The refight of the Battle of Ramilles, Grimsby, August 27th 2016.

 Not known for my retiring nature, I was able to illicit an invite from Paul Robinson of the Grimsby Wargames Club to hold a command at their refight of the Battle of Ramilles over the bank holiday weekend.
   This was my second appearance at the Grimsby club's very large scale Malburian refights, and this second battle did not disappoint, albeit I finally tasted defeat for the first time this year.
 The Grimsby wargames club is a first rate set up, and a very friendly group of wargamers who love wargaming. I cannot recommend their 'big' games enough to any wargamer who wants to basically enjoy a brilliant day out, although because I wanted a night out in Cleethorpes I made Paul and Andy take me out for a beer and a curry the night before, again this is recommended, especially as there are some very good B+B'S to be had at a cheap price.

Looking down the table, showing the Allied initial setup. This unfortunately was only about half of what actually appeared during the day, mainly on my flank.

 
   The French/Spanish/ Bavarian initial deployment, showing my Bavarian foot, and French horse.

    I wont report a blow by blow account of the refight, as I know Paul has covered the event on the clubs blogsite. But what I would like to say what a pleasure it was to wargame with a group of like minded wargamers intent on enjoying their game whilst attempting to refight a battle historically.
  As a spectacle it was very very impressive with thousands of 25/28mm figures on a table. As a weekend event it was even better, with decent beer, fish and chips and loads of banter.
 Okay so I suffered a lesson in how to fight two massive cavalry battles, managing to lose both and okay, I managed to throw double 1 three times in a row, to enable a lovely Spanish unit to disappear off the table, but I did get to see off two English foot regiments for my troubles.
 Paul and the group have written their own rules specifically for the period, and I picked them up very quickly, although I found the cavalry melees to be very brutal affairs, well when you lose anyway.
They work well, and capture the period perfectly.
 I hope Paul stages another game next year, because if I can I will attend, this is the way wargaming was intended to be played, with historically researched figures, easy to play rules and good banter.

  I have supplied some images I took of the day, just to show how big and lovely the game was.
My French household cavalry, which never got to fight due to the aggression of the Dutch Gardes who drove away their infantry cover.

                                      
I took on the role of Maximilian of Bavaria, and whilst managing to do a little better than the real person, I still led his troops into oblivion.

  My Spanish who were expected to hold the left flank of my command, and also to protect the French Household cavalry. Guess what, they lasted four moves.

The Spanish infantry nemesis, the mighty Dutch Garde, protecting the flank of the first of two wings of allied cavalry.

   Never, ever take on two to one odds at a Grimsby cavalry battle, the result is not an edifying sight.

 Some of the French Foot Guard, who watched? as my lovely Bavarians were led to destruction. As per the plan, by the way.

 Some of Andy's wonderful Spanish cavalry, the image is poor and really doesnt show just how good they are.

  Running out of infantry, I rashly removed the French garrison from the town of Ramilles, in order to stop the advance of the allies, probably not my best decision, although they tipped the balance against the vile English..

                From the allied viewpoint, no dragoons amongst their command.

                                         Austrian cuirassiers, one of four regiments!

If there was ever an incentive to 'half inch something', it was this beautiful unit of Spanish that Andy of Grimsby had painted. Eventually I managed to get them to rout, but they had fought well.