We got home this afternoon after an excellent day in Stockton at the Battleground wargames show. Readers will know that this year I put a game on under the 'Carryings on up the Dale" banner rather than like in the past couple of years when I put games on with Robbie of the Independent Wargames Group. The net result for the organisers was that they were guaranteed two excellent games among what was on the day a very strong range of demonstration and participation games, many of which (of the ones I actually got to see) were pretty good, imho anyway. It goes without saying that I could not have put the game on without the support of friends who volunteered to play on the day; Paul and James from Grimsby, John from Stockton, Douglas from Falkirk, and Tim and Barry from Mansfield. Of course without my wife Katherine's help in packing the car, driving and helping to set up on Friday evening as well producing my handouts and my 'banner' and feeding me copious quantities of mind altering drugs for my back we wouldn't even have got as far as the game. So all in all I think I am very fortunate to have such a supportive better half and a great bunch of mates, to whom I am all really, really extremely grateful.
Before I go into any detail about the outcome of the battle of Seneffe, what follows are some photos taken by Katherine of the games on display. I've not used all of the ones she took (over 100) for obvious reasons and some games have been omitted due to my camera being crap, poor light, photobombing and the like (Note, not my wife photography skills) which are better than mine at any rate. So fasten your seatbelt and place your seats in an upright position.
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| This and the following three pics are of Conrad Cairns' (Durham Wargames Group) 1848 Hungarian Revolution game in 42mm. Fantastic, especially the train! |
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| Stafford and Districtput on a rather nice 10mm War of the Spanish Succession representation of the battle of Oudenard. |
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| Redcar Ironbeards WW2, part 2. Stalin keeps going west! |
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| Lancaster's 18thC siege. |
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| My mates Robbie, John and Neil of the Independent Wargames Group staged this exceptionally colourful ACW game. All the figures were from Robbie's enormous and gorgeously presented collect. It looked great. No idea who won though judging by Robbie's mutterings around midday the Confederates were taking a whipping. I may be wrong. |
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| The other Durham game was also ACW; Port Republic from the 1862 Shenandoah Valley campaign. I've seen this before but it looked great. |
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| I think this was Scarborough and a D-Day Pegasus Bridge game. |
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| Generals and Kings and the Battle of the Brandwine 1777 |
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| Tyneside Wargames Club 10mm Siege of Troy |
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| Westerhope's Wellington in India game, a period that has always tempted me. The figures were gorgeous. |
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| How did the elephant get into the courtyard and how will it out? |
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| Border Reivers' battle of Quatre Bras. |
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| Old Guard Wargames - 10mm ACW. |
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| Stafford & District's Battle of Oudenard in 10mm again. |
And now on to our game, a representation of the Battle of Seneffe in 1674. French under the Great Conde. Dutch, Spanish and Imperial troops under William of Orange. The battle started badly for the Allies when with his very first throw of the dice Douglas managed a blunder, sending six of his battalions swerving off towards the French while still in march column. I seem to have 'lost' that picture but although the French took advantage of the mishap to batter several of the unfortunate units quite badly, the Allies soon recovered.
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| The French advancing on the Allied masses. The cavalry had originally been deployed in the centre but were trying to get over to the left to support the Maison du Roi. The blundering Germans have just managed to recover from their uncontrolled advance towards the enemy and deployed into line. |
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| The Spanish contingent holding the left of the Allied line around Seneffe. |
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| More Spanish |
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| The great man himself. |
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| Spanish dragoons holding Seneffe. |
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| The Allied centre. In front a brigade of troops from Hannover, Celle and Brunswick, supported by the Dutch Guards. |
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| A massive cavalry fight developed on the Allied right. Initially successful in driving back the Imperial cuirassiers the cavalry of the Maison du Roi were pushed back by the Dutch horseguard and lifeguards and more Dutch horse and eventually the cream of the French army melted away. |
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| These sheep get everywhere. |
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| French horse trying to get over to their left to plug the gap left by the collapse of the Maison du Roi. The French artillery hardly moved during the game. I don't know why, but they would have made a difference had they been brought into action. |
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| My windmill and a new built up area/coaching inn, occupied by Dutch dragoons. Their flanking fire contributed to the demise of the French left wing. |
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| The Dutch were by now taking the battle to the French, who's line had been angled back at the church to cover their now exposed left. |
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| The Gardes Francais, Gardes Suisse and Fusiliers du Roi advancing on the Allies. |
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| Conde looks on as his plan starts to fall apart. |
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| The team: James (Grimsby), Tim (Mansfield or thereabouts), John (Stockton), Barry (Mansfield), Me (up the Dale), Douglas (Falkirk) and Paul (Grimsby). Many thanks to you all, and safe journeys home. |
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| The prime mover in all this, Mrs CarryingsonuptheDale, Katherine. |
The game was a great success. Not for the French though who conceded defeat in the final minutes of the show. We received loads of positive feedback about the game along the lines of 'spectacular', 'enormous' colourful' and 'oh like in season 2 of Versailles?' I certainly enjoyed myself as did the guys who were largely strangers to each other (not Tim/Barry or father and son Paul/James). I didn't get much time to circulate around the traders and the other games. I did however catch up with lots of old friends and acquaintances and actually talked face to face with several Facebook buddies as well. Remarkably I could still stand up at the end of the day, even if I was at a bit of an angle, and as I write this my body is still reminding me how knackeringit is putting on a game at a show. More remarkably I didn't spend a penny (of the monetary definition anyway) as I only collected a pre-ordered bag of Savoyard mountain guns off Graham at Cran Tara and was given free a pack of dancing Gypsey girls of Stuart of Colonel Bills. Charles of Hellion also let me have a couple of books free of charge on the understanding that I would write a review of them both on Amazon and on this blog, of which more in another post after I've read them.
Thanks again to 'the Team' who can all now say that they've been Carrying on up the Dale and got away with it.
