The Men of Company B VC v ARVN

 After what seems like a long time I managed to get in another TMOCB game, this time against an actual opponent (Gary) instead of playing solo.

As it was Gary's first game and he hadn't been able to read the rules I thought the best way to go would be for me to be the VC and Gary to take the ARVN (but the 'regular' Mike Force' not the 'raw' version so basically Americans but I'd get to use some of my ARVN figures for a change. Again as it was Gary's first experience with the rules I went for the 'Search and Destroy' operation.

The peace of another day in Nam is shattered by the arrival of the ARVN:

I didn't choose the Chopper as a support for the ARVN but thought it may as well make a brief appearance for the customary photo:

A VC leader arrives and begins to recruit the enthusiastic peasantry to the cause:

The Imperialist lackies prepare to begin their mission:

More VC are recruited in another village, again the villagers seem keen to repel the invaders:

An immediate success for the ARVN who find a food cache and destroy it:

The first casualty of the day, an innocent peasant killed while being interrogated for refusing to give up any information. A reporter covers the scene:

Despite the villager refusing to talk the ARVN find another food cache and destroy it:

Another village, another food cache destroyed. The villages and VC will be hungry tonight:

More VC gather together:

The ARVN have now searched most of the easily reached villages and will have to move on to those now held by the VC:

They advance on one of the weaker held villages and the first VC casualty occurs:

Following up the ARVN assault the surviving VC who fall back with heavy losses:

The entire VC squad is wiped out by the ARVN:

They search the village, find another cache of food and destroy it. Not much is going for the VC so far!:

However they manage to strike back with three ARVN bases going down in a firefight:

VC begin to mass around the animal enclosures:

This proves to be a mistake as the ARVN commander calls down an artillery strike with devastating accuracy:

Several VC are hit including one unfortunate villager:

On the other side of the road fighting continues:

Neither side seems willing to attack across the paddy fields:

Eventually the ARVN move forward but take heavy losses from shooting. The VC assault with a large numerical advantage but fail to drive off the ARVN and are forced to retreat:

The game ends with a few further exchanges of fire:

On counting the victory points the final score was VC 54pts to the ARVN 54pts so the game was a draw! Gary kept his men together well, not allowing the VC to pick off isolated units. He also decided to concentrate on destroying the food caches rather than capture the VC VIP or their arms supplies which again worked well. If he had evacuated some of his casualties I think he'd have won easily but, not realising really how significant that could be, he didn't evacuate any.

We both enjoyed the game and Gary would be happy to play again, it is quite a thoughtful rule set with a variety of ways to play. It was also good to get the ARVN on the table even though we didn't go for the 'raw' version of the list with two platoons, I'm curious to see how that would work! Maybe next time. 

ADLG Palmyran Army

The first metal army I ever painted back in the 70's was a Hinchliffe Palmyran army to play WRG 5th Edition at the club in Redcar. For many years they campaigned with me but eventually I sold or swapped them for another army and they disappeared into the mists of time!

For a while lately I contemplated trying to get them back  but, realistically, that wasn't going to happen. I couldn't remember who I sold them to or even if it was in Redcar or London. The clubs I played at then no longer existed and many of the people I played at the time would now probably be no longer active so while I'd definitely recognise them again if I saw them the prospects of doing so seemed minimal.

While looking at the Lancashire Games website for some 15mm Franco-Prussian wars figures I noticed that they had taken over manufacturing and selling Hinchliffe figures  at very reasonable prices. Inspired by my new-found enthusiasm for 25mm ADLG and being tired of painting WW2 stuff I thought why not order a few figures and see how they came out? At worst I could add them to my existing Late Roman army to give it a few options.

As is often the case a 'few' figures ended up turning into 'quite a lot' of figures as I painted them up and placed more orders to add a 'few' extra elements...

Six bases of Regular Archers:

Six bases of Irregular Light Archers:

The green Cataphracts:

The red Cataphracts:

Regular Medium Cavalry:

Irregular Medium Cavalry:

Caravan Guards as medium camelry:

Caravan Guards as light camelry:

The blue Cataphracts:

The purple Cataphracts:

Irregular Light Horse:

Zenobia:

Sub-general:

The second sub-general:

All together easily enough for an ADLG Palmyran army especially as I can add all the Roman allied troops from my Late Roman army (though the original army had Hinchliffe Late Romans rather than my Garrison ones).

I tried to paint them in a similar style to the originals and even contemplated gloss varnishing them (does anyone do that anymore?!) and, largely they look similar apart from the irregular horse who were much more colourful than these new ones. 

I think they have come out nicely but, as I suspected, they suffer from not being the original army and I'm not that happy with the way the irregular cavalry came out. Hopefully with some games they will develop their own personality and they certainly made a change from painting endless WW2 and Napoleonic figures!

Chain of Command Saipan scenario one "D-Day at Red Beach" again

 

After a considerable gap Tim and I played the second game of our Saipan campaign. Having been thrown back off the landing beaches in the first game Tim's Marines returned to try again against a weakened Japanese defending force.

Being able to consolidate my defences after the first game I added an extra minefield to slow the Marines down and adopted a different approach by using my 9 support points on a Type 97 Kai Shinhoto Chi-Ha tank (the best the Japanese can get!) and a MMG:

The Marines started to deploy units along the dunes leading from the beach. Initially the only Japanese response was to deploy the reduced strength mortar squad with a SL:

The Marines appear to be following a similar plan to last time:

The Chi-Ha arrives! The Japanese have staked a lot on it being effective:

Marine scout teams approach the Japanese defences forcing them to deploy the understrength second squad to stop the scouts capturing the defences without a fight:

In a sneaky move the Marines use a CoC dice to advance one of their deployment points allowing them to place a whole section behind the tank traps:

Marine firepower quickly breaks the 2nd Squad though not before one scout team is wiped out:

The Japanese respond by placing the MMG in the entrenchment recently abandoned by the 2nd Squad and the 3rd Squad lining the defences next to them:

They wipe out the second Marine scout squad and kill a couple of the newly deployed Marine squad:

The Marines had sneaked a flame-thrower into their squad. Being in range they open up with devastating effect, killing two of the MMG crew and breaking them on shock and taking out three of the 3rd Squad including the Squad Leader:

At this point the Japanese decided to withdraw. The Chi-Ha had failed to move after deploying while the remaining men of the 3rd Squad would soon be overwhelmed and deploying the 1st Squad would have just lead to further losses.

Tim had obviously learned from the first game and given the situation some thought before playing this one. Although his approach was similar using a CoC dice to move his DP forward worked very well for him together with the heavy firepower the Marines can put down (with 3 BAR per 12 man squad lead by a JL who is, in reality, a senior leader with this list) and the flame thrower was devastating though if I'd know he had it I'd have tried harder to kill it.

Being able to have a flame thrower team as part of the squad does seem rather over-powered, flame throwers are very effective if you can get them in range (12 dice hitting on 4 plus, all hits count as in the open and shock is doubled!) with the usual downside being that as soon as you deploy them as a separate team the opposition will shoot everything at them and that they only move on a 1 command dice or if directed by a senior leader. As part of a squad they are far easier to move and share hits with the rest of the squad making them a lot harder to kill.

Japanese losses were 3 men from the second section, 5 from the 3rd and 2 MMG crew. 7 men were killed in the first game and from this game 4 men were killed, two will miss the next game and two will return meaning I'll be down 11 men killed and 2 missing.

Looking at the next scenario "Securing the Beachhead" the terrain does not look great for defending so I think I will not contest it moving us on to the end of game turn 3 and then play the Japanese 'Wildcard' night counter-attack and see how that goes!   

2021 In Review Part Two: Painting

I didn't paint as much in 2021 as I'd hoped, again largely due to being out of action for four months. However, I still managed a decent output I think especially as I have a whole new army almost finished but not included in the review!

Chain of Command

Mostly figures and scenery for the Basildon Home Guard campaign, I bought many of these when I was in hospital and playing the campaign encouraged me to get back into painting quickly.

The LDV:

The Smith Gun:

Almost everything I painted got into action and I'd very happily play the campaign again at some point in the future.

Another addition for CoC was a 20mm Imperial Japanese army as the start of a Pacific collection.

An infantry section:

Support elements:

A Ha-Go light tank:

The Chi-Ha:

I'm pleased with the way they came out and they got one outing in the Saipan campaign which should continue this year.

Cruel Seas

Two new fleets with the USN and IJN plus a couple more merchant ships.

USN:

The IJN:

Putting more effort into the IJN fleet has made me think about repainting the rest though I don't think they look too bad really. Seeing a cheap deal on a USN Fleet box (£26, normal price £72!) lead me to ordering one which should arrive soon so for the USN I'll just add some better painted ones. The British and Germans I'll probably just leave as they are.

The Men of Company B

Just one addition in the form of two platoons of ARVN troops. Being rated 'green' in general you get a lot more ARVN than the US Marines so I think they will provide an interesting change for the White Star games.

ARVN:

ARVN:

So overall considerably less output than in 2020 but I'm happy with the stuff I did manage to get done and most of them have seen some action.

What is on the horizon for 2022? 

Cruel Seas

I have a RN Corvette, an IJN Landing Craft and the USN box set to complete for Cruel Seas which will give me more ships than I can possibly use probably. Still I like painting them so that's not really a problem.

Bag the Hun

Continuing the WW2 Pacific theme I've invested in some 1/300th US and Japanese aircraft for Bag the Hun, these are pretty easy to paint and won't take long to finish I think once the decals for them turn up.

For King & Parliament 

Another eBay 'bargain' was a cheap Warlord Games 28mm ECW Battalia starter set. Initially I'd only wanted a box of infantry but when I found the starter set wasn't that much more expensive I weakened and bought one! I'm planning to paint them up as a Swedish TYW army and bought a few metal additions to go with the starter set. Probably a long term project....

Blucher

I've bought some more artillery for the 15mm 1870 French and Prussians plus some more Prussian infantry as I quite enjoyed the 1870 adaption for Blucher. I've also got a few various Napoleonic units to paint up at some stage.

ADLG

A whole new 25mm army which is almost finished (just needs basing), more on that soon hopefully!

2021 in Review Part One: Gaming

Looking back I've played 31 games over 2021 which is really quite remarkable considering I spent three months in hospital, another month at least recovering and have not played a game at the club all year!

This has only been possible thanks to the kind efforts of my friends who have been fantastic, coming to play me at home which has been most appreciated (and of course my wife who has generously allowed her home office to be converted into my temporary wargames club room!). If anyone had told me in February that I'd have played 31 games by the end of the year I'd not have believed them.....

So, what I have I actually played?

Chain of Command

Nine games in total, five using the Home Guard in the Basildon campaign, three with the Soviets in the many rivers to cross campaign and one each for the Germans and Japanese. I'm still really enjoying CoC and the Basildon campaign was probably the highlight of the year for me gaming wise, I'd watched Gary, Dave and Jerry play it out over Zoom in hospital and I really enjoyed playing it myself against Gary even though the poor Home Guard had few successes!

Art de la Guerre

Second most popular with eight games in total was ADLG (Kushite Egyptian, Early Carthaginian twice, Early Imperial Roman, Late Imperial Roman, Early Byzantine (twice) and Teutonic Knights). Oddly enough I've got more into ADLG this year, partly due to enthusiasm for using my old 25mm armies and partly due to it being a game that requires less effort when I feel tired than most other games!

Blucher

Only three games this year (French, Russians and Austrians) all of which I greatly enjoyed as usual. I also had a solo try out of some modifications for the FPW which look interesting.

Cruel Seas

Three games here as well (Japanese, USN and British). There is a fair bit of variety in Cruel Seas with the different fleets having their own advantages and disadvantages. There are also some interesting scenarios available to make the games even more varied. 

Rommel

Only two games this year (Americans and Soviets), as ever very thoughtful and I'm sure once I get back to the club Andy will be happy to resume our battles!

For King and Parliament

Two games (both with Royalists) saw the 28mm ECW/TYW army finally take to the table! I'm not that keen on the rules but they are okay and it was great to get the army out finally.

Sharp Practice

One game, the Peninsular British against French. I still find SP a bit static and not as interesting as CoC but again was good to get an army I painted a long time ago on the table.

Infamy, Infamy

A single game using my ADLG Late Romans. Infamy has not really taken off for me and I'm not quite sure why! Having painted up two armies for it this is perhaps unfortunate.

Kiss me Hardy!

The only 'new' set of rules I've played this year and a late entry as it was the last game of the year for me. Admittedly I used my Spanish as French making them somewhat better but I have to say I enjoyed it a lot more than Black Seas, it seemed easier to play and the differences in quality were not so marked. While the Black Seas games were more well-it's-nice-to-get-them-on-the-table I think KMH has a lot more potential for actually enjoying the games not just the look of it!

What had dropped off the radar in 2021?

Fire and Fury

Still keen to play and when I think about it playing at home we could perhaps play some of the bigger scenarios as I could set everything up before the game day and we would just have to play giving us more time. Ideally I'll get some games in this year.

The Men of Company B

I really like these rules and my collection but I haven't yet persuaded anyone else to try them and I tend to save my energy for games against actual opponents rather than solo games. 

The Men who would be Kings

Another set of rules where I don't mind playing but with limited game time I've just not got around to playing.

Black Seas

As mentioned above I suspect I will prefer KMH so I can't see me playing these again.

What could be added in 2022?

Bag the Hun

I'm interested in trying these TFL rules for WW2 air combat. Having bought a copy of 'Check your 6!' and found them extremely complicated while 'Wings of Glory WW2' is a bit simplistic I'm hoping BtH will be somewhere between the two!

LaSalle

Sam Mustafa's lower level version of Blucher looks interesting but seems rather more complicated than Blucher. Given how much I like Blucher I'm not sure I'll try these much but might give them a go.