¡Viva la muerte! Playtest

 I have a decent collection of 28mm Spanish Civil War figures (and terrain) and have been wanting to get them to the table more. Unfortunately, I haven't found a set of rules that worked for the numbers of figures I have and also gave me the flavour of the Spanish Civil War I was looking for.  So I have decided to write my own.

¡Viva la muerte! are based around six 28mm representing a unit and use both event cards and the Fudge (or Fate as you prefer) dice (size sided dice with 2+, 2- and 2 blank sides). Each faction has differing victory conditions in order to create a semi-cooperative game.

So after having worked away at them for a few months I decided to give them a proper playlets at the club. 

The scenario saw a small town held by three factions of Republicans (with the Communists being the only well supplied) being assaulted by elements from a Nationalist column - again three factions (with the Army of Africa bing the only well supplied).

Here are a few photos from the game:

The general consensus was that the rules worked (phew!) but needed some tweaking in a few areas - combat factors, armour (the least mature element anyway) and some of the initial supply conditions. So I have a few amendments to make and then have another game later in the year.

Wargame Weekend

 I visited my friend Lenin (no, not that one - he's dead! It's his online moniker). We played a couple of figure games and some board games, the latter including War Story: Occupied France and SAS: Rogue Regiment which were all lots of fun. Here are a few photos.

Midgard: Heroic Battles

Some fantasy action using the latest rules from Reisswitz Press:

Mortal Gods: Skirmish Games in Ancient Greece

Some Greek heroics using the Mortal Gods rules:

Ambush Valley

 Here are some photos from a 28mm Vietnam game we played at the club last month. The game saw us moving up the river to try to rescue some hostages from the far end.

The rules were Ambush Alley and the figures and terrain are from someone else's lovely collection

Judge Dredd

 This is a long overdue post about the Christmas game we played at the club. It was a Judge Dredd miniatures game with appropriate Christmas touches (including exploding parcels and fairy lights inside the buildings). Here are some photos:

Happy Hogswatch

 

The Battle of Cape St Quendon

As has seemingly become an annual event, I travelled up to the Herts Volunteers to put on a large Sails of Glory game.  This year’s game was loosely based on the Battle of Cape St Vincent in 1797 which saw both HMS Victory and Nelson featuring albeit not together.  Here are some photos from the game:

As with the historical engagement the game was a victory for the British.

France 1940 - The Bridges

A good while ago I managed to pick up a Cigar Box Battle river mat on eBay. I had long been thinking about the interesting challenges of a game with one side having to make a strategic withdrawal across a river and the other trying to seize the crossings. Finding the mat advanced my plans for that game. Unfortunately the pandemic got in the way and with all my projects the timeline extended well beyond the original plan.

But after picking up not just one but two bridges from Sarissa Precision things got under way. I had chose a road and a rail bridge, so I obviously needed to build the track to go with the former and decided a station would also be a good addition. I also wanted to make the game big both physically (a 12 foot by 6 foot table) but also from a Chain of Command perspective; this meant at least a company a side. Fortunately I had collected sufficient 28mm figures to make that work. So I finally put the game on at the club. 

It saw a rag tag French outfit as the defender facing a determined German company supported by a platoon of tanks. The French were made up of a platoon of Foreign Legion and a platoon of Tirailleurs Sénégalais on one side of the river, needing to withdraw across the bridges and a Motorcycle platoon holding those bridges. The French also had some support in the form of an anti-tank gun and some engineers in a truck - the latter to demolish the bridges before the Germans could capture them intact. Along with two Bouteilles Incendiaires, two roadblocks and a couple of full Chain of Command dice for the withdrawing troops, this was the defending force. The Germans, in addition to their infantry company and tank platoon, had an Adjutant, a Pioneer team in a Kubelwagen, a SdKfz 222 armoured car, an infantry gun and a truck with four rubber boats. It wouldn’t have been an early war game without a Shabby Nazi Trick - the German players selected a fifth column sniper (Jean-Claude). We played through the patrol phase which saw some interesting jockeying for positions around the buildings on the German side of the board. With jump off points then positioned we were ready for the meat of the game.

The Foreign Legion were covering the French left flank and the Tirailleurs Sénégalais on the right. The Germans began their advance with the platoon on their right flank making serious progress until they encountered the Legion. The other German platoons soon found that the Tirailleurs weren’t going to be easily dislodged and put them under heavy concentrated fire. The roadblock constrained the easiest route for their Panzers and so the main armoured advance was through the farmland to the right of the road. 

Repeated exchanges of fire were telling on the French forces as they tried to hold the Germans long enough for their engineers to deploy and mine the bridges. 

Eventually they began to fall back but not before taking serious casualties. Meanwhile Jean-Claude who had been placed in the church tower (it’s traditional!) was causing the French some unexpected problems. 

With the French C-in-C desperate to blow the now mined bridges he ordered a full withdrawal but this was easier said than done with the Germans covering most of the routes to the bridges.

The Tirailleurs were aiming for the road bridge but when they got there the C-in-C ordered them to switch to the distant rail bridge so he could blow the former. 

Meanwhile the German pioneers were making heavy weather of destroying the roadblock and the motorised elements of the German force were still held up as a result.

In the end only a single Legion section got to safety before the second bridge was blown and with neither side having been able to meet their victory conditions I declared the game a draw.