Boxcars in Crete - Chain of Command AAR

Early Saturday morning, I returned to the Valley Forge Casino for game four of the weekend. 

I apparently got into a rather popular GM's game, run by Joseph McGrath. This game was featured in the 2022 issue of Lard Magazine, so it's got some pedigree!

This gorgeous table was setup for the German airborne invasion of Crete. The downed glider in the center of the table contained the dead HQ of the Fallschirmjagers and valuable intelligence. An Australian platoon, patrolling in the area, stumbled across the glider as well as an opposing Fallschirmjager platoon set on securing their general's corpse and the intel.

The Australians could search the glider by being on the model's base and spending an action during a phase (or in one phase of a multi-phase activation). They would roll a D6 and add it to the starting value of 3. The intel would be successfully secured once they reached 20. The Germans could decrease this number by 5 by spending a full CoC die. 

The Australians started with 8 points of morale, and the Germans with 10 points. 

As the attackers, the Fallschirmjager started off with all three of their platoons on the table; one in the vineyard, another through the orange grove, and the third occupying the villa. 

The Aussies (I was one of the two players on this side) started off with a much smaller force, only able to deploy the light mortar and MMG team. 

As the Fallschirmjagers advanced, the Australians brought the MMG up to the stone walls of the wheat field and began firing on the closest German squad, with support from the light mortar. 

The Australians also brought on their two squads; one to reinforce the MMG team, and another to start searching the glider. 

In what I'm guessing will be a once-in-a-lifetime event, my fellow Australian player and I kept rolling double or even triple 6s, phase after phase. For those of you who don't play Chain of Command, rolling double 6s give you a double-phase, allowing you to potentially move your units twice (at the cost of two potential moves if those 6's and been 1s through 4s. Triple 6s give a double phase and end the turn, removing ongoing statuses such as overwatch, tactical movement, or smoke). I think we have something like 5 double 6s and 2 triples 6s. It was absolutely wild. 

While the Australians only had two squads to the Fallschirmjagers' three, we did have three small partisan teams that appeared in random spots on the table and activated randomly. 

One group of partisans suddenly emerged into the villas, in the rear of one of the Fallschirmjager rifle teams. 

After some lucky combat, the partisans ended up breaking the German team and sent them running. 

That would, unfortunately, largely be the extent to which the partisans affected the game.

While the Australians had a decent line of defense, the weight of fire from the German LMGs began to show. The MMG team was the first to go, which was a big loss both in firepower and morale. 

Unfortunately, a loud drone in the air announced the arrival of German support; an ME-109!

You can also just barely spot the Vickers MkVI tank along the road on the left side of the image. Honestly, I made an error when deploying the tank. I thought that the infantry in the field would last longer, so brought the tank on further away from the Germans to try and hit the Fallschirmjagers in the villa. Unfortunately, the range and cover was enough that I wasn't able to do much. It probably would have been better used deploying on the road at the top of the images. A lesson learned for next time!

The Messerschmitt ended up buzzing the full-strength squad of Australian infantry holding down the left side of the defenses, wiping out most of them. 

With Australian numbers dwindling, the infantry searching the glider came under fire next. The sergeant leading the squad took a hit and was wounded. Despite this, the rifle team was close to securing the intel. 

The Australian lieutenant was trying his best to direct what was left of his platoon, but the Germans had rallied and 

The last remnants of one of the Fallschirmjager squads managed to reach the glider, dragging their wounded sergeant with them. This prevented the Australians from continuing their search. 

Another round of LMG fire sent the Australian rifle team running, leaving the Germans in control of the glider. They also had finally accrued a full CoC die, so even if the Australians had the means to retake the glider, the German players could have reduced the amount and kept the game going. 

All of these losses for the Australians resulted in multiple rolls on the Setback table, reducing our morale score and reducing our command dice. In the last couple turns we only had two command dice left, leaving the Germans mostly unopposed. 

With the rifle team running, this was enough to reduce the Australian's force morale to 0, ending the game.

While we had gotten very close to reaching the 20 on the search die, and had a mind-boggling amount of double phases in the first half of the game, we hadn't been able to reduce the Germans' force morale below 6. Meanwhile, it seemed like most of the casualties that the Australians took ended up with rolls on the Setback table, whittling away at the platoon's morale. 

Still, this was an incredible game (probably my favorite of the convention). It was a well-designed scenario on an incredibly well presented table, with a great GM and wonderful players. 

On Thin Ice - Wars of Ozz AAR

My second game of the convention was Wars of Ozz, another set of rules by Buck Surdu with Chris Palmer.

This was the opening scenario in a trio of campaign games from the "The War to save Yule" supplement, which added Christmas-themed armies. The Anti-Yule forces of the Ice Queen have Krampuses, Ice Trolls, Snow Men, Dark Elves, and other nasties, while the forces of the Lands of Yule have Elves and animated Toy Soldiers and Teddy Bears.  

Four Anti-Yule brigades lead the vanguard of the Ice Queen's armies into the Lands of Yule, surprising two Yule brigades by freezing the river that guards Yule's border. 

The Anti-Yule brigades scored a point for every unit (of any size) that escaped off the opposite table edge, while the Yule brigades scored two points for every Anti-Yule unit they entirely wiped out. Whoever had the most points by the end of the battle won and would help their side in the next game. 

The Anti-Yule brigade commanders that the best way past the Yule forces was through them. As the hordes of monsters marched across the ice, the thin line of Yule began to hurriedly deploy to stem the tide. 

Both sides began taking losses early on (over on our side of the table, at least...), with the Yule Elves and artillery scattering, but sending a unit of Krampuses running away in fear of the cannon as well. 

The unit of Teddy Bears were real troopers, fending off waves of Dark Elves and Dire Wolves with blasts of musket fire. 

As for my brigade, it wasn't doing so well. I thought that the burly Ice Trolls and the Christmas tree-hewing Mechanical Axemen would slaughter some measly Toy Soldiers and Elves. But the defenders of Yule sent both regiments fleeing, then eyed the Krampuses waiting on the far flank. 

And the Krampuses were soon routing as well! Sure, the Yule cavalry had taken a beating, but most of my brigade was on its way back across the river. 

Both sides were seriously depleted towards the end of the game. Instead of charging into the teddy bears again, I instead decided to sprint the Dire Wolves to the table edge, to help score some point. 

A glance over at the other side of the table showed some very fresh looking troops, eliciting some disbelief from the Yule commander whose troops were mostly exhausted from fighting off the anti-Yule brigades on his side of the village. 

Overall, the Anti-Yule attackers managed to get seven units off the table, while the Yule defenders destroyed three units. A 7-6 score meant that the Anti-Yule forces just barely managed to win!

This was a fun game, full of chaos thanks to how Wars of Ozz handles unit reactions. It's great to watch as your carefully planned attack falters as you lose control of your troops.

Unfortunately Old Glory wasn't able to attend this year, so I couldn't pick up the rulebook or another Munchkin regiment. Another online order, I suppose!

Herzöge von Hazzard - Combat Patrol AAR

This past weekend was HMGS' Cold Wars, held once again in the Valley Forge Casino's byzantine halls and rooms. 

I signed up for four games over two days, and volunteered to run one (which was Chaeronea using Strength & Honour, which I've posted about a few times now) as events list was a little thin on the eve of publication. 

Overall I enjoyed the convention, and I think that the players in my game enjoyed themselves. 

I'll be posting AARs of of the four games I played over the next few weeks, so here's the first!

Early Friday morning, after a couple hours drive from Cape May, I settled down for a game of Combat Patrol, run by Gregory with the ever-present HAWKS group. 

Combat Patrol, written by Buck Surdu, is a set of skirmish WWII rules that runs entirely on a deck of cards. The cards are used for movement, shooting, dicing off; anything that might crop up during the game is squeezed into a single card. Shooting, for example, is handled by multiple card flips. You flip to see if you hit, then who you hit, and then where they're hit and if it's deadly. Unit activations are also simultaneous, unless they might be interacting with enemy units, which can help speed up the early turns of a game.

It's a fun system that takes a little getting used to, but plays quickly once you become familiar. I had played a Napoleonic version way back at Barrage, and was looking forward to trying the original WW2 rules.

Greg's game was a fight between a British platoon and German platoon in 1940. The British had three infantry squads, an HMG, an anti-tank rifle, and two Matilda II tanks. The Germans didn't have any attached infantry support, but they had a bunch of tanks! Two Panzer IIs, a Panzer I, and a StuG. 

I was commanding an infantry squad and a Matilda II to start out, opposite a German squad. 

Thanks to a random activation system (that might restart without a chance for units to activate!) this was the position my troops were stuck in for a couple turns. 

Luckily the Matilda's armor was thick enough that the StuG was unable to outright destroy my tank, but the crew was stunned over and over. I did manage to get a fireteam into the ruins, but that left them at the mercy of the rapidly increasing number of German infantry. 

My Matilda, regrettably, was the first tank to brew up, leaving the British infantry uncomfortably exposed to the German armor.

Not that the situation was much better on the other side of the table, with two Panzer IIs blitzing through the town square!

With the indomitable 40k-esque spirit, one Panzer commander ordered his tank forward into the British infantry, scattering the Tommies like a flock of geese. 

My infantry were hunkered down in the ruins, hammered by German machine-gun fire. 

I did get the chance to bring on the HMG (I just forgot to take a picture), which did discourage the Germans from assaulting the Brits in the green ruins. 

The Germans were pressing the British back, having forced my fireteam out of the center ruins. 

In a daring maneuver, the Panzer II continued its rampage through the British infantry, further scattering and stunning the soldiers as it drove past. Two Brits desperately clung to the tank, trying to get their rifles or grenades into a open port. 

After a couple more turns, we decided to end the game with a decisive German victory. The British had lost their armor, taken multiple casualties, and had a German tank doing donuts through their flanks. The only thing to do was find the quickest route to Dunkirk!

 I had fun playing the game and, had it been available to purchase by any vendor at the convention, would have picked up a copy. Alas, no one had a copy, so I'll have to grab one online. I could see this being a fun game for the club, and it's another candidate for my idea of playing the Horus Heresy without GW's rules. 

SMH, SMG - Chain of Command AAR

This past weekend was the Springfield group meetup, where I once again ran Strength & Honour. After swapping out the dice (which have been appropriately designated as "cursed" and thrown into the garbage), it seemed like everyone had a good time. I'm pretty confident in my ability to run the game now. 

I stayed for the afternoon game and got a chance to play in another of Jeff's Chain of Command games, this time set in 1943 during the Battle of Kursk. Two players (myself and John) were commanding two Soviet platoons, while our opponents (Walt and Dave) controlled two German platoons. 

This was a meeting engagement, with both sides at maximum morale (11) at the start and with full command dice. 

The Soviets had a SMG platoon, which I was playing with, and a Motorized Rifle platoon. The Germans had two Pioneer platoons. Both sides had tanks in support. 

My two Jump-Off Points were located in the woods dominating my side of the table. I brought in an SMG squad and the platoon's flamethrower team. Walt wasted no time in deploying both his pioneer squads, with a flamethrower team as backup. 

One of John's JOPs was on top of a hill, and he deployed two rifle squads into cover. 

Unfortunately, doing so made his squads a target for concentrated German fire from the two opposing platoons. 

With visibility between in the woods limited to 12", both sides slowly crept forward, hoping to get the first strike. 

The advantage, however, seemed to be in the German's favor. The pioneer squads were equipped with 2 LMGs each, which could pour out dice when shooting. Supporting them were multiple SMGs, which weren't terribly effective, but added more dice. It also didn't help that Walt got a double turn. 

My SMG squads could fire up to 4 dice at 6", but only 2 dice at 12", and only 1 die each if they were moving at that. 

Lined up along the bank of the stream, the Germans opened fire and wiped out most of my first SMG squad. 

I quickly deployed another squad to block the German advance. 

Things weren't going so well for John, either, resulting in an... ad hoc method of camouflaging his SU-76 from the guns of three German tanks.

Walt's squads kept advancing, laying down withering fire into my SMG squads and supported by a pair of panzers. 

A couple hours into the game, the German's had mostly halted at the river, but only because it was the best spot for their Soviet-themed shooting range. John's SU-76 was destroyed and none of the three T-34's could land a decent hit on the German armor. You can see Dave's Germans up on top of the hill in the top right. 

Meanwhile, my second SMG squad was being chewed up, and I lost my flamethrower team to an CoC dice interrupt. 

With the second squad breaking and running, and my T-34 forced back, I only had one more SMG squad left, along with the platoon's Senior Leader. 

We decided to call the game there. I didn't catch John's morale value at the end, but mine was all the way down to 3. Neither Dave not Walt had taken any hits to their Force Morale, making this a conclusive victory for the Germans. 

While a fun game, John and I came away thinking that the scenario was a bit stacked against the Soviets (although we had gotten our asses handed to us, so we were a little biased!). The German advantage in machine guns was such that approaching them, even in the woods, was a death trap. If the scenario was supposed to be somewhat equal engagement, then the Soviets needed something to close the gap, like an LMG or two in their squads or smoke from mortars. 

History Repeats Itself - Strength & Honour AAR

This past weekend, I ran a game of Strength & Honour at the monthly SJGA meetup. I'm planning to run this scenario at the Springfield meetup this upcoming weekend (and have volunteered to also run it at Cold Wars in March), so I needed some refresher games to get my head around the rules. John commanded the Romans, while Chris commanded the Pontics. 

The Chaeronea scenario refights a major battle of the First Mithridatic War. Three years into the war, Lucius Cornellius Sulla found himself and his 30,000 strong army facing a Pontic army twice its size, led by the Greek nobleman, Archelaus. 

John set his legions up on top of the heights of Mount Thurium, with his cavalry behind the Roman shields. Chris' pike blocks were flanked by lighter infantry and cavalry, with archers and skirmishers out in front. 

Chris moved aggressively, his massed ranks of pikemen rolling forward and the Scythed Chariots attacking the Romans' Greek allies. 

John began maneuvering his cavalry to swing out to the flanks of the Roman lines. 

Unfortunately, the Scythed Chariots failed to do any damage, and were instead pushed back and destroyed (any Push Back result against Scythed Chariots automatically destroys them, but it only costs a Setback card and doesn't force a Rout result). Buoyed by the victory, the Thureophoroi surged forward to attack the Pontic Cavalry. 

John pushed hard on the left flank, with his Raw Roman Legion joining the Thureophoroi to push back Chris' flank, exposing the line of pikes. 

In the center, legion met phalanx and skirmisher fought skirmisher. 

On the far right, you can see John's Light Cavalry ranging out in a flanking maneuver. 

With Chris' flank tied up, he could only watch as the Roman cavalry turned and prepared a charge into the open side of his pike phalanxes. 

Chris' Thureophoroi had also been caught by the fast moving Roman Light Cavalry. Of course, it didn't help that the Thureophoroi had refused to move for several turns.

At least Chris' attack on the Roman left flank was going better. Two pike phalanxes, supported by the Pontic Light Cavalry, were pushing back two of John's legions. 

With the skirmishers on both sides chased out of the line of battle, the Roman legions and Pontic phalanxes continued to clash. 

However, the Pontics were in a precarious position. With the legions to the front, and flanked by cavalry, Chris' Veteran Phalanx was automatically Disordered. And his Thureophoroi ended up fleeing the Roman Light Cavalry... right into his phalanxes' other flank!

Being stuck between two enemy units in Strength & Honour (really, in any wargame) is pretty disastrous, although I did mess a few things up. There probably shouldn't be this many Disorder markers on the phalanx the Pontic general is attached to, or on the skirmishers. But by this point, Chris had accrued enough Setback cards that, when John called Haemonculus Est, they were well above the Pontic break point of 20. 

Chris and John were great players, and I really appreciated them helping me out.

Later that very same day, I then went up to Ted's and replayed the game with him, Chip, and Steve. Steve and I played the Romans, while Ted and Chip played the Pontics. 

I won't get into the full details of the game, but it seemed like the Romans' luck had turned sour, and we were gathering Setback cards left and right. However, a reversal of fortune from the Pontics gave us the momentum to win some important combats and give the Pontics enough Disaster cards to barely eke out a win. 

Chip was a major help in figuring out several rules that I had misread or misapplied, which will be great for this coming Saturday. And it's a reminder that I shouldn't play in games I'm also trying to teach! It does my head in trying to do both at the same time (although already having played the game once, and not sleeping all that well the night before didn't help).

All that aside, I'm definitely more confident in running this scenario. I do think I need to "pretty up" the tale a little more. I do need to make the stream that the scenario mentions (which is entirely fordable and doesn't impact the battle), and maybe toss down some green tufts for small groves of trees.