Well, despite the record heat we’ve been having here in British Columbia, some progress has been made on the gaming front. I’ve received the first part of my Perry order to boost my forces for our OPERATION LEOPARD campaign (more on that in a later post) and I also received another order of 15mm terrain from Fat Frank on EBay (the roads, hedges and walls are his work). With terrain needing to be tested and temperatures dropping to only 5 degrees Celcius warmer than normal, Lucius came over for a quick game of Chain of Command.

We wanted to get to know the rules again and get ready for the PSC titled “Caesar’s Camp.” With that in mind, the EW Highland platoon took the table against a 2nd Wave Werhmacht unit. We didn’t limit our support lists as we wanted some armour on the table which left things a little interesting when the Matilda II arrived but it was a good game. We used scenario 5 from the Blitzkrieg book, with the British attempting a rapid attack, needing to rush my baseline before I accumulated 2 Chain of Command points. The scenario felt a little off, as while Lucius could spend some of his own Chain of Command points to negate some of mine, it really felt a little divorced from the scenario battlefield. Regardless, it was a fun game.

The British pushed up, establishing bases of fire and destroying squad in the house by the stream in the picture above. As that was happening I brought on a Panzer 38T and missed repeatedly when trying to hit, well anything. I jockeyed out of the line of fire when the Matilda rolled up. I then attempted to cross the road to give some support to my right flank but an interrupt was played and my tank was immobilized and a few phases later, knocked out.

My plucky 222 did cause some damage and played cat and mouse with the Matilda and Vicker VIB with some success. The British squads advanced steadily, especially on my left while I tied them down on my right as I could, but I accumulated two full chain of command dice so the game was called.

I don’t have a lot of shots as it was still rather warm and we were focused on getting into the rules (as well as the pizza and beer) but here are a few stills:

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Once again, my Cigar Box Battlemat photographs as very grey… Not sure how to get around that. Regardless, these next shots aren’t in high res, but I really like them. They’re taken from behind the Matilda as the Vickers VI advances. You can see the 38T in the road:

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That’s all for now. It was great to get a face to face game in, and also really fun to try Chain of Command in 15mm. I think it really opens the table up and quite frankly feels right, if that makes sense. 28mm is pretty, and we’ll continue to use them, but the 15mm seems correct visually for the a platoon-sized force. More games later in the month. I’ve got a lot of new terrain to put away and some vehicles to prep for painting!