1917 Fictional Strafexpedition Game 5 (Final game!)

III Battalion, Sacher Regiment, was ordered to infiltrate into Italian territory and disrupt enemy reinforcements and supplies from reaching the front.

The battalion's second-in-command, Major Nino Aigner, was assigned to personally lead the effort. Ninth and Tenth companies, accompanied by 2nd company, 501st Sturmbattalion, would proceed south with all due haste, bypassing an enemy trench position dug into the northern end of a prominent hill. A detachment of III Battalion's machine guns would engage the enemy trenches to provide cover for the infantry advance.

Initial advance.

The hilltop defenders fought fiercely and, though suffering some losses, managed to silence the attacker's machine guns.

Two companies of Italian reinforcements arrived via the road from the south. The Italian's lead company engaged Ninth company in a firefight as did the surviving hilltop defenders, who had relocated to the southern most position on the hill top. 

With clear firelanes to their target, Ninth company was decimated, and the survivors routed.

The sturmcompany came under heavy fire but held on as they attempted to close with the enemy. Meanwhile Tenth company advanced, keeping close to the woods.

The Italians continued to arrive, including an infantry company, a cavalry squadron, and a field gun battery. Two companies opened fire on the sturmcompany, shooting it to pieces.

With just a single company remaining, Major Aigner was forced to order a withdrawal.

The Italians had stopped the Austrian advance with ease.

******

The scenario is "Infiltration" from One Hour Wargames (scenario #25).  I opted to use One Hour Wargame forces, treating each two-base unit as a company, but for the rules, I used Trench Hammer v2, with some rules from the Expansion. 

This was my second go at this - I had not calculated how dramatically different the movement rate is in Trench Hammer compared to One Hour Wargames. In the first go, the Austro-Hungarian force made it to the exit point two full turns before the arrival of the second Italian reinforcements.

That didn't sit well with me.

I reset the table and adjusted the arrival schedule. Whether it worked better or not depends on who you wanted to win, but at the very least it seemed fairer to me for the Italians to at least get their force on the table.

You could argue, quite convincingly, that I made a mistake in the schedule - arriving on turns 2 and 4, rather than turns 2 and 5 (the original is 3 and 6). 

That's OK - the game served its purpose - to try out two-base units with Trench Hammer - and honestly, when I first conceived of this, it was going to be a straight up five-game campaign following the model given by Neil Thomas in OHW,

If we look at the campaign as a competition between the battalions of Sacher Regiment, then II battalion was the clear winner. They defeated the Italians in two battles before I ruled them too worn out to proceed further. I battalion won their first but lost their second. And III battalion lost their first - therefore, no second.

The Italians only won two of the engagements and so, on that basis lost the campaign. However, as they stopped both the left and right flanks from advancing beyond the second row, that looks to me like, at the very least, a minor victory.

For giggles, I made this map after the fact using the maps from One Hour Wargames to show how I picture the scenarios connecting:

I battalion is the left column, II battalion is the middle, and III battalion is the right.

I had decided that if I made it to the bottom row (or if I needed a tie breaker) in any column, they would be river-based scenarios, with the river running left to right.

I also think It'd be possible to make a larger map of many One Hour Wargames tables and then when sides meet, that's the scenario that gets played. Not sure if I'll do that, but it's an idea!

This campaign, besides being a good bit of fun and an opportunity to get my WWI collection on the table, served its purpose overall, which was to figure out which rules I want to use and what I want forces to look like. The last game, with two-base/four-figure companies is the winner (I may go back to single-figure bases, but use four-figure companies) and I can use Trench Hammer or "Machine Age" rules (with my various modifications) from OHW with the same setup and have equally enjoyable games.

Favorite pic (from 1st game that didn't count): Lancieri charge sturmcompany

Although I'm still preparing my goals/plans/ideas for the coming year, I do believe that in 2023, we can eventually expect a return to the Southern Front, for a campaign, possibly using a map, and very hopefully with air support. 

The Christmas Game in Pictures

On Christmas day, after dinner was cleared, I set out a table for a role-playing lite wargame, using "Age of Heroes" (which I learned about on a blog I only recently discovered - Warwell's Wargames). Each player controlled a single hero - no warbands or anything like that.  I added a few of my own custom special abilities for some characters and I added an Out of Ammo rule. 

Each figure with a firearm received two ammo markers. On a 1, they would lose one marker. Once out they were totally out of ammo and would need to find more. Similarly, I created a medkit rule and each figure had 1 medkit that could heal 1-3 points of damage.

They could choose from a penguin, white-tailed deer (two rifles), arctic hare (one rifle), beaver (with flame thrower), seal, squirrel (with tommy gun), snow owl, arctic fox (with cigar), or a hedgehog. Each character had special abilities, so they all filled unique roles. 

My son contemplates the options.

Choosing a character took a bit of time as they debated the merits of each. In the end, the party consisted of the hedgehog (a healer, whom the player named 'Dr. Pendleton'), fox, bunny, and deer.

The scenario was simple: Santa's village had been ransacked and Santa was missing! The player characters, as inhabitants of the magic woods that hide the village from the eyes of the world, had an oath to help Santa and capture the perpetrators or bring them to forest justice.

The first encounter was triggered during the search of the ruins - 10 animated snow warriors rose up from the ground.

Snow warriors are immune to bullets. They need to be smashed.

It was a lengthy and sometimes harrowing battle, but all of the characters were involved and got to use their various special abilities. 

Fox (played by my son) had the idea that if he threw a snowball at a snow warrior and knocked off their hat, they would deanimate. His special ability was one of my own creation I called Crazy Like a Fox. He had to roll a 5+ to see if it would work and it did! So the part started aiming for hats!

With the snow warriors vanquished, the party applied medkits and hedgehog healing and then followed the tracks from the village's assailants into the woods. There they faced a choice - proceed north towards a dull glow on a the hill (a Christmas tree) or towards cries for help to the south. 

They chose the latter.

In a clearing stood a lovely house. Inside a sword fight of sorts was raging between the Rat King and Clara. While outside, a handful of rat soldiers stood guard behind a snow drift (played by a banana under the blanket) and their large Maus tank idled to the west of their position.

Deer and Bunny exchanged fire with the rats, while Fox used his Crazy Like a Fox ability to summon a carrier pigeon to deliver a grenade to him and a potato to Dr. Pendleton who himself had gone under the snow to advance towards the tank.

Bunny ran to the woods behind the tank looking for a weak spot but found none.

In the meantime, Dr. Pendleton managed to sneak behind the tank and plug the exhaust pipe with the potato. Fox had taken advantage of the rats being distracted by the firefight with Deer and snuck behind the house to hurl his grenade into the rat line.

Visible above are the candy cane missiles which the Maus can fire. It launched two into the woods at Deer, who managed to save and avoid any loss of hit points.

The tank's engine exploded sending the crew scrambling out the hatch in the top and the Rat King running from the house chased by Clara wielding her candy cane sword. The rats, their magnificent weapon disabled, saw no reason to stick around, ran off.

To thank the party for their assistance in driving off the rats, Clara gave them a bazooka and some ammo and told them the rats had bragged that they had helped with the kidnapping of Santa and had revealed he had been taken to an old, abandoned warehouse to northwest.

Fox and Dr. Pendleton pried candy cane missiles lose from the Maus to use as hand grenades and the party went to rescue Santa.

The building now functioning as a warehouse

The warehouse was guarded by mechanical toy soldiers with evil glowing red eyes. 

Dr. Pendleton snuck up the drift/hill in front of their position (played again by a banana) and rolled his candy cane missile right into them. The blast took out four of the soldiers outright!

The subsequent firefight went heavily in the party's favor, and they managed to easily cut down the robotic soldiers while suffering minimal wounds.

Fox, being sneaky, snuck inside and saw a number of black clad individuals with gold mirrors for their faces (In a follow up post I'll show close ups of everyone - they are cyborg zombies) busily assembling more mechanical soldiers.

Having run out of time to assemble a factory in 3d, I hastily painted a top down map on some brown packaging paper. Crude perhaps, but effective enough in the moment.

Fox blew his cover early and delivered a stirring speech to rouse the working class to throw off the shackles of their capitalist oppressor and avoid paying the price for his evil deeds, but the zombie-like cyborgs ignored his persuasive argument. 

The Evil Industrialist (played by an Ertl Sir Topham Hatt acquired solely to play this role) heard the shouting and came out to see what was going on - following behind him, controlled by the Conductor, came a monstrous robotic nutcracker!

Unfortunately, what's missing is the final battle pics.

Once the shooting started, the Evil Industrialist ran back into the back room behind the nutcracker.

Bunny came bursting in using the bazooka to attack the nutcracker, The nutcracker spewed fire from his mouth towards Fox - who managed to avoid the attack while the crates beneath him caught fire. 

Unshaken, Fox repeated his calls for a working-class revolution - this time directed at The Conductor. The Conductor , encouraged in part by the wound he received from a shot from Deer, was convinced, He threw down the controller for the mechanical nutcracker, told the Evil Industrialist where to stick it, and ran for the exit.

The Evil Industrialist, caring nothing for his employee's health or safety and proving Fox's point, was furious he was forced to handle things on his own. He was subsequently caught in the blast from Bunny's bazooka which caused him to drop the controller - neutralizing the threat from the nutcracker - and then was hit a second time by a peppermint missile hurled by Fox, which knocked him unconscious. 

Santa was freed from the crate he was held in and Christmas was saved!

Merry Christmas to all

To all of my wargaming friends near and far, I hope you are enjoying the holiday season.

Rumble in the Jungle

Today marked my last day teaching guitar lessons for the year and I wanted to do something to mark the occasion. A wargame seemed like a good choice.

It also happens that my son has gotten very much into Warhammer (albeit the video game), I figured perhaps I could entice him with a fantasy-based game using Age of Fantasy. I still wanted to determine a winner in the impromptu round-robin between the knights (as Chivalrous Kingdoms), Tanitians (as Dark Elves) and lizards (as Saurians), it seemed an ideal opportunity to draw him into a game.

He made most of the decisions for both sides - I used it as an opportunity to introduce the rules as well as practicing thinking ahead and weighting options.

The table was set, then a die rolled to determine which side of the table the forces would deploy on. A fordable river crossed the battlefield - I added a scenario rule that any unit that entered the river cannot leave it in the same turn.

The Saurians deployed their Geckos in front of their Saurian Warriors who deployed atop the hill. The triceratops and the shaman deployed on opposite flanks.  The Dark Elves deployed their Black Guardians and Dark Warriors (accompanied by a Champion) in a thin line, screening the Abyssal Beast and anchored by the Snake Lady on their left.

Deployment! The black and white stones are difficult and DANGEROUS ground, meaning units entering the rock field could potentially suffer damage.

End of turn 1. The Lizards have captured one objective point, the one in the middle of the river is contested.

On the other side of the table, the Black Guardians enter the river en route to the woods opposite, intent on capturing the objective.

Turn 3 ends with the Dark Elf center collapsing and the triceratops and the Abyssal beast preparing for the afternoon's most-anticipated match-up.

Turn 4, the final turn. The archers atop the triceratops tried to soften up the enemy but were just a minor annoyance. The Abyssal Beast charged the triceratops and the very ground trembled with their collision.

The Beast is poisonous and managed to take down the 12 HP triceratops in a SINGLE ROUND. Meanwhile the lizard shaman killed the Snake Lady, but the Dark Elf center managed to dish out far more hurt than they received. The Saurian Warriors failed their post-melee morale check and routed.

To our collective surprise, it was a Dark Elf victory. When they Saurian Warriors routed, they left the Dark Warriors in control of the objective in the middle of the river. That gave them two objectives, to the lizards one.

So, at the end of three games, the Dark Elves are the winners!

1. Dark Elves 2-0
2. Saurians 1-1
3. Chivalrous Kingdoms 0-2

EDIT:  I can't believe I didn't mention my son's reaction to the game. He actually thanked me for letting him play (this is so rare it merits a mention!). He had such a good time and he really seemed to enjoy trying to make the best decisions for each force.

Holiday Game Ideas?

You might recall that I ran a Christmas-themed wargame (here and here) for my family and friends last year, where each player controlled a team:

Everyone seems to love that 88mm

King Moonracer taking on the StuG!

For this year's Christmas celebration, based on what I have learned/confirmed about this group, I plan to do something more RPG-like as they really enjoy:

• playing a single character
• having a suitable figure for that character to move around the table
• working as a team
• having activities that aren't just combat (although some of them, like my son, prefer that)
• exploiting their character's special abilities

Rule-systems? I'm thinking Dungeons & Dragons B/X because I know it cold - players playing traditional classes. That said, I'm off having the players play animals from the woods around Santa's workshop coming to the rescue instead and reskinning the B/X classes. 

Alternately, an RPG-lite skirmish wargame where each player controls 1 figure. 

The only caveat for any of this - I will have about 8 players to wrangle.

I'm contemplating creating an adventure using the 5-Room Dungeon as my guide. The rooms here mean encounters, by the way, not necessarily literal rooms. There has to be a lot going on with that many players and five rooms probably won't provide enough alternate pathways to an end point.

Taking a look at some of the available modules on DriveThru and Dungeon Masters Guild, I see a lot of them focus on rescuing Santa and/or fighting Krampus. Excellent, as I really didn't get to use my painted up LOD Santa last year (the sleigh spent the entire game on the board, but Santa wasn't found until the end) and I wouldn't mind building my own Krampus model.

Here's what I'm thinking of encounters (some stolen from the aforementioned modules):

• Snowmen - Probably encountered along the way, as an ice breaker (pun intended!) for getting everyone used to their characters.
• Toy Solders (Paint up some clothespin toy soldiers with puffball bearskins, that kind of thing) acting as guards to the location.
• Nutcracker Automaton - might be good in a puzzle encounter but I don't know what the puzzle would be
• Giant Ice Spider (an excuse to buy the Schleich ice spider)
• Yeti/Bumble/etc.
• Krampus, Jack Frost, Ice Wizard(Ice King from Adventure Time?), or  other Big Bad (possibly some Fat Cat Capitalist / Scrooge / Sam Walton, the latter stolen from a game I once saw on a blog years ago)

Notice that pretty much all of these are combat encounters. I could use some help coming up with holiday themed non-combat encounters!

If you have any ideas, please feel free to suggest them! Last year it was suggested that I incorporate some kind of snowball throwing outside of the tabletop, which I did, and it was a huge hit!

1917 Fictional Strafexpedition Game 4

The saga of Sacher Regiment in the 1917 Strafexpedtiion continues...

3rd and 4th company, led by the latter, pressed south to overtake the second line of Italian defenses.

An ineffective artillery barrage was followed in short order by the loss of the assigned sturmplatoon to fire from the Italian trench.

4th company pushed further south to flank the Italian position but the surprise appearance of a squadron of lancieri bearing down on their forward units diverted their attention.

 The cavalry threat would prove to be a short-lived.

Continuing the grand tradition of units taking a shellacking in their first appearance on the table, the lanceiri did not disappoint.

With the arrival of 3rd company and an MG platoon, it seemed momentum was building for the success of the assault. However, Italian reinforcements arrived north west of the trench and swung around to engage the Austro-Hungarian forces.

In an illustration of the way the battle was going for each side:

The Austro-Hungarian machine gun platoon moved to a position in the woods south of the trench but were silenced before they make a difference in the outcome.

The Italian machine gun unit poured fire into 4th company, whittling down their numbers before combined fire from the remaining platoons of 4th company, along with the lead platoons of 3rd company, could stop them. 

The remnants of 4th company made an ill-fated effort to assault the trench as the Italians gave better than they got.

Overwhelmed by fire from the trench and from the Italians arriving behind the hill, the Austro-Hungarians were down 4th company and suffering nearly 50% losses in 3rd company when Oberstleutnant Trenker ordered the remaining units to fall back.

The Italians had stopped the advance in this sector.

*****

This was scenario 8, "Melee", from One Hour Wargames. I field two units for every infantry unit, and one for each assault or cavalry unit. Heavy infantry is replaced with a machine gun base. Bases are platoons or their equivalent.

Rules were Trench Hammer - the v2 version of the rules, with some additions from the Expansion. I treat bases as platoons instead of squads for this campaign.

The observant among you have probably noticed I changed basing again. These things happen.

Next up, Sacher Regiment's 3rd battalion will get its chance against the Italians..

1917 Fictional Strafexpedition Game 3

Sacher Regiment’s first battalion attacked to the right of the previously documented efforts of 2nd battalion.

1st and 2nd company with a platoon from the 501st sturmbattalion were tasked with capturing either the village of Pecorino or the trench on the hill to the southeast. 1st company and the stormtroops had orders to take the village, while 2nd company would keep the defenders on the hill occupied.

The village and trench were held by companies of the Fagioli Brigade, 212th infantry regiment, second battalion.

After an initial bombardment, 1st company advanced on Pecorino via the road, while 2nd company attempted to cross the vast expanse between themselves and the hill.

I never realized how askew that middle trench section was!

The Italians look on.

A second bombardment preceded the first attacks on the town. Early exchanges of rifle fire went in the defenders' favor.

On the Austro-Hungarian left, 2nd company led by the notably cautious Hauptman Morganstern, struggled to get their advance going.

After an attempt by the stormtroops to take the town was pushed back, the lead platoons of 1st company joined in the effort.

The combination was too much for the Italian defenders and the Austro-Hungarians captured Pecorino.

All that was left was to hold the village against any counterattack.

Meanwhile, 2nd company had managed to engage the Italians on the hill, albeit with heavy losses.

Still, Morganstern, pushed the remnants of his company forward to overrun the machinegun emplaced in the trench and then drove off an Italian platoon.

After repeated failed attacks, the Italians made a last-ditch effort to contest the village. Although the company hauptman was killed in the fighting, the Austro-Hungarians held on.

The Italian commander, Lt. Colonel Pioli, who had managed the fighting from within the trench system, realized he could not mount an effective attack on the village without pulling the remaining platoon from the hilltop position to support the sole remaining platoon in the trenches behind the village. 

He ordered the trench abandoned and the men to rejoin the rest of the battalion to the south.

 

*****

This is scenario 14 from One Hour Wargames. The Italians have to keep 1/3 of their troops within 12" of the hill and 1/3 within 12" of the village during the fighting.

Rules were Trench Hammer, 2nd edition (not officially released - it's a living document if you purchase the rules, you have access to it) and some rules from the Trench Hammer Expansion.

Rather than treating the bases as sections (the default scale in Trench Hammer), I treated them as platoons. Calling the bases companies and the groups of bases battalions would also work, with some range adjustments, but platoons/companies fit in better with the existing campaign battles.

My only other rule adjustment was limiting rifles to a max of 12” range, while machineguns had a much more generous range of 40” - besides matching the rules I had been using, this meant MGs could fire at a distant target without being subject to a firefight (which happens within 12” per the rules), making them quite dangerous.

Why change the set of rules I am using in the middle of a campaign?

I wanted my company commanders to have more to do - and while I had grafted some things onto GASLIGHT from Contemptible Little Armies to do that for the battalion command, the company commanders did little more than shoot and fight, albeit heroically

I also wanted the units to last longer than they had been. Trench Hammer can play very fast, with hits doing on average 3-4 points of damage. However, units can regain lost hit points through either commander action or by executing certain orders and so have a chance to come back from near oblivion and did so, in some cases units did so repeatedly.

The next battle will involve 3rd and 4th company as they press 2nd battalion’s advance further into Italian territory.

One last bit of news, my dog, Peppermint, had cataract surgery on both eyes on Thursday. He was essentially blind going into the surgery. While the healing process is long, and there are any number of possibilities that might undermine the success of the surgery, he can, at least as of now, see and it is exciting beyond words!

1917 Fictional Strafexpedition Game 2

Major Neurath was ordered to press on with 5th and 6th company, 2nd battalion, Sacher regiment, to support the stormtroops of 3rd company,501st battalion, lead by Hauptman Mahler, in their effort to capture Fromagio. The trench line was held by 9th Company, 3rd battalion, 212th Regiment supported by a machine gun platoon.

The attack was preceded by a heavy barrage on both the left and right trenches.

That pile of blankets in the upper right is actually our dog.

The Italian machine gun platoon quickly reduced the numbers in 5th company.

But further scheduled artillery cleared the right trench and 5th was able to take it without opposition thereafter.

However Italian reinforcements arrived and launched a counterattack to reclaim the trench.

On the left, the stormtroops easily overran the few remaining defenders, and Neurath redirected 6th company from planned attack route to instead aid 5th company. Meanwhile, an additional Italian company had arrived and moved into positions within Fromagio.

With the right trench cleared, the stormtroops, supported by an MG platoon, assaulted the town.

With the remnants of 5th company (amounting to less than one platoon) holding th right trench, 6th company proceeded per their original attack plan, and moved to attack Fromagio from the West. However, Lt. Colonel Dattoli arrived with another of his battalions MG platoons to the rear of 6th company which forced them to break off their attack to deal with the threat.

Although not pictured, the fighting was fierce. 6th company was badly mauled by the machine guns before they were silencedt. Major Neurath, who had reluctantly moved up to aid 6th company, was killed by none other than Lt. Colonel Dattioli in a dramatic shoot-out. The Lt.Colonel himself being wounded and captured by a squad from 6th company.

Meanwhile, the battle within the town limits raged, with the stormtroops emerging victorious in the end. 

It was a costly win for the Austro-Hungarians. 

Major Neurath (admittedly as much a liability as anything) was killed, as was Hauptmann Hass of 5 company (in the storming of the right trench when it was still held by the Italian machine gun platoon). 5th and 6th company were both nearly wiped out by casualties, as were the stormtroopers. As such, the advance by 2nd battalion on this prong of Sacher Regiment's attack must halt.

On the plus side, the capture of Lt. Dattioli, to join his 2nd in command, Major Lizzio, was something of potentially great value.

The next game will take a look at how 1st battalion did on their advance.