Hauptkampflinie Gebrochen

Yesterday myself and Mike had the next game in our Martlet campaign, this was our 7th game and my second attempt the to overcome the German line of resistance north of St Nicholas farm. By now the Scots Fusiliers had done what they could and the remnants of their platoon were withdrawn. A platoon from the Duke of Wellington's Own, who were advancing from the right, were sent in to take out the panzergrenadiers of the Hitler Jugend.

Again as in our last game, this was an attack and defend scenario as below, this time both sides had increased their supports by one point.

I should note that the German Platoon Leader was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd Class at the beginning of this turn for his actions in the previous turn.

He is looking a little frazzled though!

British (Morale 9)

2 SL's

Piat Team

2" Mortar Team

Rifle Section 1: 10 men

Rifle Section 2: 10 men

Rifle Section 3: 10 men

Supports (21)

Piat Team

2" Mortar Team

Sherman

Churchill AVRE

Germans (Morale 11)

1 SL

3 Panzerfaust 30

PG Squad 1: 7 men/2 LMG

PG Squad 2: 6 men/2 LMG

PG Squad 3: 6 men/2 LMG

Panzer IVH

Supports (9)

Senior Leader

Rifle team

8 cm Mortar with FO

Some Terrain Photos:

Two Italeri Houses

Houses from 4-Ground

Patrol Phase and JOP's:

Patrol Markers

3 British JOP's

3 German JOP's

The Battle(or lack there of):

German Panzergrenadiers

The ever present German Barrage

Finally they missed

British 2" Mortars

Pesky German FO

This was a do or die game for me. I have to admit that I thought Mike was going to bring out 2 Panzers rather than another FO. I prepared myself with 2 Piats, a Sherman and the AVRE. Antitank guns are not an option in this scenario when you are the attacker.

To test the waters, I brought out my support section first and brought them up my right flank attempting not to get caught in a mortar barrage if there was one. Well there was one and I was able to keep out of it twice. Mike sequentially brought on all his squads and at the end of the game he had only not deployed his Panzer IV and his Platoon Leader. I brought on two 2" mortars and they started to deploy smoke. I also brought on a SL as well as a Piat team. I was able to advance up my right flank to the crossroads and on a double6 CD roll, I attempted to cross the road. Unfortunately, I missed that Mike had both LMG teams of one of his squads on overwatch and of course they got chopped up losing 6 men before they could pull back into the woods. I also brought on my AVRE on my right flank and advanced it in order to bombard the stone houses where 2 of the German squads were deployed. In response, Mike started to redeploy his troops.

Having learned my lesson in the last game, my advance was quite cautious as I wanted to build up my CoC Dice before I tucked into the assault. After 3 turns, I had almost 3 CoC in reserve and my AVRE was ready to start the bombardment. Mike decided to withdraw his troops, he had no loses and knowing his troops morale was quite high he decided to maintain this. I still had a Sl, a Piat, 3 infantry sections as well as a Sherman not deployed.

The Campaign Tracker:

As you can see at turn 8 with only 4 games to go I have to win the next 3 games to get to table 6 and win a marginal victory, the opportunity for an outright victory has been missed. This is going to be quite tough even though I have a full platoon. The German's now have +4 on all Morale rolls, +2 on Supports and a SL with 4 CI as well a 12" command range. The Brits have a -1 on Morale rolls, +1 on supports and a Platoon leader rapidly falling in his Men's Opinion. Mike's tactical withdrawal was clearly a very clever strategy to win the campaign.

SP2: FIW

This past Sunday, myself and Iannick had a game of Sharp Practice 2 set in the French Indian War. Since it was the first time we had played for more than a year we somewhat macerated the ruleset but did get on with the game: Lesson, read the FAQ before the game rather then after! We played scenario 3: Defense in Depth. I played the British and was the attacker.

British OB (FM 11)
Status II Leader
Status I Leader
2 units of British Infantry (Regulars)
Status II Leader
1 unit of Colonial Rangers (Light Infantry)
Status II Leader
1 unit of Indians (Tribe)
Supports
1 unit of Provincial Rangers (Skirmishers)
Holy Man

French OB (FM10)
Status II Leader
1 unit of Milice Canadiene (Skirmishers)
Status II Leader
1 unit of Coureurers de Bois (Light Infantry)
Status II Leader
1 unit of Indians (Tribe)
Supports
Status I Leader
1 unit of Indians (Tribe)
Holy Man
Fixed Defense


The Terrain

The British Line of Attack

The French Line of Defense

The Troops

British Infantry

Colonial and Provincial Rangers (inappropriately in formation)

Les Coureurers de Bois

French Algonquin Allies

 The Action

The British Line stands!

The Algonquin are thrown back and their leader falls

2nd unit of Algonquin enter the fray

Roger's Rangers thrown back by the CdB while Dank's Rangers look pretty shaky

The CdB throw back Dank's Rangers but are subsequently ambushed by the Iroquois and then rout. The French withdraw. 

It was good to get in a game of SP2, I like playing this ruleset during the FIW. I find it works well with non formed troops which is what I suppose is emblematic of most skirmishes during this struggle. As mentioned above we made a lot of mistakes playing the game, but aside from briefly allowing the Colonial and Provincial Rangers to go in formation I do not believe it affected the game.

The rules maybe a little tougher for players unacquainted with TFL, and I know Iannick found them a little over complicated. They do require some investment in time but after 4-5 games (this was my third as a player) I believe they would play quickly.

Iannick and certainly others on the TFL forum have mentioned that the treatment of Indians as a Tribe is not representative of their style of fighting. I am no expert so I brought up the question on the TFL forum (I find the Yahoo Group a somewhat of a confusing place) and an interesting discussion ensued. I came to the conclusion that it would also be quite reasonable to treat Indians during the FIW as Skirmishers if the player so chose. It also appears that most players do not differentiate between allied French and British Indians so Poor Shoots is not put into play. An alternate playing card for FIW Indians follows.

Tribes

Skirmishers

GI's for the Ardennes Campaign

Aside from Australia, the United States was the only major country I had not obtained troops for playing Chain of Command. I suspect that Australian troops will evidentially get done as I have some in the lead pile for a while and I certainly have lots of jungle terrain.

The US however presented a challenge as I wanted to do them in winter uniform, as I needed someone to confront my winter uniformed Volksgrenadiers/Panzergrenadiers. In 20mm/1/72 winter uniformed US miniatures hardly exist aside from a very limited range from TQD. Turning to plastics was the only option, both Italeri and Revell have troops in winter uniform but the Revell miniatures just did not fit with the TQD. Fortunately for me, I had arranged for Dan Dunbar to paint the the figures and he is quite good with conversions as well as painting. Thankfully he was able to produce what I needed from the Italeri box as well as using some miniatures from the PSC Heavy Weapons box. The only real problem left was the lack of any miniatures with BAR's but Dan was able to hack up some ESCI figures and somehow another graft them on the Italeri. The man is a genius.

I received the troops several months ago but I hate basing so it took a while to get to them. Last week I said enough was enough and just did them. I use Elmer's Wood Putty coloured with raw umber as the base followed when wet with some sand. I then washed the bases with VMC black wash and then dry brushed this with Celestra Grey. This gave me exactly that brown-grey tone that I wanted. I then used Woodland Scenics Snow mixed with PVA glue for the snow. I wanted a white thick snow so there mixture was quite thick, the more glue you use the more the snow will look like ice rather then snow. The trick here is to paint the part of the base where you plan to apply the snow mixture white, or it will look grey. I probably will add some winter tufts from Army Painter.

I put together 2 different types of platoons as well as numerous supports. I have yet to paint up any motorized transport, AFV's or Guns. Dan did paint up some gun crews for me so they are all ready.

Rifle Platoon (+1)

The Complete Platoon

Headquarters with Carbine armed Lieutenant as well as a SMG armed Sergeant with a Bazooka Team

Squad One with an SMG armed Corporal as we as a 3 man BAR Team as well as a 8 man  Rifle team

The BAR team is made up of a 2 men, one firing as well as a loader and 1 rifleman

All the Riflemen are equipped with M1 Garands

Infantry Supports

Up front is a Medic and an Adjutant both list 1

2 man Bazooka Team (list 2)

2 man Sniper Team (list 3)

FO with off table 81mm Mortar (list 4)

0.30 MMG Team with 5 crew

60 mm Mortar Team with 5 crew (list 3)

0.50 HMG with 5 crew (list 5)

Armored Rifle Platoon (+4)

This is a platoon with integrated Heavy Weapons teams

Lieutenant and Sergeant both armed with carbines as well Headquarters Squad made up of M1 Garand  armed Sergeant as well as 7 rifleman.

Squads 1 and 2 with Sergeant and 10 riflemen all armed with M1's as well a  GI with a SMG

Machine Gun Squad with two 5 crew MMG teams with a M1 armed Sergeant

60 mm Mortar Team with 5 crew

More Supports

Regular Infantry Squad (list 4)

I am looking forward to getting them on the table.

Manuballista for the Romans

The more I go through the Aetius and Arthur supplement for SAGA the more I like. It has several new factions and battleboards and it offers modifications to several existing battleboards to make them more playable for this earlier period.

Last week I played the Britons, a very similar force of course (in respect to the figures of course) are the Romans. In the Romans warband you can substitute 6 levy for a Manuballista. Gripping Beast makes a nice little set so I went ahead and purchased it and painted it yesterday. I kept with the red and white livery of my warband. I am quite pleased how they came out.

In the last 6 weeks I have been moving along with clearing off the painting desk. I have almost finished the basing for my WWII CoC Americans. They have been a lot of work, winter basing is much more labour intensive but I am almost done.

The only other thing left half painted are my SAGA revenants, still 24 to go, I should get those done before I start my new project with the Napoleonic Alban miniatures, I have just received from the Netherlands.