Battle of the Alps Squared

June 1940, the Italian army, ordered by the outsized ego of Il Duce - who was desperate to have a piece of France before Hitler had captured it all for himself -  trundled across the northern alpine border into France.

The stalwart defenders of ennui and champagne had expected as much and were dug in and ready.

The Italians used the woods to cover the left wing of their advance.

The French infantry were well dug-in and extricating them proved more difficult than discretely hiding ten pounds of good salami into your rucksack.

Calling a meeting of L3s with the FT17s a "tank duel" or a "clash of armor" stretches credulity. Let us say, they fired shots at each other while snacking on loaves of bread and drinking bottles of wine, with the wine merchants being the real winners, judging by the ineffectiveness of both sides.

Eventually the French armor, despite damage incurred from the Italian battery - drove back their Italian opposites - can you blame those poor Italian pilots? They only learned to drive the L3 a few days ago. 

It was all for naught, as they were just in time to find the Italian infantry had successfully captured the village. A halfhearted attempted to dislodge the Italians met with no success.

The French had run out of time and would have to fall back. Here is the battlefield at the end:

The scenario was "Late Arrivals", a favorite of mine from One Hour Wargames. It works equally well for Austrians streaming into Italy as it does for Italians invading France. The game lasted the OHW standard 15 turns. 

The rules were improvised, based on my own squad-per-base rules - a mash of Crossfire, Advanced Squad Leader Starter Kit, and The Portable Wargame - but moved up a few levels of organization and no stacking allowed. I also used ideas borrowed from Ross Mac's Fast and Furious Fifties

Initially I thought of the units as companies of infantry, platoons of tanks, three or so guns, etc. 

However, while writing my narrative it didn't really seem to matter and I could just as easily think of them as battalions. I hear Memoir '44 is a bit like that - where the nominal scale changes based on the scenario? I don't know, I've never played it, but that's my understanding.

It seemed to work here at least.

Escape the Monster Apocalypse

Sunday was our annual Family Fall Festival - a holiday my son's mom invented when he was born. I don't recall the rationale, but here we are 12 years later and we still celebrate it with friends and family.

Three years ago, I suggested I could run a Halloween themed game for the party. And then again last year. Which meant I had inadvertently started a tradition. To the point that, a few weeks ago I was asked if I was going to run a game for the Festival. 

And so, somewhat last minute, I dug through my supplies and decided that, since the previous Festival games had featured Legos, so would this one. However, unlike previous years, I made use primarily of my existing collection and supplemented by raiding my son's massive tub of Legos to make the buildings for this game (and to provide player characters).

Rather than stop the zombie plague, the players would have to gather parts to repair an escape vehicle (represented by four Jack O' Lanterns around the board), while fending off zombies, skeletons, and boss monsters, and to do it all before the government nuked the town to end the monster apocalypse.

Fun, as they say, was had by all. Although my son was quite sleepy by the end.

For rules, I used One Page Rules Age of Fantasy: Skirmish, with army lists from both Fantasy and Grimdark (the players - because firearms are part of Grimdark). The players were all Hero types, which is unusual for OPR, and of course were essentially seven armies of 1, while the monsters were a much larger, but single, army. 

In play tests, the game lasted near two hours. In the event it was closer to four and as we had gotten a late start due to a delayed dinner, it was near 8pm when we started(so, a midnight finish!).

I had failed to account for the amount of discussion that would take place between the players around tactical choices - choices that I had purposely selected to add interest to the game!

Each player character had a trait that benefited them only, and another trait that benefited the party as a whole - under certain conditions (within 12", only if charging, in cover, that sort of thing). It was coordinating those for max effect that I believe had the greatest impact on total run time.

Next time, I aim for a one hour game.

And next time, will be the annual Christmas game (apparently another tradition I inadvertently started).

French Army Receives Boost as New Armor Arrives at the Front Line

I mentioned, in a comment on my most recent minifig post, that I had acquired a French Renault FT 17. 

The assembly was a bit more complicated than the L3, in part because the instructions were only a step or two above Ikea in clarity. Both vehicles used the familiar Lego-like pictures-only instructions, but the FT instructions seemed to leave things out or were less obvious in their meaning.

Or that could just be me.

In any case, here is the pride of the French Army of the Alps:

Admittedly, a Char B1 would be a bit more worthy of pride, but then the Italians would be unable to counter any French assault.

I'm not sure what scale the FT is - I know the one from COBI is billed as 1/32. I think this one is closer to 1/50. I could measure it and then compare to the actual size, but the tape measure is so far away.

This model (I don't know who makes it) came from BrickAction, an Etsy seller and also creator of their own brick-centric wargaming rules. I haven't tried the rules yet, so I can offer no comment on them. As for BrickAction itself, they are friendly, ship fast, and have great customer service.

As a bonus, BrickAction packages this tank with two French infantry.

That they are wearing Horizon Blue is a bit odd for my uses (the FT 17 was in use in WWI in 1918, which probably explains the uniform choice) , but I'm just going to say they are wearing leftover NOS uniforms from WWI. 

They'll be used to crew either a mortar or machine-gun as needed. I just need to raid my son's minifigure bin for a suitable tripod mounted MG.

Italian Army Crosses the Alps!

France. June, 1940.

Elements of the Italian army actually made it past some of the French defenses - a platoon with L3 support is advancing to capture a small village.

French infantry are heading to the scene to stop them.

The sides race for positions.

The Italians make use of cover to protect their advance. The tankette however decides to chug along in the open. Not because of its superior armor - it's not especially renowned for its thickness - but its pilot's bravado demands nothing less. He has had exactly 1 day of training on the L3, which is more training than most. Also, his L3 is still running which is a miracle in itself.

French squad with LMG stakes out a place in the woods.

And the LMG draws first blood!

The French mortar had a mildly successful day dropping rounds on unsuspecting Italians. However, it wasn't enough to slow them down.

The tankette sat for awhile once the pilot realized getting close to infantry without support might be a bad idea. Instead he unloaded double HMGs at the French in the fields, to horrific effect.

From this angle the L3 looks menacing, despite actually being super cute - dual machine guns tearing up the French squad excepted.

Throwing caution to the wind, drunk on his own success, the Italian pilot mashes the accelerator (or however these things worked) full speed ahead. This exposes him to a state-of-the-art French anti-tank grenade delivery system. It's a tense moment.

If you look closely, you can see how it went. There's a downside to leaving cover even if it's to do something arguably heroic.

The tankette sped off the table. The remaining French from the squad in the field and the mortar were unable to act before it did so. This was one of the Italian objectives accomplished, by a very gamey maneuver might I add.

"Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!"

The last French survivor (an NCO) and the mortar itself were captured. The fellow with the scared expression, front row, right, has just realized that the mortar crew had spiked the mortar with a grenade, which is about to go off.

A few things of note:

I once again used the venerable, and free, One Brain-Cell Toy Soldier Rules,with the advanced options for wounds, the advanced turn sequence, and a house rule for AT grenades. 

While other, more serious, games may have greater depth, these rules manage to"feel right",  if you try to use proper WW2 tactics (at least to my imperfect understanding of what that means). As I'm probably on the "Pulp WW2" end of "feels right", take that as you will.

Play time was maybe an hour or so?

I like how the minifigures look with my regular terrain and scenic items. It reminds me of playing with toys with my son when he was little. 

Speaking of scenic items - the two buildings were probably made around a decade ago and have served me well since. Foamboard / Foamcore is solid stuff.

Oh and no one has asked, but the mortar can fire if you put a spring in it (sometimes it comes with one, sometimes it doesn't - this one did not, but I have a suitable spring from a Lego-type cannon).

The French FT should be arriving soon - USPS says it's in TN on the tracking site, but we got an email saying it would be here today. So, who knows?

A New Project or Un Nouveau Projet : Brick by Brick

As Sinatra sang, "I did it my way."

Or rather I will be.

While having a clear out recently, I admitted to myself that I was never going to get around to painting (or finishing in the case of one squad) the Warlord Games 28mm French WW2 force I had acquired,, let alone acquire and paint an opposing Italian force (for the very short Italian invasion of France, which was Mussolini's attempt at a land grab to gain a seat at the negotiating table post-victory).

Those figures are moving on.

However, it *is* a project that has interested me for some time. 

The possibility of playing a "what-if" campaign, where France holds out against the Axis stirs my imagination. This is the same reason I will not part with my 1/72 PTO collection - invading imaginary South Pacific islands allows me to campaign (you know, when I get to it) without feeling too constrained by history. 

And despite letting go of a lot of gaming-related stuff (a LOT), I still have the desire to do something wargame related with Lego / Lego-clone figures.

The two ideas collided while I was searching for Lego minifigures for Halloween's game last year, but I let it go (because I had the Warlord figures at the time). Also, the price.

Well, I stumbled on a good deal on Etsy, last week, and so, this arrived Monday:

 

The two guns are of questionable historical accuracy but they will suffice. The figures came with extra heads -bandaged/wounded or just different expressions - which will be useful too, to give the figures variety.

16 French infantry with Adrian-type helmets in uniform colors suitable for WWII (they aren't all the same, which is a shame,but I'm not going to complain and I think they are somewhat close to accurate in the amalgam). Besides I can group them into units by color and easily tell one from another.).

The figures need minor assembly. There's always a risk you'll end up short an arm or a hand. Then again, there's always a chance you'll end up with extras too.

Infantry-wise, this is almost all I need for the French for my current plans - 3 to 4 figures on a base can be a squad or a company, a group of 5 individually-based figures can be a squad,. And thus this bunch could be a platoon. You get the idea. Re-basing Lego figures is easy-peasy.

Four uniform styles. Two helmet variations. I need to pick up a weapons pack - I've seen some that include a gun that could pass as an FM 24/29.

 

Cobi makes a suitable brick Renault FT-17 which will make a good Christmas present to myself when the time comes. 

I have a "building brick" Italian CV33 on order from eBay (I believe it's  Chinese brick clone) and I'll be receiving a set of 5 Italian infantry for Father's Day (oddly, I just realized that my son's mom and I exchange gifts to celebrate, but he doesn't even give either of us so much as a card!)

Fistful of Lead works with just 5 figures, and One Hour Skirmish Wargames, does too (although you end up being able to do more double and triple moves), and so I'll be able to play from the get-go once the Italians get here, no painting required! 

 (I play with toy soldiers because I like the toys and I like the stories the games produce. I do not particularly enjoy painting - it's a means to an end)

Lego figures look fine on regular wargame tables, but I have a ton of greenery from the games I've run for our family fall festival and I can raid my son's excessive collection of bricks to make other scenic items. So I may mix it up and do full Lego games or just use the figures with my usual terrain depending on mood.

It's not an entirely super serious project- it's Lego/clones after all, but that's the best part about solo-gaming - you only have to please yourself.