GMT's WWII Barbarossa To Berlin another outing

As a change of pace from Combat Commander my Dad and I had another go at WWII Barabarossa to Berlin from GMT games.
And another cracking nights entertainment it was.
Dad as Axis (as ever) went with 'standard' Barbarossa opening but failed to make any great headway towards Moscow due to some very good Allied dice rolling (I seemed to get nothing but 5 or 6 to his 1 or 2).
This despite his surrounding and eliminating a large pocket of Soviets in South.
I got Replacements and Reinforcements pretty much as required and things soon stagnated on the Ost front with both sides entrenching.
A lack of Taifun and Nordlicht cards also stymied the Axis advance.
This lead to a ding dong struggle for North Africa with Panzer Afrika striking as far as Alexandria (and being reconstituted three seperate times !) but being caught by Torch landings in mid 1942.
Whilst Axis got the Totaller Krieg card as Total War started they had just fallen below the 11VP required to use it.
The arrival of Soviet Tank Fronts allowed pressure to be mounted on German lines especially in North with Koingsberg under threat.
Both sides lost lots of troops here.
The killer blow came after North Africa was rid of Axis troops with US and British launching Husky and the play of Casablanca (giving Neutral VPs to Allies) which left Axis with a mere 2 VP which they soon lost as Allies romped through Italy almost unoppossed to achieve victory in early 1944.
A great game with lots of hard decisions as to how to play cards and acheive best use of their options.
Some events are very enticing but usually are one offs (ie removes card from play) and they generally have good OPs and RP values.
I was lucky to get Bomber Command twice in a row with no Axis Fighter counter to reduce Axis hand size twice whilst he only managed one use of Wolfpacks.
Very enjoyable once more.
Just wish my Vassal Pbem game was going as well.............................



Modest gains for Third Reich in the East

End is nigh for Rommel in North Africa (although he did bloody 8th Armies nose)

We shall remember them...........

Vassal PBEM games status

Few pics from ongoing Vassal (and ACTs) games I am currently playing via PBEM.

Playing third game of this versus Greig with me as Axis this time, as I wanted to the 'Von Paulus Pause' card.


















Situation in on the Ost front early 1942 with limited gains for Germans

Western Desert with Rommels Panzer Armee Afrika about to attack the Desert Army

On very last card play of this one against Mike which has been hugely enjoyable with swings of fortune abounding.
Going to end up a hard fought draw.
















Overall situation with only last Catholic card to be played

Swedes last Protestant force left and having taken Austria and devastated Bavaria

Tilly with last Catholic force (still Spainish armies in their zone) clawing back lands from Protestants in Germany.

The score with only one more card to play (Catholics likely to bring score up to 15 max) so a draw.

Another against Mike wherein the British have just gotten back into fray on Western Front having been ousted entirely earlier !
















Overall view of situation on mainland Europe

The Western Front with French weakened and British resurgent but Germans in strong posistion. Italians in dire straits too.

The Eastern theatre pretty much stalemated

Field Of Glory : Gallic host face the Might Of Rome

Played another Field Of Glory Ancients game (getting to be a popular set with us) at Stephens.
I wanted to try my Celtic chaps and Stephen wanted to try Marian Legions, I used Gallic circa 250BC so a bit early to face Marius but not too ahistorical.
I had 11 units with 2 Light Chariot 2 Cavalry 1 Javelin Light Infantry 4 Medium Foot (of which I am not a fan) Average Warriors and a Gaestati Allied Command with 2 Heavy Foot (much better) Superior Warriors. Romans also had 11 units with 1 Light Horse Numidians 1 Gallic Cavalry 1 Light Bow 1 Light Velite the other 7 being Superior (huzza) Legions with a mix of 8 and 4 bases.
The terrain fell mostly on my side of table but essentially had no bearing on proceedings.
Two blocks of 8 Superior Legionnaries led by Generals proved absolutely awesome as even my Superior Warriors were outclassed.
Romans with General fighting needed 4's with re-rolls of 1's and 2's at Impact and in Melee compared to my Warriors needing 5's with re-rolls.
The match-up against my Average Medium foot was simply horrendous although I had really good Cohesion rolls for several turns (10+ mostly) in contrast to my awful Combat dice.
Compared to Dbmm Romans are the 'dogs gonads' in FOG and feel much more like......well.....Romans, at least in our opinion.
Only a unit of chariots had any success against the Roman foot.
Another defeat but another excellent game.

Field Of Glory Ancients 1000 point game Abbassid Arab versus T'Ang Chinese

Played a doubles game of FOG at Mr Pollock's house, on his very nice table,  using 1000pts per side (which seems to be standard doubles sized 'tourney' type game).
Mr P is new to rules and so we thought this might be best way to show him the ropes. Sadly for him he was paired with the dice rolling underacheiver of this or any other Century ie me !
Mr P has a T'Ang Chinese army so thats funnily enough what was fielded (with a Sogdian ally supplied by moi) whilst the brothers Grim (ie Brittain) used an Abbasid Arab army for a fairly historical matchup.
A good game as always which flowed pretty well considering Mr P was new to system.
He sent my two Heavy Cavalry Lance armed units on an out flank move on enemy left and we tried to refuse our own left flank (quite a lot of terrain over there).
He deployed a solid Infantry center (Chinese Spear and bow mixed units) with his 'shooty' Cavalry (he had one unit of Cataphrats Lancer types) and Light horse supporting flanks.
However the Arab foot whilst mostly average Defensive Spearmen did have a couple of units of Dailami Superior Impact foot types and all the Arab cavalry (including their Light Horse) had Lance.
The 'shooty' type cavalry are flexible and versatile but maybe a bit hard to use for a first timer and terrain was unkind to him leaving nowhere for his Medium Foot to deploy in (the -1 for MF being beaten by is often crucial in failed Morale checks).
When the Arab foot hit home the T'Ang began to suffer but the main tipping point towards disaster was on right where Mr P managed to roll low enough for a foot unit to go instantly Fragmented and then a Cavalry unit saw its General die in combat caused my consternation on this flank !
At this point my outflank arrived to be faced by two identically armed Arab lance units.
The inevitable dice fest saw one unit each lose but John managed to kill my counter charging Sogdian General whilst I missed his narrowly by rolling a 10 (on 2d6) when 11+ required...............damn.
At this juncture the Arabs had destroyed or routed most of the T'Ang foot and had units about to flank those remaining and ready to loot T'Ang camp.
So time was called with Arabs triumphant.
Mr P seemed to enjoy the game and grasp the basics of the FOG system.
He obviously needs more practice with the various troop types and match-ups in his T'Ang force.
FOG certainly a lot easier to teach than Dbmm.



Arabs on left T'Ang on right

T'Ang footcenter with mounted supports

Arab foot

Lines clash

Sogdians arrive on far left

Retro with Squad Leader

Briefly tried out Retro rules with Squad Leader (although Retro looks to based around ASL) with old scenario 7 'Bucholz Station'.
Retro certainly quick playing as it drops several phases and Morale testing.
Seems to have quite a bloody CRT (I think I will use the optional 'softer' CRT version).
Quite solo friendly with Hestitation and Defensive fire systems.
Not sure it improves greatly on such a basic SL scenario but suspect it will make my ASL stuff see the light of day once more. 
Strangely I found the counters and hexes small and somewhat fiddly after being used with larger version in Combat Commander.
A sure sign of old age !!??

Field Of Glory: Italo Norman vs Early Medieval German

Another run out with Field Of Glory as Stephen wanted to try his Norman figures. I chose Early Medieval Germans (with lots of Lance Cavalry but no true Knights unlike the Normans) Another fun game that showcased the power of Knights over cavalry (their 2 dice per base including overlaps very powerful in melee). We have really taken to FOG V2 (although conversely the FOG forums seem to indicate disillusionment with newer version !?)