The Nivelles Offensive

 I wanted to try out the Pz8 WW1 rules again after Simon put on his Cambrai game. I pretty much left them alone rather than fiddling with them. As my late war French haven't been out for while, I set up a scenario covering part of General Nivelles ill fated offensive from the Aisne bridgehead in April 1917.

Tim G, John and Jerry took the French with three divisions between them from 5th Army, plus a cavalry division in reserve, while Simon and Tim C took the Germans with two divisions from 1st Armee, newly arrived in the Chemin des Dames position. 

Battlefield from the southeast, with a grid six squares wide by eight deep. The French are on the Aisne plain, while Germans are holding the ground rising up to the Chemin des Dames ridge. The Chemin itself is the road running along the top row. 

French view of the German position, it does look a little daunting. Each stand is roughly a battalion, so divisions generally have nine to twelve stands. 

The German right commanded by Tim. The front line is lightly held with the bulk of the infantry held at the rear of the battle zone. The forward zone is heavily fortified and studded with concreted MG positions. The French will need to clear these to make a clean breakthrough. 

The German left, commanded by Simon. Each German division has two regiments up, or six battalions, and to make life simple, has a front of three squares. In the German third position, which is way off table and out of artillery range, are two infantry regiments reinforced with Stormtroops designated for counterattack. 

The French right (Jerry). Each French division has nine battalions and an MG detachment plus some tanks.  Again, for simplicity they are each allocated a front of two squares. Tanks can't enter bad going, so they are avoiding the shelled wood.  This Renault is an Armorfast one. 

Tim Gs division in the centre. The going is better here so they are allocated two tank units. My Lancer Miniatures resin St Chamond, which is huge, and my card Schneider CA. I am never building a card model again... 

French gun lines and artillery ammo. They start with 48 shots, which is quite a lot. The French are a mixture of Revell and Airfix figures, while the guns are Hat. 

German gun lines and ammo, 24 shots in this case. The reserve Stormtroop battalions can also be seen. The Germans are a mix of Hat, Emhar and Revell figures, with Emhar guns. 

The French attack opened with a heavy bombardment along the front line aiming to smash up the defences. As defences count against stacking limits, this would both weaken the defenders and allow more attackers into the position. 

The bunker in the centre came in for a massive barrage which obliterated the defences but turned the ground into a crater field. Sadly, crater fields are impassable for tanks.

John's division pushed forward and overran the small German front line garrison behind a rolling barrage. 

In the centre Tim assaulted the Germans in the remains of the bunker but was repulsed, as was Jerry on the right (the Germans piled in a lot of defensive artillery). Fortunately French casualties were light.

The following turn the Germans pulled their outpost back, and Jerrys tanks overran the first trench line. Tim brought up reserves and outflanked the crater field.

More French infantry moved up to replace their losses in the centre.

John meanwhile took advantage of his tanks ability to remove wire, and moved more troops up to occupy the vacated German front line trenches.

Behind a massive artillery bombardment and waves of tanks, the Germans in the crater field were finally overrun. The tanks couldn't enter it, but one French battalion made its way forward.

Cue the French cavalry turning up to exploit the breakthrough! These are Tumbling Dice 20mm metal figures. 

The French attack to widen the breach failed as the Germans hung on grimly. The St Chamond battalion advanced into the German second line and promptly became bogged down. Ooops. It could still contribute to combat from there, just not move any further.

At this point the two German reserve regiments with their Stormtroops arrived in the rear.

Before they could intervene, the French tried again in the centre and both sides threw in shedloads of artillery support.

This time the attack succeeded, and the French occupied the second line of German trenches, advancing through the barrage.

The Germans flung in an entire Regiment supported by Stormtroops to counterattack as shells rained down on both sides.

Unfortunately the French had deployed their MGs and the Germans were cut down in a hail of fire, which rather rattled their resolve. We broke for the night at that point so both sides would have a chance to think about their next days moves.

On the French left, John had brought up his reserves and was in a strong position. The Germans now had a solid line facing them, its key position being the fortified wood which was virtually unassailable. 

Over on the right the front stabilised and Jerry slipped a couple of battalions across to reinforce the breakthrough in the centre.

The view from the German side was a bit alarming as there seemed to be something of a gap.

Things looked rather better on the other flank.

The French managed to push a single heroic battalion up onto the ridge. The Chemin des Dames was in sight! The Germans sidestepped one of their Stormtroopers into the village on the road.

More and more French units shuffled sideways into the breach.

The French cavalry began to appear in strength now. The Schneider battalion rolled up the  hill and promptly bogged down in the same square as the St Chamond. Oops.

More French infantry moved into the tenuous salient and busily set up their MGs.

The French left flank was now completely static.

As was the right.

In the centre the Allies were also stuck as they and largely run out of artillery ammunition at this point. Without artillery support it was virtually impossible to make any further progress, and the cavalry ended up stuck in a big traffic jam behind the bogged tanks, hemmed in by bad ground.

The Germans were just hanging on, but with each side of the French penetration dominated by the concrete MG posts, the French salient wasn't going to be tenable in the long run.  

We called it a day at that point as neither side had the ability to attack any more. It worked OK as a game although I find the combat system a bit all or or nothing. The players said they had plenty to think about, but I suspect it would work better in a f2f setting. Half the game is the initial setup, and I need to think of some way to make that more interactive in a remote format. The combat system is fairly easy to fix as there are plenty of other mechanisms to borrow. All in all, a successful outing, and it was nice to get the 20mm WW1 toys out again.

I'd like to give it another go at some point, and maybe actually reading the printed victory conditions properly this time would help!

Quartermaster General 1914

 The other game we managed to get through on our 'rainy day at Tims' was Quartermaster General 1914. This one is rather more involved than QMG WW2, and requires a degree of preparation and planning by the players. I really like the points scoring only happening every few turns as it encourages  players to plan their objectives for the year, unlike the WW2 one where it is every turn. It better reflects the more deliberate nature of WW1.

The Central Powers were Russell (Germany) and Tim (Austria-Hungary and Turkey), while the Entente was Pete (Russia), Lloyd (US/UK) and myself (France/Italy).

1914/15 saw heavy fighting in the west and a major Entente presence in the east. Serbia held out, Rumania joined the allies and the British managed to take Istanbul! The Russians expanded West but failed to take Prussia, and heavy fighting broke out in Northern Italy between Austria and Italy. The Allies established an early points lead due to seizing so many production centres. I also had a hilarious status card where I got +1 VP for every attack I made with France in the west, which encouraged a rather aggressive French approach...

The Allies hold the Balkans.

The Germans were being pretty aggressive in the west, and a number of naval actions were fought in the North Sea. This position was a springboard for an early 'Kaiserschlacht' and 'Caporetto' which completely destroyed the French and Italian armies along the entire front. This was so monumentally frustrating as I'd just been about to play the 'Verdun' card and a number of other defensive cards. Oh well. Things started going better for the Central Powers.

The end of 1917. The Germans were now pushing the Russians back, and the Western Front was held mainly by the US and British. France and Austria were almost out of cards, oops. This rather restricted their options! In the east there was heavy fighting in and around the Caucasus and Persia as Russia and Turkey vied for dominance.

The Western Front in 1918. The Austrians have taken Northern Italy and control the Adriatic, while the Germans are in Burgundy. Fortunately Rome and Paris are heavily fortified. The British have managed to retake Picardy, but the German High Seas Fleet is still at large. 

In the East, Russia has lost Poland and Galicia but now controls both the Caucasus and Persia. Although Serbia has fallen, The British hold Greece, Istanbul and the Middle East, while amazingly, Rumania is still holding out. 

Although the Central Powers closed the gap in the last two years of the war, it isn't quite enough to overtake the Entente, and we win by 6 points (59 vs 53 iirc). Those extra points for Rumania and Istanbul clinched it for us, despite the reverses in the West.

What a great game, a very clever design and a bit less random than the WW2 one. Nice to be able to play it to a conclusion in a single session.

French and Indian Wars with Fistful of Lead

 We were supposed to be playing a big naval game outdoors at Tims, but sadly Storm Evert intervened, so we retired indoors with suitable precautions in place. First up, Tim put on another 54mm skirmish game using Fistful of Lead, our go-to set of rules for single figure activation skirmish games.

This one was set during the French and Indian Wars. Some settlers and rangers were holed up in this farmstead and an Indian raiding band was after some prisoners.

Here are my chaps. Two armed with muskets and one with a tomahawk. All beautifully painted by Lloyd. We had three similar groups, and being familiar with the terrain, the were able to move offtable from one patch of forest to another.

The Rangers, four of them armed with muskets. I'm not sure what they were supposed to be originally, but they have a look of WW2 Lovat Scouts!

The action opened with us sniping at the defenders of the farmstead. Russell got lucky and one of the Rangers went down with a musket ball between the eyes. His chap armed with a bow took advantage of this to dash across the open ground.

My chaps were banging away at the Ranger facing them, and mainly succeeded in putting lots of holes in the farmstead. Dimly visible are the farmer and his daughter/wife (we were never quite sure which).

One of my chaps dashed for this clump of rocks but was gunned down on the way. Ouch!.

We finally got the better of the defenders on this side. Lloyd managed to wound his opponent and closed in. I got lucky and killed the Ranger behind the wall.

My musket armed chap cautiously approached (the black marker indicates it is currently unloaded). Lloyd meanwhile leapt the wall and found out the hard way the even wounded Rangers are pretty tough in hand-hand combat!

Meanwhile I approached the back of the farmstead and tried to capture the daughter/wife (this required a 'kill' result in hand-hand combat). I managed to grab her, but was then beaten back by the farmer who belted me with his barrel! 

Russell had meanwhile managed to capture one of the Rangers, and the remaining Indians moved in and the farmer went down. In the confusion the daughter/wife got away and my guys contented themselves with running off with a captured musket and the farmers barrel of beer. Result!

That was loads of fun and very cinematic. Although the scenario was very simple, the card play activation mechanism requires a good degree of engagement and thought by the players and it resulted in people having meaningful decisions to make and having plenty to do.