Eastern Front: Storming the Citadel

This past Monday myself and Graham got together to start a new Chain of Command campaign, this one centred on the Eastern Front during the Kursk offensive. Graham has recently painted a platoon of AB Soviets and we wanted to get them on the table.

The campaign is pretty simple, and to win a major victory the Germans have to blast through 6 tables in 7 turns. Three of the tables are one off battles, but it is still a challenge as table 3, 4 and 6 can be fought over several times. We play the games using CoCv2 scenarios but tables 2 and 5 are quite novel in their objectives so we will go with those scenarios as written in the campaign. Of course, the orders of battles and supports as listed in the campaign booklets will be used. I should note that the campaign uses all 6 basic scenario types as listed in the rulebooks and it is notable that they are played in order!

Scenario One: Eyes Down!

This is played as the Probe. Minimal terrain on the table with the Germans having to drive the Soviets off the table by dropping their Force Morale to a point where they lose a Command Dice.

Forces

Soviets FM 9-Supports 6

1942 Rifle Platoon

Replen Point

5cm Mortar

Medic

Sniper

Germans FM 11-Supports 5

1942 Panzergrenadier Platoon

Sniper

Senior Leader

Game

Of course, I only took few photos.......

.....the game was about 90 minutes, it started as a bit of a slugfest and really could have gone either way but I think my dice were a little better and having the higher starting FM helped the Germans being the victors in this first game.

Summing Up

Graham has done a very nice SS to track progress.

Hopefully we will get to game 2 this coming week.

Hengist and Vortigern

Last Sunday, myself and Robbie got together for our long delayed game to cap our Limes campaign. The campaign was won by Robbie's Britons but we had planned to put together a final battle which included the two Heroes of the Britons and Saxons. 

We decided to play the Fight around the Fire scenario from the Age of Invasions sourcebook which we felt would be historically plausible. As we all know, Hengist and his brother Horsa were invited by the Vortigern, King of the Britons, as mercenary fighters in his battles with the Picts and the Scots. 

We also know that the Saxons betrayed the Britons in the Treachery of the Long Knives. The Fight around the Fire fit this history. 

I was surprised that Robbie showed up with an army of levies accompanied by Saxon mercenaries, he usually selects a hearthguard heavy mounted warband.

Britons

Vortigern

2 units of Saxon Mercenaries

1 unit of Levy Archers

2 unit of Levy 

Saxons

Hengist and Horsa

3 units of Hearthguards

2 units of Warriors

Here are some photos of the game.

Starting Positions with the Saxons to the left

The Saxons split their forces to wipe out the Briton's levy archers

Hmmm! The archers are still there 3 turns later

The Saxons furiously hit the Briton's shieldwall 

Hengist's blood rage gets the best of himself and he throws himself against the shieldwall, supported only by his brother Horsa....unfortunately he fell in battle.

It was a fun game with the Britons winning, I think the score was 20-15 which was closer than I thought before we did the calculations. I had lost all my Hearthguard as well as Hengist. Thanks for the game Robbie, it was lot of fun.

On to the Eastern Front

 

I have been wanting for sometime to play some Eastern Front games. There is no question that most of the TFL campaigns for CoC are for the Western Front with a significant focus on Normandy. All good....but playing the Soviets is always a challenge especially because of the significant changes in platoon organisation throughout the 2nd World War. Most of my gaming on the Eastern Front has been during the Winter War with large 14-15 man platoons with no team structure. Version 2 of Chain of Command which covers 1944-45 has significant changes with smaller sections and now broken in 2 teams. My previous post details some work on Russian buildings so I was excited to put them on the table. I offered to put on game with my William so we met at the l'abyss this past Saturday.

Scenario 3: Attack and Defend. Patrol Markers and JOPs. Soviet Attackers from the left and German Defenders from the right. The Objectives were the Oil Tanks and the Ruined Building.

Soviets (FM 9, Support 12)

V2 Rifle Platoon

Captured Panzerfausts

Pregame Bombardment

Entrenchment

Mortar Bombardment with Extra Phase

Maxim MMG

Germans (FM 10, Support 7)

V2 Grenadier Platoon

MG42 MMG

Ig18 IG

Adjutant

It was a good game, I did not take any photos until the end. The game was quite close with the Soviets capturing the Oil Tanks within a few phases. William was also able to land the Bombardment quite accurately which covered my MMG, IG as well as one Grenadier squad and the Rifle team in a 2nd squad. It looked like I was doomed but I was going into the end game with a good advantage in FM as the Soviets were a bit unlucky in their FM throws. I was able to Handgranaten the Soviets who had captured the Oil Tanks while throwing 3 grenades (I had 5 commands), this was enough to break the section but also rout several leaders. I was a bit lucky with my dice, it was an excellent tactical game with William aggressively attacking. 

My next CoC game will feature the start of a Eastern Front campaign with Graham, stay tuned.

Russian Terrain

 

Here are 3D printed terrain pieces from the Russian collections of 3D-Print Terrain and Hartolia. They have been printed at 1/72 scale for some Eastern Front WWII gaming with Chain of Command. Aside from the church they were all printed recently on my Centauri Carbon printer. I think the church was printed on a Creality CR10 printer. Quality is like night and day!

Looking at photos from the early 20th century, it appeared that most building were unpainted so I went with this for the rural buildings. I airbrushed the wooden buildings with Dark Umber, followed by dry brushes with Khaki, Dark Grey, Light Grey and Deck Tan. I might go back with some white paint for the window frames but that would be about it.

The fences are mdf from Things from the Basement, they were airbrushed with Dark Grey and then dry brushed with Light Grey.

I am quite happy how they came out and they saw the table 2 days ago.

Some Painting

 

A bit of a dramatic painting!

Anyway, over the last 6 weeks, I managed to grind out some figures. Here are some photos.

Mounted Crossbowmen from Bremen for Saga. Figures are from the Perry Light Cavalry Box.

Some French Carabinier Skirmishers for GdA from ABFigures.

Some Moorish Crossbowmen for Saga from V&V Miniatures (1st of 12)

I have some Russian houses to paint next for CoC.

Liebertwolkwitz-The Final Battle in our 1813 Campaign

Last Sunday five of us got together to play the final battle in our Battles for Germany campaign. We decided to go with the large version of the battle as laid out in the GdA source book. Iannick had put together an Austrian Divisions and we wanted to see them on the table.

Like the last battle in our campaign, the French were the defenders with a combined force of Austrians, Russians and Prussians attacking a centrally placed village. The final OB was as follows with Helge and myself playing the defending French with Graham, Iannick and David playing the attacking Allies. The pregame was played on Discord and Graham and myself set out the troops the day before the battle.

The game was 20 turns but we are getting pretty adept at this ruleset and although we planned 3 sessions through out the day, I suspected that we would be done by late afternoon. I hate writing reports but here are a few photos.

The initial disposition of the troops, with the French in the foreground. The Allies focused on their left flank with their initial Russian brigade quite forward as a reward for Good Scouting. They failed to protect their large artillery battery and this was taken out within a few turns by the French light cavalry.

The Austrians

The destruction of the Russian artillery

Turn 5 with the arrival of all the reserves on both sides, the French skirmishers had advanced to meet the Allied reserve advance. You can see in the farground the bloody encounters between the Austrians and the French Infantries. By now the centre Russians had suffered significant attrition but their infantry did advance and attack the BUA.

The French right flank

I think this was the final position in the game before the Allies had called it a day. The heavy cavalry on both sides had a face off just to the right of the BUA, but by now several Allied battalions had dispersed and they decided to call it a day. I believe the French only had one dispersed unit.

We did finish the game in 2 sessions over about 6 hours, I think 12-13 turns when it came clear that the Allies would fail to take Liebertwolfwitz, so a French victory.

I enjoyed playing the campaign but at times it was a little one sided. We did make a few errors in this last game, I forgot that Légére deploying in skirmish order could only do so if in rough terrain. I am not sure why I forgot this but our last game was 4-5 months before. I believe this had very little effect on the game outcome. The other problem we keep having is keeping cavalry brigades in their designated zone. We subsequently discussed dividing the table into 2 flanks for cavalry brigades rather than interposing them with the infantry brigades. We will probably give this a try in our next game.

Overall though, I continue to enjoy playing Napoleonics with this ruleset. I am not sure what we will do next but I suspect it will be again in Central Europe.

Scouts Out!

 

Last weekend, I was introduced to a WWI infantry game. I am not looking to get into a new era or start playing a new ruleset, but this looked like a very simple skirmish game which required very few figures (squad level). I always felt that WWI would not offer the best tactical game experience because of the nature of trench warfare. Gabriel, one of our club members, is quite interested in WWI and has done a beautiful job on painting some 28mm figures so I was encouraged to give it a go. I found a pdf of the rulebook which was quite inexpensive and had a quick read through...the rules seemed quite simple. I was not really expecting much but why not give it a go.

Gabriel had 3 sets of figures painted, Germans, French and Brits. They were all nicely painted but the French were quite impressive. I believe most of his figures are from the Scouts Out! digital range, very nice sculpts. We set up a 6 figure aside game and selected one of the scenarios from the rulebook. As the title of the ruleset suggests the scenarios are all of a scouting nature thus are quite tactical in nature. There is really no Command and Control mechanism but each army has some basic National Characteristics, Leaders having the ability to offer adjacent figures a re-roll and each figure's weapon having different characteristics. 

As you can see the figures are very nice, it took us about an hour to play the game and this was the first run through for both of us. I have to say it was quite a bit of fun and I would certainly play again. I might even paint a small number of figures to represent Newfoundland's Blue Puttees.