Cleudo Hostage Rescue

 We were low on numbers this week so John  put on a quick game of Cleudo Hostage Rescue. Only Pete and I were playing and Pete was selected as section leader. He took soldiers 1-4 and I had 5-8, with the medic as No. 8.

We've played this loads of times before, but briefly - terrorists have taken a number of hostages in the Cleudo house, and the players need to rescue them.

Local security forces gave us a rough idea which rooms might be occupied, and we were very lucky in that Colonel Mustard had escaped already and was able to give us a terrorist headcount - six.

We breached in two teams. Pete went in via the Conservatory which we knew was empty (all those windows), while my guys went in via the Hall (which was reported empty with a fair degree of likelyhood).

John assaulted the Ball Room behind a stun grenade. This didn't go as well as hoped and although one terrorist was seriously injured in the gunfight, the other detonated his suicide vest which wounded one of our men. Forttunately none of the hostages was hurt.

My team assaulted the Lounge, again behind stun grenades, and we stormed the room, killing both terrorists and rescuing Miss Scarlet and Mrs Peacock.

My medic went off to stabilise our wounded man who was able to continue in action albeit at reduced effect.

We were a bit hazy about the next target and wasted a grenade on the (empty) billiard room. The final hostages were tracked down to the kitchen.

The kitchen was stormed in fine style behind stun grenades, and we actually managed to capture one terrorist alive and rescued Professor Plum.

So, a very successful operation. All hostages rescued, all terrorists eliminated and only one (walking) casualty.

We have played this a lot so are quite good at it now. Pete in particular made excellent use of the section leaders ability to alter the activation sequence, so we were generally able to open doors, throw grenades then enter firing within a single turn.

Cold War Collection Games Day

 Our latest trip to Tapton for Friday f2f games was a pair of Cold War battles run by Pete and John respectively. The first was 5Core brigade Commander presented by Pete, and the second was Cold War Blitzspiel presented by John. Otherwise, myself, Tim, Bish and Anthony were in attendance.

Petes battlefield from the northeast. Three Russian Regiments are attacking from the east, against two US Combat Commands. I've played 5Core Brigade Commander (5CBC) before, albeit in a WW2 setting. Tim and John deny all knowledge of the game however, so it obviously made a great impression!

Just to prove we did, here is the original game post, although from Petes comments, I think I got a couple of things wrong. https://tgamesweplay.blogspot.com/2016/06/5core-brigade-commander.html

Anyway, I was promoted to Russian CO and to keep things simple, I attacked with all three regiments in line. From top to bottom, Tank Regiment, BMP Regiment and BTR Regiment, commanded by John, Bish and Anthony respectively. John is busy contemplating his troops while Pete points.

I had some assets in reserve and and had pre-plotted all the air and artillery strikes. The general plan was for the BTR Regt to make a diversionary attack in the south through bad ground, the BMP Regt to push up the centre and sieze a ridge and city there, while the main effort was the Tank Regt up the autobahn in the north.

The BMP Regt advances with support from Hinds.

BTR companies with masses of air defence in support.

The southern US command was equipped with M1 Abrams, the early model, but even so, a  bit scary when you are riding a BTR!

My original plan had involved the BMPs going up the middle, but for some reason they drifted south a bit. This actually worked out fine as it generated significant force superiority against the US left. 

This rather left the Tank Regiment in the north out on a limb. They were facing a National Guard unit with M60s, including a couple of companies of M60 Starships, which should have been easy meat for the T64s. The US commander (Tim) burned loads of divisional support assets - artillery, air and choppers in support of the Guardsmen and although the Soviet tankers didn't suffer enormous tank casualties, they lost most of their infantry and and the tanks ended up scattered and disorganised, hiding in various woods with their elements in various states of suppression. 

Halfway through the game a (pre planned) Spetznaz incursion popped up right next to the US HQ! I'd managed to guess the location of that correctly anyway. Sadly the HQ company drove the Soviets off easily.

The US National Guardsmen hung on tenaciously, and the Soviet thrust in this sector was halted. Ranged Combat in 5CBC is relatively unbloody, but units do seem to very rapidly end up disorganised, which require valuable activations to sort out.

In the south however the combined BMP and BTR Regiments had great success against the M1s, supported by every asset I could give them. The US forces here suffered heavy losses and were outflanked via the south. The Russians conducted a lot of close range assaults here, which are extremely bloody although something of a crap shoot in resolution (opposed D6 with a couple of modifiers).

At this point the US commander decided it was time to pack up and withdraw to the next defensive line in the rear.

That was a very good game, and it was good to see how Pete ran things as he has far more experience with 5CBC than me. Some of the things we stumbled with back in 2016 were actually easily resolveable. The whole thing ran very smoothly and in a believable manner.

Next up was Johns 'Cold War Blitzspiel', a modern version of his old WW2 Blitzspiel rules from the 1990s. This is a lower level game than 5CBC with 1:1 vehicle representation. I've played a lot of the later Blitzspiel derivative 'Platoon Commanders War' so I was fairly familiar the approach and mechanisms. Generally it is a bit like WRG 1925-50 but with combat resolved via a DBA style modified dice roll with an outcome table with various different results for different types of troops.  

This is the terrain viewed from the east. A couple of villages separated by a marsh with a wooded ridge on the right.

The Russians. A reinforced tank battalion (3 x T62 companies, a company of BTRs plus HQ, air defence and recce).

The British Combat Team, two troops of Chieftans, a platoon of Mech Infantry in FV432s, a section of Swingfire and a section of Milan (four posts).

These are the forces used in Exercise Chinese Eye, as described in David Rowlands 'The Stress of Battle'. The exercises ran a series (dozens) of Battalion vs Combat Team assaults using SIMFIRE (a 1970s laser weapon simulation system) to adjudicate the combat results, which generated better tactical understanding and masses of OR data.

In the real exercise, Chieftans and FV432s substituted for the Russian vehicles, but the computerised combat results were based on the supposed stats for Chieftan vs T62.

From this side, there is a very obvious kill sack. We put a troop of Chieftans on each flank, supported by Milan on the right and Swingfire firing from the ridge on the left. Our recce troop went to the end  of the ridge and the infantry were kept in mobile reserve apart from a section attached to each Chieftan troop for close protection.

I took the right flank. Chieftans on the left of the village, Milan lining the front, with the various troop carriers parked up in the town.

The Russians deployed in two main waves, with two tank companies up front, and third company and infantry in the second wave. The BTR recce platoon was out front, but not very much.

Even at 2" to 100m, the Russians got very close very quickly. We'd planned on opening fire when they were level with the villages, but they came on so fast I didn't have much choice but to open fire asap as the minimum range of Milan is quite long.

Soon a number of T62 were burning happily, however one of the Milan teams had already shot off all its missiles (they deplete on a '6'). Two of my Chieftans were unable to engage frontally, so they took out the Soviet recce units and scooted.

There are penalties for moving and shooting so the other Chieftans stayed put to get the maximum firepower.

While the NATO elements are platoons, they are companies for Warpac. The company I'd shot up reached its morale test level (30%) and was a bit unlucky and promptly broke and ran, generating smoke as it went. 

tbh, it was a massacre. The Sov return fire was fairly ineffective as they tried to advance and fire from the short halt, which managed to suppress some Chieftan but not knock any out.

Soon more Russians were in effective range of most of our stuff and we just blew them apart, as the piles of burning markers indicate. That was probably quite realistic given our position and the Soviet approach, and WRG 1950- 2000 would have given much the same result.

In the real exercise, the 'Russian' commander was a bit more canny. One of the Chieftans opened fire far too early, and the entire 'Russian' force regrouped and attacked behind the ridge on the right, completely outflanking the British and overrunning the position with minimal losses. Right flanking behind bags of smoke. Perhaps they don't teach that at the Frunze Academy.

It was a good tryout for the rules and rattled along at a fair pace. The weapon effects seemed OK, but the Russians never really got enough stuff in effective range to to test the return fire much and the infantry never engaged at all. It would be an interesting scenario to run a few times to try different tactical approaches for the Russians, as I don't think a mass charge in line is the way to go. 

I thought the missile depletion mechanism worked fine, although I'm not generally much of a fan of additional dice rolls to determine ammo use, this wasn't obtrusive and worked well. 

That was a very enjoyable day out and a nice change from the all day games we've generally been playing on Fridays. 

15mm BPM Daimler Dingo

 I wanted something which would do as a sort of recce/HQ hybrid so I picked up a Daimler Dingo from BPM. For the core British army I don't need much of this sort of thing but I'll get some more later. 

It is a single piece print, and absolutely tiny! I should probably compare it to my QRF Dingos for size, but Tbh, if I want any more I'll probably just get some more BPM ones to match.

For a print of such a tiny vehicle it isn't bad. There are a few rough bits here and there and I should perhaps have got a resin one instead of an APL one. 

There isn't a supplied driver (I'm a bit baffled why they don't just print one inside the vehicle), just empty seats. I bodged one up from one of the QRF carrier crew busts, balanced on a block of wood to give it some height. . 

The Dingo just got the usual 'Light Stone' finish with a very pale drybrush. The tyre treads got picked up nicely by the drybrush. 

All the vehicles so far are plain, but I may come back and do some markings later. I just want to get the core force done first.

The Other Partisan 2023

 We attended the 'Other Partisan' earlier this month under the banner of Wargames Developments Display Team (North). I really like Partisan, one of my favourite shows and it was good to be running a game again there as well. 

Big queues to get in for the 10am opening.

And the hall was rammed by11. I gather numbers were up this year, but as ever, things thinned out very quickly after lunch. This seems to be an increasing trend in recent years, although I didn't notice the same thing at Joy of Six last year, perhaps because I went along in the afternoon!

Here is our table. After its outing at COW in the summer, I took 'World War One in Three Turns' along as a participation game. John, James and Tim helped me run it, we took it in turns through the day, as it needs two people to run it really.

The Manouvre Group crowd were on the table next to us, lots of 1/144th scale modern vehicles.

There were many other impressive participation games, most of them much bigger than ours! Oh well, at least ours didn't take long to set up,

This one is a 15mm Black Powder participation game, Battle of Toulon in 1793.

And the wonderful Star Wars 'Battle of Scarif' which has been around a few shows.

This 'Giant Risk' game really caught my eye, a sort of 'Battle of Dorking' type late nineteenth century invasion of Great Britain.

Plucky Brits prepare to defend old blighty.

WW1 in Three Turns has some takers. John and Tim take Harry Sidebottom through his paces. The hat is my original hand made WW1 Service Dress cap, it is in pretty good nick for something well over a hundred years old with beautiful hand stitching inside. 

Pwll Melyn, 1405, another participation game courtesy of the Lance and Longbow Society.

L&LS were set up next to the Northamptonshire Battlefields Trust table.

Which rather incongruously had Chris Kemps 'Operation Totalize' NQM game set up next to it!

This was primarily eye candy, the actual game bit was Joe Eakins taking on Wittmans three Tigers. I managed to destroy them all in five shots.

NQM QRS and game intro.

As always at Partisan there were loads of big demo games. I ran around and took photos of some of the ones which caught my eye.

St Mere Eglise.

A big game featuring a balloon hanging over the table!

Once Upon a Time in Siberia, set in the 1920s.

Siege of Hennebont, 1342.

Operation Resolute. A huge 20mm Cold War game.

Buccaneers eye view of the proceedings.

The Plains of Lalsot, 1787.

And a very chilly looking winter game.

'Fox killed in the open', a Beda Fomm game.

The Defence of Calais.

Here is Calais, being bombed by a wicked Stuka.

Never Mind the Billhooks at sea. 

James and John running WW1 in Three Turns. We had steady trade all day and ended up running the game 12 times. Losses varied between 19,000 and 26,000, and the majority of participants did manage to break through the German lines eventually.

The players all appeared to enjoy themselves and it was good to be running a public game again after a long break.

A 1918 tank attack putting in a strong effort against the German third line.

And a hideously unfortunate attack where almost everyone was forced back to the start line be weight of fire, leaving just a single battalion to assault the third line. They rolled a 6 and the Germans ran off. Medals all around! 

This was the actual action bit in the NQM game, the Firefly on the left taking on the German tanks on the right.

I was fairly disciplined with my shopping, mainly picking up more magnetic basing supplies and some books on the US campaign against the Westwall. I was on the hunt for some supplies to go inside truck models and was very pleased to come across these. It saves me picking apart some of my existing supply base models to free up some oil drums and ammo crates.

Early war Miniatures resin vehicle cargo packs. These are just amazing value compared to buying individual oil drums and ammo crates.

In each £3.50 bag you get four groups of five oil drums and four piles of ammunition crates, half cast in dark resin and half cast in light, not that it really matters as I'll be painting them

They fit neatly into the back all almost all my open backed trucks. This big Lancia can even take two. This will be a very easy way of designating fuel and ammunition supply columns, and I can also use them as terrain. The only trucks they don't fit are my Peter Pig Gaz AA - the fuel drums are OK but the ammo crates are too long. They fit in my Zvezda Gaz AAs, so problem solved.

Another great day out, and I'm looking forward to the next one.