Approaching Consthum-Bloody Bucket (x)

 

We had our fifth battle in our Bloody Bucket campaign yesterday. I have to say that in previous campaigns we were lucky to get in a game a month, but with Virtual Wargaming we are playing once a week. It certainly is a little more difficult in a technical sense, with one player having to do all the moving of troops and it is a little harder to judge LOS when you are on the far side of the game. But with linear lasers and the like it is pretty easy to illustrate firing angles even over the internet.

I hosted the game yesterday so it will look a little different as my setup is 20mm rather than 28mm and I have to say although my terraining skills are good, they just do not match Pierre-Yves's. As note in my last report, I decided to go immediately to turn 4 after my last loss as I felt I had to get more troops on the table. In this campaign you can move troops about the map before each turn. If moved they can not attack but this is what makes this campaign so much fun, from both a strategic and tactical sense. What follows are the German positions at the beginning of turn 4......

....... as you can see I only can attack Table 4 with Sturm Platoon 2, or re-attack Table 2 with Sturm 1. I have however set myself up to be able to attack Table 2 or 3 with a fresh platoon (Sturm 3) at the beginning of turn 5. Sturm Platoon 2 is down a full squad from a previous battle so I have to be careful with my supports, one critical change for me is that the Our River has been bridged so now I have better support options.

Sturm Platoon #2

CD 5 Green FM8

1 SL
3 man rifle grenadier team

1 Sturm Squad w/JL
1 LMG Squad w/JL 

Supports (12)

Captured Jeep

Sniper

LMG Squad
le IG.18 w/ JL

American Rifle Platoon

CD 5 Regular FM 8

2 SL's w/ Bazooka Team

3 Rifle Squads w/JL

Supports (?)

Barbed Wire

Entrenchments

0.5cal HMG team
Sniper

M16 "Meatchopper"

So on to the game, here are a few photos. I should say that as we are using Winter Terrain, we decide at the beginning of the game (before support selection) if the snow is hard packed or not. So a d6 roll: 1-3, Normal Terrain and solid; 4-6 Broken Terrain and soft. We rolled up for this game Normal Terrain which was a big plus for me, I initially selected a captured M8 and a Jeep, I failed to capture the M8 but did get a Jeep. Where the terrain was solid this made it quite a bit easier for me as we were playing The Probe scenario.

As you can see from the first photo I set up my JOP's in the forest and one just left of the road on the southern edge. All the American JOP's were in hard cover in the 3 houses. I was suspicious that P-Y would set up all his troops in hard cover so of course an important option for me was to select an IG. This time I got to go first, I had a lot of double phases at the beginning of the game, so I was able to set up all most all my troops in the forest on overwatch, I held back one LMG team and the Captured Jeep. This, I believe, made the American extremely cautious in deploying al though they started to get numerous double phases as well. P-Y placed a mortar team behind the house but was slow to place another unit to gain some indirect LOS. Finally he placed on of the most vicious weapons available to the Americans, a 0.50 cal HMG in an entrenchment, he took aim at my IG as well as my Rifle grenade team and a LMG team. Today the dice were with me, I took some shock but as I had everyone on overwatch and within 2 phases I was able to rout this team off the board. At this point P-Y had very little on the table, and I got a double phase, here was my chance. I placed down the captured jeep with a LMG team in it, as the ground was solid I was able to roll 3d6 doubled for wheeled vehicles. I got 30" of movement and made it to the road on the American edge. I rolled my 2nd phase.....no 1. I was really stupid as I should of placed a JL with the Jeep thus allowing me to move on 1,2 or 3. I was stuck in the open and it was the American phase. P-Y spent a lot of time thinking about his options, and finally placed a American squad in the house and behind the house in anticipation of me disembarking from the Jeep and making a run for it. He then deployed a PanzerSchrek team on the road and loaded up some HE (soft skin vehicle rules) and aimed. But I had a CoC dice ready to go, it was a hard decision on whether to fire or move as I had the option with my Interruption. I needed 24" of movement to get off the table on 3d6 or 9d6 of firing dice to hit on 5 and 6's. I decided to make a run for it (if I had remembered the captured vehicle rule that the Americans had only a 50% chance of being able to recognise that the jeep was in the hands of the enemy, I would have fired) but the gods were with me and I rolled a 12 on 3d6, I was off the table....finally a victory after 2 loses!

At this point, I am not able to attack with any other squads, so my only option in this turn is to Blitzkrieg Table 5.

Holzthum Denied-Bloody Bucket (3/4)

We had a return engagement to Bloody Bucket last evening, the Germans decided to throw themselves yet again at Holzthum (table 2) from table 1. We are now at turn 3 at the German position is as laid out below.

Sturm Platoon #1

CD 5 Green FM9

1 SL
3 man rifle grenadier team

1 Sturm Squad w/JL
1 LMG Squad w/JL 

JL

Supports (15)

MMG Team

SL

LMG Squad
Sniper

PanzerSchrek Team

American Rifle Platoon

CD 5 Regular FM 11

2 SL's w/ Bazooka Team

3 Rifle Squads w/JL

Supports (?)

Extra BAR

2x Entrenchments

0.3 MMG team
3x Barbed Wire
Sniper

1x Barbed Wire

So on the game. I knew most of the supports that P-Y would have but of course he could have moved some supports from table 3 to table 2 in the turn change from 2 to 3. I was concerned he would bring on some armour, I never did find out if he did or not, although he did move some more barbwire and promptly put it in the forest to block any Germans from sneaking through the forest. Of course I bought a PzSch Team rather than engineers. I felt however despite this the Patrol Phase went fairly well for me as I was attacking from the east and elected to play the scenario as The Probe. This gave me 2 lines of attack in both the north and the south to get a team off the western edge of the table and win the game. I felt this time I was all set!

I should have known that when I threw a 2 for FM and P-Y threw a 6, things might not go as planned. And they did not......P-Y then proceeded to throw the most amazing Command Dice I have seen getting multiple double and triple phases in his first several throws. I did hold back, but by now he had multiple troops on overwatch with the Germans not even deployed. I felt I was pretty cautious bring on a MMG in Hard Cover to trigger the OW, but his firing dice were just as good as his CD, I am pretty confident that is hit ratio was almost continually almost 2/3 on 15 dice. All I could appear to throw in defence was 6's! Before I knew it my FM was down to 4, so throwing 4CD. Of course at this point I had 2 double phases but of course I had no men left, I proceeded to kill a couple of Americans but then withdrew for a 3rd time from Holzthum. 

The Summing Up: Battle 4/Turn 3

Americans 1 dead 1 wounded

German Sturm Platoon #1 6 dead and 4 wounded.

Campaign Tracker

Germans

Men's Opinion -4 (-1FM)

Overall Commander Outlook Affable (+1 FM)

Americans

Not tracked

At this point, I realised that although I was burning through the turns, I need more troops so I decided not to make a 2nd attack in turn 3 but move on to turn 4.

So on to turn 4, I rolled up a 6 so another Sturm Platoon (4), so positions are as follows at the end of turn 3.

Turn 4-German Force Position and Strength 
Sturm Platoon 1 on Table 1 (11 dead, 4 wounded)
Sturm Platoon 2 were at  Assembly Point C (8 dead)

Sturm Platoon 3 were at Assembly Point A 

Sturm Platoon 4 at Assembly Point A (entered at beginning of turn 4)

Well this hope for some better dice in our next game.

No Blitzkrieg Tonight: Bloody Bucket (2c/3)

We were able to connect yesterday to play another game in our Bloody Bucket campaign.You will remember from our last game that the Germans had taken Table 1 and had decided to Blitzkrieg Table 2, this was their second attempt to take the table. This time they came down the road rather than from the south as they had done from Assembly B at the beginning of turn 2.

As it was I still had a choice between the Probe scenario or the Attack and Defend scenario. I went for the Attack and Defend but for some reason I played the Patrol Phase, as if I was playing the Probe. I am not sure why I did this but it was the first of several bad moves in the game.

Sturm Platoon #1

CD 5 Green FM10

1 SL
3 man rifle grenadier team

1 Sturm Squad w/JL
1 LMG Squad w/JL 

JL

Supports

MMG Team

SL

Engineer Team
Sniper

PGB

American Rifle Platoon

CD 5 Regular FM 10

2 SL's w/ Bazooka Team

3 Rifle Squads w/JL

Supports

Extra BAR

2x Entrenchments

0.3 MMG team
3x Barbed Wire
Sniper

Well as you can see I have an excellent set up JOP's (green), that is if I was playing the Probe. I am half way down the long axis already and all I would have to do is push one team off the western edge to win. For Attack and Defend it was sort of hopeless as to get any cover I had to use my JOP on the eastern edge, cut the barb wire and run to the entrenchment or get into the house. Since I was approaching from the road, I could of easily placed my Patrol Markers in such a way that I would of started in the house and at least one of the entrenchments! Must be losing my mind.

Anyway, not much use to dwell on it, I popped my Sturm Squad west of my central southern JOP, and then foolishly dropped a LMG team and an engineer team off  just south of the barbwire. I failed to cut the wire, so was stuck on in the open. I was relying on my pregame barrage to stop the Americans from entering the fray, but in 2 phases they had everything down, destroyed my 2 teams in the open and my FM dropped from 10 to 5. I withdrew. It was probably one of the worst games I have played.

The Summing Up: Battle 3/Turn 2

Americans no losses

German Sturm Platoon #1 lost 5 dead and 3 wounded.

Campaign Tracker

Germans

Men's Opinion -2 

Overall Commander Outlook Affable (+1 FM)

Americans

Not tracked

So on to turn 3, I rolled up a 6 so another Sturm Platoon (3), so positions are as follows at the end of turn 2.

German Force Position
Sturm Platoon 1 on Table 1
Sturm Platoon 2 at Assembly Point B (but may still move)

Sturm Platoon 3 at Assembly Point A (entered at beginning of turn 3)

Here are some photos from Pierre-Yves.

Approach to Mirfeld: A CoC Training Exercise

Today I hosted a Chain of Command game as a training exercise for two newish players. I advertised on Virtual Lard and CoC Facebook, and 2 players put themselves forward. Trevor joined me from Nebraska and Gavin zoomed in from Poland.

I went with The Probe scenario but ran it along the long axis rather than the short. We played an encounter which could have happened in the later stages of the Battle of the Bulge.

Things went well, I certainly enjoyed myself and the two players got their first actual game of CoC under their belts. They both did quite well and understood the mechanics of the activation, firing and movement fairly quickly. The American player Gavin took an adjutant, medic and 600mm Mortar team, while Trevor took a sniper as their supports. There were a few double phases, maybe slightly more for the Germans, but unfortunately near the end of the game so they could take little advantage of them as their FM was plunging. I decided on a marginal American Victory as the German FM dropped to zero, but the Americans had not got their requisite team off the table.

So the Patrol Markers and the 2 sets of JOP's are above. While some action shots are below.

A special thanks to Trevor and Gavin for joining me, I hope to see them both again.

Red River Gold, An ACW Sharpe Practice Campaign

This past Tuesday I had a great time playing a Virtual Game of TFL's Sharpe Practice. The game was put on by Will Hunter. Sharpe Practice is probably my least played TFL ruleset, I think because I found it a little slow and not as dynamic as say Chain of Command. I also had some problems understanding some of the mechanisms, but not withstanding I am always happy to get in a game.  I met Will through Virtual Lard as well as the Virtual Tabletop Wargaming FB group. I think he is the only other Lardie in this group.

Will tells me that he has been working putting together a ACW Sharpe Practice campaign for sometime and wants to test the different scenarios he has put together. On Tuesday, we had our game. Will hosted myself and another gamer from Michigan. Michael was well acquainted with the ruleset so that was an enormous help to me. I am sure I slowed down the game a bit but I did leave the game having a much better understanding of the rules.

Will uses a single camera setup with a spinning table. This really worked quite well and as you can see from the screenshots taken below the view was really quite excellent. We played a fairly balanced game with the usual leaders and 2 units of Skirmishers each and 2 formations of Formed Infantry.

The game was a lot of fun, and was a close run thing. I played the Yankees and I probably rolled the best dice I have ever done. I did get ahead on Morale but lost the game because the damned Rebels got off the table before I could kill them.

The game was a great experience and I hope that I get to play another in Will's campaign.

Campaign Restarted: Bloody Bucket (2b/2)

 

Myself and Pierre-Yves restarted our Bloody Bucket campaign last night, this was our first game since January as the Covid put any trips to Montreal on hold. Of all the campaigns put out by TFL for CoC this is the most fascinating to me because of it's complex set-up and myriad of choices. I have been really looking forward to restarting it.

I am playing the Germans, and they have a difficult task in this campaign as they are Green troops who are  outgunned. This is our second turn, each turn can have more than one game. In the first phase of turn 2, I attacked Table 2 with a Volksgrenadier Sturm Platoon from Assembly Point B, I got crushed as you can see in my previous report. Rather than going to turn 3, I decided to attack Table 1 with another Sturm Platoon from assembly point A. The following may help explain things.

Sturm Platoon #1

CD 5 Green FM8

1 SL
3 man rifle grenadier team

2 Sturm Squads w/JL
1 LMG Squad w/JL  

Supports (12)

MMG Team

SL

Sniper 

PreGame Barrage

Engineer Team

American Rifle Platoon

CD 5 Regular FM 8

2 SL's w/ Bazooka Team

3 Rifle Squads w/JL 

Supports

Entrenched 0.5 HMG team

Roadblock x 2

Minefield

So on to our game, so I should say first that we made some enormous screw-ups with my platoon, it should have been 2 STG-44 armed squads and one LMG Squad. Somehow another this morphed into 3 LMG squads and to make it worse an extra LMG squad got on the table somehow. So the Americans were at a bit of a disadvantage! I am not sure though how much this affected the game as I got a triple phase and a double phase in my first 3 command throws and had knocked down the American FM to 5, almost immediately before I got too many squads on the table.

I placed all my resources in the forest as this is the only cover I had, P-Y placed a squad in the house. With the initial double and triple phase I was able to take this out and with the sniper I was able to take down a SL (we use the TT modifications for the ruleset, in respect to double phases, snipers and OT Mortars). I am not sure how I ended up getting 4 squads on the table and this one was placed out of cover as you can see. By now P-Y's FM was 5, so it was really a case of focussing on dropping his morale while keeping mine and driving him off the table. He placed 2 squads in the top and bottom floor of the house that provided hard cover. I sent off a diversionary attack along the south to try to capture a JOP, P-Y set up his HMG aiming south behind the house. At this point the obvious win for me seemed not so obvious, as he destroyed my squad in the open approaching the house. But I was able to keep the attack up on the house and drop the American FM to 1 while mine was still 5. P-Y withdrew, Table 1 captured. I felt bad that I somehow or another screwed up my squads as they were more powerful then they should have been, but I will be blitzkrieging Table 2 with only 2 squads while the Americans will have a full complement in place.

So a German victory, somewhat ill gained, to even the score. Rather than doing the post game campaign summing up, I decided to Blitzkrieg Table 2 from Table 1 down the road. This game will be played next Monday. I will be going up against a full American platoon, with my Sturm Platoon less one VG Sturm squad. I am sure we will get it right this time.

Pierre-Yves takes a lot of great photos and you can see his beautiful terrain and figures on his Facebook page.

Battle of Summa redux

I hosted a Winter War game yesterday morning over the internet, but this time I was the games master. I have only acted as a games master once before at a minor event some years ago at my local gaming store. I advertised on the Virtual Lard Discord Server, and got 2 players within half an hour. One player was in the state of Victoria in Australia and the other was in Massachusetts. We started at 0900h EDT, I believe it was 2300h in Australia! 

I had sent out the gaming materials through Discord, so both Noah and Will were well prepared. This was a rehash of the game myself and P-Y played a few days ago, but there were extensive changes made to the terrain with some minor changes to the OB.

In addition to the above, I allowed each player to take 2 extra points, Noah (Soviets) took a Pre-game Barrage and Will appropriately took a CoC dice. It took about 4 hours to play and aside from some minor hiccoughs with the Patrol Phase, it is a little unusual in scenario 7, things went well. As the game went along I made suggestions to both players, which I think was OK. I will post some photos of the action.

Finns attacking from the farground.

Getting ready to attack through the gulch

But the Soviets are ready

Russian trucks, one with a Quad Maxim and one with a squad of NKVD

Effective Finnish use of smoke pots to protect their advance

Finnish LMG squad in the open down to their last JL.

A well ordered Soviet defence with a infantry squad and a Maxim

The Finns decide to attack, but the Soviets are on overwatch

Strangely enough the Finns survived the overwatch fire as they charged in with Rynnäkköön!, but superior Soviets numbers eliminated the Finnish attackers and  many FM tests caused their FM plunged to zero, a Soviet Victory. 

I am hoping both players enjoyed the game, I think it was 0300h in Australia when we finished, so Noah must of been a little tired. I also have to admit being a little done in as I had played/gmed 8 hours of CoC in 16 hours! I really enjoyed the experience and I am sure I will set up some more games. As I work shifts and am usually more often available during the day Virtual Gaming has been really working for me, especially with players in other time zones to the east. I am finding it extremely difficult to play in the evenings and am limiting myself to a max of one evening game a week.