Wargaming at the Teachers Club II

For our second outing at the Teachers Club we got two games in.  

This is the first game - one of the two Overlord scenarios included in the Sword of Stalingrad expansion.  This is "Rats in the Factory", which is based on the struggle for the Dzerzkinsky Tank factory during the early phases of the battle. It's a tough scenario, the German player has air surperioity and advantages in terms of troops and command and control, the Soviet player has the edge in terms of terrain and begins the game holding several valuable objectives. 

Note the Balkas in the foreground. 

These are deep ravines and are a major headache of the German player as they slow movement down to a crawl. I intend to play this particular scenario on my five inch mats some day and I am damned if I have any idea how I will model them. I was thinking of building drifts out of kitty litter, but I usually use litter to mark roads, so it would run the risk of turning the entire map into a sea of kitty litter. 

That said with my new sandbags and barbed wire, this is looking like more of a possibility. 

ccattlecry.net

There was a demand by popular acclamation for another American Civil War game, so I went scratching around for a scenario.  Now as it happened, I wasn't aware the boys behind ccnapoleonic.net had a website for Battlecry, but I was very happy to find out that they did.  This has the rules and all the scenarios up on it.  There are also fan made scenarios, including some for the Indian Wars and the Zulu War of 1879. 

Union troops move swiftly into the centre

Given that it was our second American Civil game - Gettyburg seemed like an obvious choice.  It was an interesting game, made all the more so by some trash talking from the internet. 

Old John, dyed in the wool rebel that he is, wasn't able to make this games day, but sent a message to the boys to let them know that he was with them in spirit. It concluded with. 

have some great games and kick General Creanor's Yankee ass for me :-))

I read this out just after General Creanor had been defeated at Stalingrad, because well - Wargamers are a cruel breed. Consequently General Creanor, playing Meade, was determined not to be defeated at Gettysburg. 

TK and General Creanor discuss tactics, while Boomer remains stoic. 

The game was played with 6mm figures on two standard boards.  I substituted cork tiles for hills and model buildings for built up areas.  Unfortunately, despite scouring the dungeon for them I have so far completely failed to find my 6mm trees - though they must be in there somewhere. 

Anyway, this led to an interesting battle as Boomer & General K fought a long range sniping engagement around the Peach Orchard. Neither was convinced that he had sufficient strength to cross the open ground and deal a decisive blow the other. 

However, the game took a drastically different turn when General Creanor led a sudden movement in the Federal centre against an uncharacteristically defensive General D.  This allowed him to dictate the pace of the engagement while TK and Fatz slugged it out on the Rebel left.  General D managed to put together a defensive line after being pushed off the hills, but it wasn't enough to salvage the situation. 

The victorious Federals 

A specially posed shot for Old John. 

The Sunday Game

We had a game day in the Teachers Club yesterday.  This was a follow up from a similar outing we had last year, though a request was put in for an American Civil War game. Donogh suggested Chickamauga, so off I trooped off to the relevant Osprey. 

We had a good turnout with fourteen players throughout the day, which wasn't bad for a game meant for eight players. Fortunately, Sydney had brought my Memoir '44 stuff with him, so we were able to set up a second game on the other table. 

Loughlin leading the bold Union boys forward at Jays Mill. 

As this was Chickamauga, the board may be looking a little bare.  When I was putting the scenario together, I realised that I was going to do myself an injury if I kept filling the board with woods. So what I ended up doing was marking the roads and the clearings (note the brown paper hexes) and declaring all other hexes to be woods. 

Close range fight between Union and Rebel troops. 

While the American Civil War was raging to our left, Sydney, Savage and the rest of us ploughed through a number of Memoir '44 Overlord scenarios. 

We played the Market Garden scenario (narrow win for the Huns), the Courland Pocket scenario (narrow win for the Huns) and the Battle of Samur scenario.  I took the reins in this last one as the German commander as the French delivered a fearful kicking to the overconfident panzers. 

Mr E looks on about half way through Viniards Farm - the second Chickamauga scenario. 

I hadn't actually pulled out my 6mm American Civil War stuff in ages and it sort of set me to wondering if I shouldn't give it an outing a little bit more often. 

The acre of death

(an area of the battlefield so fiercely contested that the casualty 

markers made it impossible to fit any more troops in)

You will be glad to hear that Chickamauga ended with two Union victories.  The Teachers Club were there usual hospitable selves and a very convivial time was had by all.  Old John came over from Wales and Mr. MacR from Roscommon, so I had the rare pleasure of their company over the weekend. 

A good time had all and certainly something we will be doing again. 

Muskets at the Movies #1: Glory

Some scenes from Glory


Given that movies and wargaming were a topic of discussion recently, here is the first of what I hope to be a series of posts about "great wargaming movies".

Glory is a 1989 film set during the American Civil War. The film follows the exploits of the 54th Massachussets, a regiment raised from mostly from free blacks in the North. The film follows the regiment from its founding to the assault on Fort Wagner. It is a strong ensemble piece, the cast are superb, Denzel Washington crackles and Mathew Broderick gives a wonderfully understated performance as Colonel Robert Gould Shaw, a white abolitionist, who is offered command of the regiment. I think one of the tricks that were missed in this otherwise magnificent film was that Gould-Shaw turned the job down, only to sleep on it and reconsider.

Glory is full of good things, not least James Horners haunting score sung by the Harlem Boys Choir. I challenge anyone to hear that beautiful, soaring music and remain unmoved.

From the point of view of battles there are a couple, but they are not what shines about the film. The fight in the forest is well shot, but as any student of horse and musket warfare will tell you that bayonet charges rarely crossed blades. At the same time, if the mechanics are wrong - the emotional pitch is right. The mixture of terror and savagery is breathtaking.

The assault on Fort Wagner is a fine piece of cinematic story telling. It vividly illustrates the dangers of escalade and the tendency of troops to bunch under pressure until driven on by a "Big Man". The ditch at Fort Wagner could be the ditch at any siege, full of confused, struggling men waiting for direction.

So, looking back at my three criteria for a good movie, how does Glory measure up?

1. Does it work as a story, does it entertain?

Glory offers a gripping narrative. There are fine performances throughout. The struggles of the 54th with army bureaucracy are dramatised well. Mrs Kinch, not a fan of war movies, watched the whole thing and pronounced it excellent if terribly upsetting.

2. Sense of time and place.

This is more of a mixed bag - Ed Zwick tries very hard, but there are a couple of clangers in there. The whipping of Private Tripp is one that I found very hard to understand as I have never come across any other description of flogging in the American armies of the time. There's the usual issue with well fed reenactors, but on the whole it's OK.

3. Wargaming

There's a good portrayal of an escalade and a short nasty action in the woods. The battle of Antietam is evoked in an attack that fails, but as I said earlier the real meat of the movie is in the pre and post battle scenes. There is a chilling scene set in a field hospital where Mathew Broderick is being treated, the only scene of its type I have ever seen on film.

Glory is a film that is worth watching and will certainly fill you with enthusiasm for the period. It remains one of top five favourite films. I heartily recommend it.