Cotswold Wargaming Day 2025 - lots of variety in scales and periods

 It was that time of year again and I'm lucky that Cotswold Wargames Day is now held only about 7 miles from me at  Big Battles in Cirencester. This year attendance was fewer - only around 25 or so but there were still 8 games - 3 on large tables, 4 on average size and one small. It's a relaxed event, with no commercial element, where making sure you have a look round and chat to acquaintances new and old is an essential part of the experience. Although it's "small town local" in atmosphere I'm constantly surprised from how far afield folks come - most of southern and central England was represented! We really do welcome anyone in a not-too-competitive and friendly spirit where the hobby is king and not so much the individuals who make it all happen. I love the opportunity to try something different and it never disappoints.

Others, of course, have got their blogging of the day well sorted early and you can gets lots more detail and pictures from the blogs of these illustrious gentlemen 

Keith Flint

Stuart C - Cirencester

Steve Johnson - Part One - mainly lots of detail and photos of Steve's own 6mm Napoleonic game 

Steve Johnson - Part Two - Steve's photo tour of the rest of the tables 

Some general photos first.

My art display table. Several of the paintings are new and not yet on my website but I will update soon, please take a look and/or contact me via the link on there    Chris Gregg Art - military page

British Invasion of Cuba - 1762
Willz Harley, with Steve Pearse, came all the way up from Plymouth to give us a variation of the invasion of Cuba big game which Willz had put on at RNAS Yeovilton in March. I had been unable to attend that event so was pleased to sample it today. The stimulation for this came from the late Stuart Insch's history-with-scenarios book "Against Spain".  Available here

We had just one of the four tables from his big event and it had two forts protecting the approach to Havana - the small one - Fort Comijar, and a large one  Fort Moro protecting the main river entry to Havana (not shown). I was the lucky chap who got to play in and around the big Fort Moro (hand made by Willz). I had two battalions of infantry and many guns but only enough crew to man about 6 at once - a clever part of the game balance. My co-Spaniard - Mark, from the Daventry area, had Fort Comijar manned by only two guns, and a couple of redoubts with guns and a battalion of infantry to its right, He had a very large area to defend with not much. In between us was an unmanned log stockade and at the baseline a lot of dodgy looking local militia which looked like they might try to man it. Unspecified reinforcements were available to us according to Willz........ Our main opponent was John from the Reading/Basingstoke area who operated about 4 battalions of British on the left, with light guns and heavier support from two ships patrolling the coastal strip. Willz stood in for the fourth player, taking four battalions, including Grenadiers with light guns, but no offshore fire support.

Overall view: John attacks from the sea as Mark and Willz watch patiently. Fort Moro in the foreground and an ominous mass of British about to land there . My Spanish still need to get organised

The rules used were a relatively simple set by Paul Robinson of Grimsby. I've great respect for everything Paul does, having enjoyed his friendly but efficient games mastering at The Wild Geese Wargamers gatherings in Kenilworth in years gone by, so I thought this would be fast and fun and I was not disappointed. (Here is a link to a PDF in the Downloads sidebar "You're a Card" 18th Century rules ). That was aided by the generous use of Chance Cards professionally produced by Willz specially for these Cuba games. They actually produced a kind of tacit "morale" effect on me as a player in that, given a couple of the right cards and an opportunity, the adrenalin went to work and turned my quiet defence into an in-period style sallying counter attack.

Grenadiers and line infantry disembark to attack Fort Comijar which is being shelled from the sea by howitzers/bomb vessels 

I think those gunners know that they have to repel the enemy by fire alone as the rules don't allow them to put up a hand-to-hand fight; they have no infantry support

Great hand made boats too by Willz gave a very practical platform for these British Grenadiers to approach Fort Moro

Willz' left brigade used very nice Hessian figures to make up the required numbers. Nearly all the troops were modern Spencer Smith 28/30mm from Willz' vast collection, and there were also some "classic" SSM too. At this height from the tabletop we could imagine that NWF game in the distance was Havana  on the other side of the harbour mouth!

British infantry bravely advance on Mark's guns

Above and below: John has the attack on Fort Comijar well under way now

At last I have my two battalions showing a solid front along the walls, but that forward bastion is vulnerable

I rolled a 6 for Reinforcements, thinking, "This will be good", but all we got was a single regiment of cavalry, and no more throughout the game 

The Comijar battery has failed to see off its opponents and British troops have scaled the walls 

It didn't feel like it on the day but this picture makes it look like the odds were in my favour in the fort

Above and below: I was delighted to find out that by combining two guns against a single target I could pretty much be sure of scoring enough hits to set the enemy back (one inch per excess hit plus base lost for very 5 hits). Battalions were 7 bases strong and had to retreat from the fight when they had lost 3.

An enthusiastic gunner mounts the parapet to do a gesture of derision to the Hessian/British as one of their battalions recoils back towards the sea.

Evidently a bit of time lapse in my photography  - partly over excitement and partly due to a quick tour of nearby games for photographs, so I've missed being able to show you the first push back of Willz's Grenadiers by my guns and musketry. But now he was back.......

Chance card heaven! I'd held my defensive Mine card till he got close enough to the walls and when Willz played his Forlorn Hope card they got blown up - sorry!

But my illusions were soon shattered as the Grenadiers followed up straight away. I lost some gunners but the infantry pitching in threw him back.

My overall situation now: At left those are my Spanish down on the beach - I'd used a Sally Forth card to give me enough distance to nip down the ladders and use musketry to ensure the Grenadiers went back a bit more. Our reserve cavalry (commanded by Mark) was coming up to threaten the battalion guns left by the barges. On the right my fort guns had taken such toll on the Hessians they were retreating too

Fast forward a bit and my musketry (aided by those "permanent" Chance card additions) has proved sufficient for Willz's Grenadier battalion to call it a day. My chaps retreated back up the ladders to "safety". Except they found their sister battalion skulking down behind the walls to escape devastating bomb blasts from the ship's howitzers 

The rest of the action had now shifted to the centre as Mark is gradually overwhelmed by enemy numbers on our right. These pictures actually go back a couple of Moves 

British infantry close in on the redoubts and militia battalion

The other Militia are able to occupy the stockade - for now....

....but blasts from the ships severely damaged the stockade, pushing the Militia out while John is forming a new wave of attack with Hessian Grenadiers, local sympathetic light troops, and more British Grenadiers ........

.......as John is keenly pointing out to me (picture credit: Keith Flint)

Determined to fight back, my Militia reoccupy what is left of the stockade - it offers no actual cover now!

Our cavalry advance has been thrust back by canister from the little guns by the barges 

Skilfully Mark is still keeping a presence on the right flank - those British won't get through towards Havana if he can help it.

A bit later and, not surprisingly, my Spanish infantry sally on this side of Fort Moro, plus the defence by the Militia, has been broken by a deadly combination of musketry and ship-borne bombardment. Hessians occupy the stockade ruins now.

Militia flee; Spanish infantry skulk in Fort Moro's cover; Spanish guns fire back where they can and do inflict some loss on a ship. British Grenadiers back in their barges head off for a cup of tea and scones 

My final picture shows that Mark's cavalry are undefeated but realise it is better to retreat inland and live to fight another day

So who thinks siege games are boring? This certainly wasn't but was full of incident all the way through. The final situation was that the Spanish had control of the big Fort Moro and so, with guns and gunners still intact, could contest attempts on Havana, but not venture out. The British controlled everything to the West  and were consolidating for an assault on the Fort from that side.  So all considered a draw a fair decision. We started off about 10.30am and finished just before 3pm with a relaxed pace and a few breaks, leaving time for Willz and Steve to pack up for the long journey home. Thank you to both for your great efforts, a super game, well balanced. Thanks to Paul R for the fast paced and clever rules, and to my easy going co-players for their good spirit and skilful conduct of the game.

This game won the Stuart Asquith trophy for Best Game, chosen for its old school spirit beloved of the late, great Stuart A, a Cotswold resident. Well done Willz!

And so on to my tour of the adjoining games 

A large 1920s NorthWest Frontier game using 28mm figures , mostly by Empress Miniatures. This was put on by Paul Eaglestone of Empress and Ian Bailey and used an adapted version of Paul's own Osprey-published set of rules for inter-war  wargames  - looks like a very versatile set covering historic and fictitious conflicts between about 1920 - 1940

A World Aflame

I did not really get much about the scenario but it looked terrific, as we have come to expect from these two.

Super figures - Indian and British cavalry at the charge. Note the armoured cars too.

Stuart C. and the Cirencester Club presented the Napoleonic Battle of Abbach in 28mm and using the Lasalle rules. This was fought on 22 April 1809, the same day and a few miles to the West of Eckmuhl, the scene of our big 15mm refight at Oakridge in mid- September (see my previous blog post and more in later ones). I wonder if Stuart was influenced by his role in that one? My understanding is that the fighting on that day here was mainly skirmishing and observation by two sides following other orders than to mix it. But I note Michael Hopper's scenario in  his "Eagles over Bavaria" has a great what-if for the same battle area as Stuart's. With French reinforcements to Montbrun and Austrian ones for Vecsey it looks like a nice arrangement for a good balanced game.

French on the left, Austrians on the right

The Eckmuhl battlefield is only a couple of miles to the right of Stuart's map.

Keith Flint and Roy Boss staged a game in the further development of Keith's Startline World War Two company level rules. This was in 15mm and featured Americans versus Germans in the Rhineland in 1945. Some readers may recall I was lucky enough to try out this thoughtful system a year ago at CWD. Keith said he is working on simplifications of some aspects. 

Sadly I didn't take many photos as I got into catching up with Roy, and our flow was interrupted by a candid photo by the Game Master catching two of his "locals" together on camera ! (Photo credit: Keith Flint)

A fictitious Napoleonic game in 6mm  by Steve Johnson of Bristol using Black Powder II rules. Steve's blog linked near the start gives a very full account of this and loads of super photos - mine don't do it justice.  Steve always puts on a small but beautiful looking game. His terrain is all hand made to a high standard and the figures here are commercially produced 6mm MDF figures painted by Steve. They deserve a proper look on his blog.

World War Two - Tobruk game in 10mm by Matt and Paul using Blitzkrieg Commander II rules . I find this a visually very appealing scale for WW2 - particularly for a Western Desert scenario where the wide landscape can be well represented. I loved the sand dunes which I was shown are commercial vac-formed style with sand type flocking - very effective and looks durable.  Makes me want to get out my 10mm Russians and Germans again.

I think these small dice make very good casualty markers for this scale without being over intrusive

World War Two - 6mm Russians v Germans by Julian and Shawn using Battlegroup Kursk rules. I love the terrain and the models and the smoke and flame markers for this  but I do find all those white dice off-putting and they hurt my eyes, sorry. Investigating BG Kursk I see that it uses markers for orders for every unit so something that is unavoidable ; but they are designed for 15-20mm models where it would be less obtrusive. It's a shame for such a nice looking game otherwise.

Apologies to Jon Billington for not taking any photos -  Jon spent time explaining to me about his 3 foot by 3 foot modular 15mm WW2 platoon level game - the idea being to produce a game that is easily set up and put away and gives a 2 hour solo wargame. He is a fan of Neil Thomas' "One Hour Wargames" scenario book. 

So another one over and thanks to everyone for all they did to put on a very entertaining and informative event, I greatly enjoyed being there and learned a lot.  Please give the other blogs a look to get a  more rounded view of the whole thing than I have given.