Attack on the Bridge

Yesterday, we had quite a game of CoC with an American Airborne platoon attacking a Panzergrenadier platoon. We played virtually on a terrific looking terrain that P-Y had set up in Montreal.

I played the defenders the Germans, and had a starting FM of 9. I took an IG18 IG in an entrenchment. P-Y took a Sherman and an extra squad. Scenario 6 was used with the bridge being the objective, sort of like Pegasus Bridge but with different troops. This was a very challenging game because of the complexity of the terrain but it was certainly cinematic. Some photos to illustrate the action:

JOP's

This is a photo taken virtually, amazing clarity with an iPhone fed through OBS and Zoom.

Midway positions, Americans in Blue. We have 2 squads on each at this stage. To the left is my IG gun and to the right is the 60mm American mortar. P-Y Brought on his Sherman....lesson do not bring on a Sherman within 3 range bands of a JOP. I popped on the PzShk team....3 net hits and a roll of 5....kaboom, 2 FM tests.

We are now getting stuck in, the American advance a squad through the fields in the north as well as a squad  to the road, they throw a treble6, all overwatch is removed and over the next couple of phases both the German squad and the PzSchk team break back down the road. I rush a squad along the stone wall towards the bridge, while I send a 2nd squad to take the a JOP. My FM is 4, while P-Y's is 5. It is really touch and go. He moves up a squad to finish off the routing troops, but throws another treble 6. My squad routs off the table, which is good for me as their JL had been killed so no FM test.

P-Y then advanced a squad on the bridge but to the north side so I was not in LOS as I was below the bridge. This gave me an opportunity, as I was now down to a FM of 3 while he had a FM of 4 with a CoC dice in reserve. I got a 3 on my CD roll, I launched Handgranaten! So in a hail of grenades the PzG's went in. We both had a SL, but the Americans had shock.  I am not sure of the actual dice count for the throw but I had 13 kills and 5 shock while P-Y had 9 kills and 4 shock. We actually messed the calculation up....I think I got overexcited. So we called the game a draw, but I think if we did it right, I would have had at least 2 FM tests while P-Y had 3, he could avoid one with his CoC dice but all his troops were killed, including 2 leaders,  so his FM would have dropped below 3, so a draw was reasonable.

Well it was quite a game, we really have to find a universal method of crossing major obstacles as the rules are slightly unclear in respect to how many men can cross in a phase, the terrain made it a little difficult to interpret the movement as there were so many major obstacles as well as narrow passageways. But truly cinematic......thank to P-Y for setting up the coolest table I have ever played on.

Well in an hour I am hosting a CoC Winter War game between 2 guys one in Australia and one in American, I better get a move on!

Battle of Summa-February 1940

I hosted my first Chain of Command game over the internet this week, we started Wednesday night and finished off this morning as I had to work early Thursday morning thus abbreviating the game. We played my favourite theatre in WWII, the Winter War between Finland and the Soviet Union. Most of the games I have played during this period were set in December and January 139-40, but this time I want dto play the Soviets as regulars against regular Finns. I chose the Battle of Summa, the scenario is as follows. 

I used my standard 4 cam set up, with me embedded in to one of the overview cams.

Central overview shot, the Finns were attacking from the right. As it was an Attack-CounterAttack scenario  there was an objective for each side which had to be captured to gain victory. The objectives were the 2 houses.

I took the Soviets, letting Pierre-Yves choose the Finns. I usually play the Finns so I was good with it. I started with FM of 9 while P-Y had a 10, thus he was the attacker. My plan was to advance the Quad Maxim up the road to provide heavy fire while I kept the NKVD in the forest near the house so I could deploy on the road or behind the house. I placed 2 infantry squads on my right flank to advance around the hill to get into a position so I could launch both squads using the National Characteristic of Urraaaahh into an assault on the objective. I put the Soviet Characteristic Wrath of the Gods to good use making it difficult for the Finns to get on the table. P-Y's plan was to advance on his right flank with 2 squads, and send 1 LMG squad up the road to get cover by the road block (which had been placed half way up the road) with the other behind the fence near my objective with the MMG team. Despite getting multiple double phases he had significant difficulty getting his unit on, by failing to roll 5+. I was able to shoot up one of his Rifle Squads, but he took out the Quad Maxim pretty early. By this time I was still in good shape with most of my force intact while the Finns had taken some attrition. We called it a night.

This morning we restarted the game, and before I knew it because of absolute horrible dice rolling, I was down to a FM of 3. Every time I had to check to see if a leader was hit I rolled a one and then every time I rolled on the Leader Table I rolled a 1! By now the first turn had ended so despite having much less firepower and with a lot of double phases my troops ended being shot up with multiple squads on the verger of breaking. I got the Finnish FM down to 5, but it was just not enough so we retreated. A Finnish victory. Here are a few photos.

Well it is great to get into playing CoC. I am getting in another game tomorrow night this time being played in Montreal and I am acting as a games master for the first time with a modified version of the above scenario on a different terrain on Tuesday morning with a fellow for the US and another from Australia. who says Virtual Wargaming is not fun.

The terrain for Tuesday morning

Virtual Lard

Yesterday I played in Virtual Lard II. I really had great fun and was sorry I had not heard about Virtual Lard I, which I believe took place a few weeks ago. The event took off at 0400h EDT, with the second session starting at 0830h EDT. I was not to keen to get up at 4am, but my friend Pierre-Yves in Montreal actually hosted a Chain of Command game at that ungodly hour. I understand it went well.

The Virtual Con was set up through Virtual Lard Discord Channel. There were 10 games offered in 15 slots, and I believe all slots were filled so around 60 participants. Quite a success for sure, with CoC, IABSM, WaT, SP2, DuxB and Infamy Infamy being featured.

I got to play in a playtest of a new small skirmish game which is otherwise not yet to be described. But I did get permission to take a couple of screenshots of the action. I am not sure why my hand is to my mouth in the 2 photos, I must be a very pensive player. I will not say who I played with, but with careful inspection, one might identify some of players.

Close up

Long view of the 3x3' table.

I have to say it was a great experience and what was most enjoyable was the fact that I got to meet gamers with whom I have communicated for years through the Virtual Pubs that had been set up for after the gaming. I noticed at times there were almost 40 players spread throughout several pubs. I am already looking forward to VLIII!

More CoC and Virtual Lard

I got in another game of CoC last night and the game experience really went well. P-Y changed the position of his overhead cam, this squared off the total terrain so it was quite easy to play the patrol phase. I should also say that I played most of the game from this view, despite a wide selection of other views. As you can see we have both have our dice trays with our Force Morale trackers up as well. Using multiple Zoom accounts has really worked well for us and I can see now that this is the way to go. We have no connectivity problems in 2 games now so I believe a personal account at $150 per year for 100 cameras at a time is a pretty good deal. The option of allowing player to select any one of several cameras for the main view really defines the gaming experience. Her are a few photos from the game. We played scenario 5 from the book with regular German and American Airborne platoons. Like our last game the Americans had an extra squad and the Germans had an extra German SL and an MMG team. I played the US again.

JOP's Red US, Green Germans

About half way through the game.  I had taken a pretty aggressive offensive by starting immediately advancing one squad up the orchard to the south and one to the house to the west. Unfortunately, when crossing the road my SL got isolated and shot up by the German MMG team, I then had to deploy another squad there to protect the wounded SL, he got knocked down and then drag him to the safety behind one of the houses. This is exactly not what I wanted to happen as to the east 2 German squads were advancing to 2 unprotected JOP's! The squad I planned to advance south now had to rush back to the NE. Ovals are squads and circles are teams, again green is German and red US.

P-Y was able to capture my JOP, but a series of double phases allowed me to wipe out one of his squads, and the MMG team as well as decimating another squad. I still had 2 and half squads as well as my Mortar team. My FM was 6, his was 5. I threw another double phase, it was 0100h, time for the Germans to retreat.

So I got lucky, it always seems to me that my opponent is the one who gets the multiple double phases, but tonight I must of had two triple phases and maybe 5-6 double phases, while P-Y had maybe 3-4 double phases. It clearly swung the game.

Here is my present set up with 2 overviews a mobile cam as well as my dice tray. You can see I have embedded myself in the side overview cam. I am going to move the selected overhead cam more overhead as it made an enormous difference in our game last night, time to get the drill out.

I playing in Virtual Lard this weekend, playing a yet to be published game called Packing Heat, have no idea what it is but it should be fun. P-Y is games mastering the above scenario at 0900h BST, 0400h EDT! Fortunately my game is at 1330h BST so 0830h for me.

Finally a game of ........Chain of Command!

I finally got in a game of Chain of Command this past week. P-Y wanted to playtest a scenario he is hosting for this coming Saturday's Virtual Lard event. He decided to take scenario 2 from the Rendezvous with Destiny mini-campaign involving a platoon of Fallschirmjägers versus American Airborne. They were both rated as regular with 5 CD. I played the Airborne and had an extra squad while P-Y played the Germans with MMG team and SL.

We did play a patrol phase which was a small challenge and then got on with the game, I rolled a 9 for FM, while P-Y rolled a 10, he had 2 free moves as the attacker.

As usual I am not good at actually describing the game but although I thought it would be a challenge to play CoC over the internet it actually went quite well. The photos below are all taken as screen shots on my side, this is to give a sense of what it was like to play. I think we finished up in 2.5 hours with game completion in just one turn.

This is my view through Zoom, P-Y set up multiple Zoom accounts, one for each camera. Using Zoom it was very easy for me to select the view I wanted. You will note that the first view on the top left is my dice tray and FM chart making it easy to do all my own dice rolling and tracking but at the same time making it easy for P-Y to click on. Using the Manycam Virtual Camera in Zoom on my side,  I was able to click between my FT camera and my dice tray. As you can see P-Y had an oblique view, 2 overhead, 1 mobile and 1 dice tray on his side. This all worked well without a glitch!

Most of the action took place in the NE corner of the terrain, I hope you can see my JOPs, as well as the German JOP's

The dreaded double phase, although I did well on my firing dice throws, I never got 1 double phase  while P-Y got  3 in a row, he also had a CoC Dice, which he used to pop on an LMG team and blast the hell out of my isolated SL.

At this point he had routed 1 of my squads but I was able to gain superiority in the orchard and started to march 2 squads towards his position, the Americans are essentially on the right of the screen with the Germans to the left. My routing squad is in the bottom of the screen.

The Americans marching ahead, unfortunately by now my FM had dropped down to 2 and the Germans were still at 8, I decided to withdraw.

Well I really had a lot of fun and it was great to get in a game of CoC. It actually worked well, a few recommendations came up to improve the game when played virtually but I am confident now that CoC works over the internet. Here are some photos P-Y took on his side. You can see that image quality is just not the same through the internet but a great game none the less.