VL5-Chain of Command

Last Saturday, I got to play in Virtual Lard 5. I was bit pressed to fit a game into my schedule as I was working at 1300h and the game started at 0930h. I took the gamble however and decided to play. There was a very interesting Early War game offered using the CoC ruleset involving a German attack on a Dutch position during the initial invasion of the Netherlands in May of 1940. The game was put on by Karl and his son Luke, I had heard their games were quite good so I was looking forward to it. I had played the Danes in a very similar campaign game recently, and was wondering about the similarities.

Leading up to the game, I had very little time to review the material so I was quite surprised when I signed on to see that I was playing against Rich Clarke of all people....the actual author of Chain of Command! A"chance" to beat someone at their own game....both literally and figuratively. Playing with Rich was Andrew, who I could also see was quite experienced. They were playing the Dutch defenders. Playing with me was Glen, who also had some experience.

Well the game was beautifully set up and very well run. Karl and Luke are clearly experts at running Virtual games. We all know what the Germans look like but I thought I would take the liberty of posting a photo of Luke's superbly painted Dutch.

Well how did the game go. Well let us say that I made it to work with plenty of time to spare! I am not sure what got into me in this game, I am in no way a superb tactician but I usually manage to win about half the game I play against experienced players and I can not say that I do not play often. I can say that I usually prefer playing defence over attack but I have played quite a few games as the attacker. Anyway no excuses, I made an absolute shambles of the game! In the blink of an eye our Force Morale was down to zero while the Germans were still at 11. I am not sure what I was thinking. A screen grab from the game clearly illustrates poor planning.

As you can see from the above the German attackers are coming from the foreground and essentially have to prevent the Dutch from blowing the bridge. The Patrol phase actually went quite well for us with our JOP's (light blue) well placed. 

But that was about it. The troops in the lower right of the photo are a le. IG18 with a mortar team, why I placed them there without absolutely no LOS to the bridge now escapes me. Also see a squad of Germans in the road in the open....why were they there? Oh dear! 

Anyway the Dutch made short work of us and I was off to work.

Not withstanding, it was as usual a lot of fun, I met 4 players, who I had not met before. I believe the game hosts' Karl and Luke were in Dublin, Glen was in the UK and Andrew somewhere south of me in the US. I suspect Rich was in Lard Island. Many thank to all and let me say "I will be back".

Finally thanks to Jeremy for setting up another great event.

Virtual Lard IV

This past Saturday, I played in Virtual Lard IV. This event started last summer and now has increased in size markedly, I believe there were 23 games, some played in two time slots and with 4 players a game, that is pretty big.

I played in a Chain of Command game, put on by John E in Virginia and I have to say he put on a great game. You can see by our pensive looks at the top of the screen, that there was a lot of heavy thought. I was teamed up with Tom from Ireland who was playing his 1st CoC game but as an active serving military officer had a lot to offer. We had the Germans. The Americans were played by Jeff in Wales and Greg in the US, they were extremely cunning opponents. The Germans were approaching from the east and had the objective of taking the church. 

I have put a link to the scenario with John's permission here. Let us say this was a well thought out, fun and balanced scenario. Neither side new what the other had, even down to the type of platoon. The game went back and forth for 4 hours. I thought we had lost it early but we were able to build an excellent base of fire to the south with an attacking force to the north. I believe then that the "dice gods" started to favour the Americans. Every time we had to roll for an officer he was killed and the Americans had some great defensive rolls. Not withstanding though each side's Force Morale was knocked down. The Germans had to abandon their attack when their FM went to 2, while the Americans were still at 3! It was really a terrific game and kudos to Jeff and Greg for playing a great game. I am not big on writing detailed ARs but here are some photos that John had taken.

Many thanks to John for putting on a great game, for the other gamers for playing and for Jeremy for organising another great Virtual Lard event.

Rumble in the Jungle

Over the last 2 weeks, we have played a couple of games set in WWII Burma. Virtual Lard IV took place yesterday and my friend Pierre-Yves was presenting a Chain of Command game with his recently painted Chindit and Japanese platoons. P-Y created an amazing jungle terrain over 2-3 weeks and we needed to play test his scenario and the terrain. We played 2 games, alternating sides. I will not go into the details of either game but suffice to say the Japanese won both times. In the first game the win was hard fought, in the 2nd game maybe less so. We used the regular Chindit and Japanese Platoons with minimal support. The Chindits had a 2"mortar and a Boy AT Rifle, while the Japanese had a Type 94 TeKe tank, a lorry as well as a Flame-thrower Team. 

We also played our first game using Jitsi, another addition to the growing list of video-conferencing programmes. Also we also tested P-Y's new CoC Patrol playing ap, he certainly is a mother of invention.

Jitsi Close up

Jitsi Overview

Standard Zoom from 2nd game

All our gaming is with old iPhones that have been cannibalised for gaming, I believe the oldest we use is an iPhone 4 but P-Y has one iPhone 11 in use. I am using several iPhone 5's as well as an iPhone 8. The Jitsi delivers a superb image but we did find quite a bit of lag, we also found more difficulty managing the settings on the older iPhones. From looking at the above photos, I believe the benefit is marginal and I think I will stick to Zoom for now. 

The most interesting new development was P-Y Patrol Phase ap for CoC. When we first started playing CoC on line at the beginning of the lockdown, we found it important to have a direct overhead camera as moving the Patrol Markers really requires an aerial view. I felt P-Y's overhead camera always delivered a good picture, maybe mine a little less so. It was interesting to note that we would almost play the whole game just looking at the Overhead view rather then the 2 tangential flank cameras we had both set-up. As you can see above in the last photo a high oblique camera delivers a similarly useful view of the terrain but I think I find it a much better view. It is also much easier to manage! But back to the PP ap, which makes it unnecessary to have a ceiling mounted camera.

Now how is that for cool. From what I understand P-Y takes a photo of the terrain and the ap converts the photo to an orthographically correct view. You then move the Patrol Markers (large circles), the ap automatically restricts movement to 12" maintaining the daisy chain of 12". Automatic locking occurs, and as you can see it automatically generates the arcs to place the JOP's. It is adjustable to allow for varying movement, the Japanese can move 14" while the Finns can move 12" but are not limited by the daisy chain of 12". I felt it worked quite well.

Anyway that is enough for now, what follows is some photos in no particular order of P-Y terrific terrain and figures.

Game 1

Game 2

Virtual Lard 3

Virtual Lard 3 took place this past Saturday, and it was another great event. There was 14 games with 80 participants, and was highly successful.  I never got to play this time  but did present  the Approach to Mirfeld scenario.

Here are some screen shots which demonstrate the image quality as seen through Zoom.

I had initially advertised the game as a training session for Chain of Command for 2 players. Of course, 4 gamers signed up, 3 of whom are quite experienced. I divided the players into 2 teams, the most experienced player Brian hailing from Ontario teamed up with our novice player Andy from Kent. They took the defending Germans. James and Will, from Texas and Seattle took the attacking Americans. The game took about 3 and 1/2 hours, which I suppose is OK for this many players.

I will not go into the game itself except to say it was a German victory, I believe this is a challenging game for the Americans. Here are some photos, I think I will put this scenario to rest now!

Another great Lard Event, plans are already underway for VL4. I believe I will present something completely different for this next outing.