Twilight in the East - more moves, more rubbish photos

Mildly long time between posts, all of which are to be blamed on 'real life' getting in the way of gaming and blogging.
AWB returned to Club Dave last Wednesday for another night of Twilight in the East. Again no Second Army player (curse you 'real life') and, due to distractions by the completely farcical circus of the current Australian government, only one turn was completed in the game.
So where are we again?
AWB, as the Germans, is still not completely convinced he isn't about to get his Blog handed to him on a gaming platter. Historically the Germans had disengaged from the Russian 1st Army and were mauling the 2nd Army by this stage. In the game, while it is felt that 1st Army has been more or less stopped and, in a perfect world, would be ripe for a counter offensive, the 2nd Army is gradually getting to a stage where the scattered German units available can't contain it. The Russians are also up a respectable amount of the VP count and the reinforcements from France are still several turns away. True the Germans are, unit for unit, rather better then the Russians and normally come out in front from most combats, but AWB is still not entirely convinced everything isn't about to go completely pear shaped.
So to the photos, again taken very cheap and nastily with the Samsung.

First up First Army. While the front hasn't moved all that much there is movement at the station. Behind the lines 17th Corps is about to be railed south to counter the right shoulder of Russian 2nd Army. This is the Corps that was mauled a few turns ago after being over extended and spent the best part of turn 5 recovering.
Also of note is the Russians trying to force the north and south flanks. While the German centre still contains the largely full strength and rather strong German 1st Corps, being outflanked is NOT a good thing. Expect a German reaction in the very near future.

Meanwhile, in the south some rather critical combats have been taking place. German 20th Corps, in their attempt to backhand the Russians the turn before, managed to rather foolishly pin the 41st Division with it's back to a lake. The Russians moved up the best part of 5 divisions and were unlucky not to force the Germans to have to retreat. What was more lucky for the Germans was being able to force march a brigade around the flank of the Russian 15th Corps to cut communication. Even then, the Russians nearly got away with it, surviving the combat a lot better then expected only to have their nerve break.
While visually we have only a single hex retreat, what we are not seeing is the three CE drops both divisions suffered which is much more significant. Combat Effectiveness (think of it as morale if you like), doesn't so much effect the ability to attack, but more the desire to stay in the line. If this rating drops too low then the division starts to break up.
So why has these combats been critical? Pretty much because had luck been favouring the Russians it may have been 20th Corps that had been smashed wide open. Instead, largely by bad luck, the Russian 15th Corps is very close to breaking.
German phase of turn 6 is next.

Twilight in the East - the slow advance continues

A few real world problems for our game of Twilight in the East these last few weeks. Second Army commander, while claiming repeatedly that he is NOT off scouting forest locations, has been otherwise out of the gaming shed at Club Dave, resulting in one night of non gaming and another of First Army commander bravely agreeing to control the entire Russian side for another.
Again with soddy pictures, let us recap where the game has progressed to at the mid point (Germans to move) of turn five.

First, the First Army front. Main thing to note is that the front has moved westward a respectable amount. As predicted, the Russians ganged up on the over extended German 17th Corps and in a mutually bloody combat, the 17th Corps was forced to withdraw. This made the question the rest of the German forces had been musing over, namely 'fall back or try and delay another turn?' a lot easier to answer and promptly moved off to the west. The Russians, bloodied themselves, have been cautiously following up and, after the massive multiple division combat in turn 4 mentioned earlier, this front has been bloodless for a while.

Experimenting with font colours for the best contrast, we move to the slightly more dynamic Second Army front. In the top right corner we can see the rail line the Russians are gradually trying to get into service to open a second line of supply. With this in mind the entire Russian 6th Corps has been attempting to work over the minor German units defending the land bridges between the lakes and finally got that entire sledge into walnut effect going.
To the left of the picture, on the other rail line of advance, 1st Corps has managed to advance to just off the image after the defending Germans decided to pull back. Also off view is the three German brigades facing off over a river line. Numbers favour the Russians but supply the Germans.
In the middle we see the heroes of earlier turns, German 20th, come down a peg or two. After swatting Russian 1st Division earlier and causing that to retire and regroup, the Germans decided to attempt the same thing against the Russian 2nd. While not a complete farce, sharp eyed readers may notice the white step loss marker with the German stack that wasn't there earlier.
Controlling the Germans in this game, AWB must confess to being slightly dissatisfied. The fallback was always on the cards across the front, so trading the ground has not been an issue. However the few combats made this last turn and a half have been disappointing. TitE, despite being a monster game, has a few bit of almost tactical feel. Putting in a good attack and coming out ahead in the step loss exchange 'feels' important to the overall result. AWB confesses this may not actually be the correct mind set and that maybe instead should be trying to butcher everyone, but the 'feel' is that the Germans did not do well this gaming night.
Germans to move in their part of turn five.
Real life may get in way of gaming again this coming Wednesday and next game night may not be for another week.

Projects - More Fallout game planning

In an attempt to push forward the dream of playing Fallout in 15mm, or maybe just as an excuse to avoid painting, AWB has been making some more cards to use within this project.
This current batch (no photos this time as once you have seen one homemade card printed onto 90gsm you have seen them all), are 'Stuff Cards'. This is an AWB idea that is not from the Tomorrow's War rules and an attempt to add a bit more Fallout type flavour. There are 18 cards (as that is what fits nicely onto a single A4 sheet more then anything else) and the theory is that each player will draw between 1 and 3 at the start of the game based on their sides Supply Level.
Most are things such as Chems that can be used as desired to give temporary bonuses to units while 1 in 6 are dud cards such as Teddy Bear and Mystery Meat (don't eat it, please) that serve no in game purpose. These cards will hopefully reflect on the sort of amounts of semi useful junk the average Fallout universe type character might be found carrying about.

Projects - Fallout as Miniatures - Fog of War cards

As hinted at in an earlier post, AWB has been attempting for months to get around to playing some tabletop 15mm wargaming in the Fallout universe, most probably using the Tomorrow's War game system.
Just to prove that AWB doesn't spend their entire day updating blog posts, here is a cheap and nasty photo to tease and excite you...

... which strangely also refuses to rotate the correct way. Oh well.
So what you can see is some work in progress Vault Dweller types converted with a dab of green stuff for the PipBoy from GZG figures and some home made Fog of War cards.
Tomorrow's War using these cards for random events during their games to add more colour and confusion to the game. Unfortunately the supplied cards are aimed at more your traditional future war experience (ie fire support, nano tech, communications nets) and don't really fit into the Fallout flavour.
Hence, with a little help from CorelDraw and some 45x65mm card sleeves, AWB has created some new ones. Only 18 so far and probably could do with being printed on some thicker paper but a reasonably pleasing effort so far. All that needs to be done now is to actually finish painting and ask the Overseer nicely if we can open the Vault...

Pz.100 vs 82nd Airborne - Now with Pictures!

As mentioned earlier, the Butchers of the Bell Curve group decided to put on a bit of D-Day gaming and on Friday night June 7 of this year gamed the German attacks are Le Fiere against the 82nd Airborne. Hopefully everyone can read the background from the earlier posts and we can get straight onto the actual game report.

First we have the actual game area with a 6x4 table grid shown overlaid...

... and what the table looked like once we had remembered just how quickly a 6x4 table can eat up every terrain piece in the gaming room. Causeway and flooded area to the far end of the table. Pz.100 is shown in their game starting position in the foreground about to enter Le Moley (bravely defended by three stands of chickens). Out of shot to the left is Amfreville which was defended for this game by a small German force. These Germans played no real part in the game and existed just to remind the US player the village was still hostile.
Mid left down the table is a group of trees representing the orchard in which Col Timmes and his force were located and eventually were forced back into. German infantry from 91st Division (1057th Grenadier Regiment?) are on the bottom right of the photo.
Game system is Battlefront (Fire and Fury)
. Ground scale is 1inch = 40 yards, each tank model is 2-3 vehicles and a stand is approx a squad. All US units in this game were classed as VETERAN, Pz.100 as TRAINED, 91st Division units as EXPERIENCED and the rather useless chickens as GREEN.

The battle progressed. Our brave trainee tank crews muscle their way down the road towards Conquigny which is currently defended by a very small force of paras that were historically 12 officers and men and is shown in the game as 2 stands. The trailing R-35 platoon (Old Glory models from memory) are about to be harassed with mortar fire from Col Timmes, probably as a direct result of someone (who shall remain nameless) playing Panzerlied MP3s via their tablet at about the same time. German infantry seen in this photo are the infantry platoons of Pz.100 consisting of more tank crew trainees. The platoon shown in a neat row against the hedgerow bravely spent the rest of the game in that position while the second platoon still on the road managed to advance further up the road for later glory.

Meanwhile, B company 508th decide to cross over to the west side of the river. Historical this company did not seem to be aware the Germans were currently attacking and arrived in some confusion in Conquigny before being forced south of the causeway and eventually back across the flooded area. In game this was represented by rolling an attack, modified down just enough to ensure no one would actually die, and applying the Disordered and Suppressed results. These, together with a bad activation roll for this company next turn resulted in a rather unhappy bunch of paratroopers.
The causeway is actually tree lined on both sides, making the troops a lot less exposed as they appear in the photo. Casualty markers by Peter Pig.

B/508th starts to become engaged with Pz.100. The lead R-35 (Flames of War model) has already blown away the defending group of US officers using the awesome destructive power of the SA.18 37mm gun and about to start working it's way down the column of B company. This vehicle had a great game, eventually finishing with four kills and Iron Cross with Oak Leaves and Diamonds. Some nights the dice just love you...
The Peter Pig cavalry stand is representing the commander of the Pz.100 force, not because there is any evidence they owned any horses, but basically because AWB was pleased with the paint job and wanted an excuse to have it on the table.

Nearly at the end of gaming time. The Pz.III (Old Glory) has just been forced to retire down the road after an angry bunch of paras got into the wooded area next to it and threw grenades. Not seen is the increasing pile of dead in front of the lead R-35 who calmly blew away the troops attempting to close with it during the same turn. 91st Division can be seen approaching from the right. In retrospect from a scenario design point of view these troops may have started too far from the action as crossing the numerous hedgerows took most of the game.
To the left the forces of Col Timmes are attempting to work into a position where they can engage the pair of R-35s. The para in the woods just to the left of the road is dead man walking. Next turn it will be made disordered by the deadly fire of the Super R-35 (it had a REALLY good game) before being overrun by some of the trainee crew infantry. A solid barrage of long range bazooka fire would then disorder this vehicle (red marker - troops can rally from this condition under these rules) but by then we had run out of gaming time.
In all a very enjoyable time was had by the three players. It had been easily over a year since Battlefront had been played and there was some rust to shake off and remembering the effective range of some weapons took a while, probably resulting in some overly cautious moves at the start of the game. Positioning of the 91st units, as mentioned, was probably a bit too far away as they managed to do little in the game. As the expectation was that the low quality Pz.100 would be quickly broken and removed from play, AWB (as the scenario designer) took what was assumed to be the weakest unit in order to allow the other players the majority of the game play. Best laid plans of mice and bloggers...
Recreating historical events is also always a tricky balance, especially in a situation such as this where the staggered and unco-ordinated arrival of US units had a major influence on how the battle historically unfolded. Random dice were being used to attempt to have the arrival of US FOO and 57mm AT guns as well as A Company 505th. The support units were simply rolling for each stand hoping to get a suitably high result, where A Company was using a running total where the US player would add 1D10 to his tally each turn until the magic number of 20 was reached. In the game none of these events occurred although the mechanic seemed sound and brought no complaints.
Butchers of the Bell Curve are listing this game as a success and intending to game more WW2 in 15mm in the future.

Normandy Wargaming - Le Fiere - brief post game summary

As mentioned in a previous post, the Butchers of the Bell Curve group met tonight to play some D-Day themed miniature gaming involving the battle around the bridge over the Merderet at Le Fiere.
A more detailed report with pictures will come later but at this stage can be summarised by saying 'Never underestimate the awesome destructive power of the SA-18 37mm gun'.
Some days the dice just love you...

Games in Planning - Le Fiere Bridge - 6 June 1944

The Butchers of the Bell Curve group were originally planning to do an actual 6th June game, but since this worked out to be a Thursday, this gaming night was pushed back to the 7th.

AWB have not been slack and in the answer to 'what do you want to do?' it was decided to attempt to do something semi historical and the attack by everyone's Cotentin Peninsula armoured unit, Panzer Ersatz und Ausbildungs Abteilung 100 on the 82nd Airborne at Le Fiere.

Couple of main sources for this battle, first the web page that got AWB interested in this battle about five years ago, HERE which is a VERY detailed investigation into EXACTLY what vehicles were used in the battle and also has some very inspiring location photos, and second, from The Airborne Assault chapter of 'Utah Beach to Cherbourg' HERE which gives the US side of the battle with some very nice maps.

For those not able to follow the links, the US paras dropped both sides of the Merderet River and by and large formed up on the prominent rail embankment during the dawn. They then moved forward to cross the Merderet at La Fiere and secure the bridgehead as part of their overall objectives.

This stage went well, the 82nd drove off the scattered German defenders, said 'That was easy' and, following their pre-drop orders, most of the forces involved promptly marched off towards their other objectives safe in the knowledge that SOMEONE must have assigned a unit to stay behind and defend.

Well... yes... we can see where this story is going can't we?

About an hour later, a major German counter attack supported by Pz.100 came in and retook the west bank, isolating many US units west of the river and causing about 4 days of headaches before they were able to drive the Germans out again.

The intended game AWB is planning to put on will pick up from the start of the German counter attack. System of choice will be Battlefront which will be most likely played pretty straight with no special rule changes.

Forces are a bit of a guess. On the US side all three parachute regiments were pretty intermixed and while our source (see 2nd link above) does give us a fair bit to go on, the units involved at this stage are still a little TBA (read - AWB hasn't finished taking detailed notes yet...).

Germans are a much bigger guess. We know that Pz.100 was involved in the attack and (thanks to the first link) we know how many tanks they left behind. How many actually attacked is a bit of another guess. The bulk of the forces we can assume are 91st Infantry but breaking it down to a greater level of identification has proved a bit trickier so far.

The other condition is that regardless of how many forces were actually involved, in order to keep the game actually playable and finishable in the one night, forces will be restricted to 2-3 companies plus support each. This is probably not that far from the historical reality and also should make the game very manageable under the rules selected.

Photos and more details in a few days...