Caesar's Camp: La Ferme de Caubert-Redux

Last Thursday myself and Graham got together for our 5th turn in our Caesar's Camp campaign. The Scots got driven back in the first attack on "La Ferme de Caubert" which was going to be the jump-off point for the final assault on the objective of the campaign and victory. This was going to be a tough one as the Germans already have 2 barbwires, 2 minefields and an entrenchment on the terrain and may add further fixed defences.  The Scots will be dicing their FM with a -2. We both went with the same platoons from our first go on this table. Both of us were essentially missing one team from our platoons.

 German Defenders-217th Infanterie Regiment (FM10)

2nd Wave Infantry Platoon #3

2 SL's

3 squads of 10 men, lead by a JL's, one squad with a MG08/15-missing 5 men

Supports 12

2 barbed wire

3 Entrenchments

Infantry Squad

MMG Team

Scottish Attackers-The Cameron Highlanders (FM8)

British EW Infantry Platoon (D Company)

2 Senior Leaders

2" Mortar Team

3 sections of 11 men, lead by Junior Leaders-missing 6 men

Supports 18

Vickers MMG

2" Mortar Team

Infantry Section

Char B1 bis

Hotchkiss H39

Scenario

This is the Attack and Defend scenario from the main rulebook.  The victory conditions were going to be difficult with the Scots having to capture 2 of the buildings in the German position or reduce their FM to 0. Clearly the latter was going to be easier and I should note that if I brought in AFV's they would be restricted to the road.

Game

A fairly equitable result in the Patrol Phase

I was able to get a JOP on the dirt road allowing me to deploy beyond the minefields. This gave me some better options in the line of my attack, which was now going to take place on my left flank.

My two tanks were stuck on the road but as you can see had LOS to the farm, thus limiting German deployment.

Lots of smoke as usual.

This was a weird game, I thought both of us played quite well. There were few double phases but both sides accumulated CoC pips rapidly. There were times in the game when we both had 3-4 fully cocked CoC dice each. This resulted in a situation that if one player made a move he was interrupted or an ambush appeared. I kept both a mortar team and a MMG team off the table to ambush until quite late in the game. Graham had kept a full section off the board that could be deployed entrenched if I left myself in the open. Fortunately I was so concerned that he had a Flame Thrower team that I was quite careful to not expose myself. After almost 3 hours Graham withdrew, his FM was 5 and mine was 6. I think it became obvious that as a defender a double phase was not going to be of an advantage but a double phase would be more useful to me especially in the setting of us both having expended all our CoC dice. Certainly the game was interesting but was a little slow. On to table 5.

The Butcher's Bill

Germans Platoon #3 (9 dead, 2 missing next game)

6 figures lost

CO -1

MO -5 (-1FM)

Outlook Content

The Camerons Platoon #1/D Company (3 dead, 0 missing next game)

0 figures lost

CO -1

MO-3 (-1FM)

Outlook Sad

More Training

We had another CoC training session after the campaign game as it was out club's game night at the Abyss. We had Dan again as well as David for his second game of CoC. We also had a new player Julian, who had his first game of CoC. We used the same terrain as above with the Canadiens attacking a farm held by a platoon of Italians. 

This was really quite a good game, we probably got almost 3 hours of play in, and for new players everyone caught on to the rules exceptionally quickly. In our training games I really focus on stressing tactics rather than mechanics and this seems to be working. I am hoping everyone enjoyed themselves.

WWII Games Day, Saturday 17 February

 

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CoC Training: Canadians attack the Bersaglieri

Last Sunday we got together at the Abyss for another training game of CoC. Two club members, Gabriel and Dan, came for the game. We played in 20mm as my WWII terrain is at that scale. Gabriel has a 28mm Canadian platoon and is working on a 20mm French Platoon. Dan has, I believe, some 28mm platoons but also has a beautifully painted 20mm Bersaglieri platoon. He has put this together for Eastern Europe, but we decided to play a Western European game with a Canadian platoon attacking an Italian farm defended by a platoon of Italian marksmen. Quite ahistoric but it got the job done. We had to do a bit of fiddling with the Italian list but used the one from the Serafimovich campaign.

The Canadians were attacking from the left

We played the Attack and Defend scenario

Patrol Markers

JOP's

Good use of Smoke

A Vickers team supported by an Infantry section move up on their right in an attempt to out-flank the Italians on their left

Unfortunately the Italians got caught in the open and were pulverised by 2 Canadian sections, giving the game to the Canadians.

I believe both players enjoyed the game, it was their second game and it went quite well. I felt no need do the Patrol Phase twice as they both had well placed JOP's. I made a fairly significant error with the armour rules, which gave quite an advantage to the Canadians. The Canadians did win on morale and I think we could have selected better supports for the Italians. They really had no AT weaponry (as was the case in Eastern Europe) but the next time they see the table in Western Europe they will have a Pak38. 

Tournoi de SAGA

Some photos from our club's SAGA tournament organised by my friend Luis. The tournament was held last Saturday with 10 contestants, some coming from Quebec City as well as Ottawa. It was a great time.

Luis, the organiser, with François the Winner

Martin won the best painted army

Scoresheet

Dracula's America

 

Unfortunately, I was unable to post this brief report in 2023, but it was my last game of 2023. Myself and Luis met at his place for another great game of Dracula's America. We played similar posses as our last game. I dod not remember the name of the scenario but essentially we started with $120 posses in opposite  corners of the terrain which was again a western town.

In one of the central building was the Necronomicon, the winner simply had to control this building after 8 turns. It was a good game with a lot of back and forth. We were able to take out some of our opposing characters but at the end of the game, I believed Luis controlled 3 of the 4 buildings while I just controlled one. A die was thrown and Luis's Skinwalker posse discovered the Necronomicon. It looks like my Nephilim will require a bit more training!

Luis wanted me to point out it was not a good idea for fallen angels to hang out around a brothel.

The real good news is that we are starting a campaign in the New Year which I am much looking forward to, we are organising our posses now and hopefully within the month we will get in our first game.