Category: AAR

Chain of Command Delaying Action Part 2

On By NuadaIn AAR, Chain of Command, Play Report, WW2Leave a comment

Background

A little while ago Lucius and I played a delaying action to get better acquainted with Chain of Command. It was a close run thing and we decided to switch sides and try a re-run over the same terrain.

The Forces

I played my Fallschirmjager and had 14 support points, Lucius had 7 for his North Nova Scotia Regiment. Note that we were using the core-rules only (not the arsenal that can be found at Tiny Hordes and other places). Lucius was an armoured officer so I hemmed and hawed and out-thought myself, figuring that he’d bring some armour or AT to the field. With 14 points I could field my new Tiger II. His PIAT wouldn’t do anything against that. So, I reasoned that he would have to take a 17pdr, or a tank-hunter. In order to get around that, I went with a pre-game barrage, a 5cm mortar team, a Sdkfz 250 (hanomag) manned by half of my 3 section, and a Sig 33 infantry gun.

It turns out that Lucius bought a sniper and a Vickers MMG. Of course. Had I shown up with a Jagdtiger or any sort of heavy armour he’d have been overrun in minutes. But such is life and wargaming! It really shows that you need to make sure you plan for maximum flexibility. Last game we only had 2 sections, but this time we each fielded 3. Lucius brought 2 sections of North Novas with 1 section of Commandos as the North Novas were a little short. The added firepower from those many SMGs were made up for by my force rating.

The Battle

We played for about 3 hours and things moved quickly at first, but got bogged down in casualties after a bit. I started with a force morale of 10, Lucius had 8.

The patrol phase was uneventful, with reasonable JOPs for both of us. I needed to take a JOP in a specific swath of land at the far end of the table, and only one of the JOPs was there. So, the left flank was my priority. I was going to see if I could rush it, or if not, pin down resources there while my hanomag and remaining troop did an end run around the woods. In red below are the Canadian JOPs. #1 is my real goal.

My initial plan. 1 Section left. 2 Section right. 3 section detachment watches over JOP #2. 2 Section then pushes straight or around the right flank. The remainder of 3 section is in the hanomag which will flank on the right.

The pre-game barrage did its trick and I brought in 1 section on the left flank and pushed up past the wood. The non-tasked squad from 3 section put covering fire into the woods on the right flank near the JOP there as 2 Section moved up.

There was no response from the Canucks. It took until the third Canadian phase for some movement to happen at the far end – 1 section deployed near the JOP on my right flank. My 5cm mortar started its impressive kill count and killed one of the 2″ mortar (which I hate; that thing and its smoke!). My 1 section rushed the house at the double and fell short. Twice. 7 measly inches forward on 3d6.

And then the turn ended and Lucius got a double-phase with three 6’s rolled. Great. Shortest turn I’ve seen in Chain of Command and now my boys were strung out a little too far forward from their supports and I still hadn’t managed to get my hanomag up to do an-end run around the woods on my right side or get my big infantry gun to put some hurt on the Canadians.

Lucius’ sniper showed up at the start of the turn, caused some shock and then in the next phase killed the JL in 1 section – the section that was SOOOO close to the house and the key JOP behind it. Force morale goes down. My dice failed me and I couldn’t move 1 section either back or forward with their JL dead, so I brought my Sig 33 on and my hanomag while pushing forward on the right flank.

1 section on the left getting hurt. 2 section limping forward slowly

The sniper fired again at 1 section, as did some of Lucius’ troops on my right flank. Another section appeared near the house on the left.

North Novas push up on my left flank. Getting ready to defend the JOP just off the frame to the right

My boys were leaderless, gaining shock, unable to see the sniper, taking fire from their right flank and having a full section of enemy appearing to their front. This wasn’t good. Added to that, the silly little 2″ mortar dropped smoke in front of my Sig 33. Great.

I deployed my platoon 2IC (unteroffizier) on my left and pulled back 1 section as my 5cm mortar killed the 2″ mortar! As far as I was concerned, that was a win for the entire game. My right flank stuttered forward (2″ on 2d6) but I sensed that I was getting into the right place. Lucius was putting his section on my left flank in front of the house there, in line of fire of my field gun. On my right, I had 1 and a half sections moving up, one group always on overwatch. The hanomag was getting ready to support, and my 5cm mortar was dropping rounds to weaken the enemy on that side. So I ended the turn with my only Chain of Command die (at that time) to take away the smoke in front of my Sig 33.

A double phase for me. The Sig then fired and evaporated 2 of the bren team facing me on the left flank and wounded the JL. 1 section moved forward and laid more hurt on the Canadians to my left. On my right, wanting to try out this Handgranaten rule, I charged into the smaller Canadian section.

Plucky North Novas ready for hand-to-hand combat defending JOP #2

I only got 1 grenade in but we won. Or lost. I’m not sure. We both killed everyone. Except for the leaders. Morale goes down to 6 for both of us. I was within 4″ of a JOP there though, and my weapons team from 3 section was close by.

Lucius added some shock and a kill to my Sig 33 from the section and sniper on that side, but not enough. My field gun replied at the section it could see, and with 1 section under the command of my platoon 2IC killed the bren team and all but 1 rifleman and the wounded junior leader, leaving them running with 11 points of shock between them. 2 Section goes on overwatch. The sniper fires and I see him! And kill him. All that action brings force morale down to 4 for the Canadians. Left flank steady.

Nothing except 2 scared soldiers and a platoon lieutenant between 1 section and the JOP! Except for the Vickers and a squad of Royal Marine Commandoes who haven’t shown up yet and could ambush me. Huh. Okay. Focus on the steadying up my right flank and slowly push up on the left. No crazy stunts.

On the other side the 2 JLs engage in hand to hand combat and both fall. That wood is now called Bois-du-mort. 20 men lying there now, and more to follow shortly. Lucius plays a Chain of Command die to avoid a force morale check or he’d be on the wire. He also brings on the Commandoes and wants to get in close combat with my 3 section weapons team. I back them off, bring up my hanomag onto overwatch.

Uh guys?!

As I had backed off from the JOP, and hadn’t managed to capture it, it’s used to launch a PIAT ambush at my hanomag. Double 6s are rolled and the hanomag brews up but my men get out unhurt. 3 unanswered kills for that PIAT. My next great foe…

There goes the ride!

The commandoes then charge into fire at my weapons team at close range with their SMGs. I play an interrupt to fire at them, which whittles them down, but they still rip into my men. I get everyone on that flank firing and 1 of the teams break but I stabilize the situation overall. There are 5 commandoes left facing 6 of my guys plus a mortar. I outrange his SMGs so I should be able to break him. I still have a heavy field gun with 4 crew plus JL, but the challenge will be to get this beast into action (it takes the lower of 2d6 rolled to move).

On the left the heroic Canadian platoon lieutenant rallies enough shock off of the remains of the section I massacred that they join him behind the wall near the JOP. I have 8 men from 1 section plus my unteroffizier 2IC. Should be fine. Except that the Vickers hasn’t shown up…

We left off there. 20 Canadians lying dead or wounded. 17 Germans. I haven’t brought on my Panzerschrek, and Lucius has a Vickers team and his PIAT still off the table. This will be a near-run thing! My left flank is okay, but vulnerable to the Vickers. Support is a long way behind. On my right I’m pretty evenly matched. I’ll need to be clever or lucky (or both) to win this.

 

 

Chain of Command – Delaying Action

On By NuadaIn AAR, Chain of Command, WW2Leave a comment

Lucius and I played a game of Chain of Command over two afternoons recently. It was great fun, and a needed refresher on the rules. The total play time was about 4 hours, but that was a lot of looking up rules and figuring out how to best employ our troops. It was a very friendly game and quite fun. We chose the delaying action scenario from the rule book, threw some terrain down, and started off with small platoons and some armour for good fun.

Here’s how it went down.

Background

Allied forces have pushed inland from the Normandy coastline. A platoon of the North Nova Scotia Highlanders with some Sherbrooke Fusiliers in armour support is racing ahead. They have been spotted by a unit of Fallschirmjagers who are headed west towards Brest. The FJ platoon is tasked with holding off the Canadians for as long as possible. The Canucks must capture 1 Jumping Off Point (JOP) to win.

The table was 4 x 6, with play down the long axis. There was a lot of terrain on the table, as we wanted to improve our knowledge of the rules and make it a bit easier to advance to contact.

The table from the Allied entry. My Jumping Off Points are in proximity to the numbers

The Forces 

The Canadians fielded 2 sections of North Novas, with a Command section (PIAT team, 2″ mortar team). Support points went towards a medic and armour. Of course. While the AVRE was almost chosen, Lucius went with a Mark V Sherman and a Firefly.

The very pretty Firefly
Lucius has put small coloured markings on base of each unit. It is hard to make out here (the blue dot) but is more clear in real life

The FJs had 2 sections, a Command section with a panzerschrek, and a STUG. I had seriously considered a flamethrower and sniper, or a PAK 40. In retrospect, either might have been a wiser call…

My FJs are almost painted!

The Battle

The patrol phase was uneventful. I managed to push out aggressively which wasn’t that useful as it made me want to take ground and I ended up placing my JOPs too far forward. Considering that they were Lucius’ objectives, that was my first mistake and I later had to move them back and eat up precious Chain of Command points.

The action started off with the North Novas moving up 1 Section to advance on the right flank towards JOP 3 as their armour made an appearance and moved up to go hull-down behind the first hill on the road.

1 Section peaks out behind cover and finds out that there are Germans in the woods

I responded by bringing up my Panzerschreck and a section of infantry. This was my biggest mistake in the game. Not having the ability to bring this where needed later made me eat up a lot of command resources trying to get it into action. Having it in my pocket to spring as an ambush when the armour closed might have changed the outcome.

In any event, I put some hurt onto 1 Section until smoke rounds blocked me.

My section is thwarted by the smoke from that annoying 2″ mortar

The North Novas followed up by leaving the tanks in the centre with 2 section deploying on their left flank and moving up aggressively towards JOP 1 (which was behind the house in the picture above). I placed a section in the house to their front and put an MG team upstairs. I managed to put some shock on 2 section before drawing an ungodly amount of fire from the Firefly.

My team scampered away from the upstairs and calmed down under the guidance of the platoon sergeant while on the other flank, my platoon commander pulled the section by JOP 3 back after moving the JOP to the rear. The presence of that section by JOP 3 effectively held down the Canadians there for most of the game. I wasn’t able to counter attack despite bringing my STUG on to support that plan due to the presence of the PIAT and an every increasing amount of smoke blocking most avenues of advance. I wasn’t willing to charge forward unsupported.

The battle by JOP 1 was brewing up, with the Canadians making 2 charges towards the house, but were beaten back both times leaving most of their section on the field having fallen victim to the MG42 that had relocated downstairs. I played an interrupt to fire a panzerfaust as the Firefly closed to get a better line of sight to pound the ground floor, but I missed! Drat. To make matters worse, I had divided the section on that flank, with 1 team in the house, and 1 on a hill behind it. I was certain that Lucius would rush up with his armour and troops, and I wanted to have the ability to defend the JOP behind the house so that left my last panzerfaust safely in the rear. Sigh.

More tank rounds went in to that house as I moved my STUG and Panzerschreck up (which took forever). The Firefly then went on overwatch with the remains of 2 section and the Sherman advanced up the road. I figured it was time, so I opened up with the remains of the section in the house, did a good job cutting down the Bren team as my Panzerschreck rushed to take a shot. An interrupt was played and an HE round killed both members of the team. Drat. I now had only 3 anti-armour rounds and 1 STUG. So that went forward in the next phase. Lucius played his last Chain of Command point and shot first.

Well, there goes that plan. The Firefly avenges 2 Section (on the ground in middle)

Now I was in trouble. I had inflicted far more casualties than I had taken, but I had only 3 panzerfausts for 2 tanks. And the Sherman rushed down the road as 1 section went away from JOP 3 towards JOP 2. I moved my troops in response and had a panzerfaust ready for the Sherman on the road. It missed. Double 1s. Oh dear.

I managed to lay the hurt on 1 section in a last hurrah and then called it. I had downed 18 of the 27 Canadians for 8 of my 24 FJs but I had no effective anti-armour ability left.

Thoughts

The game played very well and it seemed very realistic, with tank fire supressing the defenders until close range, smoke obscuring the defenders, and the terrible toll of being caught out in the open facing a dug-in foe for the final yards of the assault. If I could have added mortars to my force, I think I would have ground down the infantry and broken them. Mind you, if the Allies had brought up an AVRE, I would have been hooped. Flexibility is key, and on that front, a PAK40 is far more flexible (for deployment and survivability) than a STUG is.

Almost ready for action!

I think that the next battle will be a switch. Lucius defending the same town, and me advancing. It should be fun, and if nothing else will expand our ruleset knowledge before we press on with our Arnhem campaign. It also will give us time to finish painting up our forces!

 

 

 

 

Dux Damaged

On By NuadaIn AAR, Dux Dalmor, FantasyLeave a comment

Last night three of us got together for our routine Dux game. Rather than getting through a full month, we instead carried on with a raid that was a result of some clever politicking by Nate. Grontoft, to the north, had earlier been paid tribute to Nate, and the Rovian warrior societies were unhappy and agitating against the leadership of the province. So, after some negotiating, the deal was struck. Nate would wipe out the leadership of the warrior societies and if he did so, would take the land, protect it from the gobblins, and leave the leadership of the province below him intact.

The rumours sent out before we met up confirmed the location and also gave an idea of what the rest of the month would give:

Grontoft
– There have been leadership disputes
– Large number of levies being called up (which is atypical) as many warrior societies have moved south to a town called Mahlen
Greenwood
– Gobblins have been seen moving in the wood but the recent rains have driven them deeper into the wood
Markadal
– Horsemen seen moving south to raid Wegrik
– An envoy from the Unconquered City has arrived with a few guards to discuss something
Athramere
– Is having a large fair. Its troops are protecting travellers to and from the fair.
Olin Dashi
– has a new war leader eager to prove himself in battle. He is, by all accounts, young and seeks glory

The Fight

This fight was interesting and showed some issues with Dux Britanniarum ruleset so most of my time was taken up looking up rules and making rulings. This was exacerbated by me misplacing my good camera so there will be only 1 picture for this one.

The warrior societies gather in the village as the Iron Band forces arrive on scene

The Iron Band arrived in force, leaving only a few levies and their cavalry back to guard their home. The warrior societies set up behind a stout fence in the fields, and guarding the gap in the old walls of the farm. Cavalry faced out towards the woods, but no forces were obvious there. As the Iron Band moved up, they saw undead in the woods and decided to hit the Rovians head on.

Forming their troops into larger formations, the Iron Band moved forward across the front, and here is where we saw some issues. Matt’s Rovian cavalry rode out to get around the advancing forces. Under the rules, it’s impossible to charge cavalry with infantry unless you use a Carpe Diem card. But, if you approach within 4″, you can effectively lock down the cavalry. This means that the cavalry cannot move, and can only sit there or attack. While this 4″ zone of control makes sense when dealing with infantry, the ruleset doesn’t mention cavalry.

Matt negated this discussion by charging out from behind the fence into Nate’s Iron Band forces at the same time that Nate attempted to make it through the broken wall. Here the fight bogged down. Matt lost troops but put so much shock on Nate’s elites that the dice were even. Eventually Matt’s Rovian warriors recoiled from the violence and the blood and Nate was free to concentrate on the other fight.

There, beyond the fence, Matt threw first 2 units, and then a fresh one at Nate’s line, again trading casualties for shock, but this time forcing 2 of Nate’s units off the table before rushing back to cover for the final assault.

Arrows first, then fighting along the fence. At the end, every Rovian warrior-society fighter was dead. Nate lost 17 dead across his units, so will take 3 month to get them all back, but he has kept his word and taken out the Warrior Societies in Grontoft. Now he has to keep both lands safe with his depleted forces.

Another issue with the rules as written, is that shieldwall is more effective for the warriors than for the elites. Warriors are killed on a 5-6 on a d6. Elites on a 6. Formations in shieldwall ignore the first kill of each round. Warriors are twice as likely to receive a kill, and so receive a greater benefit from the formation. It seems that Dux was a great idea (it is elegant in most things) but wasn’t play-tested as well as the other Too Fat Lardies rules (of which I am very fond). What shall we do? Well, we have played Hail Caesar before, but found the game unsuitable for smaller battles and skirmishes. We do have the Shieldwall modifications, and may try that out in the coming weeks (life has meant that the next Dux fight will be in about 2 weeks). If that doesn’t work, we’ll house rule this thing for cavalry, shieldwalls, etc.

Summer Time – Planes, Lane, and back at It

On By NuadaIn AAR, Review1 Comment

Another gap in routine posting is over!

My extended family went off to Maui for a reunion and we had a bit of a trip. First there was the individual who decided to steal a Q400 Dash-8 and crash it into Puget Sound the night before we left. That was the plane my family was supposed to be on early the next morning and so we were delayed by a day and a half trying to get flights to line up to Kahalui, Maui.

Once there, it was beautiful.

A view from our lanai (balcony). It was a rough go.
Evening view from our lanai towards the island of Lanai

We had a great first bit which included snorkelling with sea turtles, but sadly Hurricane Lane decided to head towards Hawai’i in the second week. I watched with great interest as its pressure went from 950mb down to 929mb, which is quite the low. Luckily the easterly trades broke up the hurricane into a storm before it really got us, but we were confined to our accommodation for a bit as the winds and water rushed by.

During this time, I played a game that I must mention here. It is an escape room game called Exit, the Game, and it was wonderful. By far the best and most interesting board game I’ve played in years. It’s a cooperative game in which everyone is working at solving puzzles to get more clues with a view to escaping a themed area (in our case a castle). There are logic problems, ciphers, and really neat puzzles. I cannot say enough about how fun it was. The one downside is that each game is only playable once – you actually will be cutting up cards, weaving bits of paper together, tearing apart the box etc in order to get out. The games are about $15 – 20 CAD online, which may seem pricey, but for 4 people to play for an hour or 2, it works out to great value for money. I’ll be posting more about this as my group plays it.

As for the storm impacts, there were high winds and lots of water (and a massive brush fire nearby). Interestingly, as soon as the run-off increased, the water got murky and the sharks popped up right near us just as the shark experts said. Funny that.

This local resident was much more interesting than the sharks, but disappeared before the storm hit:

Honu – a green sea turtle on our beach

All in all, it was a good time out and about. I even got a little bit of wargaming done! My uncle, who shall be known as Gruncle on this site hereafter, painted up some Essex Franco-Prussians as a (very kind!) gift, and we duly threw them at each other to learn the nuances of The Men Who Would Be Kings (TMWWBK). It is very similar to Osprey’s other offerings so easy to learn and quite fun, though definitely aimed at a heroic skirmish rather than grand battle style. The artillery is excellent for pinning units, and seems to be most useful in preventing activations rather than its shear damage output. This game would be great fun with varied terrain and some clear objectives.

15mm French enjoying the sunshine having survived the several thousand km trip and customs agents in good shape

As for the gift – they are lovely miniatures, and I’ll be posting more of them here shortly. I do have some 15mm armies, but the focus has been Chain of Command and Dux lately, so they’ve been sitting neglected (if unpainted) or ignored (if painted). The weather here is nice and cool, and the terrible smoke from our forest fires has dissipated (for now), and I hope to get more time moving my 15mms around the table and the Prussians and French will likely be first up in a week or two.

More soon!