Meanwhile on the Eastern Front

Yesterday I made the long trip. (OK,OK, it's only 45 min on a good day, not as far as I used to commute to work but I don't often go so far from home these days.) to visit old long time friend Les for a game of Command Decision, Test of Battle. 12mm Eastern Front. (See Advancing on a Broad Front blog) First CD game in.....decades?  Anyway, we were starting to get the hang of the rules again when it was time to go home, so no decision made except that it was a very enjoyable afternoon.  

Opening Battle of Acadian campaign

Battle of Otterlo, April 1945 and why I have a commendation signed by Monty on my wall.

At last, thanks to Menno J. de Vries who posted the attached video about the Battle of Otterlo, 16-17 April 1945 on Youtube, I have found something about the action which led to Dad being issued a certificate signed by Montgomery.

Dad only talked to me about that night once, when I was in uniform and in my 20's. I forget where the discussion started, but it wandered its way here and there, as such chats often do, but ended up with some largely humerous stories from Sicily and Italy and then about the only mention I can remember hearing of his time in NW Europe. That is not to say that he was much given to talking about the war, a few memories of the pubs in England (he was 19 when he went overseas) and having to talk a bit of gaelic with some of his Scottish aunts. What stories he did have from active service from Sicily and Italy were generally humerous. Indeed, this story started with a humerous annecdote. He was a Corporal in charge of a signal attachment assigned to an HQ unit and they were having a frustrating time trying to repair a telephone line at night, only to have it cut again immediately each time they fixed it. When the battle was over the next day, they found that they had been yards away from a German MG post and these had probably not wanted to give away their position, and were probably enjoying listening to the 'tommies' cussing and swearing as they went back and forth trying to get the line working!

Anyway, eventually they headed back to town and bedded down in the basement of a house, until the German attack rolled in. In the morning, when the Canadian tanks rolled in, Dad and his sidekick were still defending their basement. He did then get serious and talked about the horrible, sickening stench of the burnt bodies etc, human and animal, after the Wasp flamethrowers rolled through.

Lest we forget.

Thank you Menno J. de Vries for posting the following video about the Battle of Otterlo.

_____________

At the double

For today's experiment, Ron and I played our non-fixed zone version of Memoir using double all distances.

It is very difficult for Ron to recreate the terrain on Grant's maps using Hexon unless he uses the whole table but the scenarios get distorted if using Memoir ranges and movement rates.

This wasn't the first try but its been a while and in previous tries we didn't go all out and double close assault range etc. This time we screwed up our nerves and went all the way.

It worked like a charm!

More Not Quite Memoir

I finally made it back to Ron's today to continue our experiments with adapting Memoir to CS Grant scenarios on an 18 hexes x 18 hexes tabletop.

A German Assault card used primarily to bring reinforcements forward, is about to be counter attacked followed by an initiative flip and an all arms assault which will take out both German tanks and a unit of militia.

After the last game we decided to go back to using the cards but since many of the Grant scenarios are not zone-friendly we decided to just choose a location each turn to mark as the centre of which ever zone or zones we wanted. The Centre cards would have a radius of 3 hexes while the left and right had a radius of 2.

The ranges and movement was left as per the rules but for each Grant scenario unit we placed 2 memoir units. To spice things up we drew an ordinary playing card each turn to determine who had the initiative and got to go first that turn (Red for the Reds).

The game played well but after a dozen turns and maybe 3 hours, we were barely half through the game and had barely half our units on table.

An earlier overview shot. I entered along the road with the mission of capturing the 2 bridges. Ron started off with some units defending the town and others arriving later at various randomly selected turns at 1 of 3 randomly selected  roads.

After much debate we decided that we would go back to double ranges and double movement   except that close assault  still requires being adjacent. In addition, we decided to expand the zone size by 1 to allow more units to be activated by the cards affecting "all units in Sector X" etc.. This should allow us to often activate more units per turn.

Next game, (hopefully) in 2 weeks.

Interim Report: The Work Continues

Thursday  I made it back to Ron's for another game. Again I was a bit late and there was much discussion before we got stuck into Sawmill Village. (A familiar, dependable, Meeting Engagement scenario by CS Grant if anyone hasn't yet met it.)

My lead platoons approach the Village and the Sawmill.

Our plan was to try using our modified version of Memoir without either sectors or cards but using an OSW  initiative die roll at the start of each turn. Each side gets 6 units from an available list. After some discussion of how to equate the available forces  to the scenario list crossed with our amended rules we finally settled with the following:

Canadians (me) 3 infantry, a 3" mortar (arty), a Sherman and a Firefly and an HQ.

Germans (Ron) 2 Elite infantry, 2 1/2 tracks acting as MG armed Light Armour and 2 PzrIV and an HQ.

(We do actually randomly choose sides but the power of positive thinking seems to come through for me.)

His original thought was to use the 1/2 tracks to transport his Pzr Grenadiers then support them in battle but we could not find a transport rule nor remember back the several years to our last games with this system and the clock was ticking.

The view from the other side. The 1/2 tracks have sped ahead to seize the town while I concentrated on deploying my slower force for a concentrated counter attack with fire support from my 3" mortars. 

The game was fine despite our being extremely rusty and getting rules from various supplements, not to mention other sets, mixed up but it was fast with lots of tactical decisions to make. Really fast. We probably should have called it after an hour, discussed things and played another game but we had the bit between our teeth and no turn or force morale rule so fought it out to the last man standing.

Last Call. The German  HQ surveys the wreck of his force and watches as my last infantry platoon prepares to advance covered by the mortar and last remaining Firefly.
(Note: we have doubled the ranges)

Overall, the most enjoyable WWII game since our last modified Memoir game a few years ago but there was room for improvement. After more discussion about various aspects, Ron hauled out a card deck to check something and we remembered what lovely cards they are and what fun and we felt the urge to make some use of them again.

The problem had always been that the Grant scenarios we enjoy just don't squeeze well into the 3 zone. Especially the ones where opposing sides are moving on from multiple corners towards an objective in the centre. The 18 hex by 18 hex table size is a factor as well. So, the current plan is to try a scenario using the cards but ignoring the sector aspect, just using it to activate units and for the various special rules.

We'll see how that goes but not until mid-July.

We interrupt this restoration

to report on today's WWII rules exploration at Ron's.

Modified Battle. The Soviets look to be in trouble.

It wasn't my fault really that we didn't play the proposed Colonial PW game, or even Ron's fault, no I lay the blame at the foot of Bob Kett of the (bobthepainterblog) and his initial fiddlings with a hex based WWII version of the tank side of Grant's Battle . Ever since I read that post I've had an itch to try a more old school WWII game again. The various mechanism heavy, rules heavy, planning and manoeuvre light, sudden death, WWII games we've been playing the last couple of years have not been satisfying. 

Ron laid out a table based on the Recce in Force scenario in Battle then we pitched four T34/85 against five PzrIVH. It was a fun little game that was over in 3 or 4 turns so we hauled out various Grant and Featherstone books and bent our minds to hex based infantry and artillery rules to match.

But they win in the end.

Before we were also looking at Bolt Action and Airfix Battles infantry rules (which appear to be derivative) and I was beginning to despair. This was not looking like it would get us back to the sort of enjoyable WWII games we used to have.

I started to reminisce about those fun, modified Memoir games from 3 and 4 years ago. It didn't take long for us to remember the issues we had meshing the card deck and 3 zone  system with Grant scenarios nor did it take long to speculate about using our modified armour rules without the cards and sectors. (In this case the 85mm gun on the T34/85 would hit the PzrIV on an emblem as well as on the armour symbol.)

Essentially a Featherstonian type game  where the players develop the plan and try to execute it in the face of the enemy while the dice help determine the success or failure of their plans. 

Modified Memoir: Everyone wins but technically the Soviets are about to win another close battle with a lucky shot at the critical point.

A sharp little refight was soon under way with the advantage swaying back and forth until a lucky die roll rescued the 'superior Soviet plan' from imminent disaster!  The whole thing lasted about the same time as the modified Grant game BUT we played twice as many turns and there was more manoeuvring, more tension and more swings of fortune. In other words, more fun.

Hopefully next week we can get a full all arms scenario in.

Meeting a Tiger in the Woods

On Thursday Ron and I had another go at WWII and a Grant Teaser.

The scenario came from Scenarios for Wargames. A force, Canadian as it happened, is fixing a bridge over a river. Across the river the main road runs through a dense patch of woods so an advance party has been posted to block any German counter attack. There is a secondary bridge and ford off to one side. The Canadians have to hold the main bridge and deny any bridgehead to the Germans.

A Tiger, always a Tiger!

 For rules we used the Airfix Battles rules but not the action deck. Instead, for reasons I can't  really remember but which may have had something to do with wanting a simple Old School feel, we decided to just determine initiative with a card draw then each act with 4 units then determine initiative again. We agreed to alternately activate 1 unit each with the possibility of an initiative flip allowing the sort of double move the Airfix card system gives but promptly forgot and went 4 then 4. 

The result of a flip giving a double turn had some of the effect of the missing tactical cards but next time we might just use the original card system. We'll see when the time comes.

Please imagine various knocked out German tanks as well as a pile of bodies near the far end of the bridge!

The scenario called for a light cavalry unit to be broken into 4 patrols to advance along secret forest paths. Given the card stats crossed with available models, this became 4 35T tanks using an Sdsomethingorother stats card. My brain knew this but eyes saw my force being attacked by 5 German tanks! It wasn't until the first one was blown up by a Piat that I relaxed a little.

The rest of his force included a Tiger, a platoon of Pzr Grenadiers in a halftrack, a pair of antitank guns and a long line of trucks carrying infantry.

My defenders consisted of 3 infantry platoons, some engineers, a 6 pdr, a 25 pdr using the stats of a German 75mm PAK since that was the only card on hand with HE and AT capability, a Bren Carrier and a Churchill w 75mm gun and generous stats.  We definitely need to start making our own unit stats for Ron's stuff that's not covered.

End of the day. Crossing Held!

It seemed highly unlikely to me that any of my guys were going to survive but one must do what one can. What can I say, I got lucky. Lucky as in my Churchill was damned lucky both when shooting and when shot at and lucky as in none of my many tactical errors had a serious impact while Ron made one or two small decisions and one error (as in unlimbering 1 hex short) that cost him dearly because my tank got lucky!

All in all it was a very enjoyable, intense, 4 hours of pushing toys around the table, rolling dice, and pitting wits against "the foe". 

A Portable Speed Bump

With winter winding down, I made the trek in to Ron's yesterday for our first game of the year. We had yet to try the WWII Advanced Portable Wargame so we decided to give it a go.

When I arrived the scene was set for France 1940 using the Two Sides of A River scenario from CS Grant's Programmed Scenarios.

About 4 turns in, its pretty clear to me that I am not equipped to halt the Blitzkrieg in this open country. Ron however, was still worried about how to get past the woods to my rear.

Boiling down the scenario forces and translating them into SP's  I ended up with roughly a reinforced infantry battalion with 4 infantry, and 1 each MG, Mortar, light ATG and Carrier (Scout Car) units backed by 2 25lb Field Guns and a pair of French Char B tanks. Ron had a gazillion Pzr II, 35T and Pzr III tanks backed by some infantry in halftracks and a Stuka.

It was rapidly evident that we had a complete mismatch between our expectations, the scenario layout and what the rules are designed for.

Our first clue was when I discovered that the 5 mile range of the 25 pdrs translated to a mere 8 hexes  and rather than being able to cover most of the board as I was used to in past games, they could barely fire across the river. That meant I had to move them, a 3 turn process to move even 2 hexes. I think I manged to fire twice all game. If I had checked that before deploying I would have deployed one on either side not that it would have helped much.

The second issue was when we tried to figure out how to classify the tanks. The Char B was obviously heavy and the PZRII light so we made the 35T's and PzrIII Medium. All well and good but since the rules don't cater for varying levels of armour protection, only range, it was soon clear that the 20mm guns on the PzrII's were able to shoot up the supposedly near impermeable armour of the Char B at their maximum range of 3 hexes. Since heavy tanks can't fire and move, it was easy for the enemy to close and shoot the Char B's to pieces with them hardly getting a shot off. We really missed having separation between offensive and defensive capabilities for tanks. Using Elite and Poor attributes might have helped if I'd thought of it before the game but I'd have been happier using the house modification that I adopted when testing the rules last year (See portable-wargame-review).

We also got a bit confused once the Stuka started to fire its machine guns which led Ron to want to fire the machine guns on his tanks at my infantry rather than using their small calibre anti-tank guns. This seemed reasonable, though not covered, but when Ron pointed out that the rules said the airplane got 3 dice per MG he wanted the same for his tanks but I flatly drew the line there. (More on the air rules below )

The whole level of the game is at a higher level than we are used to and we hadn't  made nearly enough mental adjustments or adapted the scenario properly to fit the rules.

Anyway, it was still an enjoyable game and far from one sided though it was over in about 8 out of 15 turns when my forces became exhausted and he had a clear path around my flank.

We turned our hand to a quick air to air game. It was fast and fun but was almost Reallllly fast. Luckily, just as we were starting I noticed that while the air rules state that planes roll 3 dice per MG, the examples show them rolling 1 per MG. I suspect that the 3 dice rule was an error and we followed the example instead. This was lucky for his Stuka as I was only rolled 4 dice per attack not 12 when my fighter got his Stuka in his sights. Even I couldn't have avoided hitting him with that many dice.

The sun was in my eyes, that's my story.

Anyway, a fun day out. Now back to the Great War.

Action in the Pass

Its been a busy week but today I squeezed in a small Bolt Action game at Ron's, 54mm in Tunisia.

My Recce patrol runs into a Jerry patrol in a pass through some rugged hills.

It was a fun little game but I've rarely seen such a hard to read, poorly written set of rules that can require flipping through 2-4 sections in 2 books to find some very simple, basic, rules buried in a mass of trite trivial narrative in various places.

Losses have been heavy but our plucky lads have given more than they've taken. I feel a counter attack coming on. If we can just hold it... 

I still don't know if I like them once I get past the frustration. Some aspects work well, others just seem odd compared to my reading or against past expectation and habit (which obviously may comfortable rather than right) and seem to lead to unlikely tactics and too many fight to the last man situations. None the less, it was good to get the 54's back on the table and the game was fun and reached a definite conclusion after 4 hours. (Over 1/2 of which time was probably spent leafing through the books or discussing the possible intended meanings of what was found.)

It seems I have developed  a preference for rule books that seek to explain how the rules work rather than trying to entertain.

It was nip and tuck at times but while the Jerries poured in astounding quantities of very accurate fire, our blokes just wouldn't lie down and die. One of their 1/2 tracks did reverse off table at high speed shortly before the end though so I guess the Jerry mucky-mucks will know that we hold the pass.

An update on the War of 1812 in a day or so.

Meet Me At The Oasis

During the final decade of the 20th Century a couple of us got into 54mm WWII. We started with Rapid Fire! then experimented a bit but drifted off to other things early this century.

After our last game of Airfix Battles, Ron decided that it wasn't quite what he was looking for so he picked up Bolt Action and yesterday we gave them a whirl. I'm not sure why I was expecting him to stay with his 20mm figures.

Once again 1/32 Airfix Ghurkas and Afrika Korps clash! Somewhere in that oasis is a vital well.

As usual, we like to do things our way and adapt rules to our purposes rather than mindlessly obeying so I shouldn't have been surprised when Ron hauled out the 54's  and we started discussing adapting BA to the hex grid.

For the curious, a basic squad of 5x54's will fit nicely in a 10cm Hexon hex so we just declared each grid equal to 3" for ranges and moving etc, rounded odd numbers when they appeared and declared that the 1" rule applied to adjacent hexes. Seemed to work well.

The highpoint of the battle. Several of Ron's units are pinned in the open and the infantry I had rushed into the oasis have located and seized the well.

The basic rules were pretty straight forward and made sense. There were some odd omissions and odd inclusions on the quick reference sheets which resulted in a lot of time spent checking and rechecking for basics like morale check details but by the time a couple of turns had been played it was flowing well.

As darkness fell (ie I realized that I was already an hour late) Ron offered me a draw since I still held the well, (technically). Since I only had 1 lone infantry squad left, my heavy weapons, which were all pinned down, were covering the approaches that his three remaing units of superior infantry no longer needed to use, and he had an infantry unit adjacent to and arguably contesting for control of the objective, I declined the generous offer and ceded the game.

One game is almost never enough to judge a set of rules by but we had fun and overall they seemed to work without too many oddities. Basic fire and move tactics, fire zones etc seemed to work and so on.

There were a few Warhammerish oddities such as the deadly Ninja-like rules for the Ghurkas which we only discovered when Ron charged one of my units to see what would happen and we cracked the close asssault rules. Things like that can be dealt with easily enough by house rules though.

There will be more games.

Bowling for Trucks

I was barely back from an extended 4 day weekend away when it was time to head into Ron's for some more Aifix Battles. This time we had proper decks of cards, a copy of the rules and all, we still played on the hexes though. I had looked at the convoy game in the recent Miniature Wargames but we decided to play that old Grant chestnut "Wagon Train" instead. Ron did the hard work of translating the Grant units into Battles units ( as in 1 cavalry=1 tank) and the adjusting the exact forces by points to match the balance
of the original scenario. We then assigned forces by the carefully balanced "pick a hand" method. Ron got the US with the convoy.

The scenario involves random arrival for the interceptors for both time and location. These are designed around rules using at least an 18 hour game with short moves. We settled on me playing orders as normal but then needing to roll the turn number or less (eg on Turn 2 I needed to roll 1 or 2) for the unit to appear. Another roll determined the place of arrival.

Turn 1. The game begins with a bang.

I won the toss for initiative and made Ron go first. He led with a Sherman and Tank Destroyer and then started running trucks up the road. We are used to the convoy bring the slowest thing on the table so it was odd having them be the fastest instead. With a clear run it was only going to take 3 or 4 moves for a truck to cross the table which made me uneasy but they are horribly vulnerable to fire.

As luck would have it, my 2nd try landed a Stug almost right beside 2 trucks. I trundled forward and was about to open up when he played an interrupt and zoomed off. This was a move I could have stopped with the Counter Intelligence card if I had remembered that I had it. It all worked out though as my command Pzr IV threw the right 1 in 36 combination to pop on table right in front of the truck and riddle it with bullets. Based on the pillar of black smoke it must have been full of fuel drums. Immediately after this Ron brought on another truck and an interrupt allowed me to blow that up as well. Turn 1 and Ron was down 2 trucks. He needed to get 4 into the camp to win, 3 for a draw. We were sort of wondering if the game was almost over. It wasn't.

Several turns and many, many cards later.... yes, all the infantry is German except for one heroic Ranger Captain whose platoon has just been wiped out. No more trucks have been destroyed but only one has made it to safety. Incredibly the 3 AFV in the foreground have been trading shots and finding ways to miss.

There was still one truck on table and Ron managed to get it to safety by some clever use of cards and options, and blocking my moves. After that, he focused on clearing the road before bringing on more trucks while I focused on getting troops on table and in position, something made harder by him knocking out my command tank.  I couldn't do much, but after winning an infantry fight, I was able to end with 3 infantry units covering the roads. It was a bit of a surprise though when another truck zoomed on with a double move and then, when I moved to assault it,  zoomed away on another interrupt which I again forgot to block. Winning the initiative on the next turn allowed him to reach safety. 2 down, 2 safe, 2 to go. Ron reached for the deck to deal the next hand but....too late, there were only 3 cards left! Last turn, partial turn. No way now to win, not enough time or cards. German victory.

Games end. 2 trucks in, 2 trucks lost, 2 trucks being held off table till help comes and the cards have run out. German victory.

In summary, a gripping game! I'm looking forward to another run through as either side. Ron had enough troops to double the forces but this worked like a charm and kept us so focused on the game for 3 hours that we forgot to refill the coffee cups let alone take pictures.

Airfix Battles Again

On Thursday Ron & I, armed with a more complete idea of the rules after some correspondence,  had another go at Airfix battles. There were numerous small things that we had gotten wrong but the big one was that we hadn't realised that in addition to playing interrupts, players alternated playing action cards. This gave the game a much more interactive feel. We had also discovered the Valour token which allows a player to reroll a die or set of dice at the cost of passing the token to the enemy. Its a small thing and rerolls can fail as badly as an original roll but somehow failing once is bad luck, failing twice is fate or the powers that be laughing at you. In any event it was fun and it did had a dramatic effect at a key moment as we shall see.

Ron was a busy man during the intervening week and he redeployed the US and German infantry from 2 man stands to washers. Amazingly 10 of the chunky Plastic Soldier Company figures will fit in a Hexon hex. Just. The table was still set for Sawmill Village so we diced for sides and Ron got the Americans.  The premise is a clash between advance guards and both sides must move down the road at full speed until the enemy is spotted. At that point the objective becomes controlling the village crossroad. Given the layout of the twisty road on Ron's board and the rules, The Americans (or whichever player is on that side) are a shoo in to get to the town first but the other player's main body has a shorter cross country march once the enemy is engaged so it is still well balanced.

We used slightly larger forces this time, in fact all the forces from the first two scenarios. This gave us each 1 captain with a unit of veterans, 4 infantry units with a Lieutenant, and 2 (German) or 3 (American) tanks incuding a Lieutenant. We each had a hand capacity of 7 cards and a draw capability of 5 cards. It paid to try and save up to a full hand and try to hang on to 2 at the end of each turn to maintain maximum flexibility. Of course, sometimes there was a moment of desperation or an opening too good to miss and a few extra interrupts would deplete one's hand requiring a pause to recover your full potential or else a risky full press if the time or situation did not allow time to catch your breath.

 As anticipated Ron siezed the town with tanks and infantry so I began organizing an all arms attack on one end of the town, expecting him to stay under cover and bring up reinforcements. Wrong. Luckily my lead infantry survived an assault by one of his shermans and was even able to recover some of my losses thanks to one of the cards. I left his tank to my pair who had been moving forward in support and it may be seen burning smokily above. My infantry had an assault card allowing them to move through the town to open fire on his infantry which they managed to pin encouraging me to assault. At the end of a bloody to and fro I occupied the building (note 1 lone guy peeking around the corner in the photo above to remind me that his friends are inside) while the remnant of Ron's unit retreated across the street to cover and I ended up with the Valour chit.

Things were looking up. I just had to move up my supporting infantry, manoeuvre into position to take out his wounded command Sherman and then, frig, another Sherman, OK I'll take him out first. or not. Why am I suddenly rolling so many 1's and 2's? I'll use the Valour chit, Oh boy 1 hit! Considering the combined 10 misses including the reroll, I'll take it. OK new hand, new plan, I'll let the little guy live for now and put everything on the command tank who is down to 1 hit.  OK I don't have the movement to get line of sight to him from both tanks but, now what, oh he had one of those cards too, now he's up to 2 hits, Still I've got a Tiger and it can inflict.....1 hit...sigh. Luckily, if he runs I have an intercept that will let me shoot. Ha! Another Ronsen!  Ok this looks good. My squad in town is down to 5 men but I've got cover and he's only rolling 5 dice for 5's and 6's and is unlikely to roll 5 hits. Ok. Well I'm not likely to fail 5 saves....Seriously? Well at least I didn't have to take a morale check.  OK  more units moving up, but is there time?

I love those infantry triple move cards. Now its 5 units vs 2. The Sherman had been using my command tank for target practice so given its track record, I decided it was worth more generating new cards than it was engaging in a shooting match. I moved up the Tiger. Then all of a sudden, there we were, last card. The infantry rush hadn't quite reached the house and  the panzerfausts hadn't even caused a morale check on the Sherman. In retrospect I should have used a basic command to move into the street and assault the 5 remaining men but I fired instead. 5 hits! No saves! The town is mine. Jubilation!  Then I remembered  that Ron had the Valour token. Honour obliged..... 

HA! Got them all. The town is MIN...what? Audie Murphy? in the house with a brave private? Still alive?! NOOOOOOOOOO!
( Photo by Ron)

So yes, he saved 2 guys then rolled boxcars on his morale!  So a happy and exhausted draw after 3 hours of thinking and rolling and pushing troops around, not to mention checking notes and discussing how the rules were suppose to be played, especially given the hexes. It took us another hour to debrief, reminisce and discuss future possibilities.  I'm not sure how long the actual playing time was, probably less than 2 hours, but the time flew by without us noticing.  I'll definitely be ordering the rules and cards when they are available over here.

Winging it

When I heard that Airfix had released a boxed wargame my reaction was along the lines of "That's nice but nothing to do with me". Its not that I never play WWII. Airfix tanks and infantry featured in some of the first games I played with Featherstone's Battle With Model Soldiers back in '71. Since then I have painted and played WWII in 6mm, 10mm, 1/72nd and 54mm with various rules, commercial and home made. These days though, when I play WWII, I play with my friend Ron's toys. For the last few years we've enjoyed some games with modified Memoir but we have both felt a periodic the urge to add a bit more flavour.


Along came Bob with a review of Airfix Battles and some play tests  on Wargaming Miscellany  and I started thinking that Ron might enjoy this and so might I. So I dropped him a note and we did some searching for other comments, reviews and battle reports and found a very useful video on the Modiphius Airfix Battles page .  We decided to see if we could parse out enough of the rules to play a game to see if we liked the vibe.

Getting under way. Note infantry units tacked onto hexes with 2 small dice to mark the current strength. Note also the cheat sheet with copies of unit cards to show stats. We used little markers to show pinned etc on the table. You can also see Ron's home made fudged cards for the test. They were good but real ones with a rule book to explain them will be better! 

Now, the game was by default going to be "our" kind of game, so, Hexon terrain, existing figures and a  Grant scenario. We went with nice simple Sawmill Village and used dice to mark hits on infantry units. Industrious Ron made rule notes from the web, grabbed some basic unit card images and, having made notes on as many cards as possible, fudged a deck of cards.

It goes without saying that the result was not an accurate play test of the rules as published. We didn't know what the proper mix of cards was, were missing details on many of the rules and had to adapt things like 90 degree turns onto a hex grid. Still, it worked.

My attempt to get in a devastating first strike against Ron's Mk IV soon ended with a brewed up Sherman and a nervous Ross. I decided to leave Ron's metal monsters alone for now and unleash my tank on his isolated infantry, hoping to do some crippling damage and cause delay and distraction before rejoining my main force. I don't care what the game is, its a wild gamble to trust your fate to cards or activation dice........

Luckily we are used to winging things using a "feels right/wrong" compass and the resulting game was good. It required us to think and plan to get the best of resources and to use our forces to their best advantage while minding what the enemy was capable of. There were also enough twists of fortune to get the adrenaline pumping and moment of momentary despair or triumph.

 It certainly didn't take long for me to discover that breaking basic tactical principles in favour of a risky gamble was, well, risky! Mind you my "Stuart born again" tank commander almost survived his ride around the enemy. It certainly cost the Germans a leader and enough infantry that by the time they pressed forward to try to take the village from it, it was too late. Saved by the clock!

End of Game. Ron's surviving infantry has pulled itself together and his tanks are shelling my infantry out of the town despite the periodic support of my last, battered Sherman. Another 2 or 3 turns and.... but wait! ... time's up! Darkness  falls, reinforcements arrive or something and the Yanks still hold the crossroads.  

So will I buy? Yes. At this point I don't have spare cash to waste on maps and counters that I'll never use but as soon as the rules and card decks are available individually I do intend to buy. I suspect that Ron will have the boxed intro set as soon as its available over here.

Will I start building my own WWII armies again? Nope. Post war Roscia and Lilliput are close enough for me and I'm quite happy to do my own unit and vehicle stats for those solo games while continuing  to play with Ron's WWII toys.    

Almost Holding the Pass

On Friday I made the trek to Halifax for a little socializing and a game. Ron had set up the Hold the Pass scenario ftom CS Grant's Programmed Scenarios set in Tunisia in 1943. We rolled for sides and I found myself defending with Yanks.

An ambush by infantry with mortars and a bazooka supported by artillery fire gave me an early lead. (That's me in the picture so thanks to Ron for the pics.)

The rules are slightly modified Memoir44. Apart from minor things like using the rolling terrain Ron lays out to determine sight lines the major differences are:

a) Command: Instead of zones we have HQ stands, two labelled left & right with a 3 hex command radius and an overall or Center commander with a 4 hex radius. After various experiments we have laid no other restrictions on them. They are treated as infantry needing an order or on the move card to move but having no combat dice.

b) Ranges. We found the original ranges did not let us take advantage of the rolling terrain so we doubled all ranges except close assault. Initially we also doubled movement for consistency but found that made the game too jerky so have left it alone and it plays well.

c) Tanks. Without wanting to get carried away we wanted a little more differentiation between say a Stuart and a Panther so after much experimentation we have simply defined tanks  as heavy (move 2,4 hits, range 4), medium (move 3, 3 hits, range 3) and light (move 4, 3 hits, range 2). Exceptions may have a lighter or heavier gun than usual such as a Churchill as Heavy Tank but range 3). This simplified version doesn't appear to address armour penetration, etc but in practice it works and the pay off of speed vs power with even the weakest having enough power to be useful makes each  type a reasonable unit useful for different purposes without getting into game balance issues.

An on rush of German armour soon reversed that.

d) Infantry without bazooka equivalent can only damage tanks by close assault although they can cause retreats (flags).

e) Artillery must have line of sight or have a spotter. The spotter can be any unit including a commander who is ordered, does not shoot and can see the target. The artillery must also be ordered.

I had to call on Airpower to balance things a bit but a Counter Attack by a Stuka left me in the hole again.

For this game I had 4 infantry, 1 mechanized infantry (elite, can move 2 and battle), 1 Priest SP artillery, 1 Sherman, 1 Stuart. My troops started in concealment. Ron had 2 panzer Grenadier, 2 stug, 2 Pzr4, 1 Tiger and 2 SP artillery. Ron's troops started off table and needed 'on the move cards' to enter.

 The break point for both was 5.

With all tanks destroyed on both sides and honours even st 4 a piece, Ron's Tank Destroyers were helpless against infantry in woods but without bazookas they were also safe from them. It became an ineffective artillery duel with the cards running out and then Ron pulled the Barrage card.....

In short, it was a nail biter of a game that went pretty much through the deck and down to the wire to a 5:4 victory for Ron. Exciting enough that we didn't notice that we played more than an hour past my usual departure time. 

Memoir tanks revisited

Today Ron and I got in 2 more games of Memoir, Yanks in Tunisia.  The scenario was Crossroads,  a meeting engagement from Programmed Scenarios. This time we doubled all of the units which allowed us more tanks. The first game was over quickly thanks partly to the Yanks arriving en mass while the Germans dribbled on in penny packets. However, in a situation where the armor varied from Honeys and PzrIIs to Tigers,  the latest armour/AT rules didn't work so well and seemed to encourage some odd tactics.

Game 1: American Armoured Infantry debus to support the Stuart against the PzrIIs. 

For the 2nd game we reverted to the previous method which was that light tanks could only take 2 hits but move 4 while heavies could take 4 hits but only move 2. Light guns only get 2 dice and heavy guns get 4. This time however we didn't bother with adjusting ranges since the way the rules work any tank that can shoot can usually move and the range distances almost never mattered.  In practice this simpler version,  inspired by the original Tiger rule, delivered a better feel. The Tigers were awesome,  the light tanks were ok against other light tanks but against heavier tanks their only real chance was to use their fast speed to swarm it and close assault hoping to get additional breakthrough attacks and/or block retreats causing additional retreats.

For interest sake, the armour heavy German force had 2 Tigers rated heavy/heavy, 4 PzrIV rated medium/medium and 2 PzrII rated light/light. The armoured portion of the American force had 2 Shermans, medium/medium, 2 Lees rated medium armour light gun (the 37mm), a Stuart rated light/light and a Tank Destroyer light armour, heavy gun. By the end of the game I had lost every tank and 2 infantry while only getting 4 of his tanks and even that was partly due to my infantry and their bazookas.  Neither of us got all of our troops on table. 

It was actually a closer game than it sounds though and was a great deal of fun.

Game 2. Blitzed by Panzers.

Tanks for the Memoirs (updated 17 Dec)

Tank fire updated 9 Jan 
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There has been some interest on the modifications Ron Porter and I have been experimenting with for Memoir44 so I thought I would summarize them here so others could try them or adapt them for their own games.  All of these are fairly new with only a handful of tests games and some have been quite changed since first introduced. Most can be used indepentantly of each other and in all cases where not specified usual rules apply.

None of these rule changes are official and I will only list the changes and not go into detail on the rules themselves which may be downloaded from the official site.  http://www.daysofwonder.com/memoir44/en/

The first reason we started to fiddle was that we were playing CS Grant & S Asquith scenarios and teasers on a 5'x6' table but using the Memoir 44 rules, cards and dice. There is always some accommodation to be made when adapting the scenarios or teasers to one's one table and rules but two things caused us especial problems: the zones and the short movement and ranges compared to the terrain we were playing on. Once we started resolving those issues, the box was open as it were and we proceeded to scratch the issue of having a difference between some of the various bits of equipment that we could field. Here are the current house modifications we use.

1. Hills.  Because Ron has a good collection of Hexon tiles, he can build nice rolling terrain and reproduce the scenario maps reasonably closely.  The first problem was that the rules are designed around single level, single hex hills. After various experiments that had as much to do with "the look of the thing" as anything else, we have adopted the following:
1. Hills. Hills have 2 components: hilltop hexes and slope hexes. 
• Hill top hexes are considered flat and a unit may see along any number of hill top hexes of the same elevation. 
• Slope hexes are considered uneven. When looking along a slope one can see into but not through another hex slope of the same elevation. 
• Elevation levels. Slopes and hilltops are numbered for convenience with the lowest level being 1, the next 2 etc. (ground level being 0) . Some hexon slope hexes are double height, if so they count the same as other slopes that end at the same higher level. 
• Deadground. When tracing line of sight between hexes, intervening hexes that are lower than the highest of the 2 hexes are ignored but hexes that are as high as the highest of the hexes will block line of sight. In other words a unit must be on the edge of a hill to see or be seen, if it is more than 1 hex back from the edge then it is in dead ground and cannot see or be seen except by another unit on the same level. In case of doubt, common sense, a degree of familiarity with real life ground, a straight edge and a sporting attitude should be used to make a decision on LOS.  
• Example. Its hard to make out in the picture up top but look at the stand with the red label next to the destroyed tank and at the ruined building. The building is at ground level, then there is a level 1 slope then the stand is on a level 2 hilltop, the knocked out tank is on a level 3 slope, then there is an extensive level 4 plateau. Because LOS is center to center, the stand could not see the other knocked out tank as the LOS would cross a level 4 hex first. It would be able to see the other tagged stand and could see across the gully to the stands on the slopes and edge of the far hill.
2. Distance. When playing various Teasers and other scenarios it was soon obvious that most were designed for somewhat longer ranges and movement compared to the size of the table than what we found ourselves with. The reverse was true of the rules which were designed for smaller terrain features and fewer hexes.
   
   The movement issue could mostly be bypassed by playing more turns although the introduction of "on the move" cards helped but the ranges remained an issue. When an artillery battery doesn't have the range to shoot all the way across a small village, something feels wrong and some of the scenarios became impractical.
   
   Our solution was to double all movement and all ranges. So far the game has felt more dramatic, terrain has resumed the sort of tactical role that we have been used to over the years, artillery can again cover large chunks of the playing board and generally  the game feels even better than before. (Note this is not recommended for playing on tables that reproduce the game board.)
3. Command and Sectors. The original game scenarios are all designed to conform to the rules structure of 3 sectors, Left, Center and Right. The Teasers we play often have multiple entry points, sometimes on more than 1 board edge or with sides approaching from the same or adjacent edges, or there is an objective such as a bridge that funnels activity to a degree. We didn't want to give up the cards and structure of the game so we struggled with various options for laying out the sectors but at last we decided on a form of flexible sector that also brought in a use for existing command stands. 
1. Commanders & Sectors: Each side has an Over-all or Center Commander with a 4 hex command radius and a Left and a Right Commander each with a 3 hex command radius. The designations have no geographic significance but are merely to identify which sector cards apply to which leader. The leaders may be placed and moved as the players require.  A Commander can order any unit within his sector but where sectors overlap a unit may only be ordered once per turn. (example if a card allows All units in the Center to be ordered, all units within 4 hexes of the Center Commander could be ordered, if it was 2 units on the left then up to 2 units within 3 hexes of the Left Commander could be ordered. 
2. Moving Commanders. A commander may move up to 3 hexes (6 if using double movement) when he issues orders. This does not use up one of his orders.  A Left and Right Commander may also be ordered as if he was a unit if he is within  the command sector of the Center Commander. Any commander may move as if they were a unit on any "on the move" card.  For clarity in these last 2 cases they move instead of a unit not in addition to unlike when they are issuing the orders. 
3. Commanders and Battle. Commanders do not battle and may not be attacked. If over run by an enemy unit they will retreat. They do not block the line of fire. (We did play with other options but there were complications re the sector cards that we chose to avoid.) 
4. ZOC & retreat. Even before we increased movement we didn't  like the ability of a unit to skirt past an enemy and the difficulty of establishing a meaningful "rear" for some of the scenarios has led us to introduce the following:
1. ZOC. A unit must stop when it moves adjacent to an enemy unit. If it begins adjacent to an enemy it may move normally. It follows that if it moves from 1 adjacent hex to another adjacent hex it must again stop. (Note if using double distance the ZOC extends to 2 hexes but clise assault is still adjacent so we allow units to move from the 2 hex position to adjacent.)
2. Retreat. Units forced to retreat by a flag may not retreat adjacent to an enemy. Subject to that, the unit may retreat in any direction that is clear as long as each hex it enters is farther away from the enemy causing the retreat. Penalties for not being able to retreat are as per the rules. (When using doubled hexes we allow units to retreat through a zoc but not to end its retreat on a zoc hex).
5. Tanks. We didn't like the "Roll a grenade to confirm a hit on X" rules and didn't like there not being any difference between say a Stuart and a T34/85. It didn't take long to find that there are too many different guns, speeds and armour thicknesses to cover every possibility and that it was really easy to over complicate things and lose the beauty and simplicity of the game. We ended up with this compromise.  ** After another test wr decided that this version did not have the right effect and was too tedious with theneed to remember which symbol hit what. We decided to revert to a previous version inspired by the original Tiger rule. In practice the diffetence in numbers of dice and hits and the rules around coise assaults and the armored assault dar gave the righteffect. Lighter tanks need to rely on close assaults with their pu breakthrough and in numbers to tank out a heavy tank.**
1. Tank Weight. Tanks may be classed as Light, Medium or Heavy. Decide for yourself which are which. 
1. A Heavy Tank (eg Tiger) moves 2 (4 if doubled) and takes 4 hits. fire from light & medium anti-tank or tank guns only hit on a Grenade. Heavy tank/anti-tank guns hit as normal.
2. A Medium Tank (eg Sherman) moves 3 (6 if doubled) and takes 3 hits. Fire from light anti-tank or tank guns only hit on a Grenade. Medium & Heavy tank/anti-tank guns hit as normal. 
3. A Light Tank (eg Stuart) moves 4 (8 if doubled) and takes 2 hits. but fire from all anti-tank/tank guns hit as normal. 
4. Open Topped. AFV without overhead armour are more vulnerable to artillery fire (see below)
2. Tank/Anti-tank Guns. Guns are classed as Heavy, Medium or Light whether they are vehicle or ground mounted. Ground ones move as artillery.  Light guns get 2 dice, medium guns get 3 dice, heavy guns get 4 dice.
3.  . All guns have 3 dice at all ranges.
1. A Heavy gun has a range of 4 (8 if doubled) (eg 17 pdr)
2. A Medium gun has a range of 3 (6 if doubled) (eg 75mm)
3. A Light gun has a range of 2 (4 if doubled) (eg 2 pounder)
4. Examples: A Sherman is a Medium tank with a Medium gun. A Wolverine  (SPAT w 17 pdr) would be a Light Open Topped tank with heavy gun. A Churchill would be a Heavy Tank with a Medium Gun, A Firefly would be a Medium Tank with a Heavy gun.
5. Infantry AT capability. Weight of tank has no effect on infantry fire. The Winter War infantry AT rules apply to units with bazookas etc. Infantry with effective AT weapons like bazookas hit as usual. Other infantry only hit as normal if close assaulting but only hit on flags from fsther away.
6. Artillery fire. Artillery fire only hits tanks on a grenade unless open topped in which case tanks or grenades hit. 
6. Unit Translations.  The following are not really rules changes just how we represent things.
1. Mortars. 2"/50mm mortars use the Winter Wars mortar rules. 3"/81mm mortars count as artillery.
2. Artillery. 25 pdr/105mm artillery counts as Big Guns. Heavier artillery is represented by the Barrage card.

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Feel free to use or borrow some or any of these ideas and modify to taste. Questions, comments, feedback and suggestions welcomed.

Somewhere in Tunisia

Today's game was Scenario 4 from CS Grant's  programmed scenarios using our adaptation of Memoir. I found myself commanding an American Battlegroup in Tunisia, tasked with clearing a pass.  From available resources I chose a Light Tank platoon with Stuarts, 4 Medium platoons with Grants or Shermans, 2 batteries of 105mm towed howitzers, 1 platoon of Rangers and 6 platoons of infantry including 2 mortars, 2 hmg and 2 bazookas. ( A "platoon" being 1 tank/gun model or 4 infantry.)

Ron's hidden defenders comprised 1 platoon of MkIV tanks, 1 of half tracks, 1 of panzer grenadiers, 2 batteries of 81mm mortars and 8 platoons of infantry.  

This was the second game we played with doubled movement and shooting ranges and once again it really helped to make the scenario work, both terrain wise and objective wise. and made for an intense fast moving game lasting 4 hours. It was also the 2nd time we used our current light/medium/heavy tank rules and the the first time we used any Big Guns.

My advanced force and flank guards (1 Stuart, 2 Grant and 2 infantry platoons arrived 6 turns before my main body arrived on the road. I switched them all to my left and probed forward towards the objective, bypassing the town in the middle. To prevent me from  cresting the hill on the left and seeing the 1/2 of his force laid out there, Ron counter attacked with his armour and opened up on my infantry with his mortars. I suffered heavily to my infantry and tanks but they all managed to pull back and survive and the Pzr IV was left in flames. (or rather was removed from the table). 

With my left shot up, I brought up my main body, sent the tanks left and sent the infantry straight down the road towards the town supported by the artillery. This touched off a counter attack which drove me back out of the town but the 105's pounded the town and as losses mounted, he pulled out. 

The village is clear of the enemy, press on!

I switched back to my now reinforced left and headed back towards the ridge only to be  hit by yet another infantry counter attack! My remaining infantry and tanks on the left  were driven back almost off the table (to Ron's frustration, he wanted kills not retreats!)`Once again I took advantage of the mobility of my armoured force and the range of my Big Guns to switch my attack, this time to the center hill. I managed to drive the last unit to the far right hand corned of the table where it cowered till the end of the game, serving by staying alive!

Regrouping, I threw most of my armour up over the central hill, around the far town and wood while the remaining tanks, infantry and guns provided as much support fire as they could while trying to stay alive.  The Germans, as always, kept throwing in counter attacks to throw me off balance and the fighting was intense. With my lead Sherman on the point of over running the objective, one final counter attack came uncomfortably close to breaking my force's morale. With luck on my side, the boys hung in there and I called up the off table heavy guns for a Bombardment and then followed up with a barrage of 105 mm fire. Jerry had had enough and pulled back. 

30 turns (60 cards) played in slightly less than 4 hours without breaks and it still came down to the wire with both sides spending the last few turns with victory in their grasp. That's my kind of game.