Supercampaign V: Doomed but Defiant

 The Battle of Port Arthur

Another 2mm Supercampaign is in the works!  Long time readers may remember:

• Supercampaign I - Burning Tennessee.  An American Civil War campaign, where my Union army performed a deft amphibious assault on Chattanooga after weeks of sparring in the East Tennessee countryside, only to be beaten by Ollie's Confederates, and I was besieged and forced to surrender. 

• Supercampaign II - Royalists' Last Stronghold.  Set in the dying days of the First Civil War in 1645, I took command of the garrison of the Royalist town of Newark, Nottinghamshire.  Ollie (Parliamentarians) and Kieran (Scots) besieged me, and despite a valiant defence, stormed and captured the town after a long and bloody siege.

•  Supercampaign III - Bridge of Blood.  Here, Ollie and Kieran dueled across central France as the Prussians and French respectively.  Despite some pretty nifty deception and nice work by his advanced guard, Ollie's secret axis of advance was discovered and a bloody battle at Pont-a-Mousson ensued.  There were heavy casualties on both sides, but the Prussians managed to force the crossing and score a victory.

• Supercampaign IV - Hood's Stalwarts.  This 6mm campaign is still ongoing, as we fight out every one of the 4th Texas' battles in the Civil War.  (Sneak preview - next is Gettysburg!)

So, that sums up what we've done so far.  Next up is Supercampaign V: Doomed but Defiant.  This is a Russo Japanese War campaign, mixing land and sea games.  It also includes the jolly nice chap Paul (of the Man Cave blog).

Paul will be playing as the Japanese besiegers, while Ollie and Kieran will be playing Russian regimental commanders.  I'll be double-hatting as umpire and senior Russian commander.

The action will focus on the fight for Hill 203, a well-defended position which the Russians held onto tenaciously.  Tens of thousands of men died there, so it will certainly be a tough prospect!  This campaign will be fought quite slowly, since Paul is on the other side of the globe he'll be issuing orders and devising strategies, and we'll fight out the battles on this side of the pond.

(We're also looking for similar 'distance participants' for our next Supercampaign - this is a bit of a test run.  Email me if you're interested!)

In the meantime, here are some pictures of the troops involved, all lovely 2mm figs from Irregular:

The Japanese forces.  You'll notice they're not labelled - since Paul has a whole division, these models have to be nondescript enough to stand in for any Japanese unit.  To that end they have a generic command stand and five battalions.  Each battalion consists of three companies and a battalion commander stand.  The reinforcement stands represent columns of troops forming up, and will be used as 'spawn points' if the Japanese have more than five battalions.

Japanese machine guns and artillery.

Japanese reinforcement columns.

A Japanese infantry battalion - you can see how effective the new khaki camouflage is!

The Russians.  They have slightly bigger companies, and four battalions to each regiment.  They have more machine guns than the Japanese, but much less artillery.

A Russian battalion.

Russian reinforcement column, next to the regimental commander and machine gun sections.