PBEM update - Combat Mission and Storm Over Arnhem

Wee update to couple of ongoing PBEM games

Combat Mission Afrika Korps game just finished against NJ John with a scenario entitled Mercantale set in Italy 24th July 1944 with South African force (moi) facing Germans (with a Troop of Tigers !!)

Just finished this and a narrow loss for Afrikaneers whose armour support (Shermans and M10's) were decimated by Hun Tigers and Stugs but one Tiger was taken out by a PIAT in a daring deed.

The brewed Tiger with Allied armour burning in background

The 'butchers bill'

Still in progress (just started Turn 4) is Storm Over Arnhem on Vassal with Mike (Germans) with my Paras just starting to suffer and come under pressure along river bank.

German recce elements pushing towards bridge

Overview

L'Art De La Guerre - two more games

Another couple of LADG games played with Stephen in sunny Ulster.

Both games between not quite historical opponents but what is a couple of hundred years between friends.

First up it was my Galatians against Triumvirate (Marian) Roman and this was a bloody slugfest with both sides trying to turn opposing flanks and both seeming to have boundless amounts of Pips.

Highlight for me was a lowly Psiloi (WRG speak) which was hit on flank by unit of Thracians but which managed to win and inflict hits !! however this was countered by my Greek subjects imploding in one turn on my right to Roman cavalry they were beating !

Elite Roman Legionaries in center gradually ground down my Elite Warriors and Celts defeated.

Next up it was my mid period Sassanids facing Stephens Thematic Byzantines and this one was more one-sided with my lot having really poor Pip rolls making co-ordination a problem.

Byzzies rather thumped my Cataphracts and put enough shooting hits on my other troops to crush Persians.

 

Civil War Battles an outing

Game at Stephens today and he decided to use Civil War Battles from the Peter Pig Rules For The Common Man stable.

I have had these rules since publication in 2007 but never tried them.

We tried a standard 600 point game (1 Corps of 2 Divisions a piece) using they scenario generator and war points system.

Forces based on mid-war Western lists with Stephen using Feds and me the Rebs.

Took a while to go through the various stages of the game set up but straight forward and would speed up with familiarity.

Knowing best categories to allocate your war points can be influential to battle set up.

Despite only allocating 6 (of my 60) to trying to attack whilst allocated 12 of his (60 + 3 from list) I managed to outscore him 3:1 and was attacker.

However he had much better successes (+3) in two categories whilst I only had minor effect (+1 in 2 categories) so Feds had more effective benefits overall.

Terrain is plentiful with 6 to 8 pieces each and 2 Objectives placed mainly by defender but with some pieces adjustable (limited scope) by attacker. 

No difference to terrain selection for theatre but did seem to generate a plausible ACW style table.

The Motivation (Generals activating individual units), the use of Action Points for the units is nice system that is easy to follow and this combined with fairly simple movement, shooting, combat and morale makes for a smooth game.

Only rule we had issue with was overhead firing which seemed to allow artillery to fire at enemy guns over friends and enemies units on the flat in addition to from hills seemed rather odd (FOOs in use !?) but otherwise all was fine. 

++Postscript++ we feel using the much clearer overhead firing rule from the later Washingtons Army set seems more appropriate ie only applies to firing to or from hills not on the flat ++

Did not finish the game but we did try all the component parts and a nice system overall that is decent option for a pick-up style game.