Alamo - a scenario everyone knows

The Alamo.  Everyone has heard of it.  Famous enough that Tom Hanks in "Saving Private Ryan" can say it and the movie makers didn't even feel compelled to explain its meaning.  Modern Texans, and indeed all Americans flock to its remnants with the feeling it was a significant victory.  It was not...well for the Texicans anyway.  And when you are to enjoy playing the game and become the defenders, you know what the expected end will be.  

Nate's very nice and practical home-made model in 15mm.

I took a road trip to Vancouver Island and had a great Alamo game hosted by NateS.  DavidB who graciously provided my room and board, was my fellow Texican. Nate's very nice model of the Alamo made from solid wood and foamcore in 15mm scale formed the excellent backdrop to the thinly distributed defenders. 

Mexicans over the wall!

The rules were nice and 'convention' simple but did allow the Texicans to shoot better but allowed the Mexicans better melee factor - when they finally could come to grips.  The superior numbers of the Mexicans finally pushed the Texicans off the walls and into the compound which sealed their fate. DavidB and I could claim a 'moral victory' by eliminating 2/3 the Mexican assault force, at approximately a 2:1 ratio.  Wargaming is one of those activities that, when even losing, you can have great fun and enjoyment...but still cursing the dice, of course!

"Well, gal' dern it!"  The last of the Texicans.

Chattanooga - Napoleonic style

 Having the guys commit to a full weekend, I set up a secondary game should we need in addition to the larger affair earlier (see post: the big game  ).  I set up a 'bathtub' version of the American Civil War version of Chattanooga.  

In this scenario, the Union would have the advantage of not only the numbers historically but with the rules, multiple commands giving much better tactical maneuver.  The Confederate commander would, regardless of the position of his General, have most of his spread out troops out of command radius and thus less likely to be allowed tactical positioning.  He would be always be forced to only command those troops most needing and leaving the others to the tender mercies of the opposition. 

The scenario roughly follows that of the historical battle.  The Confederates had the Missionary Ridge position in the centre with slightly forward positions of Lookout Mountain on the left and Tunnel Hill on the right held by, in our game by the Brunswickers and Highlanders respectively. While the Dutch-Belgians held the centre ridge. To represent the unexpected rapid collapse of the Confederates on the ridge, I had their combat rating undetermined until contact so even their commander would not know how much they could be relied upon. 

The Union were in three commands: Hooker with his Westphalians would attack Lookout Mountain; Sherman and his Napoleonic Minor States contingent would attack the Highlanders representing the steady troops of Cleburne.  In the middle under the fortifications of Chattanooga was Thomas and the artillery.  In the actual battle a portion of the troops would make a demonstration on the lower slopes of ridge, get shot at and as a un-commanded response charge up the hill and rout the Confederates! I had Thomas' troops ability to do the same (but in future games restrict him even further as this push made all Confederate resistance futile)

We ended up playing two games of this. One Friday night and the other Saturday.  Both followed the historical narrative.  The boys seemed to have quite a bit of fun with these smaller 'fast' games.

part of "Hooker's" Westphalians 

Westhphalians vs Bruswickers defending Lookout Mountain (my command...and my favourite Napoleonic army..love the somber black. Converted plastics)

a mid-battle overview with Thomas's troops in the centre having left their entrenchments and attacking the Ridge (right of photo), and 'Sherman's' troops slowly marching to assault the British Highlanders on Tunnel Hill (upper right).  Lookout Mountain is off-camera lower left.

You can view DavidB's blog at  David's narrative  for more on this scenario

Blenhiem - Napoleonic style

 Hosted after the two year hiatus, my big summer game of Napoleonics.  I use the opportunity to do a scenario outside the era, and have in the past conducted Gettysburg and Antietam among others. This year using the War of Spanish Succession battle of Blenheim fought in 1705.  A 'nice' linear battle with large commands enough for the five commands expected. The boys came from four different cities, indeed states, and would travel over 1200 kms to play. My thanks.

So on the Allied side was JamesC coming up from Oregon who was Eugene (using my Prussians), PeterM  from Burnaby, who had Cutts' contingent facing Blenheim using my Saxons, and in the middle using Russians, I was a (poor) Marlborough.  On the French side was SethT from Seattle as Tallard commanding, well, French; and DavidB from Vancouver Island as the Elector using my Italians and every green-clad cavalry unit.

I will add comments to the photos as expose' to the game. 

A couple of early comments.  As it was a battle from the Age of Marlborough, it contained much more horse than the usual Napoleonic affair.  It brought an interest dynamic to the tactics which everyone enjoyed.  Once could use combined arms much more effectively.  The horse elements force the infantry into square, the artillery effectively pounds the squares, the infantry now roll over the weakened and out of formation enemy infantry. Attacking becomes more problematic and takes more thought and time. I did neither and so my grand attack, the attack which won Marlborough his fame and naming of a military era, did not occur.  However, everyone else fought well.  

looking from the south (the usual view of the Blenhiem maps) show Oberglau upper left and Blenhiem lower right. The French on the left, Allies on the right across the Nebel River.

part of my contingent starting to cross the waterway

My Saxons under PeterM's careful command.  The wagon is that from my Dutch-Belgian contingent and represents his LOC if forced to retreat.  The Saxons represent Cutts' mainly British formation of the actual battle going up against the village of Blenheim.

For the Napoleonic Russian fan.  The sticks are our measuring devices.

View showing the early deployments. Each infantry stand represents ~2000 infantry, ~1000 horse. We still manage to put the large battle onto a 8 by 6 foot table with room for maneuver. 

Seth's dispositions very much replicated the actual deployment by Tallard in 1705.  To have some semblance like that of the real battle, the French Victory Conditions were to maintain the villages. Thus they committed a large potion of their infantry to that task as did the French in the historical battle. 

A Marlborough, I ain't...... (The Perry representation of the Napoleonic commander Kutusov actually giving an order!) I used my Russians for my command.

I leave you with a delightful AAR written by JamesC who had to suffer through a two-hour border wait but used the time to compose this wonderful narrative:

"The initial Prussian deployment was based on the feeling that the Franco-Italians would deploy as close as possible. (ed. note: I used a blind to keep the opposition deployments secret for the first time) The four Prussian infantry bases were tasked with crossing the muddy Nebel to capture Oberglau. The cavalry, all 8(!) bases, would swing to the right to hit their flank and also have some Light Horse run deep into the enemy’s rear to capture their LOC. In-between them would sit the paltry Prussian artillery consisting of one foot and one horse artillery bases. 

That plan was undone when the screen was removed and Zeithen saw across the stream, in front of the town, was a mass of Italian Heavy Horse. The foot artillery immediately opened up on the enemy horse, causing a hit but also breaking their guns in the process, cutting the units effectiveness in half. The infantry (wisely?) decided that crossing the Nebel and being disordered within charge distance of some angry Italians on large horses would be unglücklich (Ed. unlucky) and held their place. The cavalry started their glorious advance, supported by the Horse Artillery. 

The cavalry continued their advance over the next two turns while the foot artillery  tried their best to make an impact on the pasta-loving horde. They reduced a base of HC to one pip and promptly decided they had done enough and packed it up for the day. The infantry crossed the stream and immediately found out that was, indeed, a bad idea as the lead left element was charged and pushed back across the river. The other lead element decided to block an HA from going into the Prussian center by moving in and (illegally as it turned out) going into square. The Italians sent a cheeky infantry base in and charged the Horse Artillery making them scramble to the rear. 

On the right, the cavalry continued their pursuit of glory, sending some Italian light horse running and making short work of the cheeky infantry base. 

Things settled into a bit of a stalemate as the Prussian cavalry was stymied by a screen of infantry in square. The infantry was content not to challenge the Italian HA in front of the town. The Horse Artillery moved up to start blasting the squares and soften them up for a glorious charge. A base of light cavalry was sent around Lutzingen for the Italian LOC.

By turn 10, the Heavies had had enough sitting around and two units hit one square and sent it packing. The same artillery softening followed by a cavalry charge was then done in subsequent turns to the remaining infantry base in square between the two towns. 

Some smartly dressed Neopolitans swung around Oberglau to try and hit the Prussian squares. However, they did not count on the infantry across the Nebel doing the very un-Prussian like move of a disorganized charge into their flank. Even though it was an even fight, the sight of a horde of muddy, wet Germanic manhood was enough to make the Neopolitans long for the sight of Vesuvius again and they left the field. 

Everything was going Prussia’s way. That was when a unit of Heavies pursued and destroyed some Italian Lights, but exposed themselves to artillery fire and were destroyed. The ensuing morale check on Turn 15 resulted in a Prussian withdrawal to think things over. This ended up being decisive as it meant the Prussian Light Horse was unable to reach the Italian LOC before night fell and hostilities ceased. 

While, yes, the Italians did technically hold both towns, they were surrounded by vengeful Prussian horse and a largely intact infantry. Of course, the Prussian morale victory was in a tactical defeat for the Allied Prussian-Russo-Saxon side. As the sun set, all Zeithen  could do was throw up his hands and let out an exasperated “Wir haben es versucht.”  (Ed. We tried!)"

Again I would like to thank the efforts of everyone to attend.

    

"dog-sniffing", WaT, Early WW2 winter tank action

As mentioned in the previous post, my Early War 1941 winter Eastern Front “What a Tanker” game that evening had four players (including myself) with a very simple “us v them” shootout.

My t-26 in the foreground running from the German looking to shoot 'up my butt'

A PZIII and PZII against a T-34 and T-26. The night’s dice were fickle indeed as the one necessary die to complete the desired activity - usually shooting of course - failed to occur.  Everyone was affected. But for me, the rather exasperating failure to do anything useful from a full set of dice only happened once, so that was good.  And I got a kill, taking out the PZII with one shot. Rare indeed.  It was early in the night, so I had the defeated player bring on a PZ35 (a rather better tank and game equivalent to a PZIII.  I spend the rest of the game trying to avoid it!  All the while looking to see if the other German had a shot at me!

"dog-sniffing" In the background the German is chasing my t-26, while in the foreground, the partially-whitewashed t-34 is ready to shoot at the rear of the heavily camouflaged PzIII.  ED NOTE: This was only part-way through the battle; this would continue for quite some time.  Weird game indeed.

The game tended to resemble a “tail sniffing at a dog park” as one wit suggested, during which we circled around the snow-covered burnt-out buildings looking to shoot each other up the tail pipe (the weakest armour point) However throughout the night each of us would fail dramatically to get the relatively easily achievable 3+ on the dice, and roll lots of 1s and 2s instead. Ce la guerre!

 

No ordinary evening, WaT with The Wife!

So we were having a nice dinner when my wife says “I know I suggested we could play cards tonight but let’s play a wargame”

I sputtered, bits of food came out of the mouth, my jaw remained slack, my brain unable to compute. I just stared at her in numb confusion. 

“Yes, really” she merely confirmed.  “But something simple.  I don’t want to spend the entire night for you setting it up.”, she said with a grin.  

The rest of the meal, I was trying to think of simple rules, simple scenario, easy set up. After finally settling on the game and stating so, she says,”Perhaps What a Tanker?”  I had not even thought of THAT one!  Brilliant suggestion. I then had an inner voice debate on how the heck she came up with that.  I thought she never listened to me as I rambled on……

Dishes cleared, I put down my ashen snow mat and a couple of terrain pieces on the table.  “Dictatorial Fascist German or Dictatorial Communist Russian?”, I ask her.  So I brought out a nice Pzkw III for her, and a rather poorer T-26 for myself.  

To compensate for her confusion about which dice are for which action, her dice rolling was very good as each turn’s rolls usually had a good combination including the always useful ‘6’ Wild.   While a bit frustrated with the jargon (“Two d six? You just said I need a seven!”)  she began to be more tactically aggressive. “Yes, I want to shoot you from the flank.  Better yes?” she would state.  “But if you do not roll high enough to reach that position, you will need to turn your Wild to a Move dice thereby not able to change it into a Reload for another shot at me”, I dutifully explain. “I will do it anyway”, she firmly confirms as she then rolls 11 on the dice gaining the position easily; fires her two shots into my side causing my Command Dice to run out and thus my crew legs it, abandoning the shot ridden Russian hunk of junk.  

Earlier in the contest, my poor T-26 had a nice flank shot but....couldn't roll enough for it.  The Wife had no problems with the dice or Command.   

My new Italian WW2 Camicie Nere

Gaming buddy WillB needs constant focusing on a project lest he wander off and paint civilians or some such…LOL… see his blog at : link   for his wonderful ‘diversions’

Sooo, I said I would create a suitable opposition to his illustrious Canadians fighting in Sicily during 1943.  Interested in his campaign efforts I found a Too Fat Lardy “codex” for the Italians of that campaign.  It mentions ‘coastal’ and’Blackshirt’ units.  Hmm, as I don’t have Italian figures, what do the Blackshirts look like?  A bit of image viewing prompted me to start on these rather poorly rated soldiers.  I only had plastic American GI torsos available - a gift of bits from KevinA who had rather hacked these at the waist.  Obviously these boys need to be in trenches to hide the rather distressing fact they had no legs.  Arms literally (!) had to searched for in my bits box found from such varied sources as US, Zulu, Napoleonic and 18th century….  But the real prompt was the Blackshirt use of the black fez with tassel.  I have a box of unused plastic Zouaves from which I could take the fez and still leaving a turbaned version for their use.  Bonus!

Italian Blackshirt soldier

That was Sunday of last week.  So, still working full time and all the other distraction of life, I had a rushed time frame.  The scraping, manipulation, gluing and painting of the plastic was done, trenches quickly built, barbed wire areas speedily created.  I knew I could use the maximum number of the latter allowed in the rules as the poor Blackshirts had a minimum of an extra +8 support points (!) to be taken in the required entrenchments and these new barbed wire emplacements. In the Chain of Command rules, the attacker rolls for support points and the defender gets half of these with the difference in strengths added.  Between WillB and myself, poor dice rolling seems to be the norm so I got only one more point which was not enough for the sniper I had available.  Nevertheless, the barbed wire did prove very useful to funnel Will’s attack toward my ‘killing ground’ in front of my trenches.  But I get ahead of myself.

All this preparation was kept from Will as I wanted to to surprise him militarily with this unknown enemy.  The scenario had a translator provide this information taken from a villager to his colonel:

“ The shirts of black infest our (town) with sharp string and holes of ferrets.”

We gave no real concept to the terrain and simply put pieces down with only a bit of thought to position and function.  Will started with a farm house in a stone walled courtyard but ended up placing all but the largest of his buildings.  I think it was so he could place his colourful new Sicilian civilians about on the table. (grin).   That was fine as my backstory to the Blackshirts rather poor position outside the village was that they THOUGHT they were getting support from the local German garrison but these had been order away without informing the Italians!  The civilians were thus ‘in the streets’ celebrating their departure.  Nevertheless, Will’s orders are to take the crossroads at the town.  My Blackshirts’ duty was to stop them.

The patrol phase of Chain of Command is interesting and a bit tricky as, if played wrong, could limit your deployment choices and we are both rather inexperienced with the rules.  I had the added problem that, with the necessity of being in entrenchments, my forces would not desire to deploy behind walls or such. I still didn't want to give too much away to spoil the surprise for Will.
My Blackshirts would end up in a bottom of a slight depression between two ridges in farm land to await the Canadians appearing on the rise in front of them.  Will used his support points in a pre-game barrage which would have me roll of units if units would indeed arrive and me, more often that not, failing to bring in my leaders or units until turns later.

My rather ad-hoc Blackshirt contingent.

Green troops in the rules really suffer (rightfully) with less command dice, shorter jump-off ranges and can suffer greater casualties.  We started calling them "kermits" as in Kermit the Frog with his "It's not easy being green" phrase....

WillB avoided the barbed wire and a direct assault on the village and so was forced to attack frontally but helped by the hillock between my entrenchments and his line of attack - again, a result of the patrol/deployment part of the rules. The hillock also blocks line of sight for his supporting troops and his favourite tactic of laying smoke, lots of smoke, suffered from accuracy and so did not get the perfect effect he hoped to achieve.  But while only somewhat limiting the fire from my entrenched Italians, it did stay around.  Smoke only dissipates on the end of ‘a turn’ and for three successive games now, neither of us, let alone me, has rolled the required three sixes to do so, with the result that we only play “one turn” a game and the hiding smoke remains.

WillB likes his smoke rounds but without line of sight they sometime even land on his troops!

Nevertheless I could do some shooting and even going ‘tactical’ (shown by Will’s unique markers which have copious shrubbery on them — going tactical in the open effectively has the unit be like they were in light cover i.e. behind shrubbery…) my first round of fire was quite good….this would of course fall off during the game with my impotent firing dice.

Will's Canadians engage in hand-to-hand with my Italians

The rather shiny barbed wire in the background at least forced Will to go in front of my position.  The best I could hope for.  Being 'green' troops, the Blackshirts cannot be expected to give too much resistance.  However forcing the Canadians to engage in direct attacks would mean the Canadians would suffer huge casualties.

The final Canadian assault 

 However, mounting casualties from Italian fire and the dropping sun had him do risky frontal charges, which while costly, did force the Italians from their trenches and have them vanish into the countryside.  The Italian Force Morale was close to zero, all the leaders dead or wounded and only one command remained - my only recently deployed unit - I could do little to change the outcome.
The crossroads would be taken.

Don’t know how much use my new Blackshirts will be in any future games, but it was a inexpensive (read: nil cost!) and rather short timeframe foray into WW2 Sicily.
You can read Will's blog here for his version of this 'battle'.

The Army of Major Might

Will Bailie, a wargaming buddy of mine has his focus on the Indian/Afghan area for some time now and has created his own imagiNation world of a Indian Sub-continent land called Jhamjar (yes, like jam jar... so lots of "food you put on toast" puns possible among others).  He put out a call for local fellow gamers to add a contingent should they wish within the confines of era and geography.  (Link: Jhamjar explained )

 As I had some Boers laying about "without a home" , I decided to quickly base them for the task.
The following is my contingent's tongue-in-cheek backstory:

  
Major(recently retired)V.G.Might, late of the South African forces stationed in the Sinai at the end of the First World War, did not want to go back to Pretoria.  He felt many of his (former) command felt likewise.  Victor Might was dissolutioned fighting an ‘Imperial War”.  A dreamer and reader of grand adventures in the back and beyond of Asia and one morning, after a much gin-fuelled read of “The Chalice of Hunn-Nee”,  began his recruiting drive.  He found a large body of men armed and looking for adventure and offered them images of riches and exotic lands.

Courtesy of his ‘procurement officer’, a rather daring individual who boarded commercial ships as they transversed the Suez Canal, asked for their shipping manifests (often at gunpoint) and removed whatever would be useful.  One such vessel was transporting suits of men’s civilian clothing. “Can’t be wearing our old khakis can we?”  To the Major’s liking, as they were of somber tones; to these were added bandoliers and, of course rifles, by far the easiest to obtain. Razors were rare however, much to some of the men’s delight.

The army was given its employment the day when the Major’s second, Piet Rasponse “Rasp” Berry asked scratching at his growing beard, “So where do we find this chalice?”
   Might did not look up from his worn atlas of Asia, “Well, Rasp, the Huun Nee is thought to reside in the Bai Lie Temple somewhere in the Imagitush Mountains.”
   “And how, pray tell, do we get to this ‘Bai Lie’ place?” asked Rasp.
    Pointing a finger somewhere on the old page, Might responded, “Through this Jhamjar region it appears.”

…So there is my backstory to why a bunch of Second Boer War figures would be in a remote section of Asia. But how they are to be deployed, whose side are they on, and their quality is yet to be determined.

Photos of Might's 'Army' on the trail to Jhamjar

Medieval BYOB

Having a holiday Monday available,   I invited some of the boys over for a “get them out of the box if you got ‘em” or in other words  "Bring You Own 'Battle'"  medieval tilt using Lion Rampant.  There were 14th century types, a 11th C. “El Cid” contingent, a Lord of the Rings force, and a War of the Roses retinue!
Did not really matter as they did great slaughter on the fictional Crypt Hill.

The battle scenario was set up by the players themselves as the respective sides could pick a, b or c options and then I would compare and match these maneuvers to prepared maps of my table.  Thus a very different set up to the usual bland and uninspiring  “You guys on that side and we on this side.  Start 8 inches on the table.” game.
Also introduced on the moment was my card system so each player was given a number of shuffled playing cards equal to the number of units he currently deployed, the player having, say, the #4 card could play any of his remaining unactivated units during the fourth round of the turn.  Each side would play its 4th unit with the one side always going first in this version of IGOUGO.  After the end of all units activation attempt,  the cards are shuffled and so a different sequence is produced for each side.  As the sequence is not known, so a nice unpredictability of action is the result.

Photos of the action.

The week in gaming

Still haven’t got to my “Saratoga” game set up on the table for the last three weeks..... but did take my Samurai on the road for a Monday Game.

The Oyamata were to escort the musicians and gifts to a wedding while the rival Takeda wanted to halt the convoy. Used Lion Rampant rules with an add-on for the Teppo (handgunners).

The Oyamata procession

Takeda ashigaru soldiers

  Short story:  the Oyamata players rolled poorly and wore out fairly quickly.  Extremely poor courage tests by both sides had units vanish rather than be battered.  I guess one’s life (based as ever on the randomness of the fates) was not worth the honour of wedding gifts, even for the Samurai…..

The mounted Samurai who, with rather poor activation rolls, did not move but once the entire game (but didn't really need to....)

-----
On Friday, it was the ClubNight and, after offering scenarios set up for Will’s Jacobite game (see his blog: link ), I got into Lisa’s Congo rules game of slavers vs tribes vs rival tribe three-way.  She made a call for additional figures and a couple of us offered what we had; and ended up playing in the game anyway.

The jungle, the Lisa version, using plastic plants to good use.

 The interesting rule introduction by Congo is the method of unit ordering and activation.
The player has a handful of cards each. The cards have an initiative number together with symbols for movement (footprints), shooting (bow and arrow) and/or panic (umm, something scary to Congolese warrior).  These come in various amounts and so the player can pick three of these to play in their next three plays.  You can sorta guess what you might need to do in the next 3 turns but things could certainly change which makes the selecting difficult and hit-and-miss.

The 'ordering and activation' cards.  The rules use an assortment of dice 

Various 'stress' tokens.  Too many and you start having fellows leg it.

more examples the activation cards.  In this case, my turn is probably after everyone else (the top '2' is low).  I can shoot with 1 unit and move another.

Points were allotted to victory conditions.  As a Masfusi I wish to rescue our prince, and the other captives, kill slavers and prevent the hated Kosi from doing the same.  It did not start well for me as, of course, I picked up the dreaded chit as I entered the rough terrain and so panicked so firing at the nearest group (friend or foe).  It was to be my fellow Masfusi  for me to blast away using my only trading-muskets causing death and wounds.  This then panicked that group who fired back with accurate spear fire, killing three of five musketmen!   Meanwhile another group of mine were shooting at the slavers.  There was only a small chance to killing one’s own but my fire firing did just that!  While usual for me, not a great start….
I managed to gain the most victory points at the end so redeemed my early ineptitude however. I still think I eliminated more of my own than the enemy!

To add a bit of weight to her plastic models, Lisa glues them to old pennies (the same size as an American penny).  Canada no longer uses pennies as currency.  So when I mean old, I mean old - note the minting in 1929!   Mind you metal washers cost much more than 1 cent these days.....

Quote of the game:  the Kosi player having fun with a small group of poison dart armed Pigmies (pun included??) also envisioned his tribe to be cannibals.   A rule of ‘Congo’ could have you add a stress token to your unit for a chance of saving figure from being killed. “Nah, we’ll eat him later”  We had a light and fun attitude to the game….

Medieval ‘LR’ clash

With a slow rotation of games (telling me I have way too many armies/eras/‘projects’ already) we tend to forget the rules and spend quite a bit of the game asking ourselves “what happens now? The rule is?”

Trying to keep fresh on the Lion Rampant rules, I invited the guys over for a simple ‘refresher’ game.  Not knowing the numbers of fellows I placed down terrain, said “you English over there, we French over here”, gave out personal objects randomly (I was the only one who gave THAT any thought) and went at it.  No planning or battle strategy.  Very medieval that.

The only real innovation came with my introduction of a deck of playing cards for initiative.  As we had four players, each player was assigned a card suit from the deck.  With each card of that suit drawn the player then could try to activate any of his units.  If fail or activated, a marker is placed indicating that unit is done.  Eventually, all the players units would have been used. Once that happens, all the markers are removed and should his suit card be drawn he once again can nominate any of the un-activated units to be diced for.  Once the deck has been used up all players would have had an equal number of activations.  Not necessarily on a consistent basis, but eventually at the end.  We did have one player have five of his cards come up in a row (!) thus he was able to try to activate all his units one-after-another with one of the units doing this twice but with only 13 draws per player, it eventually evens out.
With this, rather than the I-go-you-go or heaven forbid the one fail you're out (per original rules), it creates more action and natural flow of the play.  Of course this can be for any game to get away from predictable player sequence.  Anyway it was agreed it did help with the play.

Pictures of the game.  All figures are mine and painted by moi.  (I was using my newly painted Dunkerque liveried types - in yellow and white with the bright blue dolphin and black on yellow shields)  Historically note: Dunkirk/Dunkerque was not actually French but Flemish during this time of c.1350 - the time of the Battle of Crecy and the armour styles portrayed on the figures. D’oh.  Didn't discover that tidbit until after painting them. Let’s over look that historical inaccuracy shall we…..

Dunkerque mixed yeomen militia (sheep optional)

massed English archers

Having achieved my 'personal objective' by burning the farmhouse, the yeomen will enter the battle.  The 'shield' 'marker indicating that unit has rolled for activation and cannot be chosen until after all the players units have done so.

Apparently this lad wanted to make sure the flames got it all.

my new straw fences using real pine fir needles! ....and lots of glue...

and yet more English archers behind stone fences.  The French really could not win this battle/game.

Postnaya Bridge 1941 WaT game

Having winter terrain (my Retreat from Moscow game) and Russian early war tanks models, I thought that I might be tempted to do the ‘frozen gates of Moscow’ Nov-Dec.,1941and do WaT with a winter style.

I invited a bunch of the guys over with tank models to have a go at these clear rules. After a quite a long discussion over sizing (who knew that the difference between 1:48 and 1:56 could be so much!) and it was determined that my KV-1A model was 1:48 scale and so we went with that.  Jim brought his Matilda II, in jungle dark green(!); ChrisP brought a Stuart (a lend-lease not offered until 1942 so we cheated a bit there and he was reluctant to apply a whitewash over a rather bright green color-scheme.  I used the big KV-1a along with the truck full of engineers and explosives for the scenario.

On the German side, Gord grabbed one of Bill’s numerous builds, the non-white-washed 38, while Bill used the other with an artistic whitewash motif.  Clayton used my T-34 with German markings as the third tank.  The points were even for each side with 3 tanks aside.

The Germans move into the town 

The Russians were trying to blow the critical bridge before the Germans foremost troop of armour could control it and the town.  Lots of manoeuvring and die rolling in this game but the Germans got to the town first and concealed themselves well, awaiting the Russian advance.  The Russians need the engineers to blow the bridge; but as we can see, it was not to be, so Jim and his Matilda had to destroy it with shot.  Chris’  Stuart tank, we nicknamed “Stewie” was unfortunately brewed near the end of the game, the only casualty.

Germans position themselves.  The t-34(r) is holding the right flank (top)

But the bridge’s destruction was after Bill, in a rather bold move - either silly or a brilliant tactical maneuver depending upon result - used a fist full of Drive Dice to move out of the town, over the bridge and move swiftly around to the flank of the slow turreted KV in order to destroy the truck from behind its KV protector.  Russian panic enthused with my dice rolling slowly spinning the KV around with slow turret movement while the truck [we gave it command dice for movement only - for those knowing the rules the Drive Dice and Wild Dice as usual and with the Acquire Dice convertible to a Drive Dice but only if on the road.  All other Command Dice were ignored] needed to go off road to get away from the rampaging German tank.  While with all this slow motion maneuvering (I was rolling low for movement inches) it managed to block the line of site of the KV to its attacker which did not help.  Bill was relieved to have survived the Russian beast and promptly blew up the truck and the engineers and all their explosives within.

Bill's small but fast 38 vs my lumbering KV1a.  The Lorry driver is attempting to move away off-road but the tires are obviously slipping in the mud;  at least that is what the very low dice rolls suggest!

..then the truck finally can move down the road next turn only to move slow enough to block the KV's line of sight!

...and pays the price.   The lorry is a MDF from Warbases and I bought just for fun.  I added a 'canvas' cover (a large bluejeans clothing label of all things!) and realized I could add it to the collection. It looks the part of a 1930's design Russian truck of the early war with a wargamer's squint.

The KV, without the need to protect the truck, and too slow to engage the fast 38, lumbered forward to engage its original target of Clayton’s T-34(r).  We extended the game another turn as the destruction of that tank would not allow the Germans to maintain their scenario conditions.  However, no further effects were made and both sides had achieved minor victories.  I hope the boys enjoyed the play on the white cloth of Russia....

other 'Trumpeter Salute 2019' games

While London England hosts its large Salute convention, Vancouver, Canada hosts its "Trumpeter Salute" three day convention near the same time.  I believe our 'Salute' name was first but not near as large or famous...

Aside from hosting a game, I played in two other games.  The first was Thomas' WW2 late war action in which I played a German commander holding off a serious British attack on a village.  His winter terrain was very nice to look at and gave a great feel to the game.  I remember one veteran wargamer gave me advice many years ago when he suggested "Only get in games which look good. If the rules are bad, if the GM is unsure, or if the scenario sucks, at least you have something nice to look at"

However, the 'Rapid Fire' rules under the excellent tutorage of Thomas and the straight forward scenario made for a good game; other than the excellent British dice (and tactics if I were honest) and our rather poor dice made for a rather quick game.

Examples of the balance of play:  I heard my German co-player moan to look to my right to see our mighty Tiger 1 tank, the glorious holder of our right flank, in flames!  Apparently lots of sixes were rolled by the British player firing his Shermans at it..... On my side, early in the game I had a panzerscreck crew jump out of cover to fire a surprise shot at the nearest British tank...it missed and was promptly shot to pieces. Later, my StuG moved up from cover only to be destroyed in the first shot and my AT gun in apparent hiding - at least I hoped- awaiting its chance after the additional British Shermans to cross the hedge, finally had to concede the enemy were content only to shoot up my infantry in the buildings, so fired a shot only to have it miss and have return fire kill most of the crew. Meanwhile I was struggling to find anybody to re-man the heavy machine gun - the only real asset the Germans had left,  from the continual British fire.  The game/battle was over in less than two hours. But it was pretty to look at!

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The second game was another of DennisC's ACW historical scenarios, this time the Union assault on the Sunken Road during the Battle of Sharpsburg/Antietam.
I took one of the Union divisions and almost (!) took the right flank of the Confederate stronghold but the local player, JimL, a boy who can pull high dice out of his a*s apparently by demand, always rolled a 10 to my 9 and in the ruleset of "Fire and Fury"one point can make all the difference.
In the middle, the rather weak Union division could not make headway against the small but strong force of Rebs holding the sunken road and so DennisC in his continual quest for history to repeat itself had his wish.....