Wvyern All Dayer - Chain of Command

July brings another all-dayer up at a Wyvern, and Ade was kind enough to bust out his massive 15mm WWII Normaspndy collection. We played the first day of Operation Epsom using Big Chain of Command - the first day of the assault on 26 June 1944 by the two platoons from the 15th (Scottish) Infantry Division supported by Churchill tanks.

Connor, Gav and I took the three British platoons agains a well dug-in two SS platoons commanded by Seasoned CoC players Ian and Bob. Ade was kind enough to umpire.



The town of Raurey (?) somewhat worse for wear after the naval and artillery bombardment.

The end of the patrol phase - a respectable attempt to reach the hedge line. But not wuite'a out jump-off points were thrown back and the Germans were in deployment range of it.

The game had a foreboding start , with this as Ian's Command Dice roll - so much for out preliminary barrage!

British troops cautiously approach the hedge line. The SS pioneers had done good work and were well dug in. A merciless fire erupted from the defensive positions and the morning mist meant the British couldn't bring their firepower to bear. The advance section was quick,y beaten back.

As the mist rose, the armour finally make an appearance, having been held up at a minefield on the way from the beaches. 

Churchill crocodile does its work on the makeshift bunker, and the Germans wisely withdraw

Fwoosh!

In the face of all the British armour, the Germans melt away from the hedgeline and a general advance begins.

But with caution and wisely so. Two panzershreck ambushes fair to take out the hulking Churchills, and the teams are scattered by British reaction fire. 

Sporadic fire continues, and British morale is shaken. But they reach the minefields and a Sherman flail begins to clear a path.

But the surviving Germans strike with their Panzerfausts, starting the collapse of British morale.

A cagey game all in all, it felt like the British should have had the resources to smash through, but despite a reasonable tactical approach, the dug in and elite German platoons were just too tough a nut to crack. Also completely a game of two halves - the first dominated by Ian's above average rolling and Connor's impressive ability to roll kills for his own troops. But once the British armour rolled on, the Germans were reduced to hit and run attacks from the hedgeline while the Brits leapfrogged onwards to try to engage them. It felt like it went to the wire, but the loss of the Sherman and a lucky shot killing my platoon leader sent us packing. Well played by Bob and Ian and as Walsh, Ade out on an excellent, highly historical and challenging scenario. Cheers to all!

Also on the day, Dane and Chris had a great looking American War of Independence game in 10mm - I gather the British same out on top twice on the day.

Terrain-athon

It's been a pleasant summer over the past few weeks, and I've realised I haven't put brush to miniature for over a month. While my painting hole is a cooler room in the house, the paint still dries too quickly to suit me. 

Instead, I've hit the terrain. I had a therapeutic week building up 15mm 4Ground WWII buildings. They are really fine pieces, and ready for the tabletop, but still need the edges touching up and some details adding. 

I've also churned out a bunch of small pieces that I've picked up over the months, ready for a game of 15mm CoC at Wyvern last weekend. First up 12 entrenchments for small and medium FoW bases. Well priced and I appreciated that they are all different sculpts. Thanks to Mike Whitaker of troubleatthemill for the tip on these, sourced from Daemonscape on eBay for the princely sum of £4.99.

For scale, with apologies for the lighting

More defensive works - barbed wire at 2"x6" for Flames of War. Mdf bases from Warbases, toothpicks and some hobby barbed wire. 

Next up a small copse of trees. These were from a bag of cheap Noch railway modelling trees, which means they aren't that durable and the flock is starting to bald already. Don't think they'll last that long, but I've loads of better woodland scenics armatures to build up at some point.

Last up for the 15s, some Landmark high walls that were on discount at Timecast, giving me 6' of walls. 

A nifty sidestep to 28mms, I saw these nice cypress trees in the local (usually pretty mediocre) model railway shop. They were only £1.50 each too. Based for my 28mm terrain, they'll go nicely in Spain.  

Last up, harking back to some of the first terrain I ever bought, I finally, finally painted the rest of my 28mm roads and junctions. I never loved these: while keenly priced and well detailed, they are a bit too chunky for what I was after and needed a lot of work to tidy them up. The originals feature in one of my first ever blog posts - so these have been sat awaiting the brush for at least 4 years! Once painted, they  make a decent large rural roadway though. I took an opportunity to refresh the original ones, re-touching the rocks and flock to match my terrain from the last few years. 

Last Sunday I got in a good game of Chain of Command with Ian up at the club. I took a small but powerful US Para platoon while Ian defended a farmhouse with Panzergrenadiers.

With precious few support points, I settled for a .50 cal.

And immediately emplaced it on a dominating hilltop overlooking Alan's jump-off points. 

I'd be outnumbers and outgunned, so wanted to hit the PG's hard at the outset, but my first section was stalled facing two. We mad an error here and interpreted the walling as hard cover - soft would have made a more sensible game. The .50Cal was valued support, but didn't do the damage that I'd been hoping and a static grinding firefight ensued. 

My second section moved to encircle the farmhouse, but Ian dropped his third into the farm itself, where it would be difficult to shift. This section took a battering as they tried to work their way out of the line of fire. 

Eventually, the Para's brutal firepower and more consistent activations meant they could grind the Germans' morale down. A well timed assault by one of my sections, followed by a sub-optimally timed one by Ian (assaulting a section that just unpinned on the turn end...) closed the game with a narrow US victory. 

I really should play more Chain of Command - it's been a few months! 

Challenge Distractions: Terraining

Keen-eyed followers of the AHPC may have noticed a drop-off in my productivity. As in 'dropped off a cliff'. After finishing the Carabineros I fancied a change, so hit the terrain as a 'brief' diversion. Too many days later, I've finished off these Jump-off Points for 15mm Chain of Command, era-appropriate supplied mounted on 40mm round mdf bases. 

These are really nice pieces, a set called 'stacked supplies' from Baueda, though I got mine from Magister Militum, who charged rather less postage. 

I have submitted them to Mr Campbell, as much to mark my lack of productivity, but he will no doubt 'zero' them as terrain pieces. Still, glad to get these off the table as CoC gets played regularly so I should really get fully equipped for it. 

I've also been building some new terrain fitting for the Spanish peninsula: some rows of vines to make a vineyard. While I have quite a bit of suitable terrain, it's due a refresh, I figure these will help evoke the region and nicely break up line of sight. 

They've progressed slightly more and are now ready for painting. Should be a quick job. With a 28mm Empress sculpt for scale. 

That's it for this week, but rest assured I've been trying to paint miniatures since - ready for the final challenge frenzy. 

Merry Christmas everyone

Just a quick post to join in the chorus of 'Merry Christmas!' posts. I hope each and everyone one of you enjoyed days filled with happiness, wherever you are or however you spent it. 

Image credit

I had a good hobby Christmas, with Sudan reading material from the mother-in-law, a paint station from the wife and of course the annual Secret Santa organised by Ian and Cath. Santa kindly sent the 15mm Germans some armoured support with what appears to be a Peter Pig PzIV platoon. One looks a bit worse for wear from allied bombing though.

Thanks very much Santa - excellent choices!



Christmas brings a pause from the brushes, but I hope to be back at it soon. 

Recent AARs: Chain of Command and Pulp Alley

Happily, I  can report that regular gaming continues. At the last Wyvern Wargamers club night a fortnight ago, Ade put on another well-researched game of Big Chain of Command using his extensive collection, this time representing the second British assault at Rauray in June 1944. I took on a British infantry platoon supported by Bob's Shermans on a worryingly open board. We were tasked with seizing the crossroads, opposed by Ian and Matt with two reduced Germans panzergrenadier platoons and a Big Cat: Ade assured us this was evenly matched!

The ever-fun patrol phase left it something like this:



A last minute shuffle of a marker to the right came up trumps: giving the Geramns no options for a Jump Off Point on our right and forcing them back to the village crossroads. I opted to move in force against the  the right flank where they'd be covered by the roods ahead, using a JOP on the right board edge.

Turn one and the first double-6: half the platoon emerged from the field and started the advance.

The Germans brought out their Panther early to seize the crossroads while a section took up residence in the town.

Bob's armour moves up, the outgunned and out-armoured Shermans looking to avoid the sights of the Panther

My two infantry sections make their move: trading fire with a panzergrenadier section across a road.

In the nick of time, the British mortars opened up, bang on target over the crossroads. Through some terrible luck on the German side and a series of double-6's by Bob and I, the mortar barrage fell again and again, pinning the majority of the Germans defenders and all but one of their Jump-Off Points. This game Bob and I free reign to maneuver and brig firepower to bear where needed.

This was a fine example of a well-orchestrated assault by infantry and armour with mortar support. But unfortunately, it didn't give a good game for either side: the German inability to lift the barrage meant I could rout the Germans outside of the barrage through weight of numbers, while Bob maneuvered his Sherman Fireflies to get both in sight of the Panther for when the barrage lifted. Once it did, the Germans were in no state to repel the assault and their dangerous Panther quickly took a battering (more double-6's and double-phases by Bob) and bailed out.

What should have been a great game ended up being too one-sided from a well-timed barrage and devilish luck from then on. So apologies to Matt and Ian. While I enjoy Chain of Command for the friction that it offers, but unfortunately, if a system builds in friction, sometimes the dice lead to unfortunate, overly one-sided situations. Which is why I think playing it a linked campaign works really well - the dice even out over the course of the campaign  Sorry Ade - but thanks for hosting and umpiring!

Also at the Club, Carl put on a Black Powder American War of Independence game with an impressive collection on the table. The British battalions looked very fine indeed marching through the verdant terrain.

Last weekend brought an impromptu game of Pulp Alley with my brother Gharak. We've not gamed anything beyond miniature board games for a while, but the beauty of Pulp Alley is the speed and ease of getting minis onto the table.

We threw together a fairly simple 'search for the temple' scenario, with two competing leagues of heroes looking to open up its mysteries and explore the interior in a second game. All of the minis and terrain are from Gharak's fine Pulp collection. 

My dastardly League of Nasty People, led by man of mystery 'The Suit'

The heroic Butch O'Sullivan's with today's companions

The two leagues face off in the foreground, with the temple entrance to the North. The kapok represents mist rolling up and down the river, which blocked line-of sight.

Butch O'Sullivan's men, made the Temple outskirts first, taking up good positions to fell the my League of Nasty People as they approached.



With his mercenary allies out of the fight, a dash by 'The Suit' ends in a scrap by the last plot point', equipment left by the last expedition. O'Sullivan takes the prize and enters the temple

Cue eerie music

In true Pulpy fashion, there are traps and puzzles, as well a temple guardians. I used the 'weird' Pulp Alley supplement to make up some rather hard to kill mummies,

The Mexican extuinguishes the first brazier of Flames That Need to be Extinguished Before our Heroes can Advance Further.



O'Sullivan's street kid charges up to face the mummies on their platform, but is quickly felled.

Around this point, we realised that I'd made the mummies rather too tough - they could essentially shrug off most hits and each had as many hit points as a hero. And as they were graded 'sidekicks', they hit pretty hard too (not helped that I couldn't see an obvious way of removing their ranged attack without using more skills slots, so for the sake of argument they 'had magic' and could fire back against the heroes' guns!).

The temple guardians chewed through the heroes, until they cornered Butch O'Sullivan himself. H did manage to take one out, but the other two wore him down - this temple remains un-looted for now!

Phew! Sunday brings the next game in Bob and I's '29 Lets Go!' CoC campaign - here's hoping my American can keep their push up!

Pre-Challenge: 15mm Terrain

Hello hello all!

While the gaming blogosphere has been abuzz with clearing the decks before the Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge starts, things have been a bit quiet here. It hasn't been the most productive few weeks, but I have been pootling away and kept up with a game every week or so.

With Chain of Command as the ruleset of choice and 15mm the most popular scale, I felt it would be good to sort out some terrain before the challenge starts. Years of hoarding meant I had plenty of supplies for a few hedges:



And a few more....

...and more:

A total of 7 feet of hedge using Woodland Scenics clump foliage and under bushes and small scale in various shades with some small tree armatures. All based on giant craft lolly sticks built up with wood filler. Plus a foot or so of 10mm dry stone walling from Hovels.

But wait, that's not it! I also based up some 'Hallmark' low walls from Timecast. Really nice prepainted pieces at a fair price, though a bit unstable to use out of the box. So they went on lolly sticks too, got a wash or two to tie them closer to the farmhouse and got some groundwork to finish them off.

The farmhouse itself is from 4Ground. I'll go back at some point to tidy up the burnt edges and grubby it up a little. I've also got the threshing barn and stables built and ready for the table.

Some good fortune with the size of the giant lolly sticks plus a bit of head scratching meant I managed to get them to fit snugly either straight or at right angles by clipping the ends to a 90 degree (ish) corner.

All in all, a fairly good start at the terrain, I can also borrow a few bits from the 28mm collection. But realistically, I could probably do with two or three times the length of hedge for a 6'x4' board, including some of the dreaded bocage. But that can wait until spring now.

The other recent focus has been on preparing for the Challenge, which started this morning. This weighty sack of lead that turned up the other week from Empress' SCW range certainly kept me busy. In the end, I only managed to prep  a third of it!



Oh, one more thing - my brother Gharak has picked up the brushes again after an 18 month hiatus. Welcome back bro! Check out his blog if you're interested in Pulpy stuff - he's rather a good painter.