Field Of Battle 2 - Lutzen scenario played

Game today with Le Duc and a visiting Blogger Tony (prometheusinaspic.blogspot.com/) all the way from East Lothian (over for a weekends FOB familiarisation).
I umpired the game using my 15mm French and Prussians with a replay of a GDB scenario 'The Prussian Charge' at Lutzen May 1813.
Tony took the defending French and Darren the Prussian attackers.
As Tony is a newbie to FOB (he has read the rules and played once ?) I helped him with the mechanics of the rules and card system.
He took no time absorbing the basics and the game soon flowed in the way FOB games do.
Le Duc suffered early on from poor rolls on his move cards and took awhile to get to the initial village target Gros Gorschen but did Rout the French from it rather easily.
However Klein Gorschen proved tougher fare as the garrison beat off its attackers in short order.
Meanwhile both side suffered casualties in the central areas.
The French heavy battery on the hill shot at long range into the flanks of Prussian Cavalry causing them to Rout as another unit was Routed by a French square.
However the Prussian Cavalry rallied and with further mounted reserves arriving they dealt with a square and the French artillery.
A timely arrival by the French Cavalry Brigade shored up that flank before the Prussian mounted arm could run riot.
In the center the French defenders began to rout in droves but again the arrival of a large Infantry Division shored up this area.
Both sides had lost multiple Morale Chips but the French suddenly found their Morale had run out and they were giving chips to the Prussians.
However Tony managed to forestall doom twice by passing his Army Morale check but eventually succumbed on third appearance of the card.
A hard fought action and I hope both Le Duc and Tony enjoyed the game and that Tony was given a good grounding in FOB.
Also hope he saw how well FOB performs for a game such as this with some 30+ units per side.

Off to Le Ducs tomorrow for a FOB refight of Neerwinden with his 25's yee hah

Test Of Battle - Cristot Normandy scenario played

Another try with TOB this time using our 15mm kit and a scenario adapted from the Rapid Fire Normandy supplement.
Action is based around attack in area of Cristot on 11th June by 50th Infantry Division against 12th SS Hitler Jugend.
British were Regulars Morale 8 the SS Veteran morale 9 although if we were to play this again I would make one or other Experienced with same morale level as Veterans are very powerful in TOB with their +1 to hit.
The scenario was based on a 7' x 5' table and so I copied terrain pretty much exactly however the RF villages are a good deal bigger than the TOB built up areas so maybe should have reduced their footprint a tad.
But really made little difference to game overall.
Stephen took the SS defenders and we just had him set up hidden on a map which worked fine.
Tough to spot in Normandy terrain and defenders invariably get first shot in.
We also used the Special Events cards which are a nice addition with some minor but interesting effects for specific units or actions.

The deterministic Spotting rules take a bit of getting used to but work fine, but we still are not 100% sure we are doing Morale checks correctly in terms of some modifiers as to whether they are 'one offs' or last throughout game in particular Forced Back and Eliminated.
Otherwise a slick playable system streamlined a good deal from the earlier CDII we played years ago.

I suspect another outing for these soon





The area of operations pre-battle from German lines, Cristot center/left.

Dragoon Guards run into trouble

As Infantry deploys around Hill 103

Hill 102 occupied by Panther Platoon which which I never got close enough to spot.

Allied advance on left towards Brouray

Command Decision:Test Of Battle first outing

Game today using Test Of Battle version of Command Decision rules system at Stephens.
I have had these for about 10 years without trying them !
Used to play CD versions I & II quite a lot prior to arrival of Spearhead.
We used Stephens lovely 10mm kit with me as Canadians and he as SS in a scenario 'Buron' showing the 12th SS counter attack on 7th June 1944.
Great game with a much faster playing version of CD.
A lot of stuff has been refined to easier systems with a lot less firing and a new hit and hit effects system, although based around unit quality.
The CD orders chit system remains but with less order types and effects more playable overall.
Like Battlegroup rules high velocity weapons suffer as they essentially fire the same as anything else eg a 37mm hits same as an 88mm with only a smaller extreme range and of course much less penetration.
Some stats seem tad off as well such a standard Sherman has frontal armour of 8 but a Firefly has a mighty 10 whilst a PzIVh has a mere 6.
I prefer SH or FOBWW2 for larger games but TOB is great for games with couple of Battalions per side.
The WW2 kick continues...……………

I Ain't Been Shot Mum again

Another go with these enjoyable yet frustratingly written rules.
We played another scenario from the Bleneville Or Bust supplement with Stephens using his Yanks against my Krauts.
I had 2 Stugs and 2 Tigers backing up a mixed Company of Fallschirmjager and Infantry against 10 Shermans and a full Armoured Infantry Company with some Recon assets.
We both had access to air power although USSAF had rocket armed Jabos whilst Luftwaffe had MG strafing only.
I did manage to brew 5 Shermans but lost one Tiger to laser guided munitions of the Jabo (and 2nd Tiger nearby was lucky to escape unscathed) whilst my 2 Stugs retired with guns knocked out.
My Infantry were badly handled by Yank tank fire and incessant 60mm Mortar attention (Yanks had 4 of these annoying weapons).
We failed to finish but I think it would have been hard for me to wrest control of the bridge objective from the Yanks.

Again we came up against some rules issues this time being unable to find any rules covering on-table mortar fire !! not covered directly (amazingly !) in the actual rules but is in the late war supplement War of Liberation.
Another was use of MGs on half-tracks, with rules covering their firing included but not how to crew them again I found an answer later in another supplement (a no-brainer as such but at least it spells out that you need to leave crew to drive a half-track and 2 additional crew to fire any onboard MG at full effect).
Such issues are very annoying with IABSM especially with such basic stuff, easily enough resolved but much time wasted trying to decide what rules say, or don't say and making a house rule.

Still an enjoyable game and we both like the scale of IABSM and its system overall but just wish the writing was a tad 'tighter' and less left to Kriegspiel approach.









Overview of the battlefield from Yank entry point with German high ground to left

Yank tanks suffer

Yank Infantry Platoon and Recce defend southern approaches to bridge

Yanks in the church facing my Grenadiern

Stugs on my left flank

Soldaten on ridge line

More Shermans appear to the north

Tiger appear to replace the retiring Stugs

My FJ advance in centre

And uncover more Shermans

My left

My right

Shermans suffering more as Tigers open up

Soldaten decimated by Tank HE

An M8 brewed a hard to spot little bugger in the bocage

  

Combat Commander - 1940 scenarios in triplicate

Been awhile but got CC:E back onto table with my Dad tonight playing 3 scenarios from the 1940 Fall Of The West battle pack.
First had BEF defending Dunkirk perimeter, the second Brits again defending in Norway and third had French in well France.
Nasty old Huns lost all three but the last was exceedingly close.
As always exciting play with this most excellent game system.




















BEF defends near Dunkirk

As Huns attack

Action in Norway

And French see off Huns near the Meuse