| | Carlist Shako: Oriamendi East After Action Report
Chris Harrod and I tried out my Oriamendi East
Scenario with Shako II. It was great to get the Carlist War figures
onto the table.
This was Chris's first outing with Shako and my first outing with Shako
II. On that basis it was a friendly match to get a feel for the
rules. It took quite a few hours and we failed to finish the game, but it
was fun.
Deployment
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The Battle of Oriamendi was dominated by the hills in the north and this
was as true for the eastern portion of the battlefield as anywhere.
To simulate the hill we used the tried and true method of putting books
etc under the base cloth. |
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Chris picked the Cristinos. This photo is taken from the northern,
Cristino, table edge.
The white cords show the deployment areas although these photos were
taken before we actually deployed the troops. |
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And a matching photo from the south. My initial troops were two
small brigades around the town of Hernani.
Bear in mind this scenario was designed to play on my dining room so
the table is only 50" x 30" (125cm x75cm). |
Phase 1: Hurry Up and Wait
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We both knew that I had off table troops so Chris spent his spare time
redeploying his troops. This was no mean feat given the deployment
restrictions and the Shako II rules for orders. He basically had to
give his troops "Attack" orders which only lasted one turn, he
then had two turns to redeploy into a defensive posture. And of
course none of his units could advance beyond the head of the the their
Attack Arrow. This was sufficiently challenging that we actually had
to stop the game and restart from the beginning to get something that was
at all useful to Chris. |
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With only two small brigades on table I was also happy to wait. |
Phase 2: Carlist Reinforcements Arrive
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On Turn 2 my off table reserves began to arrive. This was two
brigades. With their arrive the entire army moved over to Attack
orders and began the advance. |
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On Turn 4 my first flank march arrived. As you can see Chris was
waiting for them up on the hill so the flank march didn't really give me
much of an advantage. |
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Same shot with flash. |
Phase 3: Contact
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I was rather careless with my troops and sent them hurtling into the
Cristino lines. What better way to learn the rules but to try
something risky.
First to go in were the Carlist Lancers. |
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In column. Up hill. Into steady elite infantry in line.
Scratch one unit of lancers. Clearly some preparation was necessary before
the cavalry went in ... I'll remember that for next time. |
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We thought the mass of troops on the hill looked quite good so I
couldn't resist taking a profile shot of the Carlist charge. |
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OK, so the cavalry were that effective ... how about elite
infantry? I launched two elite units at Chris's centre. This
was a bit of a stand off. Hmmm, can't say I'm getting the hang of
this but I'm learning.
My elite Carlists have a Priest figure in the command stand - you can
see the chap in black in the centre of the photo.
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The Carlist right was also active. Chris engaged my flank marchers
frontally and began to close in on both of their flanks as well. |
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More of same.
Chris was dicing with the odds a bit because I still had a flank march
off table and when they arrived they could arrive behind his left flank
... which they did. |
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About this time it was 1 am and we called it a night.
I took a couple of final shots from the top of the hill |
Conclusions
The game was good fun and served its main purpose which was to acquant us
with the Shako II. We'll try it again in anger some time.
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