Some American AFV's for CoC

 

I  recently painted up 2 American vehicles for the Bloody Bucket campaign. Both from SHQ and will join the HMC-M8 I painted soem time ago. I always have a sense that SHQ are marginally smaller than a lot of the vehicles I have from PSC, Amourfast, Pegasus and Italeri as they are more 20mm than 1/72 but I have found that this is not always the case.

M16 "Meat Chopper"

Has a quad M2 MMG set up

M8 Greyhound

Has a 37mm M6 main gun with a M1919 HMG

HMC-M8

Need a few decals but they can be placed at a later date. I think I have a box of PSC's Allied Halftracks so I will have to get one out to see how in scale it is with the M-16.

I have been recently working on 3D printing vehicles, quite a challenge in comparison to terrain. I will get a post out soon to discuss my progress.

Adventures with Contrast Paints

I bought 8-10 of these paints a couple of months ago and thought I would give them a go on some Games Workshop figures. I am building up an Elven based army for SAGA Age of Magic. These figures are from the plastic Warior Wood Elves box.

Contrast paints only, generally ok, but really to much pooling especially with the purple, the flesh colour did not work that well eiher, the browns are nice.

 

After they have been repainted with Citadel coulours and then washes.

 

So here is how they look based and matt varnished.

 

 

I have a sense that these figures were a poor choice to try out these paints on, they are nice enough  but the casts are a little weak. I suspect, I will not be buying more.

All American- Turns 6 and 7

For those who would like to know more.

Last week was quite busy, I got in 2 games of Black Seas and the final 2 games of the All American campaign for Chain of Command. We had played 5 games and we were at the last table, the Germans now have 2 chance to win the campaign so I had my back against the wall. We played game 6 Thursday evening and game 7 on Saturday morning (I suppose I have given it away that the Americans won game 6)!

After 5th turn

German Platoon: Unlimited platoons so not tracked

American Platoon 1: 3 dead.
American Platoon 2: 6 dead, 4 wounded (1 SL 6"CR w/2CI) 
American Platoon 3: intact

Campaign Tracker

Germans

Commander's Opinion +3 (+1 Support)

Men's Opinion -1

Platoon Leaders's Outlook: Sociable (+1FM)

Americans

Commander's Opinion +5 (+1 Support)

Men's Opinion 0

Platoon Leaders's Outlook: Thoughtful

TURN 6

Setup

82nd Airborne 3 Platoon

Core (Regular 5+1)

SLx2 (carbine and SMG)
Bazooka Team

Rifle Squad 1
Rifle Squad 2
60cm Mortar Squad

Supports 4
Bipod LMG Team
1 Entrenchment
Wild Card-Bazooka Forward

Grenadier Platoon

Core (Regular 5)

SL/SMG
Panzerschreck Team 

Squads x 3 (JL/SMG, LMG Team/3Crew, Rifle Team/6 men)
Supports (6) 
Adjutant

FO w/ 8cm OTM

Patrol Markers, P-Y had 6 free moves

JOP's

 

 

This was a very close game, Pierre Yves controlled his advance with the Mortar barrage. He advanced his troops far up the table and my morale started to fall. I was, however, able to bring his morale down to 0 with successive sucessful hits on his leaders thus making it impossible for him to win the game. My FM was 3 at the end of the game. It was a very bloody affair with 17 US dead and 16 Germans dead. As you can see below the post game process did not go well for the Germans.

Post-game Campaign Process

After 6th turn

German Platoon: Unlimited platoons so not tracked

American Platoon 1: 3 dead.
American Platoon 2: 6 dead, 4 wounded (1 SL 6"CR w/2CI) 
American Platoon 3: 9 dead, 4 wounded

Campaign Tracker

Germans

Commander's Opinion 0

Men's Opinion -6 (-2FM, CR 6")

Platoon Leaders's Outlook: Secure

Americans

Commander's Opinion +6 (+2 Support)

Men's Opinion 0

Platoon Leaders's Outlook: Thoughtful

I made an error in this game forgetting that my paratroopers although regular had some elite characteristics with a +2FM roll, 9" CR, and aggressive in combat. I felt things looked good going into Turn 7, what is it they say about best laid plans!


TURN 7

Setup

82nd Airborne 1 Platoon (FM 11)

Core (Regular 5+1)

SLx2 (carbine and SMG)
Bazooka Team

Rifle Squad 1 (-2 men)
Rifle Squad 2 (-1 man)
60cm Mortar Squad

Supports 6
Bipod LMG Team
2 Entrenchments

Grenadier Platoon (FM 8)

Core (Regular 5)

SL/SMG
Panzerschreck Team 

Squads x 3 (JL/SMG, LMG Team/3Crew, Rifle Team/6 men)
Supports (6) 
Adjutant 
FO w/ 8cm OTM
Wild Card-Panzer Marsch!

Patrol Markers

JOP's, here is where I made a critical mistake. I placed 2 JOP's quite close together. I was concerned about placing a JOP further up my left flank, but I should of realised that the German Mortar barrage would take these immediately out of play. Even worse was placing my right flank JOP more than 9" from the road.

The inevitable barrage

 

Despite having an enormous advantage in FM at the beginning of the game, 2 of my JOP's immediately got locked down, and the Germans rapidily advanced 3 rifle squads up the table with myself having no ability to counter them. I did have some bad dice; I did not accumulate 1 CoC dice in the game, had no double phases and every time I tested for a leader hit, I got a 1. My FM plunged rapidily, I tried to move a squad up the open field and the Germans got a double phase so were able to advance to lose range and destroy the Americans. I should also say that P-Y played a very careful and clever game, I really had no chance. My FM dropped to 1, a German Victory in the campaign.

This was a lot of fun and I suppose the best part was that we were able to finish a 7 turn campaign in 5 months, with me living 350 miles away. Incroyable!

Congratulations to Pierre Yves, his first CoC camapign with a victory and many thank for hosting all 7 games at his home and supplying food and drink for each game.

Black Seas

 

On Monday night, P-Y came over to my apartment and introduced me to the new game from Warlord Games; Black Seas. Many years ago I bought the Trafalgar ruleset from Warhammer Historicals, with it came some small metal ships, I think 1/2400 scale made of metal. I painted a couple of the ships, which I found quite difficult to assemble and really got no where with it. It all got packed away. At the same time I did buy a sea terrain mat with some islands which was really quite nice. It got stored away and I forgot about it. A couple of years ago, Adam introduced me to some WWII wargaming, but I found the gaming experience was overwhelmed by the book-keeping so I pretty soon lost interest.

It was with some reluctance that I talked myself into buying the Black Seas starter set. I am not an enormous fan of the Warlord Games rulesets, I find Black Powder a little boring and Bolt Action just has not attracted me. I suppose, I am too much of a TFL fan. Anyway, P-Y showed me a couple of ships he had done and it looked like an interesting change from paintng terrain and figures, so I said why not.

The little ships are beautifully made and are very easy to put together. They are fun to paint, I decided to go with the Spanish, I like the sky blue and red details but at the same time all ships were different and one has a lot of latitude on what colours to use. The rigging was quite a challenge (I think it took me 3-4 hours to rig a 5th rate yesterday), but I did get a lot of satisfaction out of the task. Once put together they do look rather nice.

I was not even sure if I was going to play the game but after watching a couple of videos, I said why not so I invited P-Y over. Well I have to say the game is enormous fun, there is really no book-keeping and the rules are completely intuitive. You can also easily scale the accuracy of the simulation up but the game stil remains quite simple to play. I have to admit it was probably the best new gaming experience I have had and I have gone through a lot of different rulesets in my last 15 years of wargaming. A lot of it was probably due to P-Y but interesting enough he has only played 2 games so that says a lot about the ruleset itself.

We played a 5th rate and 2 brigs aside and waht follows are a few photos. I really was just trying to learn the rules, so got in collisions and barding as well as movement and fireing. It was a lot of fun, looking forward to my next game and the release of the Spanish flotilla in mid December!

  

P-Y's 5th rate

 

A very bold brig boarding my 5th rate.

I also finished painting up the painting the Frigates and Brigs starter box today so here is my small fleet. I have to touch up some of the colours but that is about it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

First Battle of Bull Run

 

Last Friday night Adam and myself had our first trial run of our planned Pickett's Charge campaign using some of the processes outlined in the Longstreet ruleset. I believe we both quite enjoyed ourselves and aside from some very minor rules questions the game went very quickly. I think we played 6 turns in maybe 2 hours which is really excellent, demonstrating our increasing familiarity with the ruleset. I will not bother to write an Action Report as Adam has already done so on his blog.

As noted this was a test of the campaign system we had put together, I will discuss how this went but I will post a few photos first. The action in our game was centred around 2pm when the Union forces have been ordered to capture Henry Hill from the Confederates. The Confederates can place their 7 units anywhere with in 20cm of their long axis of the table, while the Union have 20cm within the bottom left corner to place their troops. We had 7 units each (6 large green infantry units and a regular Artillery unit), in 2 brigades. For this game, we double the ADC ration per brigade and gave the Confederates an extra 2 ADC's, so I had 4 and Adam had 6 ADC's.

Initial set up

I think I see confederate flags

The conderates started on a reverse slope, we did not play this any different but I realised after the game that we could of used the prone modifiers as laid out in the ruleset.

 

 

The attack on the Conderate right flank.

The centre and right Union flank advance

I had not realised that ACW formed infantry can maneuver into skirmish order in PC.

The game was a lot of fun, we played 6 turns and my attack on Henry Hill failed on the left flank, I still had a significant force in my centre but this was a test game so we were anxious to get to the post battle process.

The post game was quite easy to apply but it was clear once we had finished that some modifications will have to be made. I shall not go into detail here but I believe we both felt that their were problems addition of forces between games and the attrition process. I have this week off and am sitting in Montreal so I have few distractions aside from 2 hockey games to attend, 2 CoC games planned for the end of the week and a new gaming experience to explore which I will detail in my next post. Hopefully the campaign system will get a good going over!

Bloody Bucket Resurrected!

 

Yesterday myself and Tom finally got together after more than 10 months to carry on our Bloody Bucket campaign. I look at this as the most intricate CoC campaign available. A lot of decisions have to be made by the American player at the start of the campaign about supports and as the campaign progresses about movement of those supports. The German player has unlimited platoons but he has to move them about the combat area to support multiple attacks in the smae campaign turn. The campaign is set during the early stages of Ardennes campaign in the winter of 1944 when the Germans are attempting to take Bastogne. Although it had not snowed yet, we are playing out the campaign on my winter terrain, mostly because I like winter terrain! I should also note that in each campaign turn the Germans can make 2 attacks on 2 different battlefields and blitzkreig a 3rd if they take a table. This a challenge for game set up for sure.

Campaign Tracker Post Turn 2B

Germans

Commander's Opinion (not tracked in this campaign)

Men's Opinion 4 (+1FM)

Overall Outlook Affable (+1FM)

Americans

Commander's Opinion +2
Men's Opinion 0
Platoon Leaders's Outlook Relaxed

Campaign Turn 2B (Day 1, 0800h)


After the failed attack of a Volksgrenadier platoon in turn 2a, Tom decided to  attack Table 2 with the Sturm Platoon he had moved to assembly area B. He also diced up another VG platoon at point A at the beginning of turn 2.

Sturm Platoon

CD 5 Green FM 9

1 SL w/3 man rifle grenade team

2 Sturm Squads w/JL
1 LMG Squad w/JL Supports (12)

Pregame Barrage

MMG Team

SL

Medical Orderly
Sniper

Rifle Platoon

CD 5 Regular FM 8

2 SL's w/ Bazooka Team

3 Rifle Squads w/JL and extra BAR

Supports

Entrenched 0.3 MMG team
M16 (Quad HMG)
Barbed Wire

 

So on to the game, these are going to be extremely brief reports as the tracking of the campaign is a major project in itself.

Germans attack from B

I got a pretty narrow Patrol Phase deployment

Germans to left and Americans to right

JOP's

The first game was less than an hour, you can see it Tom deployed in the forest line but I brought out the meatchopper and Tom decided to withdraw. He was initially relieved that I had not brought out a 50 cal, I am not sure if he had appreciated that the M16 Quad HMG was on my support list. The highlight of the game was Tom's first CD throw, he threw 3x6's, Turn 2 Tom's pregame barrage support choice turned out to be useless!

The Summing Up Game 2B

Americans lost no troops (table 2, all supports intact)

Germans lost 2 dead and 2 wounded ( Sturm platoon 1-point B)

Campaign Tracker

Germans

Commander's Opinion (not tracked in this campaign)

Men's Opinion +4 (+1FM)

Overall Commander Outlook Affable (+1 FM)

Americans

Commander's Opinion +3 (+1 Support)
Men's Opinion+1
Platoon Leaders's Outlook Cheerful

Campaign Turn 3A (Day 1, 1100h)

So on to turn 3, the Germans first 2 attacks have failed. We applied the post game process as above (we made a couple of mistakes, as we were in a bit of a rush to get to the next game, time is always pressing). I moved some troops about and added 8 supports to tables 4,5 and 6, which will of course remain secret. I will have to get Tom to roll a dice to see if he adds a Sturm platoon or a VG platoon to assembly point A. He also has the opportunity to move one of the VG platoons at A to B. What he decided to do in Turn 3 was to make 2 attacks, starting with the Sturm platoon #1 at assembly B back into The Road to Holtzthum board and one of the VG platoons to reattack the Skyline Drive board. For ease of play he started with the Sturm Platoon attack. As this was his 2nd attack his supports increased to 15.

Sturm Platoon

CD 5 Green FM10

1 SL w/3 man rifle grenade team

2 Sturm Squads w/JL-(minus 2 men each)
1 LMG Squad w/JL
Supports (15)

PShk Tm

SL
Sniper

LMG Squad w/JL

MMG Team

Rifle Platoon (unchanged)

CD 5 Regular FM10

2 SL's w/ Bazooka Team

3 Rifle Squads w/JL and extra BAR

Supports

Entrenched 0.3 MMG team
M16 (Quad HMG)
Barbed Wire

As you can see I got completely flummoxed by Tom in the Patrol Phase despite having 3 free moves, he got around my left flank and as we were playing this game as the Probe scenario (get 1 team off the enemy's edge and win) I felt I was done!

Forgot to take a photo of the JOP's before the battle started but they are marked above. Of course Tom laid down a Sturm Squad 6-8" from my edge in the first phase and then subsequently but 2 LMG squads and a 2nd Sturm squad in the tree line. My only chance was to pin the them as they deployed. Tom made this hard as he threw a smoke grenade down to protect them from the centre field of fire, I had no choice but to lay down a 2nd rifle squad in the open who had an unimpeded LOS. The Sturm squad was a small one with only 6 men, so luckily I was able to pin it very quickly.

As you can see the US rifle squad got chopped up by the Germans in thetree line but I was able to sustain fire from the troops in the hedge and added a 30 cal MMG team in this area. Despite bringing in a SL Tom was unable to protect the squad and they broke. The SL escaped by hiding behind the house in the forground. It was not long before the US squad in the open also broke.

I brought the meat chopper up the road,  he was now covering the tree line and the road with the largely intact rifle squad behind the hedge with the 30 cal MMG team. Tom brought in a Panzerschrek team, but they missed. Now the M16 was tearing into the troops in the treeline Tom's morale dropped to 3 while mine was still 5. He decided to withdraw.

The Summing Up Game 3A

Americans lost 3 dead and 2 wounded (table 2, all supports intact)-Ending FM 5

Germans lost 5 more dead and 3 wounded ( Sturm platoon #1)-Ending FM3

Campaign Tracker

Germans

Commander's Opinion (not tracked in this campaign)

Men's Opinion +1

Overall Commander Outlook Energetic (+1 FM)

Americans

Commander's Opinion +4 (+1 Support)
Men's Opinion +2
Platoon Leaders's Outlook Secure

Wow, this is a lot of work to keep track of , but it is a great campaign. We are hoping to have our next game in about 3 weeks. I am very happy that we got this campaign re-started and I appreciate Tom driving all the way to Salem for the game. It will be, as noted, a VG attack on to The Skyline Drive.

Present Manpower involved in the Battle
Germans
Assemby A
VG #1 Platoon (minus 2 men)
VG #2 Platoon
? Tom needs to roll
Assembly B
Sturm Platoon (minus 9 men)
Americans
Table 1 Rifle Platoon
Table 2 Rifle Platoon (3 dead, 2 wounded)