StuG Smuggling with G Company

I had some time Friday night (tonight as I write this) and really wanted to break out my 1/32 StuG. It's a beautiful model / toy by 21st Century that I almost never use as I have no other 1/32 armor.

In any case, the scenario, "Stug Smuggling", is another one for Crossfire - this time from Lloydian Aspects - converted to a 6 x 10 grid for use with G Company.  I played it a few years ago, using Blitzkrieg Commander and I think, Bob Cordery's Portable Wargame: Modern, which was on his blog long before the books came out.

The scenario and forces were essentially as written, except I substituted Soviets for British and I don't have a StuG III, so a IV it is. The gist is that the Germans have to get the StuG to the opposite side of the table - infantry are expendable. The Soviets have to stop the StuG or they lose. If they stop the StuG but have less than five infantry stands remaining (including the ATG), it's a draw.

The Soviets have AT grenades but they do not have any ATRs, so they have to either use their ATG - which depends on the StuG moving towards it - or close assault the StuG - not a great prospect.

Finally, the scenario name sounds to me like a euphemism for a Speedo, much like "banana hammock." (Let that thought just settle into your brain.)

***

Sneaky StuG.

Overview of table layout, end of turn 1. The Germans were pretty cautious - keeping the StuG and infantry together.

Soviet anti-tank gun. This experimental ATG is simple enough that even a sniper and a Forward Observer can operate it. Glorious socialist engineering!

The Germans approach the village- the StuG has gotten a little  ahead. Soviet fire from across the road hampers the German infantry near the top of the picture. The Germans are elite, so they aren't worried.

Infantry fire-fight in the village. Soviet troops in the orchards opposite the church give the Germans trying to rush across the road pause.

With the Soviet infantry losing the firefight, the StuG attempts to overrun the obstacle in order to get around the woods that were blocking its path. Instead it is lodged there.

The smoking wreck of the StuG - destroyed when close assaulted (I rolled a 1. It was outnumbered and was being attacked from two squares, so -2 on the roll for a -1 over all. The Soviet units were both disordered in the attack but not destroyed).

The Soviets lost three squads total from the two forward platoons and the ATG crew, but finished with six rifle squads and a mortar crew. The Germans lost two squads of their six, and, more importantly, the StuG. Soviet victory.

***
This was a lot of fun. I felt like I had a lot of hard choices to make and some worked out and quite a few didn't and those were mostly poor choices on my part, like running across open ground to frontally attack a good order StuG.

It was nice to just play not play test, although it was inevitable that I'd try some things. The new close combat - which is less deadly - worked as I hoped.

Since all of the Germans were elite, I was able to remember that this time, and found them almost impossible to eliminate when in cover. If they weren't hit multiple times in the same turn, they'd invariably rally at the start of the next (not a bad thing, just an observation).

The StuG functioned as a mobile heavy MG in this game- and why not, they get two d6, keep highest, when rolling as an MG against infantry - and they were effective that way, but I rolled terribly to cross that obstacle (I used the scenario rules for that). None the less, had it succeeded,even i it raced across the table, it would run into the waiting Soviet 3rd platoon with little to no infantry support, since their escort was bogged down in the village most of the time.

I found that my dissatisfaction with the turn sequence just wasn't there when I played today. So it will likely stay as is in my current draft which should go live this month (I know I said that last month, but things happened).

War of the Rats and SoloCon Wrap Up

Saturday night, I spent about an hour walking through a tutorial on using demolition charges, flame throwers, and machine guns in Advanced Squad Leader Start Kit in preparation for playing the second scenario included in the #1 box: War of the Rats.

This scenario has the Germans trying to capture some key buildings in 1942 Stalingrad. They outgun the Soviets in every possible way - including the aforementioned demolition charges, flame thrower, and machine guns.

The Germans closed fairly quickly - suppressing the Soviets with prep fire from the MGs and placing smoke grenades to cover their advance. They focused on taking one objective at a time, rather than spreading the force too thin attacking all three at once.

In retrospect, my initial Soviet defense could have used some work. This walkthrough gives some advice that I'll apply next time.

Even with reinforcements, which arrived on turn 3, the Soviets were on the verge of collapse. Or so it seemed.

As the Germans advanced, I had the Soviets fall back until eventually they formed a defensive line to protect the final objective. There they put up a last stand worthy of the ages - pinning and breaking Germans on nearly every die roll.

A final push by the Germans to close assault the objective -something I thought would be a slam dunk - led to their being ambushed, which resulted in the loss of a leader and three multi-man counters to a single good order Soviet MMC and a 9-2 leader at 1:2 odds (the two broken Soviet MMCs only participated in the defense not the counter attack)!

The game ended on turn 5.5 with the Germans unable to take, let alone occupy the final objective.

I started late and finished around 3AM, so by the time I woke up Sunday, it was time to return to the real world of grocery shopping, ignoring the 17 tons of leaves covering our yard, cookie baking - it's the holiday season after all- and dad life, when my son returned from his holiday excursion Sunday night.

******

In addition to playing all of the games, I watched quite a few movies. Not all of them relate to gaming interests, but I thought I'd list them anyway:

Is Paris Burning? (Amazon Prime)
Operation Crossbow (Turner Classic Movies)
Panfilov's 28 (Amazon Prime)
Niagara (Turner Classic Movies)
Kansas City Confidential (Turner Classic Movies)
The Mask of Dimitrios (Turner Classic Movies)
The Shop Around the Corner (Turner Classic Movies)

Is Paris Burning? is a phenomenal film that I can't speak of highly enough. It's about the French resistance in Paris just prior to the city's liberation from the Nazis. However, Niagara, is Marilyn Monroe's first appearance in Technicolor - so that alone ties it for the top spot (it's also a good noir. I used to live in Western New York and visited the Falls too many times to remember, and it was fun to see places I knew, only as they were decades before I ever saw them). 

Panfilov's 28, while not the best Russian war movie I've seen, is a gripping last stand scenario and is ripe with wargaming inspiration - plus if you like tanks, there are a ton of them. Finally, The Mask of Dimitrios featured Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre, and I just automatically love everything they do (I often joke that Sydney Greenstreet is my spirit animal).

There was an other  movie I watched, starring Katherine Hepburn, that I can't recall the title of and I did not enjoy all that much - to my surprise as I generally like everything I've ever seen her in. Frankly, I think I watched the whole movie only because I expected it to get better at some point, but it never happened.

Morschauser Moderns + One Hour Wargames Scenario 13: Escape.

The situation: it's early 1943, a German unit is pulling back to regroup after a strike into Soviet territory and are trying to outrun the Soviet forces  in the area.

The Soviet commander(Red army in the scenario and life, played as "my side") has three infantry platoons all with AT grenades, one of which has squads armed with PTRD-41s, a mortar platoon (three M1938's), and an HMG platoon (3 maxim teams), and a platoon of T-34/76's.

The German commander (Blue army, also played by me but aided by chance cards, so the non-player side) has four infantry platoons armed with AT grenades,one of which has an ample supply of panzerfausts. They also have a mortar platoon (3 81mm mortars) and a platoon of Panzer IVs (Ausf F2)

Lone platoon with PTRD take position by a rode running North-South.

The German Force appears on the horizon to their North . The Panzers see them and open fire.

A Soviet infantry platoon and some T-34s arrive on the German left.

AT grenades and Panzerfausts are brought to bear and the T-34s to a one are turned into smoking wrecks.

The German race down the road continues. Soviet reinforcements - a portion of the battalion heavy weapons company - arrive North of the woods - too late to do any real good there.

The Soviets fire their PTRDs at the Panzer column in ambush style from the woods. But, to no one's surprise, it's not enough to bring down the whole lot.

The Soviet  HMG and mortar platoons arrive too late to the fight South of the woods and suffering ammo shortages German infantry eliminate the remaining Soviet infantry platoons while the remnants of the Panzer platoon escapes - followed by the remaining infantry and mortars.

An exciting little encounter that was a joy to play.
 ****

As mentioned above, the rules were Morschauser Moderns. I used the roster option as written, except with 3 strength points for the tanks rather than 2 to reflect three tanks per model

Initiative was a method taken and modified from the first edition of Two Hour Wargames Six Gun Sound. Use a deck of cards, assign red to one side, black to the other. Draw two cards. If both are the same color, then that side goes first. If different, higher card goes first. If different colors but same value, then maintenance tasks only that turn.

I have modified the rules to fit the scale of 1 base = 1 platoon where 1"=30 yards, rather than 33 yards (40 would work too I suppose) for ease of math, and the weapons ranges were updated to reflect that scale - although rifles stayed at 15" since that works out to 450 yards, a pretty solid effective range for rifles.

But for other weapons, except for infantry tank weapons, a lot of the table was in range most of the time.

In addition, since Morschauser includes no mention of cover, per previous discussions on this blog about that fact, I lifted Featherstone's saving throw rule from his "A Simplified Set of Rules for Modern War Games" as appearing in War Games: Battles and Manoeuvres with Model Soldiers.

Finally, I added a rally rule - At the start of each turn for each unit that has lost strength points but is still on the table, I rolled a single saving throw. If it succeeds they get one point back.


The scenario was number 13 from One Hour Wargaming - chosen because it's one of the one Neil Thomas recommends for solo play. I played the Soviets as "my side" and did my best for the Germans, but used chance cards to give the Germans advantages.

However, rather than using Neil Thomas's method, I used a method taken from Chronicles of Blood : a d4 is rolled each turn and on a 1,  a roll is made on a second table. The events I used on the second table came largely from Neil Thomas's list in the solo games chapter in OHW. However, all of the events were framed as positive benefits for "my enemy" - so nothing to thwart their advance would occur, but plenty could happen to make my life difficult.

Fortunately, I only rolled a 1 twice - but they had their intended effect, like when at the end of the game, an ammunition shortage held up my MGs and mortars from firing that turn.

I changed the turn limit to 10 turns, as Morschauser tends to play fast (as do the OHW rules for that matter) and the game ended on turn 9.

One final note, I played this on a 4' x 4' table because it was out and setup. A 3' square as intended with OHW scenarios would work just as well and might have improved the odds in my favor - my reinforcements would have had less distance to traverse to be brought to bear. Of course, the Germans would have had less table to cross as well.

Thanksgiving Battles with G Company

Next up for my extended weekend of ridiculous amounts of gaming, were games featuring my multi-figure based WWII Eastern Front collection. You know, the ones I post all the time lately.

Thanksgiving evening saw a return to The River with G Company, not once, but twice!

The first game was a complete rout as the Soviets decimated the Germans with HMG fire and artillery, including taking out their Forward Observer, leaving the Germans without smoke to cover their advance. It was a bloodbath and ended in a handful of turns (it was that bad).

The second game things went a little better for the attacker, but in the end, the Germans took too many losses to continue.

First game setup.

From the first game. Germans have no smoke - the FO was eliminated - and so must cross without any cover. It didn't go well.

2md game. A Forward Observer - having crept onto the bridge -  finally gets the smoke he requested. In the background, the Germans pour across the river, shielded by smoke from the HMG fire coming from the pillbox.

Brutal close combat ensued shortly after this was taken.

On Friday ("Black Friday"), the German advance tried again, this time with The Hill.

The first battle went to the stalwart defenders who drove off the Huns.

I set it up again - because why not? - but this time, after three games in less than 24 hours, I was feeling vaguely dissatisfied with the G Company turn sequence, which works well for me and isn't complicated, does look complicated and requires the solo gamer to change hats almost every other step.

In addition, I have been noticing that the artillery in my games just never even comes close to using the number of fire missions available. So, the mechanics were the same but the turn sequence was a greatly simplified, traditional,flexible (units can move/shoot in whatever order suits the battle plan, but can't split their actions with another unit - although the enemy can fire in reaction)  IGO-UGO, and artillery calls/arrival was available to both sides each turn.

The result was a much faster playing game that didn't involve as much mental side- switching for the solo gamer. I jokingly call it "G Company: Toy Solider Edition".

Whether I continue to use the simplified turn sequence, the artillery rule change may well be brought into G Company, as I felt it made it more fun - ordinarily, the limit on fire missions is theoretical - one side never gets enough opportunity to call in a lot of artillery (off-board heavy mortars),  but now the limit was quite real and required decision making to best use those resources..

Incidentally, the Germans had their first victory of the SoloCon celebration. Now, the attacker has won The Hill scenario about half the times I've played it, so I'm not convinced the rules changes had anything to do with it, but it does merit some more play testing.

The Hill in all its glory. There's a LOT of open ground covered by the Soviet HMG.

Defenders of the Motherland.

A Soviet sniper takes aim at a German NCO.The polka-dotted strips are the mines.

Germans cautiously advance under cover.

German right engages the Soviets on the Hill. On the German left, sort of visible in the background, left, 2nd platoon advanced around to flank the Soviets.

The victors in Game 1 (the German force was devastated and forced to retreat)::

 Contrasted with the end of Game 2:

This photo was staged after the battle. The final fight was a close assault scrum on the hill.- with units from both German platoons, and the mortar team - that eliminated the remaining Soviet units, save the PL and the FO.

Friday evening, I moved fully in the direction of simplified gaming, but up a level (platoon per base), with Morschauser's Modern rules, with some modifications, and a OHW scenario. But I'll spare you and post that later!

Shiny Soldiers Fight at Firefly Church

This afternoon's kick off to my Thanksgiving SoloCon feature a skirmish between the forces of Ginland and Vodkia near Firefly Church. As I'm in something of a food coma right now, I'll leave the pictures to tell the story.

Rules used were In Good Company (available from the Lone Warrior website).


On an unrelated note, I started the day off by watching "Is Paris Burning?" - about the French resistance in Paris just prior to the liberation of the city. It's long but not at all drawn out and absolutely worth a watch.

Vodkia Gatling and Crew

Resplendent in their glossy glory, may I present this Vodkia Gatling gun and crew, on their way to a demonstration for the Emperor and other dignitaries of the latest improvement in infantry warfare.

The two similar looking figures are my conversions.

I can now field identical forces for Firefly Church 

With two more figures (mounted though, so perhaps that counts as four) I will achieve my initial goal of this project, which was one unit of infantry, one unit of cavalry, one gun, and one "personality" figure per side. I am planning to expand it to include two more units of infantry (one per side) in the next year - I have the figures, but as always, it's about making time to paint them.

Thanksgiving SoloCon Plans

As I noted the other day, I am planning to do something of a "Thanksgiving SoloCon" this year - a multi-day event where I play as many games as I can fit in between sleeping in late and watching too many movies.

Like any good convention, I need a schedule of events of some sort, but as this is a solo gaming convention, I have latitude with start and end times or even if any particular idea makes it to the table at all.

That said, a plan is helpful if only to prevent option paralysis in the moment.

So here are some of the ideas I have and any notes I have made to jog my memory when I'm stuffed to the gills with pumpkin pie.

54mm Medieval with One Hour Wargames -  Ideally, I'll play a 5-game mini-campaign of OHW scenarios. I  have worked up a very thin backstory for imagi-nations on the island continent of Tempus, and the on-going war between the armies of Sol, King of Dies, and Luna, Empress of Nox, in order to provide some context and also add some fun to the write-ups. Whether I play one game or five, this will be an on-going thing. I have already been searching ebay for figures I consider suitable for Sol, Luna,and their vassals.

The Gatling glossed and ready to go.

54mm Colonial / Imagi-nations: Provided the Gatling crew is completed, and they should be,  I'll return to Firefly Church (I don't have enough units to pull off Hook's Farm in the entirety) with a small skirmish between Ginland and Vodkia forces. Rules will be In Good Company -but rather than removing fallen figures to the hospital they will stay in place, as in OHSW, to recover or not. If their unit has moved on, they will have to catch up.

ASLSK Scenario S2 - War of the Rats. My ASLSK posts probably aren't why you are reading this blog- after all the blog title implies figure games and ASLSK is just counters - but  I am really enjoying the game ,possibly because of, not despite, the heavy cognitive load (for me) it imposes.

ASLSK #2 - acquired before I'm ready to even crack into it because these boxes have a tendency to go out of print, and I've been seeing the prices rise. In the background, you can see my 18-year old fur baby, Pumpkin.

But, of course, who would I be if I didn't play some 54mm WW2?

With ASLSK scratching the complexity itch, and with ASLSK and my own rules handling squad-per-base games, I have a desire to play something simple and at a higher level, and there is no better way I can think of than Morschauser's Modern rules (true, I do have some amendments I want to try). As I figure it, Morschauser's rules are a platoon per base, and that makes them perfect for playing a One Hour Wargame scenario (which I have used them for, many times in the past) or even a conversion of something from Flames of War or IABSM.

Likely, but dependent on time, I  have it in mind to play The River again, with G Company, but on an 8x8 grid (play test games "online" showed the extra squares made for a different challenge), and either The Hill or, if I can get enough simple ruins together, The Village, with Company Fire, again in 8x8.

Finally, I'll break out One Hour Skirmish Wargames using my unpainted Toy Soldiers of San Diego winter Germans and Soviets.

The wild card of the 3-day-ish extravaganza is a return to The Library Book (The Quests of Brin the Barbarian rules). It really depends on whether or not I feel the story is served by the big bad being one of the few existing painted 28mm figures I haven't already fielded or if I feel the need to paint up something new to wrap up their quest into the goblin cave.

So, obviously quite a lot there, but 3 days and 3 nights to work with and my only responsibility is to feed the dog and cats. Worst case scenario, anything I don't get to will make its way to the table during one of my regular gaming sessions - and as a backup, I have two weeks off at Christmas this year by some miracle (actually no miracle, I just never take time off and have a lot saved and will lose it soon if I don't take it).