Chancellorsville with Dominion of Blue and Grey

 As I seem to be on a bit of an ACW kick at the moment I thought I'd have a look at Dominion of the Blue and Grey. I've got a ton of Dominion sets of rules which I haven't even looked at yet, but you have to start somewhere. Having read through the rules I picked the Chancellorsville scenario as it didn't have any cavalry (to keep things simple) and we'd played it fairly recently with Neil Thomas ACW.  

Battlefield from the north. This scenario focusses on Lees attack in the north rather than including Fredericksberg too. So we have the Rapahannoc on the left (east), Chancellorsville itself nearest the camera (north) and around it The Wilderness.

Hookers Union army is nearest the camera and defending. They have three infantry units in the front line, the two on the left are 'elite' which gives a combat bonus, presumably to reflect their vastly superior numbers and the one on the right is a normal one. There are two more in reserve. I added a skirmisher base to the Elite units to remind me. irl Hooker outnumbered Lee about 2:1 so I should probably have put more bases out for the Union units. In later games I put the CSA on a shorter frontage instead.

Lee's army has two ordinary infantry units, then Stonewall Jacksons flanking force which is both Elite and Disciplined (Jacksons outflanking manouvre caught Hooker off guard). I added both a skirmisher base and a leader figure to remind me. In reserve are another infantry unit and some artillery. Guns are treated very differently in this set to the others and I'll cover that later.

Both armies also have a pair of leaders - in this set each side can have a General intervene twice during the game to modify a a dice roll by plus or minus one. I'll use the leader figures to remind me and take them off when they are used up. They also have a pair of wagons as each side can attempt to rally two units during the game. Unlike the other sets, rally succeeds on a 4+ but any special attributes are removed. You can only attempt to rally a unit once and units which failed their reliability roll cant be rallied. I rather like that, and I'll use to wagons to keep track of rally attempts and which units have been rallied.

Finally, unlike the other sets, armies are defeated if they only have TWO units remaining and the enemy has more, so they will break faster. Steven argues that in the ACW armies seemed very willing to break off the action to reorganise and fight again another day, possibly due to the space involved. 

There is no preliminary bombardment in these rules, and it uses a dice driven sector activation like the  Blitzkrieg set. 1-3 is left, centre, right and 4+ is attacker choose. The restriction here is that you cant choose a sector in which a battle has already been fought (to represent some of the C2 difficulties in the conflict). Lee rolls a 4 and chooses Jackson to attack as it is the only sector with a CSA advantage.

Like many of the other sets, units fight in sequence, artillery, the infantry etc. Infantry hit on 5+ but Jackson gets +1 for being elite and the Union are on -1 for Jackson being disciplined. So a 3:1 advantage to Jackson. Jackson duly routs the Union right, and unit moves up from reserve immediately. This happens at once before any rally attempts.

The Union also get to choose a sector to fight and pick the centre, they also use of their Generals to take -1 off the the CSA dice. This then becomes a very one sided fight.

The CSA centre is routed and their guns move up from reserve. Artillery are most effective if deployed from reserve with another infantry unit in reserve (support), which they are in this case. Steven argues that they were far more effective defensively than offensively. You can deploy artillery in the front line if you wish, but they are less effective, and unsupported artillery can be overrun very easily by infantry or cavalry. It is these nuances which add flavour to each set but equally mean you need to read them very carefully when switching rules. 

Lee attacks on the right again. They have the biggest advantage here and just to make sure they send one of the Generals to help out.

And routs another Union infantry unit. Unless Hooker does something clever, the Union have lost at this point.

Hooker rallies one of his routed units (shown by the wagon) which moves up into the gap. Now I've just realised I should have done this at the end of the turn prior to victory determination. Oh well, put it down to learning the rules.

The dice decree another combat on the right (rolled a 3) and naturally Jackson is routed! irl he was killed in battle.

That isn't so great for Lee. He has to pull out his last reserve, which of course leaves the guns in the centre unsupported.

The Union also roll a 3 for activation so fighting continues on the right. but neither side gets a hit. They are both saving their Generals for last ditch rally attempts.

At the end of the turn, Lee tries to rebuild his infantry reserve by rallying both routed units. Both attempts fail, despite Lee's personal intervention (he rolled a 1!). These units are now permanently lost and no more rallies can be attempted.

On the next round the dice decree combat in the centre. This has the potential for catastrophe. The artillery needs a 5+ to hit and fires first, but if it misses, the Union infantry will destroy it on anything but a 1 (normally a 3+ but they were elite troops) as it is unsupported. If the guns were still supported they would need a 5 (plus 1) to destroy them. 

Fortunate smiles upon the Confederacy and cannister from the Napoleons sends the Union into confusion  and routs them. Is it game over?

No! Hooker manages to rally his other routed unit and it fills the gap in the centre. It must be those superior Union numbers. That is the last Union leader and wagon used up though.

The Union are forced to fight on the left, despite them having the advantage (being Elite troops), both sides miss.

Straight onto the next turn as there are no more rallies left. The CSA fight in the centre and both sides miss.

The Union roll a 2 and the fighting in the centre continues. This time the Confederate guns hit home and the Union infantry are routed. With no more reserves, Hooker packs up and heads for home. A very, very hard fought Confederate win and surprisingly close to real life.

That was a bit slow as I was getting used to it and I made one obvious mistake, but once again it is quite a different feel to the other period games. Having set it up I ran it for a few more iterations to get the hang of it more. It is difficult choosing when to commit your Generals, it adds a whole extra layer of decision making.

This run was a complete Confederate wipeout! Hooker has all his units left, although one did rally during the battle. Once again Lee failed to rally a single unit.

This one was more of a scrap. Jackson routed in the first exchange of fire and very rapidly the CSA were down to a single line with the Union completely unscathed.

Lee did actually manage to rally one of his units, which was able to support the guns on the right.

But it didn't last and the Confederate left collapsed.

And as the reserves moved up to plug the gap, the unsupported guns were overrun by the Union right. Another Union win.

This run was very bloody from the outset with the Confederate right and Union centre both being routed. Once again the CSA gunners ended up in the front line.

Lee managed to successfully use both rallies which kept the fight going, whereas the Union only managed one and soon the Union were outnumbered.

And finally the Union line collapsed.

In all I ran it half a dozen times with two Confederate and four Union wins, so pretty balanced, and I felt much more on top of it by the end. Like all these period specific sets, there are some very specific aspects to the unit characteristics and turn sequence which you need to get your head around, even if the basic mechanisms are similar. I found this one easier to get to grips with then the Blitzkrieg set, although I deliberately avoided cavalry as they have their own special rules depending on whether they are operating mounted or not. Helpfully the play example in the rules is Gettysburg, which uses both artillery and cavalry units, so gives an indication of how they are supposed to work.

That was good fun and I'm looking forward to fighting some more of these.

Christening the Panzers - Mokre 1939

 Having painted up a load of new early war panzers (or repainted some older ones) I wanted to get them on the table, so broke out one of the Dominion of the Blitzkrieg scenarios. This one was Mokre in September 1939, which we've already done with both Megablitz and NATO Brigade Commander, and there is a huge Mokre scenario in the Command Decision 'Birth of the Blitzkrieg' book which I have yet to convert to One Hour WW2.

Anyway, Mokre featured 4th Panzer Divisions rather shambolic attack on the Volhynian Cavalry Brigade near the straggling town of Mokre. The Polish cavalry were amply equipped with anti-tank guns and supported by an armoured train!

Battlefield from the east. There is a north-south railway line running behind the Polish front line, Mokre itself straggles along the railway line amongst wooded country. There is another village further south whose name escapes me (Kokrum?) held by a Polish infantry Regiment. I went for a 2' x 2' cloth for this one, which may have been  a bit big.

Here are the Poles. A normal infantry unit on the left, in the centre are entrenched anti-tank tanks (Polish cavalry units had a lot of towed 37mm AT guns) and on the right is another cavalry unit (19th Uhlans I think).  In reserve is another cavalry unit and the mighty armoured train, which is rated as an elite artillery unit, so gets three fire missions as long as it stays in reserve. Polish cavalry 'briagdes' were quite big, more like small divisions and the elite of the Polish army. This formation also included around a company of light armoured vehicles (tankettes and armoured cars) but I didn't represent these.

The figures are mostly from my WW1 and SCW collections as the hats and uniform colours are very similar to Polish ones. The '37mm Bofors' AT guns are Republican SCW AT guns with crews in Adrian helmets. 

The train is converted from one of those 'train in a box' gifts. The engine is rather on the big side, but I do have a spare so I might cut it right down and fit armoured plate all over it to reduce the profile. The real train mounted turreted 75mm guns so I've put a T34 turret on the armoured box car. 

4th Panzer assembles. It consists of three tank units (one is elite), two infantry units and an unreliable Stuka. The Stukas are unreliable as the dawn bombing attack was very ineffective, but its presence in reserve will still hamper Polish movement. The elite tank is on the right where it conducted a wide outflanking move irl.

In 1939 4th Panzer had over 320 tanks organised into four battalions of three light companies each. The vast majority were Panzer I and Panzer II with no Panzer III at all and only twelve Panzer IVs in the entire division. The division only had a single Motorised Infantry Regiment with two battalions of infantry, so it was pretty tank heavy.

For the tank mix I used five Panzer Is and four Panzer IIs, all the stuff I've been painting recently. These guys in the centre have the Poland era solid markings on the Panzer Is. Most of them are grey and brown camo but there are plain grey ones too to make up the numbers.

The infantry battalions have a couple of infantry bases each and a Horch heavy car.  

The action opened with a Stuka raid on the right. I want to blast a path for the elite panzers to make an outflanking attack. Naturally the Germans failed their reliability roll so the attack failed and the Stukas were removed. They will still count towards air interdiction of Polish reserve movement in future turns as they were present at the start of the game,despite being removed now. 

The Poles got to choose the combat sector on turn 1, and went for the AT guns in the centre. Both sides missed.

The Germans then attacked on the right again with their elite amour. I remembered to fire the armoured train this time (I should have done that on the first turn) but very luckily for the Germans it missed (3+ needed to hit). With the barrage ineffective, both sides fought another round of combat which the Germans won. The Poles were able to bring up their reserve cavalry to fill the gap though.

The Poless attacked in the centre and the train guns roared out once more...

And this time they hit something! The panzers were destroyed and their place taken by a reserve infantry unit. It seemed silly to put tanks up against entrenched AT guns.

Quite a  busy next turn. The Germans attacked on the right and finally routed the Polish cavalry on the flank. Due to the Stuka/tank combo the Poles were unable to fill the gap so the panzers were in a position to conduct outflanking attacks on future turns.

The Poles were forced to fight in the centre and the German infantry overran the AT guns. Things not looking so good for the Poles now.

The train failed to move up and plug the gap due to interdiction , so both the centre and right flank are open now.

Good news for the Poles on the left. The German infantry attacked and were defeated by the Polish infantry.

The last Panzer reserve moved into the gap.

The Panzers made an unsuccessful flank attack on the right, which allowed the train to make another reserve roll and it moved over to the right flank.

Sadly the German infantry in the centre made an outflanking attack on the train and destroyed it.

So at game end a very battered 4th Panzer has finally made a breakthrough. There was some pretty extreme dice rolling in that which perhaps skewed the result, but it was a fun ride. I ran it a few more times to check the play balance.

It looks a bit better with a lower camera angle.

In this iteration the Polish train starting shelling on the first turn, spreading death and destruction among the massed German armour.

In short order all the German tanks were routed! The Luftwaffe naturally failed to turn up too. German infantry was more successful and the train ended up having to hold the left flank on its own.

It looked like the Poles were onto a winner but it wasn't to be as the Germans on the left overran the train.

But the Poles snatched victory from the jaws of defeat as the cavalry on the right outflanked and destroyed the German centre. A Polish win.

In this next iteration the Luftwaffe actually passed their reliability roll, and I remembered that bombers can attack ANY unit, so naturally it bombed the train. The train promptly blew up and it was pretty much game over at that point.

The Stukas could range at will and the panzer/stuka combo proved as deadly as ever in the absence of any Polish artillery fire.

Pretty soon their were panzers rampaging all over the Polish rear and it was game over with no German losses at all.

However in this last run, the Luftwaffe didn't turn up at all and the armoured train destroyed all three German front line units in quick succession. The Germans never really recovered and the Poles ended up winning with no losses. A complete wipeout.

That was a fun scenario, but although it ended up being honours even, I think the outcome very much rests on the performance of two key units - the Stuka and the train. If the Stuka makes its reliability roll, that is an advanatge to the Germans, and if it manages to knock the train out before it has fired of all its ammo, that will virtually guarantee a German win. Conversely, the train can win the game on its own, as long as it manages to roll a 3 or more on its three fire missions. It was great to get the new tanks out though, and I think it was a decent outing for them.