Attack on the Settlement

 

Last night myself and Pierre-Yves got together for a FIW game using Muskets and Tomahawks. I had planned to have a game of "O" Group but I forgot to bring the terrain to Montreal! I did not have a whole lot of time to plan nor do I have a lot of terrain for FIW here, but I made do.

All the photos were taken at game end, my deployment edges were the near and far  ends of the table. P-Y had to place one deployment point in the settlement and he placed one on the hill on the near left of the photo. Once the red clock card came up I placed the 2 withdrawal points, one being next to a deployment point in the right foreground and one being on the right edge.

We decided on a 400 point game with the scenario being set in a civilised area. I won the toss and decided to play the French Attacker. My goal was to occupy the settlement with no opponents within 4" while P-Y had to get half the civilians off the table.

French

Compagnie Franches de la Marines Officer

Compagnie Franches de la Marines-2 units of 8 men

Sachem

Indian Veteran Warriors-2 units of 6 men

Milices Canadiennes- 1unit of 6 men

British

British Infantry Officer

British Infantry-2 units of 8

Ranger Officer

Rangers-2 units, one of 8 men and one of 7

Elite Indian Warriors-1 unit of 6 men

Civilians-10 and a priest.

We struggled a bit as we had not played the rules for sometime but after about an hour things got going and we played for about 3 hours in total with P-Y getting a clear victory. The weird thing about the game is although we have played quite a few games it is the first time we actually played in person!

Anyway it was a lot of fun, the ruleset gives a good and challenging game. I will not bother to do a report but here are some more photos taken at the end of the game.

These civilians were well escorted by a large unit of Rangers

Really did not do much with my infantry

My Indians got thumped by the British allied Warriors

Desperate attempt near the end of the game to get my milice in the settlement.

Normandy Campaign-Saint Auban-sur-Mer

This past week, we had our 2nd battle in the Normandy campaign at Saint Aubain-sur-Mer with German Kp.5.IR.736.ID.716 (zug #2) defending against a platoon from the British 3rdID/2.

Here are some photos of the table set up, we played the 3rd scenario from the CoC main book "Attack and Defend".  In this game the Germans are tasked with defending the regimental headquarters of IR716 just on the outskirts of Saint Aubain-sur-Mer in a walled chateau. This is bocage country, so lots of hidden movement possible as well as hard cover all around. 

Gestapo officer, Colonel Puntanesca

Bocage Alley

Overview

British attacking from the left

We played the patrol phase on P-Y's ap, this worked very well.

I felt Jur got the better of me in the Patrol Phase

Forces

British 3rd Infantry Division (platoon #2)

FM 8

Supports 6

Standard British Rifle Platoon

Sherman

German Kp.5.IR.736.ID.716 (zug #2)

FM 10

Supports 3

Standard German Grenadier Platoon

Sd.Kfz. 250

The Game

The Brits advance is rapid, they make excellent use of their smoke and advance their green squad through the field with support from their blue squad behind the bocage in hard cover. The Germans counter by placing their yellow and green squads behind the stone wall of the chateau.

The Brits also deploy their blue squad to advance on their right flank, unfortunately the Germans can not get their third squad on the table to counter as the Brits have had multiple back to back phases. They have also deployed their Sherman to the centre.

The Germans move their yellow squad to counter this threat on their left flank but as you can see their green squad is taking a pounding.

The Germans finally get their MMG armed Sd.Kfz 250 in close range but it does little to the British blue squad behind the hedge that has now denied the German left flank JOP to them.

The German green squad beats a tactical retreat, this is a campaign after all.

The Brits have brought up their Sherman behind the bocage , they can now rain HE on the German blue squad that has deployed behind the charteau wall to counter the threat on their right flank. But the Germans have 2 CoC dice and spring an Ambush with their Panzerschreck team. They are pretty close but the Sherman is obscured, they need a 8 to hit, they roll 2d6.....two 4's. The ATW makes quick work of the Sherman with their 13d6 AP against the Sherman's 6 armour. Jur rolls a 6, the Sherman blows up....the British FM is plunging. 

The German blue squad JL has taken a hit, the German SL runs to get in command range.  They fire at the depleted British green squad in the field.....

.....they break and fall back interpenetrating the blue squad behind the bocage , shock piles up. The British FM falls to 4 while the Germans are at 8 still. The players have lost 11 figures per side, it has been a bloody battle. The Brits withdraw to fight another day.

Butcher's Bill

British Platoon #2 (3rd ID)

FM 4

5 dead, 3 missing

CO -1

MO -2

German Kp.5.IR.736.ID.716 (zug #2)

FM 8

3 dead, 2 missing

CO +1

MO +1

Tactical Decisions

yet to be decided!

Vietnam-Viet Cong

I have been wanting for some time to do some 28mm modern warriors. I am quite happy with 20mm in WWII but I do look at some of the fantastic WWII figures that are out there. Having been a teenager during the Vietnam War, it is the fist war I remember watching on TV and have always enjoyed watching post-hoc documentaries on the conflict. Certainly one thing it cemented in my world view that you are never going to win a nationalistic war fought 1000's of miles from your country. 

I am still having a lot of difficulty making a decision on what ruleset I would like to use to game the Vietnam War. I have limited myself because I have decided to go with 28mm figures and a 6x4' table with no higher than platoon based and maybe squad sized actions. I recently bought the BOHICA ruleset, looks interesting but certainly a different mechanic to which I am accustomed. There is a CoC variant for platoon sized games called DMZ and I have been also looking at the Ambush Alley Vietnam variation. So there is some choice.

There appears to be 4-5 manufacturers of 28mm metal Vietnam figures, with Gringo 40's and Empress Miniatures being the leading contenders. I am not that super excited by hard plastic figures but Rubicon recently came out with 2 boxes of figures which are certainly much cheaper than the metals and since this was a trial project I felt this would be a more appropriate starting point for me so I bought their VC and USMC boxes.

Once I opened the boxes I was really quite impressed, over 30 figures in each box with multiple variations with pose and weapons as well excellent instructions. They were pretty easy to put together, maybe a little less then 2 hours for the 10 figures below. I had no problem using Tamiya plastic cement despite be supposed to be using Tamiya ABS cement. The figures were sprayed white and then painted using Citadel Contrast paints with acrylic highlights. They were a pleasure to paint and below you can find my first VC squad. They are equipped with rifles, assault rifles and 2 different types of SMG's. There is also a squad leader with a pistol and I can also make a radio operator figure as well as RPG equipped possibility. As you can see there are both male and female fighters.

Next up will be the USMC.

Baptism of Fire-KmH

HMS Indefatigable

This past Thursday, myself and P-Y had another Kiss Me, Hardy game over discord. This time I hosted the game. We decided to play another scenario from the TFL magazine, this one written by Rich Clark. In "Baptism of Fire", we have a scenario with single ships. The scenario was taken from CS Forester's first Horatio Hornblower book, where two 5th rates decide to engage. We see the HMS Indefatigable spot a French frigate in the Bay of Biscay. Victory conditions are to capture the other ship, sinking it would be a less than satisfactory achievement.

HMS Indefatigable

32 guns (4d6 broad sides, 1d6 bow and stern chasers)

Crew-Elite Jolly Jack Tars (fervently determined, boarding party)

Speed 14cm (foul bottomed)

32 DP

Le Frigate

40 guns  (5d6 broad sides, 1d6 bow and stern chasers)

Crew-Average Sans Culottes

Speed 15cm

40 DP

Our combatants, I have a large Spanish fleet already rigged as well as some Scandinavian  ships, so I had to quickly paint up 2 frigates from my Black Seas spares. I am sure you will note the lag of rigging as well as the missing staysails. I have to say I found it quite a struggle to even string up the colours. My apologies, as I sure this will disturb some, but I enjoy gaming over modelling!

Starting positions for the 2 ships and the wind direction.

I added 3 random islands to the terrain to make the sailing a little more complex, we can see our 2 ships heading south but where are they heading?

Well, it looks like the Brits are planning to swing around the island in order to bring their starboard guns into action. Their sailing ability is much better than the French so they should easily be able to tack back into the wind. The French have decided to keep the wind to their backs and are sailing north of the island on a westerly direction.

Despite the ability of the Brits to tack, the chits come up allowing the French to fire their cannon first. Both players focussed fire on the rigging as the goal was to capture the opposing ship rather than destroy it. A slow ship is certainly a little easier to board.

The French were able to get behind the Brits, sustained fire from both sides. By now, the French were slowed to 7cm and had lost their main mast while the Brits were still sailing at 11 cm. Both ships were at less than 50% of their original DP. The Strike Test chit came up, the Brits passed, the French failed. Le Frigate was captured, Midshipman Hornblower sees his first victory!

So it was a fun game again, we got somethings wrong at the start so we restarted the game, despite this we got a clear victory within 2 hours of gaming. we have a few questions which I will post on the FB group. The game is a lot of fun and I believe I enjoy it more than Black Seas. We may house rule a few things to ease the game along specially when being played over the internet.  

Normandy Campaign-Lion-sur-Mer

About a month ago, I discovered on the CoC FB page that a CoC player in the Netherlands was planning a massive campaign involving the Normandy Landings in June of 1944. I got in contact through Discord, where the campaign lies, with Jur who is organising the campaign. I am still not sure of the total scope of the project but I know it will be played out over 3 beaches with multiple planned games. All the Allied positions had been taken but I was able to secure one the German company commanders. If I have it right, I have 3 platoons of IR716. They are presently defending Lion-Sur-Mer (/3), Douvres-la-Délivrande (/1) and Saint-Aubain-sur-Mer (/2). 

Yesterday I had my first battle in the campaign at Lion-our-Mer with IR716/3 defending against a platoon from the British 3rd Infantry Division. We played the game on my Discord and although this was Jur's first virtual tabletop Wargame, it went quite well.

Here are some photos of the table set up, we played the 3rd scenario from the CoC main book "Attack and Defend". 

The British are attacking from the left.

We played the patrol phase on P-Y's ap, this worked very well.

Forces

British 3rd Infantry Division (platoon #1)

FM 9

Supports 3

Standard British Rifle Platoon

German 10.Kp.IR.736

FM 9

Supports 1

Standard German Grenadier Platoon

The Game

Jur brings on his green section

They hop the hedge and the Brits take a bit of a pounding from blue squad behind the stone wall. The British yellow squad has also advanced but I place my green squad in one of the buildings, they have good  LOS and take out the British JL.

Unfortunately the blue German squad behind the fence takes on a lot of fire and as you can see they are down to 5 men.

I pull them back behind the building to their right and bring on my yellow squad to replace them.

The British blue section advances on the British left flank.

I decide to exit my green squad from the building.

Jur has placed his 2" mortar behind the hedge and they accurately throw smoke to block the Germans LOS and protect their advance.

It is going to be a long campaign and after some thought I decide to protect my platoon. I have already lost 6 men and while the British have lost 4 and a JL, they are more than 2/3 up the terrain......

.....so I decide to withdraw.

I enjoyed the game and look forward to the next game. Jur played quite well and will be a worthy opponent.

Butcher's Bill

British Platoon #1 (3rd ID)

2 dead, 2 missing

CO +2

MO 0

German Platoon 10.Kp.IR.736

3 dead, 2 missing

CO -1

MO -1

Tactical Decisions

withdraw German IR716/3 to Hermanville-sur-Mer