Quatre Bras

 Simon found this interesting little game whilst browsing the internet. Quatre Bras on a 6x8, just the thing for a remote game. The Tims took on Boney, whilst Jerry and I were Ney. Simon and John ran the game and manipulated the map.

I forgot to take any pictures of the setup, but for the first couple of turns the French straggle on and try to duff up the Dutch-Belgians. We'd managed to push them back to the sunken road by now. The units were roughly brigade sized and I guess each hex was around 500 yards. 

Each side used command points to activate units (typically 1CP to do anything, including moving, attacking etc). The French were on 1D6+1, which rendered a certain slow motion aspect to the whole thing. Units were rated for combat dice (1-3), morale (4-6) and movement (1-3). Combat was very simple, roll your combat dice vs the enemy morale value, each success being a hit. Units could take two hits, but fresh units could opt to take the first hit as a retreat. There were a few modifiers to this, and the whole thing worked very well.

There weren't ZOC in the game, but plenty of constricting terrain, which is already causing the outnumbered Dutch lots of problems as we push around their flanks.\. Cavalry could make a charge move under certain circumstances, which got various, but left them disrupted afterwards (the big black marker above). Charges were particularly effective against units already disrupted by artillery fire, which encouraged a degree of combined arms operations.

Oooer, Allied reinforcements have shown up, including Nosey and the Rifle Brigade. Life got a lot harder at this point as Wellington got lots of command points.

A ding dong battle around the sunken rod breaks out. Our Voltigeurs are over the woods, and very effective they are there too (there morale is rated as 6 in a wood, so very hard to dislodge).

Hordes of British infantry roll up. These chaps are rather better than their Dutch pals. The extra units mean the British can plug the gaps in their line. The French haven't really made enough progress,  but I'm a bit stumped as to what else we could have done. We can either use our CPs to attack or move stuff up, with an average of 4.5 CP per turn, we can't really do both, so much of the large French force sits idle. The Allies meanwhile can just use their average of 5.5 CP to blast away with every unit in range.

The British form a line in front of Quatre Bras, while we try and expand our bridgehead over the stream.

That didn't go very well as our leading units are either forced back or obliterated in a wall of Allied firepower. Our survivors are outnumbered 2:1 at this point.

Time to push on again. Ney personally leads a mixed force of infantry, artillery and Kellermans cavalry over the stream.

Once again the terrible Allied musketry roars out and Ney is left looking rather lonely. Even Kellermans elite cuirassiers vanish from the field, and with that we call it a day. I honestly couldn't see what to do differently which would affect the outcome.

The game mechanisms actually worked quite well, and I liked the interplay of infantry, cavalry and artillery, although we struggled a bit with the cavalry charge rules which had certain elements of Barkerese about them. 

A later reading of the original rules revealed that units which win a combat can advance into the vacated  hex. Ah, we'd missed that, and in fact it would have helped considerably with the initial French advance (as the Dutch kept retreating from adverse combat results, then just marching back into the same place again). Armed with that knowledge, a French success looked slightly more feasible and the  group set about playing the scenario again having swapped sides the next day. I didn't play in that one as I had a prior social engagement (first trip to the cinema in well over a year).

 

Red Devils

 Along with 15mm Fallschirmjagers, I also wanted some 15mm British Paras as they also seemed to crop up all over the place. I included these in my order to Peter Pig, and unlike the FJ, these are mix of sculpts of various ages.

Here they are in their box. There are rather more of these than the FJ as the support options and unit compositions at battalion and brigade level are a bit more complex. Also if I wanted to do 1st Airborne at Arnhem at division level, it needs enough paras for four brigades to include the Polish brigade.

I designed the figure collection to do a para or airlanding battalion at one stand = one platoon, but with an eye to higher level games too, so I needed some extra bits too. I didn't worry too much about doing tactical games below company level. 

One of the rifle companies. I did these all the same as three stands on three figures, with a mix of rifles and Stens. In retrospect I should probably have got some Brens to mix in too, but I didn't. Hey ho. The figures are mainly 'advancing rifles' which is a good generic pose.

I did each company in different formations so I could tell them apart. A company is one up, two back, B company is two up, C company is three in line and D company (for those pesky four company Airlanding battalions) is in a sort of blob.

The figures themselves are mainly cast with scrimmed para helmets, plus a few in berets for a splash of colour.

3" mortars. British para battalions had two platoons of four tubes each. I plundered the two crew figures to use as commanders. The other two are in slightly wierd poses, but not insanely so.

Painting all this lot felt rather like a chore at first, mainly because of all the camo jackets, which are tedious at best. I used the same method as for my 1970s/80s British infantry in DPM, sand base, red/brown stripes then go over the lot with green stripes to get the tone right. While earlier Denison smocks were distinctly tan in tone, the later ones were quite greenish overall and that was the effect I went for. After that they were just bog standard British infantry, which I've been painting since I was a kid, so things got easier.

A pair of Vickers guns. The battalions were issued enough Vickers guns to convert either or both 3" mortar platoons into Vickers platoons on a mission defined basis. Most battalions plumped for one platoon of each, as they are useful for different things.

The Vickers crews are moulded in full infantry equipment, unlike their riflemen pals who were cast with quite a varied assortment, something which made getting a painting production line going hard too. At least they all had water bottles and entrenching tools, but some of them also had toggle ropes worn in a very unorthodox fashion (across the body instead of around the shoulders) and not a Bergen in sight. 

I also plundered a couple of the Vickers crew figures (with binoculars) to use as command figures.

Prone PIAT teams. An interesting feature of the Para battalion support companies was an anti-tank platoon equipped not with 6pdr AT guns, but a whole platoon of PIATs (the glider boys got the AT guns).

I slightly trimmed one of the PIATs down so it could pretend to be a 2" mortar if needed. The loaders were nicely cast with a triple tube box of bombs.

'Engineers'. I did these three stands with an eye towards Captain McKays Airborne Engineer Company at Arnhem bridge. They are bodged up from various other figures including kneeling Sten gunners, a pair of walking PIAT loaders carrying more ammo, and a couple of figures walking carrying PIATs, which might from a distance be mistaken for bits of engineer equipment or possible flamethrowers.

The figures all had nice deep cast lines which took an inkwash well, although I was careful to avoid getting any ink on the camo jackets as I'd managed to ruin the FJ jackets doing that. When the ink was dry I did a very light tan drybrush over the whole figure which worked its usual magic of emphasising the highlights. It worked particularly well on the helmet scrim, and saved me having to pick out the scrum strips by hand. I just did a few in dark green as a contrast. 

HQ stands. I've probably got too many of these, but you never know. For Megablitz type games I probably need three (1st AB Tac HQ, Staff and a seperate HQ for the Independant Polish Brigade).

The figures are mix from the command set plus other figures I'd plundered from the support weapon stands as I'd mixed some of the other figures into the rifle company command stands. 

I put them in the same box as the FJ, so now I have a single box of 15mm WW2 paras. There is room for one more stand, so I shall have to think what that might be. Some supply cannister perhaps. 

People with long memories may recall that this box was the same one I used to store all the figures, dice, cards etc for the old WD participation game 'Ten Rounds Rapid'. It that guise it held a BEF infantry battalion and an entire 1914 German Infantry Regiment. Not bad for an old computer game box, which dates from when computer games came on floppy disks. I think this one used to hold the excellent 'M1 Tank Platoon' by Microprose.

COW 2021 Sunday

 Sunday was a shorter day than Saturday, and the weather was considerably worse, but as we were mainly doing sessions inside, that wasn't a particular problem.  I did manage a walk to Knuston to get some fresh air first thing and after another vast breakfast, it was time to get going again.

War Plan Red

First up was Marks ambitious game covering a fictitious UK-US conflict in the 1920s. I was on the good guys team, taking on the perfidious colonials who'd had the temerity to sink one of our destroyers! Something about violating coastal waters. Bah, we will soon show them.

The Royal Navy. These are just the capital ships and carriers, plus some cruisers for support. As you may have already guessed, this fleet includes a fair number of the more eccentric potential designs.

Core of the Home Fleet, this pair of 18" gun monsters. Essentially stretched Nelsons with huge guns and extra turrets.

The game was moderated using GMTs 'Atlantic Chase' with a number of appropriate modifications for the period. Chasing the Bismark isn't quite the same as setting off with a twenty BB battlefleet... 

The USN, which also boasted a load of hypothetical super ships. But rather fewer than the Royal Navy had. To avoid a dull and one sided slug in the middle of the Atlantic, each fleet had to carefully choose its actions each turn, ranging from the operational manouvering to mobilising more of the fleet for missions at sea. Doing too much stuff risked handing the initiative to the enemy, so trying to get the entire RN to sea in a single turn was just going to give the US a free hand to invade Canada.

We essentially mobilised our fast battlecruiser fleet (which included Renown, Repulse etc) supported by carriers and cruisers, and piled it across the Atlantic to seek out the USN and inflict some tip and run reprisals. The early carrier planes were suprisingly effective, the recce biplanes at a range of 500 miles(!). They just weren't large complements, we had about 120 planes embarked, but eight heavy battlecruisers.

Surface actions were resolved on these battle boards. In this action, my BC vanguard has found a couple of US cruisers. 15" guns vs 6" cruisers isn't really much of a contest and after taking severe damage, the US ships laid smoke and broke off.

Unfortunately operating so close to the US home waters meant the USN could respond in force. The next encounter for my scout squadron was six battleships!

Time to lay smoke and break off while enormous shells splashed all around.

Track markers on the North Atlantic. The main action was off the cost of Nova Scotia as the US had their eye on Halifax. We had also despatched a task force to build up our presence in the Caribbean and cut the Panama Canal. 

Our carrier fleet was just behind our BC group, so at this point we launched our secret weapon, carrier borne aircraft. Sadly they managed to roll a double '1' on the search roll! A shame, as I wanted to see the air rules in action. After that, sanity prevailed and the diplomats found a solution.

That was a lot of fun, but I was never quite sure if Mark intended us to end up fighting Trafalger in  the North Atlantic or not. It was a good run through to get a hang of of the command, mobilisation, search, movement and surface combat mechanisms, just a shame we didn't get much air action.

Memoir 44

Mark had brought along a copy of Memoir 44 as he'd never played it before, and Mike and I volunteered to run a couple of sessions. I've really missed playing the CnC games as they don't work well over Zoom, so I was looking forward to this. I know you can play them online but it really isn't the same and doesn't incorporate my mods or an opportunity to use toys and Hexon. If I'm going ot play computer games, I'd rather play on my Xbox.

Mike picked out Arracourt as an introductory scenario as it has all three arms (tanks, infantry and artillery) but no special units and no wierd terrain types like beach obstacles. I'd forgotten how impressive the supplied toys all looked when laid out. This one used every single German tank model  and five infantry units (representing the Panthers, SP guns and panzergrenadiers of 111th and 113t Panzer Brigades) while the US had a  mix of infantry, tanks and artillery representing CCA, 4th Armored Div.

I took the Germans while Mike advised Mark commanding the US troops. The Germans were seriously handicapped by only having a four card deck, while the veteran 4th Armored had six. I just had to run with the cards I was dealt and mounted a series of disjointed attacks in various sectors of the front. I was careful to avoid exposing too many units to piecemeal destruction, but as the bulk of my forces were armour, I was forced to use armoured overrun attacks to maximise their combat power, which in turn left them vulnerable to counterattacks.

By end of the first game the Germans had lost over half their armour, but had overrun the entire US left flank and part of the centre. I've been playing this game along time I am now moderately competent. The US weren't far behind though, so that was a 6:4 German win.

Having played it once Mark had a much better idea of how it worked, so we swapped sides and ran it again. Mark took the Germans and Mike the US. Mark put together a very convincing armoured offensive and obliterated the US in short order, who were unfortunately handicapped by a run of right flank cards. I think the new deck hadn't been shuffled enough.

It was interesting playing the basic game again, it was good fun, but I'm so used to my mods now that some of it jars a bit. The simplest mod to make is simply allowing units attacked in Close Combat to battle back, it makes it less of a game winning tactic and avoids the defender just feeling like a victim. The other is to let players burn any card at all as an 'activate one unit' card. The later CnC games do both of these things and are much better for it, whereas Memoir 44 still has its roots in Battle Cry.

Changing Horses - the reality

After Sunday lunch, John put on a talk/discussion session picking up on the themes covered in the plenary game. How exactly does a small country extricate itself from an unwinnable situation, and how to individuals deal with some of the moral compromises which may be required?

This was very interesting and thought provoking, and the discussion ranged across the varied experience of the Axis powers in particular. It also touched on some of the issues raised in the previous days Baader Meinhof game of individual and collective responsibility, and acknowledgement of the mistakes of the past.

Great stuff and an excellent way to end the weekend.

Conclusion

Well, what can I say. What a great weekend. It was fabulous to see so many old friends face to face, play some thought provoking games but also to have a laugh. My particular thanks go to Bob, Tim and John for organising it so well, but particularly the staff at Knuston Hall who were so well organised and with such slick processes in place to keep us safe and well fed.

COW 2021 Saturday

 The weather forecast for today was dreadful, heavy rain and thunderstorms, but in fact it dawned with just a bit of light drizzle so I went for a run into Irchester and back. I don't know what particular sacrifice to the weather gods had been made, but it was very effective. The weather just got better as the day progressed, which was good for the amount of time we were spending outdoors. 

After a vast breakfast, it was off to the first game of the day.

The Centurians

This was Ian Drurys game of counter insurgency in late 1950s Algeria. I always like Ians games and often end up playing the myself or adapting them for other periods. Briefly, it is aimed at company to battalion level operations with units representing platoons or heavy weapons teams. 

The tabletop represented a large area, 24 Square kilometres, as operations were very, very dispersed in this theatre. The play area was divided into a 1km grid to regulate movement and combat, and many areas contained a 'critical point' (village, mountain top). Units expended movement points to move and enter/leave critical points, conduct searches etc. 

The French had lavish 1/72 air assets. 

Including these lovely helicopters. The French P47s are courtesy of Tim. 

The FFL came on in an extended line. Four platoons on a 4km front. Ouch! Each figure represents 5 men (so 30 man platoons). The FLN manouvre hidden, using pins on a cork board until contact is made. Me, David and Mike were the FLN, our mission being to exfiltrate our force off the far side of the table. A bit tricky with the whole French army in the way. 

The French stumbled onto our sniper on this mountain, sadly he was asleep at his post and taken by surprise. 

Over on the other flank, we managed to get a fine force superiority. The vast amounts of small arms fire mainly produces pins rather than casualties. It turned out that the French both shot better and rallied better than we did, so the French platoon ahead more than held its own as our column ran into it. As the zones are so big, all combat is internal to them, with only some heavy weapons able to conduct ranged fire. 

Despite the target rich environment,  frantic calls for French air support went unanswered and the French shifted some troops across. This in turn opened up a hole in their line and we broke contact and piled our entire force (concealed) through the gap while the French mopped up our rearguard platoon. It was at this point I realised we moved faster then the French. 

Having wrapped up so quickly, we ran another mission. This time the FLN were defending, and set up a series of ambush positions close to the French entry point. This worked really well, and we managed to utterly pin down two French platoons, and even inflicted some losses and captured a pair of MGs with a charge. Ambush fire was pretty deadly. 

The French responded by landing an entire company by helicopter behind us, which was really very impressive. Time for the FLN to pack up and head for home. 

What a great game, I really enjoyed that and I'm looking forward to it being published in The Nugget. The game itself is fun, and the mechanisms are applicable to lots of other periods too. 

A Battle of Monsters

Tim and Nick put on a game covering Villiers Brettoneux in 1918, which absolutely wasn't an excuse to play with 1/32nd scale tanks on the lawn at all. The game covered a big Allied infantry attack supported by ten tanks, but the Germans in turn had half a dozen A7Vs to support their defence. 

Some of the assembled monsters. I'm glad the rain held off as it was so much more fun to play outside. The opposing trench lines were marked out with compost. 

A pair of Mark IVs. We had seven British players so divided the tanks up between us. For some unaccountable reason, I was designated as CO.

Moving up to the start line. The attack was preceded by a bombardment which included smoke and gas. I'm sure that won't cause any issues. 

The wicked Germans moved out of their assembly area as the shelling ended. 

Sadly, the smoke did cause a degree of confusion, and tanks careered in all directions in the murk, with a few near misses. The Germans were also lobbing shells at us , and I seemed be a complete shell magnet, being stunned not once but twice by near misses. No vehicles were disabled however. 

Once we got in close, our numbers began to tell and we despatched two German tanks here for the loss of three of our own. One tumbled into the German AT ditch. The AT system involved firing matchsticks at pictures of tanks, with suitably unpredictable results, but very entertaining for the players. 

And over here another two Germans went up in smoke for the loss of two of ours, and with that, the Germans decided it was time to pack up and withdrew. 

A very pleasant way to spend a sunny afternoon. 

For Whom the Dice Rolls

I was keen to observe Graham's new Spanish Civil War rules in action. I've been following their development on his blog, but it isn't the same as seeing them played. I dropped in after the WW1 tank game to watch for a while. 

He was running the Guadalajara scenario which has been featured on his blog, with the Littorio motorised division attacking one of the International Brigades. The Italians are fully motorised and supported by armour, but handicapped by a lack of air support and muddy ground off road. 

At this point the Italians have debussed having encountered the first Republican positions and are busy lobbing artillery and mortars at each other. 

Further back, two more battalions are marching on, while the Italian tank column trundles up the road. I stayed for about an hour, which gave a very useful grounding in all the game mechanisms including unit activation, morale, direct and indirect fire, air strikes and close assault. This was very useful and gave me a good feel for how the game worked and how it played, and I later had a lengthy discussion with Graham about the design and operation of the command system.

Cleudo Baader Meinhof Wagen

A game in the best possible taste covering everyone's favourite Red Army Faction terrorists in the 1970s. This was essentially Cleudo, but instead of accusing Colonel Mustard in the conservatory, we chased our anarchist pals around 1970s West Germany as they attempted to expose the Third Reich fascist continuity at the heart of the Bundesrepublik. 

Model BMWs, Volvos and Citroens race across Germany engaged in nefarious activities.

The Cleudo score sheet. Instead of moving around zones, there was a movement chart which required particular dice rolls to move to certain cities, some being harder than others.

It had been a long day and we all seemed to have forgotten how to play Cleudo, so it went on a bit  longer than it might have. At a meta level it was a brilliant simulation of the the futility of the struggle, but it was also an interesting trawl around that most peculiar event of homegrown terrorism in a liberal democracy struggling with the ghosts of the past.

The game ended with a short film about the RAF, concluding with the sombre reflection from one of the older and now wiser activists that all their actions had done was expose the capacity for fascism in everyone.  A thought provoking end to the day, especially after the moral compromises we'd had to make in the plenary game the night before.

COW 2021 Friday

 Much as I've enjoyed the two virtual Conferenceof Wargamers during lockdown, it was nice to be back at Knuston Hall in person. There were some restrictions on activities due to the pandemic but nothing too onerous. It was the usual Friday afternoon motorway hell, but I got there OK and suddenly everything was very familiar. 

The hall was bathed in sunshine, typical COW weather. Lovely to be back! 

There were loads of extra seats setup outside, so plenty of room for us to meet up in a socially distanced manner. 

It was lovely to see so many familiar faces again, although by the miracle of Zoom etc, we've been keeping in regular contact. The hall staff had worked miracles of organisation in terms of the accommodation and in particular meals. It was very, very slick and felt very safe. If anything, the food was even better this year, and even more welcome as I didn't have to cook it myself. Great stuff, and well done Knuston Hall. 

Plenary Game. Changing Horses. 

John Bassett organised the first session, big committee game covering the attempts by Hungary to extricate itself from WW2 in late 1944. We all had individual roles, briefings and objectives, and the game was played outside so we could safely mingle. Fortunately the weather was kind, although it got a bit midgey later. Not ideal for those of us in shorts! 

I was cast as CinC, Army Group South, along with a small German team, trying to keep the Red Army and the treacherous Rumanians away from Budapest. My personal objectives were to escape with my mistress and as much loot as possible, but given my high profile and constant oversight by the Reichsfuhrer, opportunities to get away were very limited. 

I did manage to put out some feelers via the Swiss embassy to flee to the west, but had little to offer in terms of assets, and similarly, I managed to make contact with Soviet intelligence, but outside of unconditional surrender, there was little that they were interested in. I did try to bargain with the heavy water plant and research papers, but the Professor went into hiding and was spirited away. 

In the end, I decided just to focus on the military situation and saving as many of my staff as possible. We successfully blunted the reluctant Rumanian offensive, then switched our main forces to the Danube plain. The Hungarian army was now falling apart, and only German units were putting up a fight. A counterattack by SS panzer divisions blunted the main Soviet thrust in the centre, but we had nothing left to hold the flanks and a Tank Corps established a bridgehead over the Danube. With that I took personal command of the Budapest garrison, and went down fighting with the last five Tiger tanks and Wagner playing. 

Meanwhile, my more cunning subordinates had managed to loot the local museums and cathedral for treasure, and loaded them onto disabled tanks being transported back to the Reich, then made their escape. Germany will need people like that to rebuild itself after the war. 

So that was a great introductory game and worked really well. Many thanks to John and his Co umpires. 

Men Against Fire

For the late evening session,  I went to Men Against Fire, run by John Curry. This was a set of tactical WW2 rules originally developed by Paddy Griffiths, and modelled on SLA Marshalls combat interviews about what actually happened under fire, reinforced by Rowlands later operations research in 'The Stress of Battle'. The essential thesis being that only a small proportion of people are natural fighters, a bigger proportion only contribute if directed, and the rest contribute very little of use at all. A bit like being at work then. 

Nick, Mike, Chris and myself were given a US rifle squad to run, and we had to advance from left to right. Chris was the squad leader plus a couple of riflemen. Nick had the Bar team and a sniper, Mike had a. 30 cal from the company weapons platoon, and I had the scout section. 

Each figure had a character definition. Hiram here was happy to tag along, but a non contributor. 

Diceman, on the other hand is a suicidal hero(!) and team leader, with good fieldcraft. My third character, Tweed, was Dicemans buddy. He wouldn't do much on his own, but would do anything to get Diceman out of a jam. 

The other teams all had a mix of characters too, with a mix of motivated and unmotivated individuals. 

We then essentially conducted an advance to contact in a section wedge. My scout team took point, with the SL on the left, Bar teamon the right and LMG in the centre. 

Diceman, being a hero, generally went ahead, then waved the rest of the squad. Eventually we came under fire from the ridge ahead, and judging from the erratic firing, the Germans had similar personality disorders to our own! 

We attempted to advance by fire and movement, and the firefight was largely conducted by a handful of highly motivated individuals, whilst the rest tagged along or hid. Useless Hiram gamely kept up, while not firing a shot, but turned out to be a handy source of extra ammo and was also the only one with any smoke grenades. Unfortunately poor Tweed was shot dead trying to throw one as we closed in on the Germans. 

Mike and Nick kept a very effective suppressing fire, and eventually both German positions were stormed, each by  single motivated figure(!). At which point we discovered the Germans had pulled back, leaving a single casualty behind.  We had one killed, one wounded and an awful lot of people cowering in effectively or manouvring/observing but not actually putting themselves in any danger. 

I really enjoyed that, and it mirrors many of the tactical games I've run at platoon or company level, but I've not focused on the individual psychological aspects before, which gave much more weight to the role playing aspects. I suspect it worked well with a COW audience, as we are very happy to role play, but it would need some firm umpiring for a more competitive audience. That was a good session, and I was pleased that basic tactical drills still worked, as despite the small proportion of effective troops, the Germans had the same problems, so it all evened out in the end. As Rowlands observed, the function of most people in combat is as targets. 

What a great day. Let's see what Saturday brings.