The Other Partisan 2024

 Took a trip to The Other Partisan recently, so this is (yet another) Partisan report. I'm obviously a bit late to the party as loads of other people have done theirs already. I had a running event in the morning so could only go for the afternoon.

I got there at 1.30 and the place was still packed! I'm used to the numbers really dropping off after lunch.

The Participation Game zone was heaving too. Numbers did drop a bit later in the day, but nothing like they have done on the previous few years.

I didn't spend too long on the demo games, as I'd seen a lot of them at Partisan earlier in the year. One or two caught my eye though.

Harrogate Wargames Club had this great 28mm Vietnam Game, with fleets of Hueys on upturned beer glasses.

And the Chesterfield gang put on this lovely game of Malplaquet.

There was also this lovely First World War game set in Africa, but I didn't catch the club putting it on. Tanga with added armoured cars and camelry?

I did manage to catch up with some pals.

Graham Evans and Edgecot with the Northampton Battlefields Society. This is the old/new display with a lovely new mat and the old 28mm figures.

Chris Kemp offers exciting tryouts of NQM (available at all reputable booksellers near you). Taking Longstop Hill this time.

And to my amazement there was  a WD stand. I gather it was added at the last minute courtesy of the Northamptonshire Battlefields Society generously sharing their tables. Mark explains the intricacies of our Market Garden game.

I thought I'd have a crack at Longstop as I had some questions for Chris after solo playing the published set, and it was much easier to run through some examples. This covers the 78th Div attack on Longstop Hill in Tunisia, although apparently a US RCT has also put in an appearance. Chris ran the game all day, putting on a series of brigade attacks to take each successive German position.

I got 11(?) Brigade who had just taken this village so were in some need of resupply and reorganisation. A chance to delve into the mysteries of bombardment and disorganisation markers. The 'Hand of God' is busy pulling back the Germans to their next village.

I just shuffled the British around until they were in a position to reorg and brought up some armoured support. One of the British battalions was out of supply, but unfortunately the LOG was out of range, but I moved it across anyway. The medics moved up too in anticipation of the next stage.

Although my recce failed to spot the enemy positions in advance, I rolled up an infantry/armour engineer attack on the next village supported by artillery. In reserve we had the Brigade HQ and the unsupplied battalion, and two US battalions covered the right flank.  The 25pdrs had to move up too as they were out of range.

We stonked the village and sent the first wave in. Very unfairly the Germans laid a counter barrage, which rather scuppered our infantry assault.

Fortunate favours the brave etc and we managed to push the Germans out anyway. The 25pdrs got lucky and rolled a '6'. Out of ammo, but they hammered the defenders who lost the combat outcome roll.

Decision time - I could put the tanks into the village, but they would be vulnerable on their own in the close terrain. If the infantry pressed forward through the enemy barrage, they'd take a hit, but would be able to support the tanks.

In the end I opted to take the hit on the infantry. There was an entire FJ Regiment next to the town and I didn't fancy the Grant Regiments chances against them, besides the medics was close by. This turned out to be a wise choice as the Germans launched a counterattack while our chaps were still disorganised. With the help of the Royal Artillery and Engineers we managed to beat off the FJ, who retired to lick their wounds.

That was a really useful tryout and I clarified a few things in discussion with Chris which had been puzzling me. It turned out my guesses had largely been correct, but I'd been over thinking some other aspects.

Many thanks to Chris for his patience!

I also had a go at our old Market Garden game. This is the bijou 2' long version, and very nice it was too. It fitted neatly onto the 6x4 table that John had been able to procure. The player task is to get XXX Corps up the road to Arnhem. "Here is a story you will tell your grand-children..."

Everything was going swimmingly until we got to Son. Let down by the Yanks, again. Time to bring up the 'Bailey crap". The German forces are shown by the face down playing cards, XXX Corps needs to play better cards from a hand of five to beat them and advance. You can also resupply (replenish your deck up to five again) and reorganise (discards one or more cards). The latter is very useful if the highest card in your hand is a seven and the Germans have drawn a King...

After various trials and tribulations including an encounter with Tiger Tanks (ie the King of Spades and I had nothing higher than a nine!) near Grave and a nasty German counterattack at Veghel, we squeaked past Elst on the jammiest cards imaginable and made it to Arnhem in the nick of time. Hurrah!

What a great day out and it was really nice to catch up with everyone. I also managed to play two games, buy a lot of the things on my shopping list, and one or two accidental purchases as well. The toys will be revealed in future posts.