now it was too late to refocus my main effort - the rebel assault on Pritchard's Hill was never going anywhere anyway, but why not waste my reserve brigade in putting the icing on the cake!

Back at the real crisis point, the Rebs pushed the Union line back away from the stone wall and were massing opposite the objective, where my units were either decidedly either not fresh or actually shaken!

However, the Union had been getting the better of the firefights and holding their own in the melee phase, so that an unlucky Fortitude test roll caused the entire Confederate Brigade to waiver - phew!

At this point it was getting towards pack up time and with the battle outcome still very much up for grabs we called it a draw. But given the scenario was heavily stacked against the Rebs, Alan had done well, and, I suspect, might well have taken Sandy Ridge given another few turns...

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