Our latest open day was held at the New Mill Social Centre, Tring on Sunday 14th April 2002. Once again there was a good turn out. Graham, Chris Karl, Martin and Ken (the younger) were involved in a large 25mm Dark Age game. Colin and Ken (the elder) played a 15mm Fire & Fury game. Jon and Ken Cummings had a World War Two naval game on the go. There was also a Warhammer game being played. Russall, Henry, Ian Ransome, Ian Willer and myself were staging a 25mm Nine Years War game.

The Nine Years War for those that don't know it lasted, you guessed it nine years from 1688 to 1697, it was also know as The War of The Grand Alliance or The War of The League of Augsburg. To cut a long storey short it was basically everyone against the French and it ended in a draw. Well that the in depth history bit out the way let get on with what happened in the game.

We were using the Pike & Shot Society's Captain General Rules, this was only the third time we had played them and I think we got about 11 or 12 moves in so they are not that hard to pick up. The scene at the start of the game saw a French fort with a small garrison in one corner of an 8'x6' table.

Pitted against these brave soles were the hordes of William III's Army. After a short discussion between William and his sub-generals, (ok. Russall of Orange, Henry and Ian Willer,) it was decided to deploy the cavalry on their left flank to the right as they didn't think it a good idea to have cavalry against the fort.

After a short artillery exchange the allied army began to advance. Ian Willer's cavalry, being British, upon receiving orders to advance, promptly hurtled off across the table in pursuit of an imaginary fox and also to intercept the possibility of French reinforcements arriving in that area of the table. The rest of the army advanced at a more sedate pace. While this was going on the artillery exchange continued however little damage was being done. Mr Willer's troopers finally reach their destination 5ft on the far side of the table from where they started just as the French reinforcements arrived right over on the opposite flank. We now found out how effective shock infantry was if allowed to get into melee, in short very effective. The French began to push the allied troops back.

Henry had managed to wheel his cavalry and they were heading for the action. Ian Willer on the other hand was throwing some bad dice and it was taking him ages to get his cavalry in some sort of order to bring them into action. At one point in the game everyone's troops were on one of the 6'x4' tables except for Ian's. When he finally managed to join us on our table he had to leave. By this time a lot of the first wave of allied troops had routed but the allied cavalry were just starting to clash with their French counterparts. This proved to be a somewhat more even affair than the infantry battle had been up to then.

By the end of the game the cavalry bash was still in the balance and although the allied infantry was somewhat weakened, they were still holding on. The important thing from the French point of view was that the fort remained intact and since that was the main allied objective it was a French victory