Wyre Forest - October Club - Objective Hammer.

October club and a modern outing with Operation Desert Storm using Force on Force.

Breakthrough at Objective Hammer.

British mechanized infantry supported by Warrior IFVs and Challenger 1 tanks must breach a heavily fortified Iraqi defensive line consisting of trenches, dug-in T-55/T-72 tanks, and ATGM teams. The goal is to secure a strategic metal road behind the defensive line.

A new regular venue for the club, that conveniently has a large table tennis table, which gives us that little but extra playing area and the ability to go big..... 

On the right flank a dual a T72 and a BMP1 hide out amongst the shell scrapes awaiting the British advance. Within FoF the Iraqi's need to really mass their fire to bring down the attacking dice of the better armoured and armed Challenger I's  

he British won this dual, but the defenders had the satisfaction of knowing that the had caused the British to lose a track, not great for an attacking force of only two MBT's.

Better news on the left flank as the 2nd Challenger engaged multiple targets brewing a T55 and T72 in short order. The heavy metal fight was sort lived and it was not long before all along the line Iraqi AFV's were burning. 

A little over confident they moved over the open ground and were greeted by Saggers and RPG rounds, many missed their mark however some got through. The loss of a couple of Warriors would be difficult to justify to the bean counters in Whitehall.

As the clock ran down and the Iraqi reinforcements were turned to burning wreaks the British neared the defensive line. a partial victory for the coalition but an expensive encounter with two Warriors destroyed and all three Challengers suffering battle damage.

A fun and bruising encounter, it took a while to get the tactics right for this battle to make the best use of the British firepower, tanks don't last long. But the AT teams can still pack a punch especially when deployed in numbers.

Force on Force gives a realistic encounter the improved qualify of the British gives them an advantage in supressing the poorer quality defenders, the high value dice means certain shots will automatically get through.

As both forces were regular it can lead to protracted exchange of fire, the trick is knowing when to stop and save some of those dice for that 'Just in case' moment.

The casualty and wound tables make you think about when to put your mini warriors in danger.

Timecast Terrain 10mm - Return to the AWI.

After a brief detour to the New World, back to the last AWI and a concerted effort to clear the last of the AWI elements to crack the project before the of the month...

I felt the AWI battlefield lacked a little bit of colonial structure tucked in box was a bunch of trees from the guys at Time Cast perhaps some of the best trees on the market in this scale if you don't foliage shedding over years of gaming.

I opted for nice tidy rows so they could be used as an orchard or to line the roads on the approaches to towns or farm lands.

Also some poplar trees on make up sticks with some rounded edges to mirror the troop bases. 

Not really sure why it's taken so long to get them on the table but in the spirit of getting Sh*t done. On to the next unit.

Dispatches from the front XXIX - Small scale actions.

I had every intention of ploughing through the remaining Commonwealth Infantry and Free French but having completed the prep, basing and undercoating the thought of 80 boots, 40 rifles and webbing etc put me off a little. Perhaps next week unless something shiny comes along.

Instead I opted for the assembly line of the last support weapons for the allies and axis forces. Some nice castings from Warlord in shape of AT guns, Mortars and Infantry Guns...

I did sneak in a small order to Northstar with an extra HMG above, but really for some of their Africa Korps casualties which will make up pin markers for future games - I have hunted high and low for allied casualties and have drawn a blank, which was a surprise as almost every other range of figures across history seems to have them in all scales....

On the subject of purchases, Fred over at Two Send Fred is working on a small wadi for me, I was after a connector for my larger purchase, this is the draft mock up. This will be great for future games, more on that in a separate post.

Plans are afoot to finally give the Pony Wars rules an actual run out at the club. I wanted to be clear on the rules, hosting several players in one go, nothing frustrates me more than agreeing to host a game and not know the rules or spending valuable game time reading them while everyone looks on.

Whilst most definitely of there time the reaction tables really do make for interesting command decisions and they Indians numbers can get out of hand really quickly....

Over at the Wyre Forest Club I gave Bolt Action Modern a run out with my North Koreans facing off against the South Koreans with support from a British/UN modern contingent. Much like the news from Ukraine it turns out that T55's don't last long against more modern dug in armour.

The village of Fooket with dug in Dragon Teams and LAW's lining the walls.

The NK armour rushes forward with closed up armour and infantry in support.

The Brits lie in wait on the tree line.

Kim's forces burn in the field as the M60's take there toll.

A fun encounter if you were western backed forces, not much fun for the Koreans from the north.

You till next time....

Dispatches from the front XXVIII - In house rules & desert purchases.

It's been over a month since the last dispatch and still everything is still middle east focused.... I was hunting around for some extra terrain items for the desert and spotted some nice pieces on Two Shed Fred's eBay page.

As usual great service from Fred.... a set of walls which will add to the village and be useful for multiple periods.

Add to that three Mine Fields, these are great pieces very simple in design with a barb wire fence around each of them, with 6 movable signs, 2 generic, 2 British & 2 German. 

Having had Fred make me some bespoke roads a few years ago, I was wondering what to do with my Battlefield in a Box Roads, the answer was found in a couple of cans of Desert Yellow and Bone Yard and there they are..... Desert Roads..... and an excuse to add a couple of house rules for the desert games around bogging and mid day heat.

To compliment these pieces a small order from Ironclad Miniatures with a selection of fox holes, nothing says desert warfare than a bunch of infantry hiding in fox holes, whilst these are rather high I like the fact that I can drop them over the top of infantry or support teams rather than half figures.

On the subject of House Rules, I played a couple of Pint Size Campaign games with Chain of Command over at the Wyre Forest Club, a good encounter between the French Defenders and the attacking Germans... It's been a few years since I last played CoC, they have some nice mechanisms and feel a little more realistic than Bolt Action however my gaming tastes have changed slightly and I am leaning more towards the 'fun' game but still keeping a degree of realism. 

It got me thinking about adding in certain key elements of Chain of Command into Bolt Action.

I like the Force Morale elements in the Too Fat Lardies game mechanism, this makes you think about when you commit your troops but also not leaving sections too exposed. So adding a Bad Things Happen Table for the loss of a unit in addition to a loss of a dice makes for some jeopardy. 

This is the draft.

Snipers in BA can be pretty lethal and players always go for the LMG in a squad, Force Morale makes Officers more important and their loss could reduce the Force Morale which feels better rather than just taking dice from the bag.

Movement within BA can feel a little rigid with 6" for Advance and 12" for a Run so I have tweaked this with 1D6 for Advance and 3D6 for a Run HOWEVER if you get a double a unit gains a pin. This makes a Run a useful move but you may need to spend a turn reordering the ranks in a future turn.

If a unit fails a pin test and breaks under the house rules now units fall back 6" plus 2D6 and then go Down, but also take a Bad Things Happen Test.

One of my gripes with some rules is how whole units are taken off the table after a few casualties, it takes so long to paint units do I really want them back in the box after a few rounds of fire. So when it comes to Hand to Hand now when units lose they not taken off the table but rout backwards and gain pins equivalent to the difference in casualties.

The initial run through in a small game as French take on the Italians for a desert watering hole played really well.

How to test it with a few more players who are used to BA proper let's see if the tweaks hold up.

Happy gaming...

6mm Roads and Paddy Fields - Two Sheds Fred

For several years I have been on the look out for a decent road system, I have tried several manufacturers none of which have really given me what I need.

Step forward Two Sheds Fred. 

Fred and Emily did a great great job on the Desert Wadi recently and they were the natural choice to create a bespoke road system for the new gaming area. I wanted something semi rural, ideally for the 6mm Red Phoenix project but easily able to extend to the larger scales.  

It was great to see a couple of testers first, which resulted in us shrinking the road width and raising the banks. The finished article is just fantastic and with enough T Junctions and Y Junctions to give me multiple design options.

The original plan was for Korea and Cold War encounters between the North and South, no encounter could go by without a number of paddy fields. I had seen several designs on the web in 15mm or 28mm but needed something a little smaller, again Fred and Emily can through providing me with a number of layouts and sizes.

Two Shed Fred have a number of off the shelf pieces but are equally happy to create bespoke pieces. Great value for money and a quick turnaround. 

You can find them here. Twoshedsfred | Facebook

The roads blend in perfectly with my collection and give me a great area to fight over. The paddy fields close off several of the open areas and give some natural protection for the infantry defenders.

I am tempted to give Bolt Action a run out, having read a number of posts about using Bolt Action in a modern setting and adapting the rules to larger scale games it sounded like a few adaptions could give me a blend of the two. 

Increasing the activation system from individual vehicles to platoons and totalling up the fire points for the infantry sections.

There might be a danger of mixing platoons up on the table, but having based the infantry on section bases should reduce this risk and in fairness the number of infantry on the table is probably less than a 28mm game. Each base will have a number of fire points which should should make the firing a little quicker. 

It needs some road testing, something to work on whilst attending yet another zoom call.

With face to face gaming less than a week away, I am itching to give the new terrain a roll out.

Kings of Bronze #1 - Hittite Hasty Attack

After the first play test of solo rules a few weeks ago time to give the campaign it's first proper test and Huharmati's advance south.

Having secured the high ground Huharmati looked out across the plains towards the small town of Al Shebbeh a wadi screened the town with a crossing marking the main route into town, this would need to be seized if Al Shebbeh and it's riches would fall to the Hittites.

Will the Gods be with Hurarmati.

The coloured spots represent the potential Egyptian opponents, A B or C each class containing a differing spread of troops, I deployed these blinds based at likely points of defence, but with no idea what would appear on the table.

The dice gods were against Hurarmati and each roll on the blinds revealed a unit of Egyptians lining the wadi, Al Shebbeh would be a tough nut to crack. In the centre a group of close attack troops and a unit of spearmen.

I sent the Hittite heavy chariots on the left flank skirting the wadi to bypass the bulk of the defenders. Here the defenders were a little thinner with two of the blinds blank and the others only groups of infantry.

In the centre the advance of the Hittite Spearmen drew the Egyptian close attack troops from the wadi as they rushed towards the block of spearmen (12 on 2D6), the Hittite archers loosed their arrows as the attackers entered the open ground.

The Egyptians closed but the weight of Hittite spearmen and their supports drove them backwards back across the wadi.

With the close attack troops shattered the Hittite infantry were able to seize northern side of the wadi pinning the defenders in the village.

The Egyptian chariots were pinned in the centre of the village unwilling to advance across the rough terrain to close with the ranks of shield bearing spearmen.

Meanwhile on the right flank the Heavy Hittite chariots crashed headlong into the defenders, heavy spears disrupting the ranks before they could get organsised.

The flank was being turned and lighter armoured Egyptian chariot no match for the heavier Hittite war wagon. After one round of combat the Egyptians are forced to flee.

The Egyptian morale is starting to crumble, pinned in the village and under pressure on the outskirts of town their force morale drops to zero ending the game.

Nice to get all the toys on the table at least, the AI mechanism works reasonably well, although a couple of tweaks are needed on these with excess shock and perhaps some variance for those Bigman 3 leaders perhaps they could advance or lower their dice roll by one level above their status, e.g. Big man L2 can adapt the change by +/- 1.

Great to get Two Sheds Fred wadi and scrubland on the table, a great addition to the desert terrain and only with multiple users over a number of periods so glad I made the investment.

You can see more of Fred's terrain here...

What next for Huharmati?

Let's see what the fate dice hold.....