Chain of Command 24 Hours to Basildon Scenario 3 "In the Steps of Boudiccea" - the second attempt

Having repulsed the Germans in the first try at "In the Steps of Bouduccea" the Home Guard braced themselves for another attempt by Gary's Germans to force their way along the A12. 

For this game each side had only two support points. As I won the first play of the scenario I got to keep the minefield and dinner plate mines already deployed and add another fixed defence by strengthening the position. I went for the Northover Projector which is very cheap at two support points (at the cost of being difficult to use) and an entrenchment to put the Projector in.

The patrol phase went a little better this time for the Home Guard and they started with a slight force morale advantage at 9 compared to the Germans 8.

Docklands awaits the return of the Germans. The buildings seem largely intact but there are shell holes from the last attack!:

In the far distance the Germans have deployed a full squad, a depleted LMG squad and a couple of mortar teams. In response the Home Guard deploy the Northover Projector and open fire with it. Return fire from the Germans on overwatch immediately takes out one crewman:

An initial bit of luck for the Home Guard, the first turn ends quickly allowing the Despatch Rider to deploy. Getting the despatches back to HQ will improve the Home Guard's chances in the next scenario:

A section of the Home Guard and the Sergeant deploy in the grounds of Docklands. German fire kills one man and wounds the Sergeant despite them being in hard cover while British fire only kills a single German in the open! 

The Home Guard captain and a second section join the first section:

The Germans appear to want to just shoot it out with the Home Guard:

The British on the other hand seem to be catching every bullet going and another member of the Home Guard goes down:

The final German squad adds to their firepower. British fire is ineffective:

The Germans in contrast are shooting superbly. The wounded Sergeant gets up and is promptly hit again, the Captain is wounded, three more Home Guard are down and another Projector crewman is killed!:

The British attempt to pull back out of sight but one squad fails and more bodies hit the ground. The twice-wounded Sergeant is hit yet again and killed. With their force morale plummeting and only two Germans down the British decide to retire before they take unsustainable losses:

A very short game that went very wrong very quickly! I lost seven home guard, the Sergeant, two Projector crew and had the Captain wounded. That's a total of 13 effective casualties (it took three hits to kill the Sergeant) when, all being in hard cover, they were only killed on 6's. Gary's Germans had a charmed life with only two getting killed (on 5's and 6's in the open) and hardly any shock. I also failed to get the despatch rider off table.

It was a brave choice by Gary to go with the reduced Platoon rather than use a new one but then most of the German firepower comes from the LMG's so the loss of riflemen makes less difference to the overall firepower thrown out.

I'd hoped that the Northover Projector and being in hard cover would balance out the superior German firepower considering that they were in the open but it certainly didn't work out that way! At least this time though I broke off the fight before it became disastrous as it did in Scenario 2 for the LDV and the Home Guard lives to fight again. This was the last battle of the 4th of July, the Germans will restart their attack at 04:00 on the 5th and need to win two scenarios in a row to win a minor victory. If the British can win one more scenario they will hold the Germans up long enough for the Regular Army to arrive and form a strong defensive line so there is still everything to play for!

Rommel Mid War Soviets v Germans - Breakout

My first Rommel game for a long time, against Dave rather than Andy. Dave chose the Mid-War Germans and the 'Breakout' scenario while I went for the Soviets. The Soviets have to cross the entire table to capture an objective on the opposite table edge then get at least 1/4 of their force off table before nightfall while holding on to the objective.

Mid-War Soviets are cheap so I picked a large army consisting of a Rifle Division, two Tank Brigades and a Motor Rifle Division with a lot of artillery support. Dave had an infantry KG and two small Panzer Grenadier KG. As is usual for Rommel I thought up a plan before the game which was basically to rush the objective with the two Tank Brigades and the Motorised Infantry while the Rifle Division defended the artillery and might push up to try to keep a supply line open for the forces taking the objective.

Immediately the plan started to unfold when Dave managed to get 20 (out of a possible 24) terrain choices while I only got 7! Dave then placed his terrain well making it difficult for  me to rush forward as I'd hoped. Dave deployed his two Panzer Grenadier KG on table with the Infantry KG arriving later while the Soviets deployed with their armour at the front and the Rifle Division behind:

The Soviets use road movement and tactical moves to almost but not quite get to the objective. It uses a lot of resources but hopefully they will win the race to the objective. The elements of the Rifle Division with armour support have also moved up to try to protect the rear of the advance:

The Soviet artillery has the remainder of the Rifle Division defending it:

The Germans respond quickly attacking the advancing Soviets with their powerful Panzer Grenadier KG:

The attacks are repulsed though the Soviets do take some losses:

The Soviets make a counter-attack on their left following up the repulsed Germans:

On the right and in the centre they press on taking the objective town and surroundings forming a strong defensive line:

The Germans turn their attention to the following up Soviet Rifle Division and launch a series of attacks on them:

On the other flank they attempt to contain the Soviet counter-attack with both sides suffering losses:

The Soviets hold off the attacks:

On the Russian left the counter-attack continues. Being weak the Russian armour won't last long but it is weakening the Germans and buying time:

The Germans have been drawn into a running battle with the forward elements of the Soviet Rifle Division. The Russians are holding on at all costs though but the Germans have now succeeded in isolating the Soviets holding the objective:

The Germans attempt to wipe out the Katyusha's. A Rifle Regiment rushes to their aid though and helps them repulse the attackers:

On the Soviet left the counter-attack has run out of steam and is falling back under heavy German pressure:

Most of the battlefield. With the time approaching midday the Soviets holding the objective have yet to be attacked and a few units have made their way off table. They are isolated though with no workable supply line. One of the German Panzer Grenadier KG has become embroiled with the Russian Rifle Division while the other is slowly pushing forwards after being held up by Soviet armour: 

The German reinforcements arrive, an entire Infantry KG. They deploy to support the attack of their comrades:

The battle continues with the German infantry starting to come into play:

The first attacks go into the swamps on the Soviet left:

The Soviets resist but using tanks in swamps isn't ideal, they sacrifice themselves to buy time for their comrades:

On the other flank the Germans still have not managed to defeat the Soviet Rifle Division which is holding on valiantly:

Finally the Germans begin to assault the area around the objective but time is running out, the Soviets are largely undamaged and the Panzer Grenadier KG in the attack is almost spent:

The other Panzer Grenadier KG continues to fail to dislodge the Soviet Rifle Division, there aren't many Russians left now but they have done a sterling job occupying the Germans and distracting them from attacking the objective:

The Germans continue to attack towards the objective but it is becoming apparent that they have no hope of either capturing it or stopping enough Soviets moving off table to achieve victory

With night about to fall the Germans concede and the Soviet breakout has been successful:

A most enjoyable game where the Russians certainly didn't have everything their own way. The terrain outcome was a bit of a shock to me but I decided to continue with my plan anyway though it required the use of a lot of resources that I'd hoped to keep for later.

Dave, as I find is often the case with people who have not played Rommel that often, became a bit distracted from the objectives of the battle, being drawn into a long and indecisive fight against the Russian Rifle Division with one of his powerful Panzer Grenadier KG where the outcome didn't really matter to the Russians (though it did cut the Russian supply line to their forward troops which was of significance) while the other Panzer Grenadier KG took some early losses and, while largely intact, was greatly weakened as a fighting force before the German attempt to recapture the objective even began. 

Dave would probably also have been better off starting with the more numerous but slow moving Infantry KG on table and using one of the Panzer Grenadier KG as a rapidly moving reinforcement to commit wherever it would be most effective.

It's also hard to get used to the idea that losses don't matter at all unless they allow or prevent you from achieving your objectives as in the vast majority of rule sets inflicting losses on the enemy is the way to win. I lost around ten bases all from areas that were not significant while Dave only lost a single Panzer Grenadier base but had a lot of weakened units that are little use as the battle goes on.

I'm hoping to give Andy a game in a few weeks so this was a good opportunity to get used to playing Rommel again and employ some of the tricks I learned from Andy against Dave!

Rommel Soviet and German armies stocktake

With not being able to go to the club for a long time to play my regular Rommel opponent Andy I'd sort of lost track of what I was doing with my Rommel armies. For a while I'd been adding the odd thing here and there to play specific scenarios or allow the armies to extend in period but it had all been rather haphazard.

So I thought it's time to have a look at what I have and what (if anything) could do with adding. I knew I'd also have to make up some more unit labels as I'd not done that for a long time.

Getting the Russians out first this is what I found:

Quite frankly there were an awful lot more than I expected! Partly that's because I'd been buying up vehicles to expand the army from it's original Mid-War to cover Early and Late war as well. Probably all I need to add are some more trucks for motorised infantry (though at a pinch I could use the half-tracks from my Americans as Lend-Leese "trucks"). I only have labels for Mid-War so I also need to do Late and Early War labels.

As for the Germans there were perhaps less than I expected, maybe because my German collection is only Mid and Late-War, I considered doing Early War as well but that would involve replacing all the vehicles partly as they are different and partly due to the difference in colour schemes:

As with the Russians some more trucks might be useful as would another battalion of StuG's and maybe of Panthers. Again I need to do a few more labels for the Fallschirmjager and another Infantry Division. 

At least now I'll have some idea what to get next time I add something to these armies!

Chain of Command Imperial Japanese Army

One of the things I keep thinking about is doing some an army mostly using 20mm Airfix figures, something I keep starting but never finish! A long time ago I bought a box of the Airfix Japanese, a box of US Marines and another box of plastic Japanese from Waterloo 1815 miniatures.

As I didn't have Japanese for CoC and encouraged by the possibility they could play Tim's 20mm Americans in the Saipan PSC I dug the boxes of figures out and took a look at them. Sorting them out there was indeed enough figures for a basic CoC Japanese army but, mostly why these projects never actually take off, they needed a lot of cleaning off of mould lines and were not actually that good. This resulted in the usual temptation to put them back in the boxes and forget about them for a while.

Instead of abandoning the project I took a look at what was available in metal in 20mm and thought the Eureka line was nice but rather limited in numbers. Another company, Early War Miniatures, had a much more extensive range though even between the two there were still a few gaps.  Finally Britannia Miniatures could contribute a few of the more unusual figure types I'd need. As Tim is keen to play more CoC and I already have a lot of 20mm jungle terrain from my Vietnam efforts I placed a few orders and awaited the arrival of the non-Airfix not-doing-what-I'd-intended figures!

The Lieutenant from Eureka and the Sergeant from EWM, I'm not keen on the sergeant figure and will probably replace him at some point:

Japanese sections are large at 11 men plus a Corporal. This is the 1st Section, again mostly Eureka with an EWM Corporal:

The 2nd Section, again Eureka with an EWM Corporal:

The 3rd Section. Eureka plus an EWM Corporal and, this time (as the Eureka pack only had 11 instead of 12 figures in it!) an extra Britannia rifleman (can you spot him?!):

The Grenadier Section. The grenade teams themselves are Eureka, the Corporal and the guy with binoculars are EWM and the other five men are actually Airfix!:

Two support weapons, a Model 92 70mm Howitzer and a Type 94 (1934) 37mm ATG all EWM plus a couple of spare Eureka officers:

More support, an Anti-tank rifle from Britannia and an HMG from Eureka:

Four spare infantrymen from EWM:

A Tank Hunting Team from Britannia:

A different Tank Hunting Team from Britannia:

Assorted engineers from Britannia apart from the one on the right which is from Waterloo 1815:

Some armoured support with an EWM Type 95 Ha-Go Light Tank:

More armoured support with an EWM Type 97 Chi-Ha Medium Tank:

I put a bit more effort into these than I have with some of the WW2 stuff I've done and am quite pleased with them overall, the tanks especially look a lot nicer. I couldn't quite decide if I should paint the uniforms in the yellowish colour I finally did them in or a more greenish shade. In the end I chose the yellowish version mostly as the Valejo paint colour was 'Japanese Uniform' and I'd painted a lot of 20mm ARVN in green uniforms so fancied a change! Another choice was to base them on brown/green bases or sand coloured ones, again I went for the sand colour to be different.

One thing this army does illustrate is the sometimes annoying nature of figure manufacturers! The Eureka figures only came in section packs of twelve figures (apart from the ones in caps which only has eleven figures, when I queried this I was told basically 'that's meant to be like that') and of the twelve figures one is an officer with a sword and another is a flag bearer so 1/6th of the figures you get are basically unarmed!

The EWM were a bit more flexible and fit in okay with the Eureka ones though I don't think they are as good figures and of course you can't beat the hefty feeling of a metal 20mm tank! The few Britannia ones demonstrate another not uncommon issue in that they are vastly different in size and design even within the same range so some fit in with the others well and some not so well.

The Saipan PSC looks really interesting and a bit different from the other PSC's I've played so I'm looking forward to getting these figures into action!

Blucher Russian v Ottoman Turkish

Another Blucher game against Gordon, this time with me using Russians and Gordon his Ottoman Turks. The Turks are an interesting and different army in Blucher with vast numbers of cheap but brittle units available but also some decent ones as well to choose from.

Their numbers together with an advantage they get for scouting means that it is very likely they will win the Scharnhorst map stage of the game and get to defend in the battle, which with a high break point, is ideal for them. 

Last time I played them I went in for a strategy which basically conceded all victory points in Scharnhorst to them but would hopefully allow me to decide where the battle would be fought allowing me to maximise my units on table and minimise the Turks forcing some of them to come on as reinforcements ideally. The idea was to then win the battle by breaking the Ottoman army. It worked so I thought well why not try it again?!

I did change the army composition though, reducing the amount of infantry and increasing the cavalry resulting in four Corps, two each of four infantry brigades (one was composed of conscripts to save points) with a heavy artillery battery and a Cossack brigade in support. I then had two cavalry Corps, the first with a brigade of cuirassiers, two dragoon brigades, a Cossack brigade and a horse artillery battery and the second of two Hussar brigades, a Cossack brigade and a horse artillery battery. The idea behind this was basically to use the powerful Russian artillery to blast the less enthusiastic Turkish units then roll over them with the cavalry and/or infantry

The plan immediately collapsed when we started the Scharnhorst as Gordon obviously remembered what I did last time and carefully avoided taking more than the minimum victory points on the map when moving his columns! As a result we had the rather bizarre situation of both armies carefully keeping away from anything worth having! In the end Gordon managed to declare a battle with all of his forces on table against my 1st Infantry Corps, 1st Cavalry Corps and half the 2nd Cavalry Corps with the 2nd Infantry Corps and the remainder of the 2nd Cavalry Corps coming on as reinforcements. This did mean the Turks would have to win the battle to win the game though as we had equal VP after Scharnhorst (1 each!):

The Ottomans opened the battle by moving three brigades over the bridge and into the unoccupied sector on the Russian left:

They followed up with a strong force of Nizam e Cedid, the ottoman version of European infantry, and a heavy artillery battery moving forward in the centre:

In response the Russians moved their cavalry back behind the hill leaving a horse artillery battery on top of the hill. The infantry Corps redeployed to meet the threat on the Russian left:

Sensing an opportunity to deal with the rather isolated and outnumbered Ottomans which had just crossed the river the Russians decide to attack and advance to cross themselves. A heavy artillery battery on the hill can hopefully provide further fire support:

The Ottoman cavalry charge into an unprepared Russian infantry brigade. The infantry in this Corps are the more experienced ones so don't have the disadvantages their conscript colleagues would have in combat with cavalry:

The Russian infantry hold firm and repel the cavalry:

The Ottomans make a major decision and decide to commit their as yet unused third corps to support the attack over the river. They move rapidly with a march move but will find it difficult to deploy elsewhere now if they are needed:  

Undeterred and hoping to overwhelm the Ottomans before help can arrive the Russians continue to advance with their artillery weakening the Turks significantly: 

The Ottoman cavalry charge again, this time against a different Russian brigade:

Again the Russian infantry repulse them:

One Turkish infantry brigade has been destroyed by Russian artillery fire. The Ottoman cavalry charge yet again:

This time things don't go so well and the Ottoman cavalry are also dispersed. However, the numerous Ottoman artillery is now getting into the action and destroys two of the Russian infantry brigades one of which went from 6 élan to dispersed in one round of shooting!:

The Ottomans continue to move up the Corps they committed to supporting the attack over the river but are having problems with both the difficult terrain and the sheer numbers they have brought along. The Russian force in this area is weakened but still combat capable and has the last of the initial Turkish units in it's sights:

Meanwhile nothing much had been happening elsewhere on the battlefield. Both sides appeared to be waiting for the Russian reinforcements to arrive for a while and finally they turned up:

The Ottomans pour across the river but an especially effective round of fire from the russian artillery on the hill demolishes the leading Ottoman cavalry unit:

With the Ottoman reserves committed the Russians start to move onto the attack in the centre and on the right and decide to support the advance with the 1st Cavalry Corps that had been awaiting developments behind the hill:

The Ottoman's continue their attack over the river with some conscript Janissaries driving back the Russian infantry:

Initially in a battle units like the Russian Cossacks with only 4 élan are very weak. However, after a while when better units have been worn down they become more useful. Here they charge into the victorious Janissaries:

The Cossacks almost destroy the Janissaries then fall back. Russian forces in this area are almost spent now but have inflicted a lot of damage and held up well against the Ottoman horde:

With the Russian attack in the centre starting to make progress the Ottomans decide to try to send some of their right flank units to help. They will need to cross the river again but it is defended by a Russian infantry brigade:

The final viable unit on the left for the Russians, the Hussar brigade, is almost spent and falls back:

On the Russian right a combination of Ottoman artillery fire and me forgetting to do anything to help them allows the Ottomans to launch a cavalry charge on a damaged Russian conscript infantry brigade:

The Russian infantry are dispersed and the neighbouring heavy artillery in grave danger. Something needs to be done about this:

With the pressure on the Russians devote more attention (and momentum) to the centre/right. The threatened artillery retire allowing the cuirassier brigade to charge into the front of the Ottoman cavalry while the Hussars charge them in the flank:

Outnumbered and outflanked the Ottoman cavalry are destroyed:

A close up of one of Gordon's fantastic Ottoman units, these are veteran Janissaries:

The Russian left has done it's job well and begins to retire off table before they are destroyed covered by the last infantry brigade:

The Ottomans are now starting to look in trouble facing the Russian centre/right. Several units have been weakened, the Ottoman artillery has shot off almost all it's ammunition and the Russian cavalry are poised to strike:

Russian Dragoons pick off a depleted Ottoman infantry brigade:

The fight is short and brutal with the Ottoman's being dispersed. They day is coming to an end and the Ottoman army is on the brink of defeat:

On the Russian left the Ottomans have crossed the river but don't have much of an advantage to exploit as there are still a few Russian units holding the flank:

Almost all of the Ottoman units here are now badly damaged and start to attempt to withdraw, they won't find it easy though with plenty of Russian cavalry available to attack:

The Russian infantry continue to defend the bridge:

The Russians press home their advantage:

Meanwhile the Ottomans launch a final attack on the Russian left. The Russian infantry are finally dispersed but the Cossacks manage to destroy their Turkish counterparts leaving the Ottomans on the brink of defeat:

Victory is achieved when a Russian infantry brigade charges into a final Ottoman brigade and breaks them:

With only one turn left each before nightfall the game went right to the wire. The Russians were not that close to breaking having lost three brigades out of the six they needed to lose to break but they did have an awful lot of retired units.

As ever Blucher really gives you the feeling that you are commanding an army with decisions such as when and where to commit your reserves, which areas of the battle you need to concentrate on and which you can give less emphasis to and how far to push your troops are vital and usually determine the outcome.

In this battle I think the big turning point was when Gordon committed his unactivated corps to support his attack over the river to counter my initial assault on his rather isolated and outnumbered units there. Given the difficulty of getting across the river and the sheer number of units Gordon committed I felt it was unlikely they would be able to help their comrades before I'd finished them off and that, with luck, once I'd done that the survivors of my force would be able to hold on for a while then retire which did work.

The other effect of Gordon sending all his reserves off in that direction was that when my reinforcements arrived the remainder of Gordon's forces in the centre were heavily outnumbered and fairly quickly overwhelmed as, once you commit troops in Blucher, it is hard to redeploy them again.

In the post game chat Gordon felt that in the last game we played he had split his corps up too much and therefore this time tried to keep them together and that he hadn't realised quite how hard it would be to get them into action. 

I suspect that just as I suffer form not playing enough ADLG and Gordon being a very experienced and devious ADLG player when we play ADLG Gordon suffers in a similar way when we play Blucher as I've played a lot of Blucher against various people whereas Gordon only plays me! 

Our next game will be a return to ADLG so I'll be trying to come up with a winning strategy and see if I can improve on my almost but not quite good enough effort last time with the Byzantines.