Ulster Wargames Society - Combat HQ game and several others

 

Very busy club meeting today (pretty close to capacity !) and Mike put on another very enjoyable WW2 game using Combat HQ rules.

Game was in 15mm (using Mike and Bryns excellent toys) and a scenario set on Eastern Front in 1941 with Bryn, Simon and Adam commanding Germans with Mike, Stephen and I as Russians.

Ivans where defending a couple of villages and river crossings against a larger and superior force (at least in terms of morale and orders) making hard for Ivans to realistically win but great fun delaying and harassing the Nazis it was.

I ended up facing Simon and Adam on our right wing with guts of a Regiment of infantry backed by couple of PzJager1 and a PzII along with a very nasty little 75mm Inf Gun. 

I had an Infantry Battalion with a 45mm ATG and 2 x T28C 'Land Battleships' and they sort of lived up to that name.

Stephen faced Bryn on our left who had bulk of Nazi armour (PzIII, Pz38T and StugB ?) with another Soviet Infantry Battalion and 3 x T26 'Coffins for 5 brothers' (of which 2 managed to survive game !) with support of a Company of Flamethrowers equipped Pioneers.

Mike as CinC held our reserve off-table being 2 xT34/40 and another Infantry Battalion along with Brigade artillery support (Battery of 76mm), the Nazis also had off table artillery and a couple of Stuka sorties.

At end Soviet morale was broken but we had defended the river crossing whilst losing the villages.

Great game with an interesting set of rules, some of the unit stats/abilities raise an odd eyebrow (the IG and the T28s seemed surprisingly powerful) but it works well overall within a playable framework.

Bridge and village I was trying to defend (the railway crossing was unusable) with village firmly in Hun hands by this stage

My T28s are just out of shot behind river and have forced Nazis to hide behind buildings and woods shy of the bridge

Some of Bryns Panzer force (playing cards are Blinds for unseen formations)

More Panzers in action

Overview from Ivan right 

Deluge of Nazi infantry assaulting my posistions

Mike has deployed Ivan reserve with T34s advancing to support Stephens last stand in village

Blaze of gunfire on left (yellow markers are Suppressions)

Germans obliterate Ivans in village

There were several other games ongoing at club and I only got very brief look at those during quick lunch break and as ever no idea how they turned out ?

I believe we had 27 people involved in playing games which is possibly a record ?. 

My pics mostly poor as rush job

A Middle Earth Battlegame with Keith, Tony and David S (burn the heretics !!) with very nice figures. Have not seen Keith in years so nice to catch up. 

A dark age/late Roman game using a variant of Dux Bellorum (or was it Dux Britannium ?) with super 28mm from Adam S and Dave P.

English Civil War game using Pike & Shotte run by Billy (who seems to have gotten sponsorship from Coca Cola) with Jeremy and Dave B & T

Seven Days to the Rhine game with 20mm kit and terrain from Chris (this had several players but I lost track of whom although Andy was certainly involved)

Also game with Phil and Leslie that I did not get not get any pics off (sorry chaps just too busy) but think was with Gangs Of Rome ?

Borrowed image of proceedings as tables being set up and not all players having arrived

Glory Is Fleeting 1814 French versus Prussian

Game with Stephen today and I picked Glory Is Fleeting again using my Prussian circa 1814 against his 1814 French.

We both choose Flank March as our strategy but French converted to Flexible Defence, just as well as they had 2 separate Cavalry Commands had he retained the option.

Interesting game overall and we discovered that Superior is a decent 'trait' to have the equivalent of Veteran.

Large units of Conscripts are quite effective with 3 Skirmish dice and 6 shooting dice.

We both found it tough to not be Driven Back when trying to enter combat, think we really need to spend more time shooting before charging.

I had 2 units of Veteran Dragoons (Allied Russians) facing 2 French Dragoons of which only 1 was Veteran and so each unit rolling 6 dice each in combat.   

Of course I managed to roll 2 hits on each whilst Stephen done 5 on one and 4 on other so both my units Wavered/Spent and retired to his both Disordered/Spent, 'luckily' (har de har) I retired further then his Pursuits so survived.

System is pretty slick once you get nuances in head and fairly brutal overall as befits a competition style/finish in 3 hours type game. 

My right flank, I held my Conscript Landwehr back in support but would have been better putting them in front line as large and superior so roughly as good as my small Average Drilled Musketeers.

Central area with a lowly unit of Landwehr Cavalry (later blown off their saddles by French Light Infantry and Artillery)

My Left flank with Grenadiers supported by Dragoons (Grenadiers failed to close with French Conscripts in front of them)

My left and center almost entirely driven back by French volleys

My extreme left where I brought Russian Dragoons on a flank attack but counterd by French Dragoons from reserve who pummeled my lot in due course.

Game ended before I could get my Landwehr forward.

 

No Retreat! The Russian Front - solo play

After sorting out a Prussian 1814 list and associated figures for a game of Glory Is Fleeting this Thursday I decided to have another solo board wargame session and selected No Retreat.

Was going to use the solo system I have for the game but decided just to do 'standard' two handed solo style.

Such an easy to play game even in 'lonely pint' mode and as ever the Germans came close in 1941 to auto victory but again they fell just short (2VP) and were then ground down by inexorable Russian build up.

I finished on Turn 19 as it was clear the Red Army was crushing it and Nazis simply too weakened to resist the onslaught.

WW2 Barbarossa To Berlin - solo play

Got BTB onto table for a solo session, such a fun game which always scratches a strategic itch for me and is one of my favourite CDG and Ted Racier games.

Germans conducted decent Op Barbarossa and took Leningrad with OP Nordlicht but failed with Op Taifun to take Moscow and the first Winter turn was awful for them (Panzers count as Infantry, all combats effected and everyone in Limited Supply !).

Russian strength building fast through reinforcement and replacements and British being very annoying in North Africa destroying Afrika Korps and thumping Italians with Desert Army.

I only played up until USA entered war in mid 1942 but good stuff (must try this via Pbem as limited interrupt type cards)

A comment of mine on game that was included on late lamented Roger MacGowans C3i page back in 2013 !!!

L'Art De La Guerre - Normans in action

Game with Stephen today and he picked LADG (another competition coming up for him - sort of Dark Age/Early Feudal periods) and we managed 2 games.

I decided to use my Normans selecting the Norman list but with Sicilian options for first game and then the 'proper' Norman Kimgdon in Sicily list for second game.

Been awhile since I used Normans and good to get them on table again, they were first 'Ancients' army I ever collected/painted being a mix of 2 starter armies (One Essex the other Minifigs) and bought back around 1987/88 I think and for 7th Edition.

First game the Normans faced a Berber force (with wall of supported spear) and whilst my Normans managed to get in enmasse (I had 10 Knights and favourable terrain ie mostly open) they of course failed to deal with Berbers. 

Although it was quite bloody in the end with Berber suffering 17 VP losses (26 units) when my 22 unit army was defeated.

Second game was against a Feudal English force  with mix of Knights, Longbowmen and a Welsh ally, bit of an anachronistic match up for my tastes but still fun game.

Again I got all my Knights into action all along the line (good terrain again) but again failed in the combats and again pretty bloody with my small (20 unit) army succumbing after inflicting 16 VPs on English (24 units in size)

 

Combat Commander - Another couple of scenarios played solo

Had a further session solo with Combat Commander managing to complete 2 scenarios

First had Romanians attacking Russians in 1941, second Germans attacking French in 1940

Another two excellent games in 'lonely pint mode'.