Last Saturday was the first Deep Dish Lard day organised by
Chitown Wargamers and was held at Noble Knight Games.
In all there were about 20 players and nine games played over two sessions, one in the morning and another in the afternoon.
In the morning I ran a Chain of Command WWII game set in Burma during the closing stages of the war and inspired greatly from reading George McDonald Frasers 'Quartered Safe Out Here'.
Drew played the Japanese and Jim the British, we would be playing an 'Attack on an Objective' scenario which was the Japanese held bridge over the river.
The British were soon pushing up on the Japanese and their Burmese scouts had locked down one of the Japanese jump-off points quite early in the game.
The Sherman was pouring some very accurate fire into the Japanese machine-gun bunker on the bridge, but the 2" mortar was not doing it's job well and the smoke rounds were falling wide and failing to block the bunkers fire.
As seems to be the norm for our Burma games, the Japanese grenade launchers were causing carnage among the British leaders and soon there were no officers or NCO's standing on the British right to rally the troops while the Japanese machine-gun remained active with a clear line of fire.
Still pushing on the British were now entering the Burmese village ready to set up a new base of fire for the attack.
However, a hitherto hidden section of Japanese burst from one of the buildings and a brisk firefight ensued, the weight of fire from the Sherman saw the firefight go very much the Allied way, but not before the Burmese scouts covering the Japanese jump-off point had been destroyed.
Things then went pear shaped for the Allies. With the jump-off point now free the Japanese used a Chain of Command Die to ambush with a suicide anti-tank team. The first pole-mine only caused three hits on the Sherman, so Jim had six die to make saves on a 5+, two saves would likely save the tank.....
Made none and Kaboom!!!!!!
Undaunted the British decided to continue the attack, pushing on through the village. The Japanese bunker had finally been covered by smoke from the 2" mortar, but so many British NCO's were knocked down, the end of turn that would see them get back on their feet would also see the bunker un-obscured.
The game was finally settled, when another Japanese section secreted in the buildings launched straight from their hiding places into a desperate hand-to hand fight with the British, even though the Japanese were pushed back, the shock and casualties on the British team saw them broken and with that their hopes of taking the bridge.
During the morning session, Terry was running a great looking Sharp Practice game set in Wisconsin and Illinois during the Blackhawk Wars.
Liam was running a Vietnam game using Chain of Command: DMZ, with his 15mm collection, the report of his A Hard Day for Charlie Company game can be found
here.
Al was running What a Tanker set during the early engagements on the Eastern Front.
While Phil was running Chain of Command set on the Western Front, a German Aufklärungs platoon attempted to prevent the Americans from capturing or destroying a immobilised Panther (apologies to Phil for the terrible picture of his great looking game).
We had a themed lunch with Pizza washed down with Spotted Cow, with major food groups from both Illinois and Wisconsin featured and then it was onto the afternoons gaming sessions.
After lunch Al ran another What A Tanker game, this time on the Western front much later in the war.
Jim ran a 15mm Sharp Practice game set during the American Revolution, could the Americans capture the traitor or would the forces of King George intervene in time?
Ed was running a Sharp Practice game set during the Jacobite uprising in Scotland on his fantastic terrain, many teddy bears died to bring you this fantastic looking game.
I played in Liams second Chain of Command: DMZ game set during the Vietnam war.
The game was titled 'Stretched Thin' and I played the Americans attempting to evacuate the wounded after a friendly fire bombing incident.
Four parties of stretcher bearers had to make it to the LZ before Charlie could intervene. My forces were deployed along a narrow trail through the jungle and enemy forces were all around.
The initial attacks by a section of NVA regulars were thrown back in disarray, but I had become distracted securing a base of fire where I should have been playing a more mobile game. Two strecher parties had been evacuated when another section of NVA regulars cut the road and my two remaining parties had to dive into the jungle to avoid capture.
Re-deploying to clear the path I was surprised by some VC Mainforce on the trail who broke one of my sections who ran into the jungle. With Charlie on the path though I was able to redeploy my teams and start pushing back up the trail. The broken section also rallied and found a VC tunnel system (jump-off) so when the turn ended, not only did they return to the game they also secured one of the enemy jump-off points.
Weight of fire was beginning to tell on the Vietnamese and as their moral collapsed the platoon sergeant shepherded off the remaining two stretcher parties for a victory for the forces of freedom. Although the victory was tempered some what as I had sustained over a dozen casualties escorting four casualties to the LZ.
NVA and VC casualties are high so Westmoreland will likely be telling the press that we killed a whole regiment of them!
Liams report of the game is
here
More pictures from the day.
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| Jims 15mm AWI game |
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| Eds 28mm English to quell the Jacobites |
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| Liams 15mm Chain of Command: DMZ Americans |
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| Liams NVA in a bunker |
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| Eds Jacobites |
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| More Jacobite action |
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| Wills 15mm AWI |
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| Wills 15mm AWI |
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| Wills 15mm AWI |