Rommel:Kasserine Pass

We played a Kasserine Pass game last night using the ruleset Rommel. You can find a link to the modified scenario here. The original scenario was written by an Australian guy and was on the old Honour forum but you can now find all his scenarios here on the Sam Mustafa Facebook.

Here are the initial dispositions, I essentially created a map, chose my initial dispositions, I send it on to Pierre-Yves and he adds his dispositions and sends it back to me. I place everything on the table so we are all set to play immediately once we sign in.

This is how it looked on the table.

Essentially the Germans were the attackers and had to capture 3 of the 4 Allied objectives to win. They started with 6 ops while the Allies had 3 ops, the Allies had 6 dug in markers to start the game. The game was 16 turns.

My plan, as I was playing the Americans, was just to dig in and try to repel the Germans. P-Y played a real blinder by playing the Intercepted Signals Event in the 1st turn, moving my only Sherman to grid D4, and then attacking it, as it was unsupported. He had 9 units to attack with so after a few goes it was gone! He then advanced his whole line to Row D, and the battle started. I was a little surprised he had focused on his right flank but it worked well for him and by turn 7 it was impossible for me to win the game as I was down to my infantry only and had lost 3 objectives. Here are a couple of other photos.

Thoughts:

Well it was going to be a tough game for etc US as they were really overpowered. At the same time I noticed that every time I attacked I lost so I think the trick here is just to defend for the US. 

I had made some changes to the scenarios and as you will notice I changed the size of the table from 12 x 8 grids to 9x6 grids. I did this for Virtual Gaming purposes but really I think that it is too small an area to properly manoeuvre for a grand tactical game. I think further Rommel games will be full scale. 

I should also say that I changed the tracks on the German tanks from 432 to 543 as outlined in the rulebook for midway, all the US tracks were 321, so this was a major advantage. I will have to check why the original designer did this.

In respect to Virtual Wargaming I have come to a decision nexus now: Do you change the games to accommodate playing over the internet or do you work on improving the Virtual Wargaming setup to play the games as they were written? I am I think in the latter camp, for sure maybe the more difficult path. I do appreciate that there are games that just might not work over the internet, ie. Napoleonic games with 2000 figures on the table. 

Virtual Lard is coming up in a couple of weeks, so that will be a good place to see what others are doing. I am really coming to the conclusion that it is necessary for the games master just to set up the game and cameras and to allow the players to chose which view (camera), from what I understand things can work so the players can also zoom in from there end. It really sounds exciting.

Rommel: Almost Re-basing!

With my interest in Rommel rekindled, I decided a couple of weeks ago that I needed to make some changes in the way I was labelling my bases. Initially, I was using paper labels that I would print in different colours and glue on the bases. I initially used superglue but found that white glue was easier to remove. All along, I knew that I had to have a system that I could change out the designation on the bases as there was no way I could buy, paint, base and store the multiple different types of units I needed for different games. I had used metal bases as they are much easier to transport in drawers with magnetic bottoms, I had thought about using magnetic labels but could not find the right product. Here are some examples of what I did. I used small magnets to mark off the attrition.

It was really a lot of work to print and remove labels though for each scenario, removing labels always damaged them so they would have to be re-printed. I also felt the labels were a little dark to read as they were especially when gaming over the internet. I decided to revisit using magnetic labels and discovered that Avery does produce some. Give it a try, I thought.

Bases done to date.

Germans and Italians, using 15 and 21Panzer as well as the DAK symbol, the Italians have various labels identifying them as belonging to Infantry or Armour Divisions.

Small US contingent.

The Brits, a real challenge with labelling as they had so many different organisations.

I added the armoured label to those such infantry units and also designated some infantry as having the Massed Antitank Optional Rule as shown as these infantry with 88's.

Lots of bright colours

British units not yet placed in the Order of Battle, I need to order another packet of magnetic sheets.

I am quite happy how things came out, a bit of scraping was required to get the old glue off but the new labels do adhere to the bases quite well. I have a game of Rommel planned for tomorrow night so we will see if the labelling makes gaming over the internet a little easier. They are certainly much brighter.

Adventures with Virtual Wargaming

I just noticed I only posted once in June, certainly have slowed down but not with wargaming. The last month has been a real plunge into setups for virtual wargaming and after several weeks, I still do not think I have hit the ideal solution. I have however finally hosted 2 games on my own both with the Rommel ruleset. I felt this would work well as it is a grid based game so there is no measuring. The playing pieces are pretty straight forward, as you will see further down from the photos. Played my first game with Adam last week, who has played the the game before, and then I played this Monday with Pierre-Yves, who had not played before. Both games went relatively well but I suspect it was a little difficult for the 2 remote players to see the actual pieces. They can see the overall view but it is very difficult to distinguish what each base actually is and to which side they actually belong.

For the 2nd game, I got an Amcrest IP camera. It was a bit of a challenge to get it connected to Manycam but I did get it done. I also had 2 iPhones connected, one as a mobile camera and one on the dice tray. I wish the resolution was a little better especially on the overview camera. I do have the ability to zoom in using Manycam but the resolution is pretty poor, so I really have to rely on the mobile camera which is OK but certainly as you will see below, it is nowhere as good as direct photography.

Anyway let us have a look at the photos.

Screenshots from the MacAir.

Manycam

Overview from iPhone

Mobile Camera

IP at night

IP in Day

iPhone

IP zoom

iPhone zoom

As you can see the resolution is not good, but you can see the marker strip on the bases to assist with combat.

Direct Amcrest Images

This is the image through the web portal without using Manycam

The above zoomed using Amcrest, I am not sure if the resolution is much better than when it has been fed through Manycam.

Direct Photos with iPhone

Deir el Tarfa

Played this game with Adam last week. All my Rommel pieces are for the North African theatre.

Operation Brevity

Played this game with Pierre-Yves this week.

I cut down the grid to 9x6 from 12x8

I did have fun and I am really appreciative of Adam and Pierre-Yves for being guinea pigs for my first 2 hosted games. There is a lot of work to do but I found it well worth it. I just still have to keep researching cameras, I believe.

I would also like to note that there is a Facebook group devoted to Virtual Tabletop Gaming, the people there are really quite helpful and if interested in this side of the hobby I can strongly recommend them.

Rommel at the Hobby Bunker

Last Saturday, the gaming club at the local hobby store had a game day. It was a pretty low key event, I think there were 6 games set up. Two of the games called for multiple players, one set in the Sudan and one set in WWI, both being played with a ruleset called Trench Wars. Pretty simple mechanics, but fun enough, I think I finally understand what a beer and pretzels game means! 

There were 4 other games I believe, one them being a Rommel game that I set up with a Tunisian Campaign scenario. I was able to entice 2 players to the game and thus I was able to act as a gamemaster. To the ruleset's credit, this was a very easy task as I had only occasion to refer to the book once in reference to being flanked.

Neither of the players had played Rommel or any Honour games in the past and they picked up the mechanics of the game quite quickly. But what did they think? Well I suspect one player would not play again and the other may play again. They both criticized the combat grid as being a little complicated but I have to say we played around 12 turns in 90 minutes at which time the Axis player declared victory. I find every gamer different in what they want from a game, so it is a bit hard to say much beyond that.

The game did give me confidence though in hosting and game-mastering at club and conference meetings. As I have before lamented though, it is unfortunate that I am having difficulty finding players in the local community who are interested in the same games as I. Keep plugging away I suppose.

Here are a few photos.

General game set up, with the initial Axis advance to the right. The Americans are defending 4  objectives in the mountains as well as to the left. The Axis started at the edge of the terrain on the right.

The rear most US Objective, defended by a Priest!

Most of the action took place at this gap in the mountains, we can see that the Axis have just captured this objective.

AHPCVIII:Seventh Submission-CinC US Vehicles

Not a whole lot of painting done this week but I did get some more US models done for Rommel. I am hoping to put on a Rommel game this weekend, this will be our first mid-war battle so I needed some US forces. First up in the Tunisian campaign will be an encounter during the battle for the Kasserine Pass. I hate painting infantry so I will substitute in some British for the 9 bases of US motorised infantry I need. Did need some tanks and armoured infantry so here we go. All these models are from PFC CinC and are quite nice.

6 bases of Armoured Infantry in M3 Halftracks

3 bases of M3 tank Hunters equipped with 75mm guns 

A Base of Shermans and one of Stuarts

105mm Howitzer Base

And finally some Italian Tanks

M14/41 Tanks

I think we have 40 Vehicles and 2 guns. I have done well over 100 bases for Rommel now so have built up a bit of a collection. I really need to stop and polyurethane these models and bases. Once this is done I plan to attach some scrub brush to dress up the bases.......well that is the plan anyway!

Rommel: Operation Battle Ax, Day 3

Last week myself and Adam got to carry on our Operation Battle Ax mini-campaign.  If you will remember from our first game, the Brits successfully captured the Halfaya Pass but had lost Sidi Omar. The Axis lost 10 companies, while the Allies lost 6 companies as you can see below.

Here is the terrain as it was set up for day 3. I actually changed the victory conditions adding that in addition to below the Axis had to re-capture Halfaya Pass to achieve complete victory.

So I think a bit of a challenge for the British, but at the same time the Axis have a significantly diminished force with which to re-capture Halfaya Pass. Otherwise it would be a marginal Axis victory. 

Some early combat

Initial Axis plan was to retake Fort Capuzzo which they lost on day 1 one of the battle.

The 11th Indian Brigade pounded Sollum throughout the game.

British attempting to retake Sidi Omar

British take Sollum

At this point darkness fell and the game was over. The British had been successful in retaking Sidi Omar and holding the Halfaya Pass which the Axis were never able to an attempt a re-capture. The Axis were able to take Fort Capuzzo. So a Marginal Axis Victory. You can see Adam's AR and more photos on his blog.

It was quite a fun game and the scenario worked well. I hope to expand the scenario into a mini-campaign for all 3 days of the battle. It did appear to work well for the ruleset.