Combat Mission

Quick divergence from table-top stuff with couple of screen captues from the excellent Combat Mission series of PC games (which I have been playing avidly since first Beta version back in 2000 !!). I have several ongoing PBEM games with players from UK and USA/Canada and great fun they are too.

Artistic shot of Panther on Eastern Front

Different form of art as my Hellcat brews on Western Front !

Much older picture from original Combat Mission

Might & Reason : The Sun King 10mm

Might & Reason game with my 10mm using The Sun King variant for Malburian period. Played it solo which is still pretty good due to activation rolls. Used slightly amended table from 15mm game.  French versus Imperial Austrian.

Lots of action across field with French having Poor command being slow bringing their superior numbers to bear.
I really like the Command and Activation system in this ruleset (a nice but different way from Field Of Battles card system). The action is fast and furious once units get into combat. Whilst shooting seems impotent (only sixes are hits) in practice units can be decimated over a couple of turns. I really like these rules.






Overview of both sides locked in battle after 6 turns

Firefight in centre

Austrian horse on right fall back damaged from Elite Maison De Roi

Swiss Brigades advance towards town

French reserves slowly deploy

Austrian Cuirassiers engage enemy

Intend to try this game again using King Of The Battlefield, Polemos, Warfare In The Age Of Reason and possibly Black Powder.

Command PK WSS

Couple of photos I discovered from a 10mm Malburian game I played back in 2008 using Command Piquet.

Belated Comments catch up

Just realised there are comments on some of my earlier entries !!

Herewith a belated reply to one (not sure if my replies are seen automatically ?)...........................d'oh........................

robertpeel999 said...

Hi Sarge,
What are the amendments that you use for Minden Rose?
Can you place them on your blog so that we can have a look at them please?
Regards,
Tone - a PK fan

I used Minden Rose pretty much as was for my Malburian game.

Minor changes:

No oblique moves for foot
No 1st volleys
All shooting straight ahead only (except Artillery)

My units are based as single stands so gave them MR dicing equivalents as
Foot = 4stds
Horse = 4 stds
Hussar = 2 Stds
Dragoons = 3 Stds
Artillery = 1 std

I had a couple of optional/test rules :

Rank Firers -1DPS
Platoon Firers as per rules
Pistol Doctrine Horse +1 DPS vs Foot
Gallopers +2 DPS vs Foot

That was about it.

Johnny Reb III

Game of JR3 played at Stephens today with his brother John as playtest of this rather venerable ruleset (I played a lot of JR2 years ago with 6mm). A very detailed set with loads of options and lots of flavour of the period but rather ponderous in use (we are so used to more streamlined fastplay types of rules) and so much to remember (a sign of aging no doubt).

Might & Reason first game

Used Might & Reason for first time today using my Seven Years War Russians versus Stephens Prussians. Set-up table pre-game using one of the generic maps from rules. We used the army builders and I selected Average Russians with 210pts and Stephen took Prussians as Great (ie Freddies lot) with 140pts of troops.
Russians had 2 Grenadiers, 12 Musketeers, 2 Cuirassier, 2 Horse Grenadiers, 1 Dragoon, 1 Hussar,  3 Heavy Guns and 1 Howitzer (the guns brigaded together as option on Russian list) with 8 Leaders in addition to CIC. Prussians had 5 Leaders plus Freddie with a mix of Grenadiers, Fusileers, Musketeers and 2 Hussars with 3 Dragoons.
We then diced for Leader quality which gave the Russians 5 leaders at -1 2 at 0 and 1 at +1 with two being exceptional but not Valourious. Prussians were mostly +1 with one at +2 and several Valourious types. Russians had to deploy first having been out-scouted and this allowed Prussians to mass on one half of battlefield.
This effectively took half of Russian army out of equation early on (1st lesson leave at least some troops in columns if deploying first). Game developed into Prussians advancing enmasse on their right with Ivans struggling to re-deploy (the Ivans artillery was completely redundant as no targets to aim at all game and just too slow too re-deploy effectively. Awesome Prussian shooting decimated several Ivan units and in melee the Ivan Cuirassier had awful dice and die to a man against enemy horse. A struggle for a town sector saw a brave Ivan charge end in rout but follow up regiments take half of a town. We ended the game when Ivans reached their initial break-point (ie 8 units destroyed) rather than dice for morale collapse each turn.

We were quite slow for first couple of phases of game as we got to grips with the Initiative and Control Tests aspect of game, but things soon speeded up. We found system very playable with nice balance and the shooting and combats are swiftly and often bloodily resolved (in melee its either both sides take hits and one bounces off or one side is completely annihilated). Need for reserves or second lines apparent. Prussians have a lot of inherent advantages in the rules despite being rather smaller army. Their Infantry are generally stronger than Ivans by 1-2 strenths points can move obliquely (as can all cavalry) and probably best advantage being that they score shooting hits on 5 or 6 compared to 6 only for Ivans. Combined with their much better leaders they are a potent force. Ivans by contrast are fairly cumbersome and only gain a slight advantage in inconclusine melee outcomes in that that they take one less strength point loss. All seemed fairly historical to us. Quite a high level set of rules but smooth to play.
Pretty much on a par with Piquet Field Of Battle with of course a few differences in outlook resolution but similar in outcome and simulation.
Stephen quite taken with them and now investigating the ACW version.





Prussian initial set-up

Battle for town

Initial Russian move

Russian centre (with brigaded Artillery)

Russian Infantry

Prussians ready to move forward

Dbmm 1.1 Galatian vs Marian Roman

Played a truly excellent game today vs Stephen using my Galatians (with Selecuid allies) against Marian Romans (lead by Caesar himself). Lots of action across the board with Roman artillery proving a major pain. Main Celt command ended up assaulting up a scrub hill (took it eventually). Enemy Numidian command broken early on but Veteran Legions (BdS) proved too tough for lesser Warband Command who also broken leaving the Selecuid command exposed (not helped by 2 turns with 1 Pip !).  Loss of Greeks tipped army over the abyss..............

Initial Galatian move

Another view of same

From behind

Roman center

Confused melee on hill near end

And the following day.............

Another set of 18th Century Rules hit the mat today (excellent service by Spirit Games)  Might And Reason by Sam Mustafa. Very quick skim through but looking good.

Yet more rules.............

Another set of 18th Century rules 'King of the Battlefield' arrived today.

Initial impression rather good as they seem to be a very playable set designed to accomodate large numbers of units on table.

Only beef is they are really a Seven Years War set (going by unit types and factors) rather than covering whole 18th Century. No mention of Malburian period. Should be easily tweakable though.

I really must try to resist buying any more sets of rules....................unlikely......................especially as Might And Reason inbound !!

DBMM 1.1 Game Byzantine vs Buyids

Dbmm 400 pt game using my Maurikian Byzantines vs Stephens Buyids.

Used 5th Feb draft of 1.1 (as we dont like 25/2 version)

Great game (as ever) with no Marching to contact as it turned out.

I massed 6 wedges of CvS/O with 2 Generals wedges lined in front with LhS/F and supported on flanks by Optimates and allied Khazar KnF.

Stephen had massed Inf in his centre mainly AxS with Ps support and a few BwO. Some Lh on his right and CvS behind his Inf on left.

Very little terrain (2 SH 1 GH and a W)

Despite being all mounted I ended up deploying first which was not ideal but did allow me to get forward quite quickly on first turn. 

Byzantine wedges advanced against the foot blocks behind the Lh. Arabs advanced and engaged Lh ,to block Cv getting through. This worked for a turn but then Cv wedges got into contact along with Optimates. Very tough for both Cav and foot but we felt it seemed correct if Cav take on foot in such fashion.

Arab Lh surrounded and broken my allied Khazars (awful Pips) on my left whilst it was a stand-off on right as Arab Cmd had lowest Pip dice allocated.

Eventually the Byz Cv began to kill front ranks of foot but not fast enough as their wings emploded (looked like Cannae) and eventually succumbed with both flank Cmds broken and losses acrued on Cv cmds.

22-3 to Arabs with only 1 disheartened Cmd. But a lot closer than outcome as both Arab foot cmds 1-2 ME from breaking and if either had broken both would have due to -2ME morale effect causing break of whole army.

Close but yet again not close enough for Byzantines......

Initial deployments

Buyid Infantry centre

Byzantine Cavalry

Battle Group Panzer Grenadier II game

Super game between my son and father last evening using new version of excellent Battle Group Panzer Grenadier rules with my 15mm kit.

Lots of action and excitement from the get go.

Rauray scenario from the first scenario supplement generates a very good game pitting 9th SS advance against Tyneside Scottish  after Op Epsom in Normandy.

With new unit activation system there is quite a lot more dice rolling but its fast and furious and balanced by less rolls for combat outcomes.

Lots of double 1 and double 6 effects throughout the game.

Managed 7 out of 14 possible turns in just over 4 hours with 2 players completely new to rules which says a lot about their playability.

Declared a draw but Germans (my Dad) were beginning to gain upper hand especially on British right and the Shermans in Rauray were hiding from roaming Panthers having seen all their 6pdrs destroyed.

Great stuff.

The British Cmdr (Steven 16yrs)

The SS Cmdr (old enough to know better)

German flamethrower singes its own !!

German CO looking pensive as 6pdr opens up

Panthers appear

Ridiculous Vanity (yet another ruleset !!)

Ridiculous Vanity ruleset arrived today (excellent overnight delivery from Calivier Books) I really cannot help myself when it comes to rules...................

Battlegroup Panzer Grenadier game preparation

Set up Rauray scenario again to try out Battle Group Panzer Grenadier version 2. 

My son and father will play and I will referee to learn the rules.

15mm game hope to play next evening or two...

Table setup

Black Powder rule test SYW

Quick test of Black Powder rules using my Seven Year War Russians against Stephens Prussians.

Quick terrain set-up from Warfare in Age Of Reason set and Points Costed armies (around 1370pts each)

Not played to completion.

Some nice systems in the rules and they play fast and flow well (can see ideas from Field Of Battle, Warmaster) but a major howler we felt was being able to move up to enemy and then shoot them to bits without them having a chance to reply !

So we changed sequence of play to have Shooting first.

Only other concern was that Charges seem overly desirable but easy fix to disallow versus Steady Inf or similar.

Prussians

Russians

Prussian Right Wing Currassier Brigade

Russian Left Wing Infantry & Horse Grenadiers