La Haie Sainte: A Lasalle AAR done Twice!

Bastogne Falls!: Bloody Bucket (7c/12)

Bit of a delay in posting this AR, I have had a very busy week. We played our 12th game in the Bloody Bucket campaign this past Monday evening. This was a Blitzkrieg from table 5 to 6 with Sturm Platoon #5. By now, they were getting pretty worn down as their Company Commander "The Butcher" has pushed them into a 2nd Blitzkrieg. They were down a full Sturm squad and the Rifle Grenadier team. Fortunately for the Americans, they were able to retreat troops from Table 3 and 5 to table 6 so they had a full platoon. 

Sturm Platoon #5

CD 5 Green FM 8

1 SL (CR reduced to 6")

1 Sturm Squad w/JL

1 LMG Squad w/JL 

Supports

Pregame Barrage

Panther w/SL

le. iG.18 (-1 crewmen)

MMG Team

American Rifle Platoon

CD 5 Regular FM 10

2 SL's w/ Bazooka Team

3 Rifle Squads w/JL

Supports (?)

2 Minefields

Entrenchment

0.5cal HMG team

Sniper

Bazooka Team

The Game

This was the 2nd time I attacked this table but this time I was coming from the east rather than from the southwest. The table orientation above is with the east being at the bottom of the photos. We diced for terrain and this time the temperature had gone up, so the ground was soft. The vehicles would have to stick to the roads to prevent the risk of bogging down and there was going to be no rapid movement except on the roads for the troops. 

The Patrol Phase with the PM's and JOP's are above. The Americans had a pretty broad defensive line covering both roads and could deploy behind the tree line in the centre unseen. There was no way I could force a Withdrawal with the limited troops I had, so I really had to rely on dropping the enemy's FM. 

I did have some advantages, P-Y had deployed his 2 minefields in the last turn on this table and where they were in the extreme Northeast corner of the table they were going to have no affect on the game. He had a well placed entrenchment on the 90 degree turn on the dirt road which I was quite confident he would place his HMG team. I was worried about his Bazooka Team and I was suspicious that he would have a 2nd Bazooka as a support and all though my Panther had been lucky to date, I felt it could not last forever. I also noticed that the 2 JOP's on my right flank were less then 12" apart, my Panther is a big tank (>4") and with careful positioning I could deny both JOPs to the Americans.

The game started with P-Y getting several double phases, and he started to deploy several units quickly denying me the opportunity to get on the table with some units on overwatch first. He then threw a quadruple 6, ending the turn; gaining a CoC dice and generating a Random Event. This time it was barrage but fortunately for all it fell on an un-occupied area of the table. So now the advantage of the Pregame Barrage was lost to me but luckily I was able to get on the table in the next phase while the Americans had no units on overwatch. I placed the Panther on the metalled road and the IG on the dirt road, this was a little tricky as they were in LOS for most of the American troops and were only in light cover until I could move them (a 4" deployment range is a great disadvantage). 

The Americans had a sniper in their HQ as well as a couple of squads behind the tree line out of LOS. 

It was not long before they came under fire from both a HMG entrenched on the road as well as the troops in the centre who now had advanced to the tree line. I was in trouble here and was forced to place my LMG squad in the open to share hits. Suddenly however, I got lucky as P-Y started to throw poorly on his "to hit" dice and I throw terrific "to save" dice. 

I took a lot of damage but was able to move everyone behind a house where they still had a good LOS to my right flank but were out of LOS for the HMG and and one infantry squad, I was now able  to advance my Panther with support from the IG. I was also able to advance a 2 man team with a JL into the large barn on my right flank half way up the table. P-Y deployed a rifle squad within combat range but before they could engage they had to undergo overwatch fire from my well positioned IG. The small team was outnumbered but were able to generate almost the same combat dice as they had STG-44's. They were all killed including the JL but the Americans lost more men in the combat as well as a JL and they came out worse on the FM tests.

P-Y continued to have very poor dice, and I was able to advance the Panther up the road. He was able to deploy 2 Bazooka's teams, they must of taken 5-6 shots in the next couple of phases but had difficulty with their "to hit" dice even though they were at close range and when they did hit, were unable to cause damage because of the Panther's superior armour.

The Panther advanced shutting down 2 JOP's for a couple of phases and then advanced into position to have LOS to the troops embedded in the tree line. It was not long before I was able to drop the American FM to zero, game over.

Bastogne fell that afternoon, a significant victory for the Germans in the campaign.

Game and Campaign Summary

I do not believe either of us found this final game a lot of fun, P-Y had extremely poor dice which really distracts from the game itself and I really did not play the best tactics in this game. I had to bludgeon my way to victory which does not always give that much satisfaction. I was happy to win as it has been a while since I won a campaign, I actually still have 2 unfinished campaigns on the books (Von Luck and Many Rivers to Cross). I suspect that these will never get done.

In respect to the campaign, this is by far the best one I have played as the players have to make an enormous number of strategic and tactical decisions. At the same time, I have never had to ask some many questions as there is a real lack of clarity in respect to the writing. Some questions have still gone unanswered. I find this a little unfortunate as it is difficult to resolve some questions in the middle of a campaign between the 2 players as the answer may favour one side over the other. An Errata/FAQ is required here.

I am not sure where we are going to do next, a little burned out with CoC, although I still am in the midst of the April 9th campaign. We are planning to play some other games in the short term but I suspect it will not be long before both myself and P-Y are battling it out in the Jungle.

A New Wargaming Period

About 6 months ago Iannick got me in a weak moment and convinced me to build an army for a new period: Ancients. He had even ordered the War and Conquest rulebook for me! I try to be a man of my word, so after a bit of research and one false start, I settled on the New Kingdom Egyptians. I knew that Iannick was building a Canaanite army, and was focussed on the period of 1800-1500 BC (the start of the NKE era)

Architects of War

I buy a lot of wargaming "stuff", so I thought I would start a new feature on my blog related to service and quality. I will make this an ongoing effort, but will not make it retrospective, so any company that has screwed up in the past is forgiven. The label will be "plugs", bad or good. I will give one of 4 ratings: Recommend without reservation; Recommend; Recommend with reservation; Do not recommend. 


I should note that I am not interested in rating the price as I find it has no association with value. Value is a very personal thing and just can not be rated. I will say though that this company sells Perry plastics at quite a good discount. I will also discuss price if there is a big difference between different sellers.


Well I just received a package from Architects of War, a new company in Maryland that makes their own terrain items but also sell other wargaming supplies, including Perry Plastics. I heard about them from Miles  in the blogspot Lair of the Ubergeek. 


I ordered their latest terrain item, some tree bases. I placed the order in the morning of Oct 22, got a confirmation of shipping in the afternoon of the same day and received the order on Oct 25. Please note that the 22nd was a Friday. There was no charge for shipping, so I really can only be quite pleased with this.


I bought the 4 base with trees set, and as you can see it was nicely packaged. I always feel it is important for a new company to give some thought to personalising their packaging and no complaint here.

The contents included 4 unpainted bases and a bunch of trees. I was shocked to see that the Woodland Scenic trees were already assembled. I was very pleased with this, as I find glueing these trees together quite a challenge, so all I really have to do is paint the bases and tree trunks. Fantastique!

As you can see the bases are quite detailed and are quite solid. A little pipette is included to help apply the scenic cement, a nice touch. One great thing about their website is their "How Do Guides", here is a link to the instructions for the Woods Set. This is quite well written in an easily understood style in a well presented PDF. I would also refer you to their road making PDF, which looks quite interesting, but not yet attempted by myself.

Well I believe I have solved my tree terrain problem, one base will suffice for a clump of trees while multiple bases placed together will make very nice forests. Placed together, the 4 bases make a approximately 12"x 12" quadrangle. 


Rating: Recommend without reservation


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The Jungle

I started putting this terrain together about 6 months ago, it certainly is the biggest terrain project I have taken on and the most difficult. I really am not a big planner, I wanted something that I could use for an early pacific island campaign (Guadalcanal) and also something maybe in Malaya in case I wanted to paint up some Australians. Aside from that general want, there was no plan. I see a piece of terrain and say that will work and I then have to fit it in.

I had a general sense that I wanted a beach, a jungle and something to attack. I knew that unlike Normandy or Finland this would have to be very dense. Line of sight would be continuously blocked, but I wanted winding pathways through the jungle. I also wanted lots of different types of terrain. Chain of Command is a terrific game and it caters well to varying terrain.  The TFL 2015 Xmas Special had a superb Malaya campaign. The author Len Tracey had done a fantastic job of putting together some special rules for fighting in jungles. Terrain types included were primary and secondary jungle, kunai grass, bamboo copses, swamps, plantations and jungle huts. For each of these types of terrain, he defines movement and LOS, as well as cover. This information gave me a general outline for planning as I went along.

6x4 terrain with beach in foreground and the start of some hills in the farground

I was tempted to put in some sea but resisted the urge

A lot of the terrain pieces were designed to be affixed to tiles of mdf. Unfortunately it is impossible to get thin mdf in the US, Simon of Big Red Bat Cave was great in suppling me with nice pieces from the UK.

The mat is the from Cigar Box and is their dessert  one. I used used liquid wood to give the tiles texture adding some small rocks and sand. The palm trees on the beach are from Pegasus but they are enormously expensive. After buying 6 of them, I decided to do some searching on the internet and found that you can get excellent trees from China on eBay at a fraction of the cost of suppliers in the US and Europe. Shipping is very inexpensive. I believe I used 2 different types of palm trees, bamboo trees, 3 different types of regular trees, swamp plants and bushes from Chinese suppliers.

The entrance to the bamboo forest. Holes were drilled into the mdf and I think I used 600 bamboo plants 

A jungle hut from Sarissa Precision. This hut is from their 15 mm line, a little small for 20 mm gaming but it will do. 

Coconut Plantation, this is one type of palm from China

The jungle grass behind the hut is from Gale Force Nine Battle Front line. In order to get the plastic look off all the trees and plants they were dipped in a brown wash and allowed to dry. I then would give a quick mist of a bright green spray followed by a dusting of a bright yellow spray. It worked well. The trunks of all the trees were dry brushed with an ivory

Another hut this time from Airfix. I am not sure where I got the sand bunker from. 

A watchtower also from Sarissa.

A hooch that came in the Airfix kit

The hill is dry brushed 2" styrofoam. The ground cover is of two types, some sort of moss rolls from a craft shop and then some lichen from Woodland Scenics. This worked well to blend the mdf terrain pieces into the mat

Three different tree types from China. The tree bases are from Adventure Terrain and are magnetized. Very clever. The tre bases will represent primary jungle for gaming. 

I wish I could have found some rubber trees as well, but a copra plantation is good.

This represents secondly jungle with heavy ground cover

Kunai grass from Products for Wargamers

The water features are from WorldSmith Industries

Two part epoxy resin was used for the water, maybe a little shiny

USMC Patrol

A Stuart

30 cal MMG

USMC Flamethrower team heading into the bamboo

Forward Observer

Mortar Team on the beach

50 cal HMG Team

Japanese MMG team with LMG squad heading off on patrol

Into the Jungle!

Chi-Ha

Well this was a lot of work, but I am happy how it came out. I still have to decide how I am going to terrain the paths, I will probably just lay down some reddish sand. Still have 2 more sections each of USMC and Japanese to paint as well.