The Russians are Coming! The Russians are Coming!

I'm loathe to take my hobby goals too seriously, lest I turn fun into drudgery but I had set a personal challenge to myself to finish this unit of Russians for my planned Imagi-nations / Great Game / VSF campaign. A small thing maybe, but it was enough to keep me motivated.

Without further ado, the mean green machine:

Pushkinskya Oolitza zdis?*

Nyet! Pushkinskya Oolitza tam!

For March, I have four German wehrmacht infantry with pants on awaiting the rest of their clothes and gear. I'm aiming 10 figures total  - German, US, or perhaps the Imperial Cossacks?

*I made it through a handful of Pimsleur Russian I

Remagen Bridgehead

Recently I watched 1969's The Bridge at Remagen starring George Segal et al, and unable to help myself, I picked up the inexpensive print-n-play version of Remagen Bridgehead by Minden Games over on WargameVault.

Frankly, I shouldn't be allowed to shop for anything after watching a movie. The first time this was apparent was when I watched Jimi Hendrix: Live at Monterey and went and bought a Fender Strat the next day!

In any case, Remagen Bridgehead is a very simple but enjoyable solo game with frustratingly random victory conditions (although the rules author suggests if that's too much to bear, then determine them before the game begins).

I only have a b+w laser printer - so I had to make due with b+w playing pieces. All but the two status counters are easily readable.

There is a very thorough review over on BoardGameGeek which convinced me to take my chances.

One Hour Skirmish Wargames: Tiger Recovery Operation

1945: Germany is in retreat and they can't afford to leave any functional vehicle behind. A German team has been assigned to secure a disabled Tiger I until the tank recovery vehicle can get there. The Soviets have already gotten to it

This is based on the Capture the Cannon scenario from One Hour Skirmish Wargames. There is a 5 turn limit.

The Germans were plagued by poor leadership (initiative and phase draws) , confusion, and an inability to concentrate fire effectively.

This squad would spend most of the game behind the hill.

For most of the game, the Germans didn't draw enough points on their phases to move this fire team up to the edge of the trees and therefore bring them into the firefight.

It took far too long for the Germans to get their act together. Finally the hanomag was able to disembark the team on-board. The leader quickly jumped into action, dropping one of the Soviets.

But getting close to your enemy is not without risk and the Soviets decimated their attackers.

Eventually, the German squad on the left tried to close on the Soviet LMG team in the trees to their front, but it was too little too late (end turn 5).

From start to finish the game took about an hour - with a lot of reference to the rule book. I still had time, so I reset and played again. It went much the same.

The hanomag moved up quickly, but was caught by a barrage of Soviet grenades which succeeded in disabling the half-track, taking out its crew, and leaving the team on board temporarily out of action. The Soviets pounced on the opportunity and raced up to finish off the Germans half-track passengers.

They were successful but were left exposed (attacking ends a figure's actions) and the German MG42 fire-team in the woods extracted repayment.

The German squad behind the hill got into the action sooner this time, but were mowed down by SMG and LMG fire from the trees to their front and advancing Soviet infantry from the trees beyond.

Deja vu-ish: two Germans reached the LMG in the trees, but once again it was too little, too late.

The bean is to show that one of the crew is down.

***** Thoughts *****

I very much like the One Hour Skirmish Wargames rules. It has been a few weeks since I last played so the first game was shaking off cobwebs and a lot of referencing the rule book, but the second game lasted just 36 minutes with minimal reference to the book.

For the first game I drew the maximum cards allowed for defenders in the woods, every time, even if they scored higher on the first card. I forgot how fast one chews through the deck that way. So, for the second game, I stopped as soon as the defender drew a higher card. This appeared to result in more action between Jokers.

In both games, the Germans generally drew poorly on their phases, allowing minimal numbers of figures to activate.

By way of example, here are the card draws for Game 1:

Turn 1 Germans Phase 1: 3, Phase 2: 5.
Turn 2 Germans Phase 1: N/A (Russians won initiative and drew a Joker)
Turn 3 Germans Phase 1: Joker
Turn 4 Germans Phase 1: 2, Phase 2: Queen (the only good one and it was cut short by a Joker)
Turn 5 Germans Phase 1:  8

Mistakenly, in both games,  I opted to have the Germans fire on the Soviets with the SdK's MG, rather than race up and disembark the infantry on-board.  In hindsight, the Germans needed to close assault and do it as fast as possible. Any effort to attack from range is inefficient when there's a strict 5 turn limit (and consider, that in Game 1, detailed above, the Germans only were able to do anything in 3 of the 5 turns). Close combat is decisive, range combat is not.

In both games, Soviets that were downed recovered - with just two exceptions. The Germans on the other hand went down and were out of the game in all but one case. Obviously this is the luck of the draw, but the attacker in this scenario has to be prepared for that.

In what I'm sure is a coincidence, both games ended on Jokers drawn during the close combat with the Soviet LMG.

New Cloth, New Look

I present without fanfare, a preview of my new ground cloth:

This picture, mostly lit by daylight on an overcast day. is the closest I could get to capturing the color.

Pictures do not quite capture the richness of the color, but in-person it is exactly what I want. 

I contemplated quite a few options: fleece - plain or printed, felt - plain or painted, neoprene, painted plywood, flocked mats, etc. over multiple weeks. In the end I decided on microsuade in "celery", ordered it early in the week and it arrived Friday, several days earlier than expected. It was relatively inexpensive at under $30 usd for 3 yards, 58" wide, and is easy to clear of cat hair.  The latter was a driving factor in choosing this material. 

One can't can't get a new cloth and not setup a game, so Friday night that's what I did. Stay tuned!

Recover the Tiger Revisited

Burning Mountains: First thoughts

As my interest in the Italian front in WWI grows, so too does my desire to play a game related to it. With no painted miniatures and no rule set decisions made, my options are fairly limited. In fact, I currently only have one option, Burning Mountains.

Saturday night, I could hold back the dam no longer and I set up a game, with the goal to play though five or six turns to try to learn the rules.

That would turn out to be optimistic. After 2 hours I had played 1.5 turns and it was time to turn in.

The rules are not immensely complicated, but as an infrequent board wargamer at best (I've only played two others, Worthington's Hold the Line: The American Revolution and Minden Games' Remagen Bridgehead, the latter of which barely qualifies) they were beyond my usual fair and I admittedly struggled a bit. 

Even setup took longer than I anticipated.

Here is the bulk of the board prior to the first turn (the observant among you will see a misplaced Austrian fort. It was moved before the game began officially, but by then my phone was put away):

The setup. Not much to look at really

Once I finally sorted out combat (which took most of the 2 hours, the other large chunk being set up), the only major issue was a distinct lack of sufficient "Out of Supply" markers. Mid-way through the second turn, I realized I was going to have far more units out of supply than markers for the third turn.

I am either misunderstanding supply, I'm playing poorly or it's an actual issue. Either way, I'll make some by hand for next time.

In any case, having to worry about supply lines is a marked difference from anything else I have played.

I believe Featherstone talks about supply lines in his campaigns book, but it's not something that has been much a part of my gaming. Only recently using the Pz8 division-level WW2 rules, did suppply even come up as an in-game phase and it's quite abstract. The combination of large scale units of regiment/brigade level in Burning Mountains, and worrying about which units are going to be low on supplies, and therefore impeded in combat, because they are too far from the baseline or not on an unblocked road definitely feels more like I'm playing a higher level game - more concerned with operations than tactics.


Whether or not this game captures the feel of 1916 warfare in Italy, I can't say yet - I'm far more focused on learning the rules. The advantage given to units for higher altitude certainly seems to fit in with my reading, as does the first turn starting with the Austrian combat phase (in my game, this forced a number of Italian units to fall back one or more hexes right off the bat). Lack of supply for many Italian units became an issue by the second turn, and that too seems right.

At the risk of overstepping my limited experience with the game, I think it makes a better 1-player game than a 2-player game, unless the Italian player is of the kind that enjoys the challenge of denying points to the attacker, rather than trying to make gains of their own.

Atlanta Armor, Figure, and Modeling Contest and Exhibition Acquisitions

This weekend was the Atlanta Armor, Figure, and Modeling Contest and Exhibition. I went a few years ago and scored quite a bit of stuff, but last year at their new location, the vendor room seemed kind of empty, and I only came away with a single Deetail archer. Consequently, I set my expectations very low this year.

I was pleasantly surprised!

There were quite a few Osprey and similar books for sale for very reasonable prices (this one was $5) but I stopped myself from buying them as none of them were on my want list. This one wasn't either, but it's a topic I've been thinking about lately, so it was fortuitous.

The War Game is a book I've seen on Amazon and have always been curious about. For the price (I think it was $6), it was hard to pass up. The history of the battles featured is interesting, but I really enjoy the pictures of the games contained within - they capture a bygone era of wargaming in full color (the book was published in 1972).

Military Modeling was the one I was happiest to snag (another $6). I don't recall ever having read it and I know it's something of a classic. I like Featherstone's writing style, so even had it cost more, I would have nabbed it.

Here's a closeup of the figures I picked up:

The left three are from Conte. The two on the right are Super Deetail. I will be painting their berets, pants, boots, and webbing to match the Conte as close as I can. I picked up two in case I mess up the first one terribly.

They may not be 100% accurate as WWII paratroopers with PIATs but that's what they're going to be used as. This will give my British paras some anti-vehicle capability. I will get them on the table soon with the figures I already have, probably using One Hour Skirmish Wargames.

Mail call!

My birthday was about a week ago and my generous parents gifted me some money to treat myself.

I am leaning towards spending a bit of it on improving my table to my current aesthetic preferences (more on that agonizing process later) but a number of books called to me as well.

The first arrived today, The Portable Napoleonic Wargame by Bob Cordery:

There was a time in the distant past (nine years ago - wow) where I considered getting into Napoleonics, after reading some of the Sharpe books and watching some of the shows. I never pulled the trigger on figures - something didn't quite click for me. Even now, I have little interest in starting the period, except maybe at the level of of gaming in One Hour Skirmish Wargames to play Sharpe-like games.

However, I wanted to see how Mr. Cordery approached scaling his rules to handle representing different sized forces and although I've only skimmed the book briefly, it is exactly what I had hoped for in that regards.

As I consider how I might wargame WWI on the Southern Front, division or higher level games have crossed my mind and I think similar adjustments can be made for the PW rules covering later eras. I also think this book is a jumping off point to modifying PW to cover earlier Horse & Musket eras - in my case, I have a number of 1/72 Great Northern War Russians and Swedes languishing in a box,, that are far more likely to see the table with a low figure count rule set (I really don't like painting cavalry).

In the words of old timey smooth talking salespeople, this book would be a bargain at twice the price.

Revisiting One Hour Wargames

I enjoy Neil Thomas's One Hour Wargames medieval rules, but the WW2 rules, while serviceable for pushing figures around the table, often don't feel quite right to me. I suspect the difference is in large part due to having opinions about the latter period and nearly none about the former. That my opinions are completely wrong-headed is entirely possible, but I will blissfully ignore that possibility right now.

Last night, after reading some very old blog posts (has it really been almost 5 years since OHW came out?) on many blogs, I decided to break them out and house-rule "corrections" for things I or others found  "wrong" with the game.

Scenario 12: An Unfortunate Oversight. German deployment by my best guess, US by die roll.

The results were mixed. Below I present a post mortem of three of the changes: one of the failures, one partial success, and one complete success.  It is lengthy and you are forgiven if your eyes glaze over and you move on to the next blog.

Close Assault

One of my biggest problems playing OHW WW2 is that very often, it devolves to the two sides firing away at each other in a battle of attrition. This would be acceptable, if boring, for WW1 trench warfare, but that isn't how I think of this period - there is motion, men scrambling through woods, stealing cover where they can, tanks grinding up the earth beneath their treads as the plow headstrong towards the enemy, etc.

Assaulting a tank, close or otherwise is risky business.

One thing that helps create motion in OHW WW2 is to remember that units can either move or shoot, not both, in a turn. A lot of people, myself included, forget this.

This rule, I  feel I should add, does not bother me - the very idea of rolling a die for hits in any WW2  game system is an abstraction of many bullets being fired. It's not hard to imagine that the units are always firing, but sometimes they are focused on maneuver and sometimes they are focused on doing damage (The Paper Tigers ruleset really drove this point home for me). So if taking a terrain feature is the objective, a unit has to move - albeit at a leisurely pace as the 15 turn time limit is generally far more than needed. So, very often there is no benefit to closing on an enemy unit beyond the range of fire in OHW WW2 until the last few turns.

You could decide that "shoot" is the wrong term, and that the word is "assault" or something vaguer. Therefore, you don't need another mechanism, it just represents different things when in base to base contact. Except, close combat to take an objective seems more brutal and decisive in real life (or the movies for that matter), than sitting at a distance and firing away at an enemy position. And again, if it's the same effect, then there is no benefit, save being in a slightly better position to hold a terrain objective at game end, which, again, given the usual turn limits, isn't often an issue.

To address this, I decided I would add a close assault rule. A unit that ends its move in base to base contact with an enemy would be in close assault. Only infantry or tanks could initiate close assaults and the attacking unit would gain +2 to damage on the turn they moved into contact. That sounded good to me on paper, but the limitations of it came out in play.

The hill battle was a slug fest.

In Neil Thomas's rules for eras in OHW that have melee rules, flanking makes close combat potentially devastating - double damage. Flanking is not possible in the WW2 rules because units have 360 degree field of fire. Relatedly they can turn as much as they want during their moves. The implication is that facing is irrelevant. So, if I'm not wrong about that interpretation, in the end, adding a +2 bonus was not enough benefit to make it worthwhile to close on an enemy.

A further negative is that infantry suffers a -2 against tanks, so close assaulting a tank merely removes this modifier on the turn they charge into close combat. Thereafter they fight at a disadvantage unless they break off and then try again. Unfortunately, this allows the tank to 1) attack them because they are still close assault (no +2 for the tank though, as they don't move into the combat) and then 2) blast the infantry after they move away to regroup for another assault. Finally, the tank, assuming it survives the next assault, gets another attack on the infantry. That's 3 casualty dice to 2 casualty dice.

Changing the 360 degree rule may make sense, but it may have other consequences I haven't thought of.

Limit How Many Units Can Activate

One of the things I like about games like Company Command and One Hour Skirmish Wargames is the limited ability to activate all your units just the way you want to. Being forced to make decisions about whether to make an assault with 1st platoon or maneuver 2nd platoon to be in a position to fire next turn make for interesting moments in the game in my opinion.

It's not that the other units are doing nothing of course - they may be keeping their heads down, they may be regrouping, they may be firing sporadically or calling in mortar support, for example. It just isn't relevant to you as the company commander. However, it allows for some narrative development - perhaps 1st platoon suffers a lack of motivation or maybe they are taking heavy fire and can't even lift their heads, it's up to you and how angry you are at them afterwards.

Since I like Company Command (the only reason I haven't played recently is I want to build some smoke markers and some specific scenery / terrain items), I lifted the standard activation system there. Without giving too much away hopefully, I'll summarize it thusly: sometimes all of your units can fire, sometimes they all can move, sometimes half can move/fire. Except, as this is OHW, I changed the latter to move OR fire.

This has potential, but perhaps due to the scenario played, as well as my undoubtedly poor tactical choices, the result was half of the battlefield sat in stasis while the other half saw constant action. On the plus side, 15 turns may barely be enough to squeak out a win - activating no more than three units most turns results in some very quick turns. Getting to a terrain objective means potentially sacrificing weakening the enemy.

German units at start of game (there's one in the grey house). The ATG would never move. Neither would the infantry in the village until turn 8 or so.

So, I think there is still something to this, but I would either go with the Company Command basic method - either all move/none shoot or half move+shoot, or use a "pip spend" - roll a die and spend 1 pip per action, allowing infantry and tanks to both move and shoot in the same turn for 2 pips. Borrowing from OHSW, I could allow double moves an additional cost of 2 pips (so 3 pips to move 2x), but all movement must be completed before firing.
 -
I suppose another option would be to roll to see if each unit follows its orders - allowing for the possibility that all,some, or none might activate - but that sounds like a lot of dice rolling for a similar effect.

Resupply

This isn't really a good name for this, but it's the name from the rules I borrowed stole it from: Pz8 Divisional WW2 rules. At the end of each turn, roll 1d6, on a 5 or 6, the side can remove 1d6 worth of hits from any units, either all from one or distributed across multiple units.This doesn't address any deficiency with the OHW WW2 rules, at least not in the way that I think most people would address it.

A frequent criticism of OHW is that there are no built-in morale rules.

Normally, I take this to mean, a side fights until there are no units remaining (although nothing in the rules actually requires a player to do so - they could order their troops to quit the battle at any time) rather than breaking if losses are suffered beyond point X. This rule does not address this issue. I play solo, and I am as likely to call off a battle when playing the game any further seems pointless as I am to fight until a single unit stands alone on the field, no matter how "unrealistic".

However, considering that the hits in OHW represent morale as well as injuries and casualties, treating "resupply" as an improvement in morale - and thus the staying power of a unit - makes perfect sense to me. Perhaps the platoon leader made an inspiring speech or maybe Pvt. Walker committed an act of bravery that inspired all those around him and it spread like wildfire.

Because it isn't guaranteed every turn, it is still a rapid play game, but it provides some excitement when one side is on the verge of losing a key unit and they miraculously get 6 points back just when they need it.

 Conclusion

It wasn't a total failure, but the game I played was unsatisfying - perhaps even more so than playing RAW OHW. Maybe it was the hope I placed on the changes or maybe it was that I saw the game merely as a test bed.

All said, I'm not sure when or if I'll try further modifying OHW WW2. At this scale, 1 base = 1 platoon, commanding a company, I have other rules that require less effort to make fun for me.

Of the rules I have, I find Morschauser Modern works well for a rapid-play and "toy soldier" feel for this type of game - and it has brutal close combat rules. In fairness, I do feel the need to house-rule cover, probably with a saving throw as Ross Mac suggested in a comment in an older post. 


For more chrome, Blitzkrieg Commander could work, although this is a very small game for that, as could Tactical Combat (somewhere between Morschauser and BKC on the toy soldier vs simulation scale), with the same caveat. At 1 base = 1 platoon, these games expect around a battalion's worth of units on the table. Morschauser anticipates far more units on the table as well, but I have played it enough with just 6 units on the table to know that it's an enjoyable game that way.

The real benefit of all this is that it once again caused me to consider my WW2 games, what I want from them, and at what level I enjoy gaming this period, which is never a bad thing.

AiP Imperial Russians : Another Update

With the beard hurdle, um, hurdled, for now, I took some time to bring the other four infantry up to pace.

It ain't easy being green.

A bit more to do on all of these, but the unit is definitely taking shape. I can now easily imagine them in their future glossy toy soldier best.

My intention is to finish this entire unit and their officers this month. This doesn't seem too far beyond the realm of possibility.

Non-English WWII Movies

I recently watched a spate (calling three a spate seems a bit of a stretch, I admit) of non-English WWII movies:

• April 9th (Danish)
• The King's Choice (Norwegian)
• White Tiger  (Russian)

All three were enjoyable in their own ways.

The first two were intense and dramatic (April 9th is now my favorite WWII movie), as well as historical, while White Tiger was less so on the latter count, but still dramatic and also a good deal more "artsy" than I expected based on the little blurb provided by Amazon.

The King's Choice:



White Tiger (this trailer is somewhat misleading about the plot by the way):



I would love to hear your recommendations for non-English language WWII (or WWI movies for that matter) so I can build my "to watch" list.

Imperial Russians - The Bold and the Bearded

Let it be known here and now that I do not under any circumstances like painting beards on toy soldiers.

This is what has kept my Russians from progressing for at least two weeks. Tonight I bit the bullet.

They kind of remind me of the late 60s / early 70s flock-haired G.I. Joe.

There is at least one more painting session before they will be done - I have a lot of touch-ups, the rifles, and the shoulder boards to do. The bases will be yet another session - probably not until the other six figures are done, too.