Club Night 01/04/19: France ’44, 15mm IABSM/COC

After the last game of IABSM I was moaning about the card activation and how I thought it slowed things down and increased the chance of you sitting there doing nothing for large parts of the game if you were unlucky in the card activations (or if, as happened to me once, someone forgot to add a card into the deck after coming off the blind). Des had a think about it and came up with a very simple but ingenious way of combining the dice activation from CoC with the core rules.

Activation was much the same as in CoC, 5 dice being rolled, but scaled up: 1 activated a team/section, 2 a platoon, 3 a Big Man 1 or 2 (i.e. a JL), 4 a Big Man 3 (a SL), 5 added a pip to a ‘Bonus’ die, and 6’s went to a ‘Tea Break’ dice. Multiple 6’s were treated the same as in CoC so 2 gave you another go (we used our system of decreasing the activation dice by 1 die every time). The ‘Bonus Dice’ was added to until you hit 6 pips (basically a CoC dice) whereupon you could pick a card from the bonus card deck. As soon as the ‘Tea Break’ die hit 6 – which was added to by both sides’ rolls – a Tea Break was called.

As well as the activation system from CoC we were using a similar support points system and so both sides had a core infantry company and a set amount of points that we could spend to beef things up. We would also be using the Force Morale system too with points lost for ‘Bad Things Happening’.

The scenario we would test these out with was nice and straightforward. Andy and I had to take a small village somewhere in the Bocage country. Facing us was the all singing and dancing  ‘Kamp Gruppe Bartram’ led by Daren. We managed to set up a rather spiffing table with the club’s terrain and Des’ lovely ‘Empires at War’ Normandy buildings (the 15mm versions of the ones seen on this blog before). The main picture below shows our view of the battlefield, and we hit upon a nice simple plan. I would take 2 of our platoons of infantry and push through the orchard to the right of the road whilst sending our recce jeep along the right flank whilst Andy would take our Sherman platoon along the left supported by the remaining infantry platoon. The enemy would be pinned in place once discovered then destroyed.

The battlefield from American lines..

…and again

Le verger de la mort

Things started very well with all of us getting into the swing of the new activation system easily enough. We decided to push my attack through first and soon I had 2 platoons in the Orchard and the jeep barrelling around bocage as it headed for the lateral road on the right. Then the shit hit the fan. My lads in the orchard must have been fresh from England as they failed to spot the PanzerGrenadiers that lined the hedge at the far end of the orchard until they opened up a murderous fire on my Napoleonic looking column. Pretty soon I was in all sorts of trouble as the German machine guns chewed through section after section and soon one of my platoons was pretty much out of action. My return fire was not the best but I did manage to cause some casualties assisted by the company mortars but I was forced to pull back out of sight to regroup and re-asses whilst the Germans slipped away to take up new positions in the village.

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Just when I thought things were pretty bad they got worse. My recce jeep bumped into something along the road and I actually felt my jaw drop when Daren gleefully put out 2 Tigers – indeed both Daren and Des laughed at my re-action. I did have a go at one of the behemoths with my .30-cal before scooting back desperately trying to get into cover but both efforts were futile and one of the giant beasts pumped a HE shell into the plucky Jeep.

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As the right flank was now well and truly shut down we decided that Andy best get forward on the left so he pushed his Shermans forward followed by the infantry. However pretty soon the sharp crack of an 88 signalled the appearance of 2 more Tigers! The American tankers tried valiantly to take on the big cats but pretty soon their Platoon commander and one other tank were burning. There was one small glimmer of hope though as the remaining infantry platoon managed to creep forwards whilst the tank duel was going on and soon a couple of bazooka teams were in position to get a flank shot at one of the Tigers. If they could get a successful shot away we might just be able to overpower the remaining one with the concentrated fire of the surviving tanks. But it wasn’t to be, the GI’s manning the rocket launchers were just too jittery and their missiles either sailed harmlessly past the massive tank or glanced off the thick steel (how they missed is still puzzling me, just how do you miss a Tiger side on?!!). Daren then turned the Tigers turret on the hapless bazooka men who would have been blasted to atoms if they weren’t close assaulted by a fresh platoon of PanzerGrenadiers.

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With this further defeat Andy and I decided that enough was enough, most of our infantry was knackered and our tanks had been well and truly assaulted by the Tigers so we decided to concede defeat. Strangely though the surviving tanks disappeared during the retreat, and even stranger when we tried to get them on the radio to ask where they were we received this message back: ‘Woof, woof’. Odd.

Despite the defeat it was a cracking game and we all agreed that the new activation system vastly improved things and even I said I’d love to have another game so hats off to Mr. Darkin for coming up with the rules, we did come up with a few tweaks here and there but nowt too much which shows how well they worked.  Apart from the rules more thanks to Des for putting the game on and for bringing his lovely village set, the figures and models were Daren’s but now in the collection of Andy which is great as we  will still get to play with them as they are crackingly well done.

If you are interested in the new activation rules at all you can find them here – Des has called them: ‘Oh what a total bummer’: https://www.facebook.com/groups/216703912095462/files/

(I think: ‘I aint been CoC’d Mum’ was better but apparently that’s a bit rude?!)

As it was so nice and we didn’t get anywhere near it in the fight here’s some gratuitous shots of the lovely village! (available from here: https://www.empiresatwar.co.uk/15mm-NORMANDY-KITS.html)

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Club Night 18/03/19: 20mm IABSM, France 1940 – Motorbiking!

I really should have posted a report on this game a lot earlier but was suffering from a bit of a fug at the time and hence now the details are a bit hazy which is a shame as it was good fun and it led to something which is potentially brilliant. Oh and it had tons of Motorcycles and sidecars.

The Germans (my side) were tasked with clearing a village of French types and had the following to do so: a platoon of Kradschutzen, a Platoon of Sdkfz 221/222’s, a PanzerGrenadier platoon, a platoon of 8-rads and a support platoon of Infantry gun, MG and Mortar sections. Things were going quite well for ages with our infantry and Hells Angels bumping into defending Poilus and blatting them with fire from supporting Armoured Cars until they buggered off – it’s the second time that I’ve used these cars and both times the 20mmm Auotcannons and MG’s they are armed with have made mincemeat of the opposition. We did suffer a bit from some defensive infantry and AT gun fire and artillery stonkage but we thought we were gaining the upper hand and then the Somua’s turned up and ruined everything, trundling about nonchalantly with a Gaulois hanging out of their gobs shrugging off our feeble attempts to damage them whilst brassing up everything they could. We prudently decided to withdraw and let the Stukas take over.

Good fun was had though and we got to use Ian’s lovely early war kit but Des and I got talking about the rules afterwards and I mentioned (again) how much I really don’t like the card activation aspect – slows the game down every time you have to add cards to the deck, if the GM forgets to add any it is a disaster and you are forever trying to remember who is who. A few days later Des emailed us all to say that he thought he’d come up with a cunning plan to weld the dice activation from CoC onto IABSM and should we try it, we all agreed so stay tuned for that, coming up next.

Before that though here’s the pics of the game. Remember you can make images larger by clicking on them.

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Club Night, 28/01/2019: 1940 France,10mm Battlefront WW2.

Right then, back to getting posts done after a couple of doses of the horrible cold lurgy before Christmas then just after New Year, coupled with my blood condition being a bastard again too it really did me in and so I wasn’t fit for anything. I have a couple of CoC campaign games to write up too but have had a bit of writers block and all efforts have been shite quite frankly and I’m hoping a nice straightforward write up might clear the cobwebs so to speak and get the old juices flowing again!

Philip put a shout out for anyone interested in having a bash with his 10mm 1940’s kit and I jumped at the chance, Des wasn’t going to be at the club so we couldn’t have carried on with our Martlet campaign anyway, and I really do dig those French tanks! The scenario was loosely based on the action at Stonne when the French counter attacked a knackered out (or massively coming down from all that Pervitin they’d been necking?) Gross Deutschland Regiment and their Char B’s went on a bit of a romp.

I was given the following to undertake my mission, which was a nice and simple ‘secure the village’ order.

• 2 x Companies of Char B’s (one was veteran)
• 1 x Company of H-35’s
• 1 x Battalion of Dragons Portees (Mech infantry in those crazy Lorraine carriers)
• 1 x Panhard 178 armoured car platoon
• 1 x off table 105mm battery
• 1 x Potez as air support

The terrain was empty of troops but there were a series of blinds on table which would obviously be hiding some nastiness so my plan (yes I had one!) was to try and avoid the ones that would probably have some nasty 88mm Flak shaped nastiness in them and try the indirect approach. To this end I sent the infantry accompanied by the H-39’s on a flanking march around the wood with the aim of securing the ridge and establishing a base of fire there to hopefully assist in the assault on that end of the town whilst the tanks could also keep an eye out for any nasty Panzer types entering the table along the road.

 

At the other end of town I was going to charge the armoured car forward into town to see if it could draw the fire of any of the filthy Bosche lurking there and then once they were located one of the Char B companies would start to work on them and keep them occupied whilst hopefully breaking their will to resist. The veteran Char B company would go for a long sweep around the far side of the town to take out any supports for the garrison then linking up with the infantry to help shoot them into the village.

So, a nice simple plan that, for once, went well all things considered. My ‘recon by death’ saw the armoured car platoon embrace the spirit of Lannes and went the way of all good Hussars, their sacrifice did however identify targets for the following Char B’s to start firing on. Meanwhile over on my far right the lighter tanks and mechanised infantry started on their march for the ridge and as the passed the middle of the wood they were engaged by a 105mm Howitzer battery from their objective. Shrugging off the fire from the German gunners (only suffering some suppression) the tanks surged forwards and took the battery in the flank, shooting up the gunners and crushing the guns. Whilst this action was happening an 88 Battery that was hiding in the woods broke cover and headed for the outskirts of town. This caused me to change my plan somewhat and I de-bussed the Dragoons and ordered the through the wood to take on the mighty gun which had already started firing on the H-35’s on the ridge albeit not very well.

Meanwhile at the other end of town the Char B’s taking on the house clearing duties were making a right dogs dinner of evicting the filthy Bosche squatters, failing time after time to secure enough hits to either eliminate them or cause them to bugger off. They were also engaged by a 37mm AT gun firing from the wood which tried desperately hard to get a lucky shot through the side grill’s to no avail and soon one of the Char-B’s had dealt with this futile attempt at stopping them. The other Char B squadron was having a whale of a time round the other side of town, seeing off an enemy 20mm flak gun and swanning all the way round to the far wood without any mishap. Which was a good thing for my forces as by now some horrible panzers had turned up along the road and had started to engage the H-35’s on the ridge.

This tank duel was an indecisive affair for a while, with each of the two forces losing a platoon but once the German’s heavier tanks got involved they soon saw off the lighter French tanks (to be fair my rolling here was utter garbage, I just couldn’t get enough telling hits on the enemy!). However the Char B’s were now within range and shrugging off attacks by Stukas they started to engage the PzIII’s and IV’s still strung out near the road. This did allow the H-35’s to return to the fray from the ridge again once they had rallied and the German’s were stuck between two fires at one point but it wasn’t for too long as the  brave light tank men lost another platoon and retired from the battle (again appalling dice rolling here prevented me from taking full advantage).

Elsewhere the 88 had succumbed to the joint attentions of the French artillery and the Dragoon’s MG platoon and mightily pleased I was too! I also managed to get the Potez involved but its attacks on the newly arrived Panzer Grenadiers who had scurried into the houses along the road came to naught. At the other end of town the relentless pounding that the other Char B squadron was doing to the infantry company was finally starting to have an effect and some of the platoons were very close to breaking point. All I had to do was to win the tank battle and then the remaining Char B’s would have been able to help my artillery shoot my infantry into town and snatch victory.

Unfortunately this wasn’t to be as we ran out of time but I was happy to claim a winning draw! As usual it was a cracking game against Phil and it is always a pleasure using his lovely 1940 kit. My rotten luck with the dice did stymie my progress on the right but my plan seemed to be working ok, mind you I did manage to swerve the lethal 88 by guessing correctly where it might be and then I managed to knock it out in short order once I found it so that was a big bonus. Hopefully we can have another crack at this.

I lost my phone which had the pics of this battle on it, I’m going to see if Phillip has any I can pinch to jazz this up a bit but wanted to still post it.

 

Club Night 24/09/18: 20mm IABSM, Belgium 1940

It’s has been far too long since I’ve done one of these but an going to try and get back in the habit of doing them again. Anyway, Monday saw Ian put on a nice 20mm WW2 game of IABSM. Daren and I were taking the part of the filthy Bosche whilst Des got to take the plucky Tommies. We were tasked with securing a small hamlet and had quite a nice force to do so with having the following:

• 1 Heavy weapons platoon of:
  • 1 75mm Infantry gun
  • 1 37mm AT gun
  • 3 Sustained fire MG34 (we attached 2 to the Infantry platoons)
• 2 Infantry Platoons
  • 3 8-man sections with attached MG34
• 1 recce Platoon
  • 2 Sdkfz 222
  • 2 Sdkfz 221
• 1 Pz-38t Platoon
  • 4 tanks

After looking at the terrain we hatched a devilishly simple plan. Daren would take the tanks and one platoon and head straight up the road whilst I would take the armoured cars and the other platoon and try and flank the buildings along the right hand road. Daren would take the Heavy weapons too to help neutralise any opposition.

Table looking from where ze Germans entered.

So with our plans ready we got to it. Daren advanced through the trees to near the Y-Junction with his tanks and drew the fire of a 2pdr located between the houses on the road and a Boyes AT rifle team hiding in the hedges at the junction. In the meantime my Armoured Cars were making their way forwards along the right hand road heading to the T-junction. Daren’s luck was in as the fire from the Brits failed to knock him out but did cause his lead panzer a mobility loss and so he had blocked the road. As his weapons were ok though he returned fire on the Boyes team and the following tanks deployed amongst the trees. Our infantry platoons were still advancing behind on blinds.

‘Keep a look out mit ze Minzi Pies Hanz!’

‘It is all a bit quite, Dieter!’

Things settled down to a duel between the Boyes and 2pdr and the Pz-38 platoon for a while, Daren made short work of the Boyes team and started firing on the 2-pdr which managed to brew up a tank. The return fire from the remaining tanks managed to kill all of the AT gun crew bar one brave soul who stuck to his task and kept up the return fire as best he could (obviously with an eye on getting himself on the cover of Victor Book for Boys one day!). Indeed this stout son of Albion eventually knocked out another Pz-38 before he was finally made to retreat, in the process earning himself the admiration of us all and no doubt a citation for a fanny magnet from his CO too.

‘Lumme Corp, don’t bleeding well miss.’

‘Bugger!, you knocked my arm you clumsy sod, now we’re for it!’

Whilst all this was going on we had spotted a rifle section lurking along the hedges where the Boyes was and I duly made short work of them with the combined fire of my cars. I also moved my infantry platoon up into the hedged enclosure between the junctions to prepare for an assault on ‘my’ side of the hamlet. This drew some ineffective mortar fire which was lucky as the infantry were pretty bunched up and fire from a Vickers in the wrecked roof of one of the houses, I managed to get away with only 3 casualties and a few bits of shock and spread the Landsers out and headed for cover.

‘Himmel, Tommies in ze hedges, make mit ze shootings schnell!’

The battle then developed into a firefight as another British rifle section popped up along the stone wall on the right of the buildings and we got the second infantry platoon and the heavy weapons into action too. Unfortunately for Des our lads were better shots and assisted by the automatic weapons of the recce boys and the HE fire from the tanks and guns pretty soon gave the Germans the upper hand shredding the second British rifle section and knocking out the Vickers.

‘Tally-ho lads, lets get up and help out, oh…..’

The Brits did have one hope though as a reinforcing platoon of Infantry accompanied by an A9 appeared on the road on the right, unfortunately my armoured cars hit the infantry pretty hard causing them to scatter and go to ground whilst taking shack and casualties. With time running out and the German weight of fire being so strong we called it a night. All in all a nice straightforward scenario which would have turned out very different if we had stumbled on Des’ other 2pdr and it had taken out the rest of the tanks or some of my armoured cars. Thanks to Ian for putting the game on, he has a fine collection of toys which are always a joy to behold, and thanks to the chaps for making it fun. Hats off to my Armoured Car boys whose devilish shooting helped us secure a win although man of the match was definitely secured by the plucky Tommy on the 2pdr.

EDIT: Some more pics that I forgot to load up in my hast to get the post up!

My infantry platoon of Matchbox and Airfix figures come under fire.

First British section get mullered by Armoured Car and Tank fire

The hardest bloke in the village manning his 2pdr against all odds

Vickers team let rip and take hits too

Brit re-inforcing Platoon just before attracting attention of the death ray Sdkfz’s

 

 

Club Night 25/09/17: FFT3, Austrians vs Soviets.

I really need to get back into the swing of posting, been thinking of a bit of a change to a couple of things and will get started once I’m caught up with these Club Night posts. Anyway as I had just finished off painting my new T-64 Regiment and it had been a while since the Austrians had a run out I decided to get them both on the table. Comrade Noakesavitch would be leading the mighty Red Army as usual and I would be taking over Kampfgruppe Grüber to try and stop their advance. Dan’s orders were to take the road junction at the end of the table to enable the advance on Vienna to continue.

Before we started Dan and I had a quick conversation about recce and how we both don’t like the usual ‘recce by death’ that usually happens so we cobbled together something on the fly. As my forces recce element was a couple platoons of Jeeps with MG’s I said that they would have fallen back before the heavier Soviet recce element and hence Dan could place his platoons anywhere up to the line of terrain features (hills/fields) in front of the stream (the dark green line) that bisected the table. This was near enough to my forward positions without initiating close combat but close enough to maybe ‘spot’ something or get a sound contact. Dan then rolled against his QC rating to see if he spotted anything, he didn’t definitely spot anything but he was aware of a couple of my positions – we will be working on this for future games.

Dan’s Tank Regt comprised the following, rated as Conscript (-1 to hit and Quality of 4):

• Regimental Base
  • 1 HQ stand
  • 1 ACRV FOO
  • 1 ZSU-23-4
  • 1 SA-13 Gopher
  • 2 recon BRDM-2
• 3 Tank Btlns
  • 6 T-62
• BMP Btln
  • 1 Cmnd BMP-2
  • 2 SP Vasliek 82mm Mortars
  • 1 AGS-17 30mm AGL (BMP-1)
  • 1 AT-7 Saxhorn atgm team (BMP-1)
  • 9 Inf (BMP-2)
• (Off table) Regt Art Btln – 3 x sp 122mm
• (Off table) 2 Div Art Btlns – 3 x sp 152mm
• (Off table) 3 MRLS units
• Mi-24 Helicopters
• SU-25

The valiant Austrian ‘Kampfgruppe Grüber’ consisted of the following, rated as ‘Regular’  (Quality 4):

• Kmpfgp base
  • 1 HQ Stand
  • 2 recon Jeeps/MG
  • 1 M42 Duster
  • 1 Gr81 sp81mm Mortar
• Jagdpanzer Coy
  • 3 Sk-105 Kurassier
• 2 x Panzer Coys
  • 3 M60a3
• 2 x Panzer-Grenadier Coys
  • 3 PzGren (4k4f mg)
  • 1 PzGren/Bill atgm (4k4f 20mm)
• (Off table) Bgde Art Btln – 3 x sp155mm
• (Off table) Corp Art Btln – 3 x towed 105mm
• (Off table) 1 MRLS unit
• Draken

I could also call on another Kampfgruppe of the same composition (minus the Jagdpanzer company and off table supports) as a reserve.

My plan was to try and slow the advance down by placing a PzGren company in the central village near the stream and to keep the rest of my force back so as to hopefully prevent it all being destroyed too quickly then to counter-attack once my reserve showed up. Dan did a classic Soviet attack, the Motor Rifle battalion was dispatched straight up the road headed for the central village with a Tank battalion advancing on each flank with the third in reserve. He also started laying down a sustained barrage on the village which immediately caused suppressions on the defending PanzerGrenadiers. Due to his earlier recce he also brought fire down on the hedgeline to the left of the village and suppressed some of the APC’s there (these were from the lads holding the village).

The Austrian view and deployment: Lt Green are PzGrenadier positions, Black are Panzer, Pink is PzJager and Yellow Recon. Red ‘flag’ is HQ.

These bombardments continued for a while as the Soviets moved up to the stream, all the time keeping the garrison of the village suppressed whilst Dan prepared for the assault. I, on the other hand, was having trouble calling my artillery in at all – damn that Soviet jamming of my radio nets! To make things worse Dan was consistently winning the initiative and was slowly accruing a hefty amount of command pips even though he was spending some on keeping his artillery going. Then things got even tougher for the PanzerGrenadiers when a massive MRLS barrage landed on the village taking out one platoon and supressing the rest which allowed the assault that followed to succeed at the first rush, albeit at the cost of one Motor Rifle platoon.

Whilst this was going on in the centre the Soviet tanks on the flanks had reached the stream and those on my left got busy trying to brew up the APC’s stuck by the hedge due to being constantly suppressed by artillery, with two platoons soon ko’d and one having legged it due to failing its Quality check the last survivor also made for the rear. This whole side of the battlefield was now only defended by the Panzer company situated at the hill to the rear. Over on my right flank Dan had pushed one of his recce platoons forward along the stream to recce my positions and I was forced to try and take it out with a SK105 platoon as I wanted to keep the tanks here hidden as long as possible. Unfortunately I missed with the first attempt due to the plucky BRDM-2 crews taking advantage of the cover afforded by the streams trees and bushes (bloody saving throws!). The Soviet recce types then duly located my Panzers on the ridge and got off a report to HQ.

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I was now expecting to be on the receiving end of some artillery attention whilst waiting for the mass of T-64’s advancing on the stream to surge forward to take on the M60’s but Dan had other ideas and used some of his Command Pips to call in an airstrike. He then rolled very well for the load carried by the SU-25 (mind you nearly every load carried by one of these will spoil your day!) and pretty soon I was on the receiving end of masses of cluster bombs and other general nastiness that destroyed one of the 2 targeted Patton’s whilst causing the other to fail a quality test. This convinced the remaining platoon to also re-locate in a rearward direction, bugger.

 

Achtung, Jabo!

 

Things were now officially ‘somewhat sticky’ for the Austrians, I still could not wrest initiative from Dan and had only managed to accrue 1 measly Command Pip which was not enough to get my reserves into action and my force was down nearly 50% of its initial strength. So, what to do: I decided to re-deploy the PanzerJager company towards the centre to replace the missing Panzer company and hoped to win the initiative and then release my reserves otherwise I was onto a hiding. Whilst I started moving the Kurassiers the Soviet Tank battalion that was advancing on my right had made it to the stream and the recce platoon here moved across the stream where it was taken out by a Bill ATGM from the PanzerGrenadiers in the wood there. I also managed to supress some tank platoons when I actually managed to call in all of my M109 batteries at last.

Over on the other flank Dan had crossed the stream to the left of the village and here too I managed to score a partial success with my artillery calling in a strike from the Army MRLS battery which succeeded in suppressing the whole battalion and causing so much confusion that it caused them to halt for a turn to sort themselves out, this was however, very much a last hurrah (indeed a first hurrah really!). My hopes in calling forth my reserve was dashed again as Dan retained the initiative and as the ominous form of a Hind helicopter had also entered the field by this time I decided enough was enough and gave the order to withdraw to preserve what was left of my force for the future.

As usual it was a cracking game with Dan, who is always a pleasure to play against, he used his artillery to maximum effect supressing my lads in the village constantly then unleashing a massive final blow with his rockets before the assault went in – textbook stuff really. He also used his command pips well, allowing his artillery to keep firing and keeping enough in reserve to unleash his air support when needed. I did suffer from not gaining initiative apart from once but that was sort of satisfying as it means that the new initiative rules work, sometimes it just aint your day. I do actually sometimes like it when that happens as it adds to the challenge, although having said that I will be getting the Austrian MANPAD bases done soon to help out against Soviet airpower in future ‘cos those Frogfoot’s are beasts!

 

 

 

Club Night 11/09/17: More Big CoC, Normandy ’44.

It’s been a while since we played this game, so the write up will be brief especially as I didn’t seem top take many pics for some reason which usually helps jog my memory.

Anyway it was supposed to be a sort of reverse game of the one fought out a few weeks before between Daren, Mike and myself but this time with me controlling the defending Germans against Mike and Daren attacking with the Brits. On the night though we were joined by Bart as he didn’t have a game and wanted to try out Chain of Command. The Brits had 2 infantry platoons and a tank platoon of 3 Sherman’s one of which was a Firefly. For support they brought a Carrier Section and a Churchill which just wasn’t cricket! To face this horde we had a standard Heer platoon (Commanded by me) with a HMG and Mortar FOO in support along with a mixed armour platoon of 2 PzIV’s and a Somua half track mounted PAK-40 that Bart was in charge of.

The field of battle looking from the German lines

The patrol phase was an even affair but the Brits rolled really well for morale with 10’s and 11’s whereas we were at 8’s and 9’s, but we were sort of confident. Our plan was to engage the armour from as far back as possible and once we knew where the bulk of the infantry were get some mortar stonkiness on them to get them pinned or to at least deny as much of the ground as possible to the attackers so that we could try and take the larger number of enemy infantry on with less chance of being outflanked or over-run.

The Brits had decided on a very bold plan though getting all of their infantry sections on the table as soon as possible with the armour also getting involved quickly too. This did force us to deploy our tanks as quickly as possible and I also had to get some infantry on to prevent a JOP from being taken. We also managed to get the FOO going from our first phase and soon the mortar’s were in action catching 2 sections of advancing Tommies and a Senior Leader in the fire zone. However after one phase a triple 6 was rolled which put the kibosh on the barrage as we didn’t have a CoC dice yet. To add to our woes we failed to get in contact with the battery in the next activation and then when we tried again we rolled up the dreaded ‘not available again’ result. Things were now officially a bit sticky.

Our short lived mortar barrage – damn those ammo shortages!

While this was happening Bart’s panzers had been engaging the British armour from long range and whilst one of the PzIV’s kept getting hits on the Churchill it just refused to be damaged due to its great armour. The other PzIV did cause some major damage to one of Daren’s sections when it caught them crossing open ground but it didn’t have any luck against the Sherman’s it was duelling with and succumbed to a long range shot from the Firefly. Pretty soon the surviving PzIV was also burning as it was ganged up on by the numerically superior Allied tanks, which had managed to survive the duel without much damage.

Brits advance….

With the failure of the mortar barrage to help slow down the advancing infantry I was forced to get the remainder of the German infantry on table to try and deal with the British advance. This went as well as the rest of our attempts had done through the rest of the battle with me losing a section trying to win back a lost JOP. I holed one section up in a house after that but our morale was plummeting badly and the impetus was well and truly with the British. Both tanks were out of action and when the SP PAK was also knocked out it was obvious that we had no chance of winning as the Brits could just sit back and shell the crap out of us with their tanks whilst their superior number of infantry moved forward to secure JOP’s and the objective at the T-junction. We might have been able to shred a section or two but we decided discretion was the better part and withdrew.

.. relentlessly on

So a sound drubbing for the Bosche but as usual a good fun game which lessened the blow somewhat. If we could have kept the mortars going for a bit longer it would have evened things up somewhat and also losing the armour fight so comprehensibly (no fault of Barts by the way he was very unlucky a couple of times not to brew up a Sherman) meant that we were on a hiding to nothing but c’est la guerre and all that!

 

Club Night 28/07/17: Flaming Big CoC….

I have been quite lax in posting this and as I have some more to get done here’s a quick AAR of a fun game of Big Chain of Command that was played just before we broke up for our annual August break.

Daren is still ambivalent when it comes to a bit of CoC and so to try and change his mind we decided that what might make him enjoy it more was to make the CoC bigger, after all, size matters right? So a nice straightforward scenario was devised whereby a German Kampfgruppe would be attacking a British position with the aim of securing a T-Junction. Daren and I would be in charge of the Germans and Mike would be looking after the plucky Brits. The forces were the following:

Germans:

• PanzerGrenadier Zug
• Infanterie Zug
• PzIII Flammpanzer
• StuG IIIF

British

• Infantry Platoon
• Churchill Mk.VII Platoon of 2 tanks
• Vickers HMG
• Scout Carrier Section

After a not very successful patrol phase by myself we hit upon a simple plan. Daren would take the PzGrens and the Flammpanzer and advance up the right flank making use of the cover there and would assault the objective whilst I with the Infantry and the StuG would attempt the trickier left flank. Not only was the left flank more open but it was also where the British armour platoon was due to enter the table, with this in mind I decided that I’d lead with the StuG and see if I could somehow take on the behemoths headed my way. We were expecting Mike to keep the Churchills back supporting his infantry so I was hoping for a couple of lucky shots to at least keep them occupied and to draw the attention onto the StuG and away from the PzIII. Luckily for us this is exactly what happened, and then some!

Looking from the German lines: German JoP’s in Red, British in Blue.

Daren was developing his attack along the right very nicely, moving a couple of sections forward and slowly advancing the PzIII whilst trading some fire from a section of Tommies and slowly getting the upper hand and pushing them back. Whilst this was going on I was engaged in an armour duel with the 2 Churchills. However, to our great surprise, instead of hanging back and encouraging us to come on Mike was very aggressive with his tanks pushing one well forward. I kept on having a go at the lead tank but neither of us could get a killing shot away – Mike’s armour was too much for me and his gun was just too weak to do me in – but eventually my brave StuG succumbed to the fire of both of the Churchill’s as I had been immobilised and one of the Churchills had worked its way round for a flank shot.

Whilst Mike was pushing ever closer to the StuG to get that better shot I had advanced a JoP and duly deployed a section close to the lead Churchill and had a go at short range in the flank with a Panzerfaust bagging the tank and causing it to brew up. This meant that we were without our long range anti-tank weapon and Mike still had a Churchill left which we presumed he would use to go after the Flammpanzer. Mike had different ideas though and moved the massive tank forwards parallel to the road to start to take on Daren’s PanzerGrenadiers  in the  Orchard which were giving Mike’s infantry section in the field across the road a right mullering with their 2 MG42’s. However, Daren played a blinder, he too had moved one of his JoP’s forwards and used a CoC dice to deploy his Panzerschreck which couldn’t miss and duly brewed up the second Churchill.

With his armour gone and one section close to breaking we now had a surge in confidence and started to advance again. My lads that had taken out the Churchill left the cover of the field they were in and were surprised by a Vickers which caused them to fall back behind the hedges again to lick their wounds and recover. I reinforced them with another section and with the help of some of Daren’s chaps quickly got revenge, virtually wiping out the crew and causing them to be pinned after a few rounds of firing. Whilst this was going on Daren advance one of his sections and caused Mike to deploy a section to counter this and protect the objective. This is exactly what Daren wanted as the Flammpanzer let fly and quickly destroyed the British lining the road with 2 bursts of it’s terrible weapon.

Daren’s ‘bait’ section advances

The final Flammpanzer burst seals a Tommy section’s fate: 4 casualties and 18 shock!

All in all things weren’t quite going Mike’s way: both tanks were burning, his Vickers was out of action, one squad was had taken a mullering, one was virtually destroyed and broken, senior and junior leaders were wounded and his force morale was shot to bits but he hadn’t totally given up. Much to our surprise he launched his Carrier Section down the road in a crazy attempt to capture a JoP but it was doomed from the start and both carriers succumbed to a good ‘fausting and ‘shrecking from mine and Daren’s lads by the road. With this it was game over and he finally admitted defeat.

Mike’s last, valiant, crazy carrier charge …

… ends in disaster

It was a cracking game as usual with Chain of Command and Daren and I were actually quite surprised that we managed to pull off a victory, given what support armour we decided on as we had thought about taking a Tiger or Panther so that we could tackle the Churchills but both fancied trying out the flame tank. This was a gamble as if Mike had decided to take it out with one of his tanks or had managed to get a PIAT shot at it we might have been screwed. Similarly we were relieved that Mike decided to be so aggressive with his tanks which played into our hands somewhat as our short range anti-tank capability was so strong, if he had kept them back and used them as mobile pill boxes we didn’t think we would have been able to have done so well. Daren really enjoyed the game though which was good to see, so maybe we could entice him with some more CoC action in the future?

 

 

 

Club Night 24/07/17: The drums, the drums!

I took part in my first ever Colonial game on Monday down at the Warlords. To be honest the ‘period’ always left me cold as I could never see the point in it really. Some seriously outnumbered Europeans boldly defending themselves against hordes of indigenous peoples (armed only with sharpened pieces of fruit and rightful indignation) but pulling through due to having far superior firepower and fantastic facial hair just didn’t do it for me. However I saw Martin’s game the other week and it looked fantastic and when he said he was putting on a bigger version I jumped at the chance as the figures were just too lovely not to!

So, here I was about to take on the Mahdi’s forces in the Sudan. The scenario was seemingly straightforward, our column had to advance across the table and secure the settlement at the far end. We could see some Mahdist types in the wadi to our front but were sure that there were more lurking in the various pieces of cover between us and our objective. The column was split into 4 commands with (from left to right) Ian taking the Dragoons, Andy the Royal Navy detachment and Royal Marines (well he is an old bootie), Mike the Highlanders and Yorks & Lancs and I had control of 3 battalions of Egyptian infantry, some skirmishers and the chainmail clad Gendarme squadron. The plan was brutally simple: the Dragoons would get free of the first wadi and then swan about looking for Mahdists, the British would boldly advance on the settlement whilst the Egyptians would have the trickier job of advancing on the guns to silence them.

Things got very sticky very quickly however as a bunch of Mahdists broke cover in the brush in front of the advancing Marines and opened fire which slowed their advance somewhat as it took a while to dispatch them, especially as the Navy’s gun jammed after 6 shots! Whilst this action was happening my brave Egyptians had advanced to the wadi and had readied themselves for the assault whilst my skirmishers tried to discomfort the lurking enemy. The Jocks to my left were attracting the attention of the Mahdi’s guns and the Cavalry on the far left seemed to be just prancing around (the first of the random event cards caused them to retire in the direction they had just come).

The Egyptians were soon across the first Wadi as the Mahdists broke as soon as the assault battalion charged whilst the British also moved forwards to take the other Wadi defenders under fire whilst the Highlanders outflanked them. The Marines seemed to be a trouble magnet though as they were attacked by bands of both Fuzzy-Wuzzies and Mahdists. These attacks were seen off with the assistance from the other battalions and soon the combined weight of shot from the Naval Detachment, Yorks & Lancs and Royal Marines soon saw the Wadi and its environs free of the enemy and they could cross over to join their allies and the Highlanders on the far side. It was about this time that the drums started up as the column once more pushed ahead.

 

At first everything was looking good, my Egyptians had advanced and  after seeing off a charge by some camel mounted fuzzies we were steeling ourselves for the attack on the first enemy gun. I had pushed my skirmishers right in front of the guns and should have started to reduce the crew by their fire if they could have hit them, unfortunately though they were awful shots and this wasn’t happening. Meanwhile, across the rest of the advance Mike’s Highlanders were advancing on the second gun and both them and the Y&L had to deal with further ambushes from the Mahdists which had disjointed their advance somewhat with the English battalion now lagging somewhat behind. This was the story for Andy’s chaps too. The Marines were still shooting and melee-ing their way forwards, racking up an impressive number of slain and routed enemies on the way, but becoming slightly separated from the Naval Detachment as they had also veered off to the left somewhat to deal with more trouble. The Cavalry meanwhile had got into a jolly hairy scrape, riding between the palms and some brush to threaten one of the enemy guns they triggered 3 separate ambushes and another Balaclava looked on the cards. Thankfully though they managed to extricate themselves from the trap with no loss. Then the drums stopped.

As soon as this happened all hell broke loose with Mahdist bands led by Emir’s appearing from all points of the compass and headed straight for us (this was the result of a random event card). Things got extremely hairy from here on in. Over on the far left the Royal Marines were girding themselves to see off yet more, fresh attackers. The Yorks and Lancs had to about face to prepare to receive attacks from the direction we had come from by a large band of Mahdists. The Navy and Highlanders were dealing with one of the guns and the forces that failed to catch the Dragoons and my brave Egyptians were surprised by two huge bands of enemy troops lead by fantastically bedecked Emirs erupting onto their right flank.

The Mahdists caught the end of one of my battalions which sacrificed one and a half companies to try and hold them long enough for the rest of the battalion to fall back and wheel to face. This is what a second battalion just about managed to do letting loose a volley before being struck by the second attacking band. A frenzied melee then ensued with the smaller Egyptian force valiantly holding off a vastly superior force long enough for their parent battalion to ready themselves, the second battalion was also holding firm and I readied the Gendarmes to make a charge into the disorganised Mahdists. At the same time another band was spied moving towards the Wadi that we had crossed earlier so a square was formed by the two battalions that were not engaged in the melee. This was none too soon as the fighting on the flank ceased with the destruction of the brave Egyptian defenders, with the charge of the Gendarmes achieving naught but delaying the inevitable briefly.

Elsewhere other desperate fighting was being conducted as the Mahdist hordes attacked although the Dragoons did manage to execute a successful charge into the rear of one band.  Although we were quietly confident of our chances there were a lot of new enemies approaching and their guns were still in operation, all of our units had been steadily losing men and I was down one whole battalion so it was a slight relief that we ran out of time!

The game was bags of fun and had moments of real tension, many thanks to Martin for putting the game on it was an absolute pleasure sir! Rules used were ‘Sands of the Sudan’ which had nice simple mechanics that were easy to pick up and the random event cards added a huge amount to the game not only in the random events but also period flavour. All the figures are from Martin’s beautiful collection and most of the terrain (bar the Wadi’s and the ruined buildings ) are his too, with most made by him too. He is thinking of taking it to a show which I think is a great idea as it would be a great participation game. I’ll definitely play another game so thank you Mr Gane for the introduction, the next one might even be reported in an appropriately Victorian style….

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Club Night 17/07/17: Some CoC at last!

I got my first game of Chain of Command in ages at the club last Monday and it was good to have a change from all the FFT action I’ve been having. I was taking on Ian’s American infantry with some German Infantry so a nice even game was in the offing, which was needed for Ian as his last outing was against a JagdTiger and Elite PanzerGrenadiers and I don’t think he enjoyed it much! I also got to put a couple of my new buildings on the table too which was nice.

We decided on doing a scenario that isn’t in the rulebook but that Des and I concocted which works well as a club game. It is your classic ‘meeting engagement’ with both sides tasked to secure a road junction or cause the other side to fail morale. To generate Support Points we both rolled 2d6 and we discarded the lowest die out of the four, then added up the pips from the remaining 3 and that was what we had to play with. We ended up with 13 points and I went for a Pz IV, an Adjutant & a MMG; Ian went for another rifle squad, a HMG, a sniper and another bazooka team.

All in all the game was good fun, not much happened in the way of manoeuvre but it was an good old-fashioned toe-to-toe firefight which is a great way to spend an evening sometimes! The patrol phase ended well for both sides really with us both having JOP’s near to the buildings and with good potential to launch attacks. I had the greater morale with 10 versus Ian’s 9 so got to roll for activation first which was great as I got lucky rolling a double 6 for the first set of activations and brought on the tank and one squad, I then did it again so pushed the squad forward to the nearest house and deployed another (we then agreed that 3 times of double 6’s would be it!). The last of my activations just saw me push the infantry forwards to take up position along the hedges to cover the flank and start to clamber in the back windows of the house to cover the road whilst I deployed the Senior leader to back them up.

Table before the patrol phase

My lads push on to defensive positions whilst Lt Gruber shouts encouragement.

Ian’s response to these deployments was to get as many of his dudes on the table as he could as quickly as he could and he started to push forward past the house on my right with a squad to threaten my JOP that was deployed in the field by the two trees. He also lined the wall over the road from the house that I had occupied with a second squad and a third arrived over on the left to protect the JOP there from attack from my left hand section. I waited until the squad advancing by the house on the right got close enough and I brought the MMG on and let rip. 10 dice and what did I get, absolutely nothing, I rolled 6 ones!!! I should have taken this as a sign and bugged out then and there.

The Amis move out (Valiant figures, very well painted Mr Spence!)

Surprise, surprise….

Oh bugger….

All still there and not even really shocked, just a bit miffed!

Luckily for me the Pz IV waded in with its MG too and their aim was better and the Junior Leader copped it whilst I added more shock and took out a couple more of the squad. Ian countered by bringing on his M2 and got to work chewing up my MMG team, taking one out and shocking the bejeezuz out of the rest. This was a fight which I lost and before I could activate them again the M2 broke the gun team. I had deployed my last rifle section in the same place and they finished off the advancing Ami squad, breaking the rifle team and caused the BAR team to duck behind the house for cover.

Meanwhile in the centre my section in the house had started a firefight with the Yanks across the road which they started to slowly win – the HE fire from the PZ IV helping somewhat – but Ian was managing to successfully rally off shock to keep his guys in the fight albeit with mounting losses. I briefly moved my left hand section forward to threaten Ian’s right hand JOP but quickly retired them as I didn’t fancy taking on the Browning that was stationed there too.

This beast of a gun then decided the game as it started to fire on my section that had taken the SF MG42’s place and had been engaging Ian’s lads near the building on the right. For some stupid reason I didn’t lob a smoke grenade to prevent the incoming HMG fire by masking my position there and pretty soon both my Gun and rifle teams were broken and on their toes. Before I could get my Senior leader across to them though Ian had built up a CoC dice and used it to end the turn. With me losing the HMG team and a squad routing off the table on top of the breaks I had suffered my morale had dropped to 5 and I conceded.

I did not like these gits..

.. they did this..

.. and this!

So, like I said no finesse really but cracking fun all the same, thanks to Ian for the game and it was good to see his lovely figures on the table and it was a pleasure to cross swords with him and to have a game of these excellent rules again.

 

 

Club Night 12/06/17: Battlefront WW2, 1940 France

I have been visiting the website of the Battlefront WW2 rules for a while now, mainly to use the fantastic Cold War TO&E’s posted there and have been intrigued by the rules too, I was wanting to try them out to see if it was worth having a go at the Cold War version. I finally got to have a go a couple of weeks ago against Philip using his lovely 10mm 1940 French and German kit. Unfortunately I wasn’t really feeling at my best and was quite half-arsed all evening which is probably why it has taken me ages to get this posted.

Details are going to be sketchy I’m afraid but here goes. As the exercise was simply to get used to the rules – Philip had only had the one or two games of them himself as they were new – the scenario was nice and straightforward. My French force was counter attacking the invading Boche and needed to secure a village, they were trying to stop me. To do this I had a Battalion of Char B’s, a few R-35’s and a Dragon Portee Battalion in Lorraine carriers. The German’s had a Panzer Battalion with a mix of Mk. 1, 2, 3 and 4’s and an Infantry Battalion.

Kick-off. French nearest camera.

I duly advanced on the village whist pushing my nippier R-35’s towards the round wood on the right which Philip started to move round with nearly all of his tanks. I started to trundle some Char B’s across to assist the lighter tanks in fending this threat off as well as placing my mighty 25mm ATG to help out as well. My infantry did manage to assault the Germans in the edge of the village and in the adjacent wood but due to me not supressing them sufficiently before launching my attacks they all failed whilst suffering quite bad casualties. I did manage to thwart the Panzer attack though although neither side lost too many vehicles, the toughness of the mighty Char B’s was a deciding factor.

En avant! Infantry move out…

… supported by these chaps.

Filthy boche get moving too.

The rules were quite enjoyable to play, nice and straightforward mechanics with some nice touches, you only needed a few turns to get your head round the basics and we started to get into the swing of things very quickly. I quite liked the cards that had vehicle and infantry stats on but reckoned a data sheet would be easy to knock up – just not as pretty! Although we didn’t reach a definite conclusion to the game with a couple more under our belts I reckon we would have done, this was probably not helped by me feeling crap too.

I really like the camo on these.

Germans in the trees attract la Furia Francais

Lovely limber model, came to a sticky end unfortunately.

Many thanks to Philip in putting the game on, he is a worse rules tinkerer than me and said that he hadn’t find anything yet that he wanted to change which is high praise for the rules indeed. I’d definitely be happy to give them another whirl soon and if I really like them might invest to be able to try out the Cold War version. I’m really trying hard to resist all of the lovely 15mm Cold War kit available these days, however these seem like a good set to use for that scale so it might just give me the final push into taking the plunge.