BKC - with photos!

I managed another game of BKC tonight, down at CLWC with Jesse. I found myself defending again, but gave myself a disadvantage by making it a counterattack rather than a scenario where I could take field defences. No full AAR to offer you, but I did remember to take some photos!

Setup
The Germans outnumbered me still, and I had a fright when nine Panzers IVs appeared on flank deployment. My motley four tanks cowered behind a strategically placed wood (itself full of infantry). To top it off, twenty stands of German infantry swarmed on the opposite table edge. My loose plan - pin the infantry with artillery and hunker my infantry down in cover until I could bring combined firepower to bear on the Panzers.

Mid game, our armour spent much of the time hiding from each other behind the aforementioned wood. Especially after my reaction fire took out a handful of Panzers which poked their noses out. Very good rolling to blame there.

Game end, I did bring some armour round to pin the Panzers down, with limited success. By now, my artillery observer (by the red building) had used consistent and accurate gunnery to flatten a lot of German infantry, while his German counterparts spectacularly failed to do much at all. Note my small flanking force in the top right, it never really got into the game. Fear of my big guns led to the Germans hunkering down much as I had, allowing me to nibble away and take a victory - 12 units destroyed by me and the Germans at break point. Somehow, I lost just one AT gun.

While I stuck with a plan and took the victory, I must confess I had some blinding luck, so can't take too much credit for my strategy. Jesse took my artillery firepower with good grace, even when I flattened 30% of his infantry in one artillery barrage.

Lessons:
-three batteries of 25pdrs firing on infantry in the open is just impolite.
-placing troops on the wing can take them out of the game entirely.
-hiding precious tanks behind woods isn't bold, but gives them a chance of influence and surviving the game!

Next time, we agreed to try bringing the game to 1943 to move away from the 'big guns' and I might attack some dug-in Germans. I'm looking forward to it!

Blitzkrieg Commander AAR (lots of oops)

So, I got a great game of Blitzkrieg Commander with Madaxeman at CLWC last night. My late War Brits getting their first outing with BKC against those dastardly Germans. Tim used his 50% bonus points for being the attacker to field an eclectic force of big tanks (in fact, a veritable zoo including one each of Tiger, Elefant, Bison, Jagd-something and others). I spent my 2000 points unwisely, including buying the worlds most incompetent commander, pitiful artillery support, the world's squishiest AT guns and and pointless transports. Oops.

I even remembered to take my camera. Sadly, I forgot to actually take and pictures until we'd set up the board and terrain, played 8 turns each and tidied everything away. Oops.

But whats that to stop me, I'll soldier on with an AAR! My plucky Tommies were deployed closely surrounding the German objective: a large hill commanding view of a (presumably) strategically important crossroads. The Germans surged on, three formations with plenty of infantry on foot and in transports and half a dozen terrifyingly large vehicles.

Imagine this is a hill with a town on the right, all crammed with Tommies in trenches, wire in the distance and a 6-pdr AT in a concrete bunker covering the left flank.

By turn three the Germans burst though the woods, engineers clipping my bargain-basement wire and bombardment from three German batteries disrupting my dug in infantry. Later, the same the German Forward Artillery Observer would earn his transfer to the Eastern front by repeatedly failing to call in targets. Alarmingly, the British AT on the hill was quickly neutralised by the German Armour. Not good.

Mid-game, the German, a Sdkfz 251/6 (probably - it had a flamethrower) caused havoc on my entrenched troops, while the bunker AT failed turn after turn to accept its orders to knock it out. The my CO blundered, commanding his infantry out of their trenches and onto the hill. Oops.

Using your powers of imagination, summon an image of stupid, suicidal Tommies fleeing their trenches, with German infantry and armour swarming in front some woods in the background.

With a dozen German infantry units rushing over open ground to the hill, it looked real bad. But my FAO put in a man of the match performance, landing every barrage of 25-pdr shells. As the Germans staggered onto the hill, sweeping aside my reserve units in their expensively pointless half tracks (why?), he called out 'Danger Close' fire to slow the advance and give my ragged troops a chance to knock more infantry stands out. Out of nowhere an engineer Stug launched its little Goliath, a bomb on tracks. The first attempt failed. The second couldn't reach it's target with infantry in the way. The third was picked off by a precise shell from the 6-pdr - the only thing the damn thing managed to do all game. The fourth (or perhaps it was the worlds most effective Sdkfz-whatever?), managed to knock out the last hunkered-down AT. Darn.

I've not mentioned my right flank. All too painful, see. After a lethargic start, the two German tank-hunters trundled on and spent turn after turn pounding my half dozen-strong Sherman formation. They were kept pinned and steadily hammered down by some fantastic CMD rolling. Not good - most of my tanks weren't even in range. Oops.

In your mind's eye, focus on a bleak landscape, liberally scattered with smoking wrecks, which you can just make out through the smoke were the distinctive shape of Sherman tanks.

Despite it looking like a hammering, time trundled on (helped by too-frequent blunders curtailing our grand strategies) and my single artillery battery and some careful use of my limited troops thinned out the German infantry to four stands. Three would need to stand on the hill, and survive, to win. The carnage among the Shermans was all a sideshow. I knew I should have 'done a Wellington' and parked them behind the hill.

By turn 8, I'd managed to knock out one stand. One more, and I could claim a technical victory. But the German armour swept my last troops aside, and with my 2000 points down to three command stands, one Vickers platoon, one M3 half track and my off-able guns, I conceded. A major victory to the Germans - 9 turns to take the hill with losses among the Brits unacceptably high.

All in all, a great game. I really like BKC, the mechanics feel right for the era, it encourages tactics from the time and has good 'fog of war' with the command rolls and blunder tables. I feel I've also learned some valuable lessons:
-don't bother with CMD 7 leaders
-as Brits, buy more off-table artillery. Lots and lots more artillery.
-Then use it to smash the German advance far more effectively than the infantry or armour ever will.
-two German big tanks will crush Shermans which are carelessly left in open ground. Hide British armour. Or bring Churchills - damn tough they are.
-only buy transports if you need to get somewhere in a hurry.

More progress

With a very real chance of getting a game or two of Blitzkrieg Commander in at CLWC, I thought I'd finish off the few bits I bought at earlier in the year, at Salute and before. To support my Late War British, more armoured might: three Shermans including a Firefly, an Achilles Tank Destroyer and a pair of Staghound armoured cars. Bring on the German Armour - plenty of 17pdrs here!

I'm starting to really like 10mm as a scale for WWII, the tanks look really dinky. These are mostly Pendraken, though the Staghounds are from Pithead miniatures. I didn't realise how massive Staghounds were, nearly as big as a Sherman. And its not that classic issue of different manufacturers - they really were nearly as big! The tank commander was converted from a Pendraken radio operator, that will serve as a command tank as required.

They didn't photograph particular well, but they are mostly a dull green/brown colour so not that interesting! I also used plenty weathering powder to grubby them up nicely. You may note the lack of markings, I may add some later, or just leave them as they are.

Oh, look, another switch of era and scale.

I've also finished the second batch (of four) of the secret project. So some considerable painting progress in a week!

Blitzkrieg Commander at SLW

So, went to South London Warlords again on Monday and got a demo of Blitzkrieg Commander. Using 10mm early war French and Germans borrowed from the hosts. All in all, i thought it was a light, quick and fun ruleset. It reminded me of the bastard love-child of Warmaster and Epic, with a dash of historical accuracy. Not necessarily a bad thing!

It seemed to work smoothly with minimal rules-consulting, all information in one table and seemed to have relatively good balance. Those German tanks aren't invincible - especially after a battering from my pair of Char B's!

Play time was about 2.5 hours including setup which is pretty much the top end of an ideal time to my mind. We played with quite a few house rules, though not having played the core rules I couldn't recount what they were. I did have some ideas for further streamlining of the system, by trimming the number of phases. Pity I struggle to play a ruleset without thinking of how I can 'personalise' it - especially given I've only played one game through!

All in all a great visit out to SLW and really good to get a game in - now to look at how to tweak (read: expand) my 10mm late war British without having access to the BKC rule book!