Battle of Lemberg - Part 3 - 5 years in the making......

Well that may have been a little optimistic.... The last post was back in 2019 - Dust, Tears & Dice: Battle around Janow, Lemberg, Galicia 1914 - Mud & Blood (dusttears.blogspot.com)

One might have thought that 4 years was bad but this time it was 5....... we really must get better at this.

Another outing in the fight for Lemberg with the Russian's and Austrians seeking to break through each others lines, with the victor securing the most jump off points on the table.

We switched to an adapted version of Bolt Action introducing a variable dice mechanism from Blucher to make the activations more challenging, both sides were evenly matched with 8 units a piece in the morning... despite best laid plans it soon became apparent that this would be a race for the centre ground. 

The Austrians picking cavalry vs the Russians with stoic Infantry.

In the race for the cornfield and it's high stone walls the Russians got there first and took up prepared positions but the Austrians were massing on the other side of the field, both sides waiting for the perfect order combination.

Both sides looking for the edge and exchanging Machine Gun and Artillery fire across the hedge rows, the Russians pushed left but were pinned by Rifle fire from the Austrian defenders, several times they attempted to come under orders, several times they went down for cover.

Reinforcements after lunch started to pour in for both sides, it had to now or never before the lines became to static.

On the right flank as the Austrians edged right to flank the Russian defenders, it trigged the Russians to charge across the field, the veteran infantry looked to close with the defenders, they made their extra quality tell and routed the defenders.

Things were hotting up. The Russian's pushed on using the bayonet to drive the Austrians back and seizing the advance jump off point and breaking through the hedge row.

The Austrians with reinforcements bolstering the second line would eventually bloody the veteran guard, but they had served their purpose and seized the control point to give victory to the Tsar.

A cracking days gaming Bolt Action worked well and made the game move quickly, the hidden command dices make for an interesting game, on two occasions we both scored a low vs high, which forces you to grasp the nettle and make bold strokes which kept the game moving, the centre ground with a long range fire fight, which made both of us use the flanks.

Let's not leave it another 5 years...