Well, I’m returning to work this week, after some parental leave and the holidays. Over the past few weeks not much has happened on the gaming front, but it was a good holiday nonetheless.
We did get a 3 person game of Big Chain of Command in and while I’m not going to do a full AAR, it’s worth a few words and pictures. Please click on the photos as sometimes they’re cropped to fit into the gallery.
We played a flank attack scenario with a platoon of North Nova Scotia Regiment supported by the Sherbrooke Fusiliers attacking a position held by panzer grenadiers and a mixed tank destroyer zug (Jadgpanzer IV, Marder, STUG). We had some problems with the flank attack scenario as written, but more on that in a different post. The game was played on a 5′ x 7′ table, with the Germans defending a farm.
The terrain. The Germans are defending the small farm on the right. 
Jumping Off Points. The Canadians will be deploying from the river at the top, from an LVT-4 in the trees (just for show), and another JOP to the right. The Germans have spread their defence on the rise near the farmhouse and then to the right behind a farm wall.
It was a teaching game for a friend who plays wargames but never Chain of Command. I handled the TDs while helping out the German commander. We found that the pregame barrages really weren’t great for showing the command concept of the game as it was so hard to deploy for either side. It was over an hour and a half in before we rolled our first turn end!
The Canadian infantry deployed from the river on two sides, as expected, and tried to set up bases of fire against the German squad on the low rise near the farmhouse. They concentrated their fire and soon had a Sherman in to help. The German squad was badly hurt, but the Platoon Commander and Squad Commander were able to rally shock off. I brought on my STUG and destroyed one Sherman, as a second German squad joined in the fun and really laid waste to the Canadian section (cleverly masquerading as Paras) nearer the farm. The German infantry commander always had both squads fire at the same target, switching to each oncoming Canadian section, and soon the casualties were mounting for the Canadians.
Canadian’s deploy from the cover of the river banks 
Armour support rolls up 
The German defensive position. The squad on the left survived almost unscathed while the more exposed group on the slope suffered badly 
I love the German officer, hands behind his back as his best AFV burns… You can see the remains of the second German squad trying to hold on as he watches impassively.
The pounding from two Shermans was hard to ignore though, and the first German squad was wiped out and was replaced as more Canadian armour came on. I brought on my other TDs but they were brewed up by ambushes. Before I could get my STUG around, the North Novas finally had enough and broke. The Canadian armour still had two Shermans plus a Firefly, while the Germans had only one squad, a panzershrek, and a STUG. A pretty close run thing.
In other gaming (but not wargaming) news, I received my copy of Trilemma’s Adventures, which I had backed on a Kickstarter. They’re by Michael Prescott, who has a great blog “I’ll See It When I Believe it,” and I high recommend taking a look. This compendium contains cleaned up versions of the (already great) fantasy adventures on his blog, plus tons of hooks, bestiary, and a gazeteer. They’re wonderful adventures, system neutral, with interesting locations with fascinating stories. I’ve used them several times in the past, and will continue to do so in the future.
On the home front, we’ve had a mix of weather here. It’s always relatively moderate as we’re surrounded by the ocean (the water here stays around 15 Celsius (59 F) year round). So here are some nice winter shots to make you jealous followed by some horror that will invariably shut the city down.
A nice holiday and now back to the grind. We’re hoping to get the next game in our Kampfgruppe Von Luck campaign sometime before the end of the month so watch this space.
Not always balmy there then? I just found some photo’s of heavy snowfall in the February/March 1943 editions of RAF Patricia Bay station magazine. Unfortunately I can’t share them here.