Great War Commander : 23 August 1914

This was as a learning game in two respects. 

The obvious one is that this scenario, the scenario #2,  introduces on-table ordinance in the form of a German mortar and off-table artillery in the form of a "telephone" that can call local barrages for the French. The other is that it had been almost two weeks since I played last and I had become uncertain about some rules in the interim which lead to more page flipping than I thought it would.

The situation is such that the French are initiating a last counterattack before withdrawing and the Germans are tasked with holding the village of Onhaye, Belgium. 

The Germans are outnumbered but they do have the cover of the village and reinforcements (a platoon with an MG - not exactly an overwhelming force) are coming. Unlike the French in the previous scenario, the Germans are not required to setup in specified hexes and therefore are not required to start units out of cohesion. There is a limit how deep they can deploy and which columns, but beyond that, the only requirement is that all of the fox holes they are allocated have to be deployed and occupied at the start. 

There are 5 objectives in play in this scenario, three of which are near French deployment so they have a leg up in that respect, but the Germans offset this with 6 VP at the start.

The French get a free barrage before the start of turn 1 that will turn two of the buildings, determined by card draw, to rubble and suppress any units in them. Rubble reduces the defense value of the building from a +3 cover bonus to +2. If later rubble is reduced to a shellhole, the cover bonus reduces to +1.

Because it was my first attempt at the scenario and being more interested in the ordinance and barrage aspects for this first run, I, for good or for ill, opted to deploy the French randomly. I used the cards to do this (the cards all have hexes on them for randomization of effects, such as snipers, blazes, and aerial attacks). The result was a force divided into three - which, while it on the one hand enabled easy capture of objectives for the French, led to some very obviously self-inflicted difficulties coordinating attacks.

Setup, post- pre-game barrage.

As one group of French attempted to capture the village head on, one tried to advance over open ground on the right, and another from the woods to the North West. Open ground when facing machine guns is, not suprisingly, a terrible idea - although the French were luck, recovering more than they lost each time. The French attacking from the woods tried to swing around the back of the Germans, but were completely cut off without a leader after some devastating rifle fire.

As I, and thus the French, began to get the hang of artillery barrages the village was gradually brought down to rubble and shell craters. Unfortunately, the bombing did very little to the Germans occupying the village.

And then the tide began to turn.

Not only did the Germans have reinforcements scheduled to arrive, but they drew a card which gave the * additional * support. 

End of game battle for the village.

Close combats went badly for the French. Although they managed to relink the cut-off units in the back of the village, the Germans continued to hammer the French with rifle and MG fire (the mortar was poorly positioned from the start - my error - and served no role in the proceedings) and initiated their own close combats with success. Meanwhile, the French churned cards looking for Offensive, Fire, or Advance (by this point artillery barrages had become too risky - they can drift from the proposed target and strike your own units ff you're unlucky).

The game clock reached 10 - the first sudden death check for this scenario. A card was drawn and the game ended there and then.  When the points were totaled the Germans won 24 to 18. Basically then, both sides scored 18 points, but the Germans had the 6-point advantage from the start.

The final accounting.

A lot of fun and stimulation of the "little grey cells" (been watching Poirot season 1, for the first time). I think next time - if I can get the game in before too much time passes - I will be able to invest more in focusing on the decisions and less on the rules.

Also for next time: the French setup will be more deliberate, and I will put the platoon with an MG with the highest ranked leader, and the Germans will position their mortar     well away from the town and the French board entry points, to take advantage of the mortar's long range.

And, completely unrelated to the above, a WIP shot of my Hospitaller. Quite a bit left to do, but this figure is finally starting to come together.  and you can get a sense of what the final will look like. 

I'm hopeful that I'll pick up the brush again in the next few days, now that I sense completion is near.

D-Day Game

On Friday evening, after our regular walk to the convenience store for too many snacks, I said to my son,  "Tomorrow is June 6th". To which he replied "We need to watch a movie!" He suggested The Longest Day which I was more than happy to agree to. As it turned out, getting him away from video games with his friends was impossible - and that was OK, he should interact with them.

In the meantime, though,  I cobbled together a makeshift 4' square table from four plastic drawer units and two 2' x 4' panels and set out a variation of ""Bluff at Easy Green" from Skirmish Campaigns : Heroes of Omaha and Panzer Lehr".  I no longer have the book, but an old blog post gave me enough to go on.

I had considered doing it with my unpainted 1/32 WWII figures in order to field 5-7 figure squads, but in order to possibly entice my son to join me for a game, I dug out my remaining painted figures (most of my painted 1/32 WWII figures have been sent to other homes or are awaiting donation in preparation for a move at the end of the month). This meant "squads" of four figures, so maybe more like a handful of fire teams per side.

I have long since tossed reindeer moss I used to use to indicate bocage, so the brown strips of craft foam with trees around the fields would have to suffice.

For rules, I decided to do something that would be easy to teach quickly and require little reference if any during play on my part - One Brain Cell Toy Soldiers with a modified version of the wound table (1-2 KIA, 3-4 knock down until next turn, 5+ ignore wound).

Major Sidney Bingham, Jr., 2nd Battalion Commanding Officer of the 116th Infantry Regiment directs a BAR gunner and bazooka at the newly arrived German reinforcements. 

 

 In the event, I played twice before my son saw the setup and wanted to play! Victory!

To encourage movement, I set a 10-turn limit to get 8 of the 15 Americans off the table or it would count as a German victory. 

In the two games I played and in the game with my son, the Americans won (yay!). Which makes sense, given that the scenario is intended to be the 1st of a 3-game mini-campaign and the goal of the Americans is to get off the table, not fight to the last.

In the game with my son, my dice rolling was abysmal when rolling attacks and when rolling on the wound table, but great for initiative - which was wasted every time by the subsequent aforementioned poor attack rolls.

Americans burst out of the orchard to open fire at close range before charging into hand-to-hand and then exiting the table for victory.

Still, our game together did come down to the 9th turn before the Americans reached their victory condition. By the end of that turn though, the Germans were obliterated with but three figures remaining.

My son had fun and I had fun, so win-win really! 

It's also caused me to consider keeping the painted Americans (the painted Matchbox Germans are staying for use as villains in Christmas games) if only to draw my son into games every now and then.

p.s. Regular readers may notice the new game mat. I like how it looks, but it's not quite the measurements specified (it's closer to 47" wide than 48"wide, although it can stretch to that). I will probably cut it down to a 3' square mat (or close to it)  and a 2' square mat, for use in different games.

Great War Commander : Bleid, Belgium 22 Aug 1914 Again!

I set up the same scenario again on Saturday night only to realize about 90 minutes in and nearly done, that I had been playing incorrectly - units, for the most part, can only be given one Order per turn. I also kept forgetting the Fog hinderance until turn 6. I have the same problem with the mud turns when I play Battle for Moscow.

So, Sunday, I reset the board and had at it again.

The French setup is always the same per the scenario - except which infantry unit gets the MG, that's up to the player. Units with a functioning weapon, units within a leader's command radius, and units on their baseline are in cohesion. For the French, three of the units start the game already out of cohesion and will be marked suppressed after the 1st turn (which will be the Germans turn). That means they start their own turn already suppressed.

For the Germans, I had advanced up the right twice - which I think is the best approach as it provides fast access to a nearly undefended objective. So, to mix things up, I rolled a die to determine deployment and ended up setting them up to the left instead.

The setup. Rommel is personally leading the platoon with the MG.

Rommel's company consisted of the three platoons to the right. 

He commanded the MG to fire at the French unit which had taken cover in a house and had their own MG. A few bursts of the gun and the French unit broke right off the bat. Not an auspicious start for the French.

The Germans divided their force, with Hauptmann Waldau leading his company up the road on the left, using the craters/shell holes for cover. 

Still, the French managed to suppress one of the German platoons in the road. 

As Rommel's men moved through the fields, a French sharpshooter fired on them and pinned (broke) the lead platoon.

After consolidating their line, the Germans pushed their way towards the village in earnest but ahead of them a shell struck and set the woods ablaze, forcing the Germans to split up their command again as Hpt. Waldau took his platoons around the conflagration.

While firing on the French positions the German MG jammed - the crew labored furiously to clear the gun and bring it back into action. 

A broken weapon (MG in this case) checks every time a card is drawn to determine a random hex for some Event or Order. One band of numbers is a repair, one means nothing changes, and another is permanently broken

I'm missing some pictures here but the Waldau's company swung around the village while Rommel's company made little ingress, but the MG was repaired and unleashed on French units occupying the largest buildings in the village.

The French attempted to counter Waldau's advance by acting the aggressor, but were defeated in close combat and moments later, the French platoon in the building on the German left, was cutoff and surrounded.

Meanwhile French barbed wire emplacements were glimpsed through the fog blocking the German road approach to road leading out of the village.

In a valiant last stand, the Red Trousers held their ground against repeated attacks, but eventually succumbed to the combined fire power of multiple platoons against their position.

As the fog lifted, the extent of the French wire defenses blocking the road became clear.

Wire is places as the result of an Action. I just like the narrative of the fog lifting - which happens when the time tracker reaches 6.

The French maneuvered around the village to draw the Germans to them while avoiding coming under fire as much as possible, making their way back to the large building protected by the wire.

By Waldau ordered Rommel and his platoons to press onwards out of the village.

Geraman reinforcements arrived at the other end of the road. Any resemblance to Rommel and his company is purely coincidental.

Hpt. Waldau pushed his troops through the wire to reach the last French occupied building. When the dust cleared, the village had fallen.

 

The French had an event occur where a leader was recalled to return later as a reinforcement - on the plus side, the remaining units were so pressed together, they could not be out of choesion!  Notice too, the flames have spread!

The game ended with a French surrender and automatic loss.

Even if they hadn't, the score was lopsided, with the Germans scoring 34 vp vs the French 7 VP.

***

The French actually were doing OK for much of the game. Their downfall began in earnest when they drew an Event where command meddles and you're forced to draw a card and use it for your next order. It was an Advance order - the aggressive French attempt to counter the Germans lead to the isolation of the French unit near the end of the game.

Although I did enjoy witnessing their heroic last stand!

Playing the rules as intended, with one Order per turn for any given unit, changed the game a bit - more discards, waiting for the right cards to appear. This worked in the French favor on occasion, as it held up the German advance somewhat. However, they too were waiting for cards and more often than not the Germans got their needed cards first.

Also, eagle-eyed readers may notice Runners on the map. I had avoided using them unintentionally - I just wasn't reading the card text properly. The French runner could have earned them VPs but they never got a chance.

I'm ready for the next scenario, which introduces off-board artillery and an on-board howitzer!