Vassal games update and another new arrival !

Several (well four) games ongoing at present using Vassal (and ACTs for couple).

First up WW2 Barbarossa To Berlin against Greig.
My Easrern Front holding up ok thus far against Nazis with Reds getting some Armoured and Siberian Corps into play.
However I boobed big style in North Africa moving Desert Army too far forward which alloewd a Panzer Corps to slip around behind me taking Alexandria, Cairo and Suez !!! worse still British forces in Eqypt cut off and about to wither on the vine.
Did however manage to Launch Torch invasion so now Tunis in allied hand and still able to contest North African theatre.

Next its Thirty Years War again Mike wherein my Protestant forces are grimly hanging on in face of superior Catholic and Imperial Forces. Badly need Sweden and Mr Adolphus to join in the fray.









Protestant holding Northern Germany but have lost gains in Southern regions.

Next its Paths Of Glory again against Mike.
We have both traded blows on Western Front as things have sort of stalemated in the East.
Allied Powers have assimilated Mid and Late War decks whilst Central Powers still not availing of Late War cards (ie not enough War Status accumulated yet).
Several bloody encounters at Liege bewteen British and Germans with it changing hands several times now.
We are just beginning Winter 1916 period.





Situation in the East

And in the West (far from being all quiet !)

Finally I have just started another game with Norman who chose KingDom Of Heaven The Crusader States with opening First Crusade scenario.
I am leading Holders of the  Holy Lance (and hopefully Holy Hand Grenade !) into the East to try to establish Outremer.
Attrition has bitten already with several losses to my horde after leaving flesh pots of Constantinople and marching into Asia Minor.

And finally this game arrived today !

Not strictly a 'Wargame' more a Conflict based game but one that intrigues and certainly garners rave reviews. I ordered this via Amazon for reasonable £37 and was expecting the 2009 version as pictured however very pleasently surprised to receive brand new 2012 Deluxe Version (2009 version essentially same anyhow I believe).
Yet more time required for rule learning & game playing !!!!

Field Of Glory and Combat Commander picture roll

Played another three Combat Commander games (three Tournament scenarios using RPG) with my Dad and a game of Field Of Glory Ancients (Maurikian Byzantine vs Dynatic Bedouin) with Stephen over the weekend.... most excellent gaming feast.
No time to waffle as such just to stick up a bunch of pics I took during the games.



My Russia Rifle Companys assault German Detachment on hill

My Yank Platoon defends against German Company behind Mines and Wire defence.

 

My Green British Company encounters a Green German Company in fairly dense terrain (western version of Kokoda trail !?)

On the Field Of Glory

Byzantines deployed

Bedouin deployed

 

 

Look what is on my table at present

Answer sod all as I waited in vain for Battle Group Overlord pre-order package to arrive this weekend, me being off and all, but to no avail.......bah humbug.........

 

Postscript just got this on 29/4/13

Dear Gary Barr,

The Plastic Soldier Company Ltd

Order Number: 4602

Detailed Invoice

Date Ordered: Saturday 06 April, 2013

Your order has been updated to the following status:

New status: Shipped

Please reply to this email if you have any questions.

Combat Commander in triplicate

Played 3 games of Combat Commander at Dad's and another 3 super games they were. First up was a scenario from the Normandy battle pack pitting US vs Germans at Mortain.
A night time scenario with SS unit attacking Yanks on some small rises.
But the Yanks have great support from a battery of 105mm (and can use 5 Command Confusion cards as Artillery Requests).
SS got caught a few times by Pre-Registered Barrages (2 allowed in scenario) and under Star Shells and losses were such that they had little left to contest field (1 up to Allies ie moi).

Next game we used the Random Scenario Generator (using a Playing Card deck to sekect map).
This saw a German Line detatchment pitted against a full Soviet Guards SMG Company.
Whilst German defended they were simply overrun by the Guards who had battery of 82mm Mortars in support whose timley use of Smoke gave great cover to Soviet advance.
Another forced surrender on Germans (and 2 up for me).

We went with RSG again this time I had British Line Company assaulting an SS Detachment in fairly wooded terrain.
The large wood and smoke from my light mortars got me right up into SS faces and several successful assaults later I had the key victory locations against which remaining SS battered themselves to destruction (3 out of 3 for Allies !!)
This one had SS in a Bunker on a bridge which they were forced to abandon due to a blaze which spread straight down the road behind them forcing them out of hex and into further blaze of British fire.
I love this sort of stuff in CC.

Pretty poor iPhone pics as I forgot iPad

Regimental Fire And Fury game

An American Civil war game at Stephen's today using the Regimental Fire & Fury set.
Scenario was an 'official' one outlining an encounter preluding 2nd Manassas set in August 1862 (I think it was called Brokenaws Meadow or similar ?).
I took the Rebs against Stephen with Feds.
A sort of meeting encounter although with onus on Rebs to do bulk of attacking.
Both sides started on table with only 3 Regiments, the Feds having some on table and off table Artillery batteries in support.
Feds are from Iron Brigade and Rebs are also Crack but much smaller. Both sides get reserves as game goes on with numbers advantage to Rebs.
Rebs are good quality overall with the initial 3 Crack Regts and all the rest Veterans.
Feds a more mixed bunch with some Trained troops but several Regts are rather strong.
Main objective is a field pretty much in centre of table but both sides score for inflicting over a third casualties on enemy forces.
The game lasts 9 turns with visibility decreasing every couple of turns as dusk then night falls.
Our game ended up in a bloody draw with glorious Rebs in possession of the field.
Stephen (ACW buff) tells me the game played out pretty much as per history with Feds inflicting losses on Rebs but suffering themselves with Rebs taking the objective and Feds being forced essentially to quit the field prior to big attack next day.
RF&F is a very slick set of rules that plays pretty fast once you get going with them and am tempted to purchase them despite not having a single ACW figure.
Having played the original F&F helps of course as a few differences/nuances but with core system the same.
Fun game and nice to try ACW period again.

WW2 Barbarossa To Berlin revisited

Played another game of WW2 Barbarossa To Berlin with my Dad, and another cracking game it was.
We also managed to fight this one to a conclusion.
Dad was as ever the Axis and I the Allies. This time he chose Op Barbarossa as his opening gambit and plowed a furrow through Russian lines in the north threatening Moscow right away.
In fact he took Moscow and killed Stalin despite my placing reserves directly into the city.
However strategically he left Minsk,Kiev, Odessa and elsewhere untouched and this was to cost him later.
I did take Moscow back driving out 2 Panzer Army but damage done (several Russian cards require Stalin to be in Moscow to play to full effect).
Axis failed to take any other Victory Locations and in first winter this cost them 5 VP points thereby cancelling out the 5 earned for taking Moscow and killing Old Joe.
Dad fairly well ignored N.African theatre only bringing PzArmeeAfrika into play, occupying Malta but doing little else.
I had planned to do the same but a couple of Mandatory Orders for Allied Attacks saw me having to take action here.
As it turned out I clobbered a bunch of Italians and cut off PzAA which died to attrition.
I then cleared out the whole theatre of Axis forces.
In 1942 I got to use Sledgehammer invasion (I remembered to use FDR Declares War and US Build-Up cards this time) coming ashore at Calais.
I took temporary possession of Hololand and Antwerp for victory points but a Panzer Army soon arrived and retook these pushing me back to beaches.
This of course took said Panzers away from Russia and spent precious actions dealing with invasion (ie its whole point).
In Russia things still not going HItlers way as German failed to capture any VP locations either by direct assault or encirclement.
Lack of German reserves Corps saw couple of Armies die without replacement (ie permanently) and all I had to do was hold my ever strengthing lines against diminishing German power.
Subsequently in the Winter 1943 turn the Germans suffered a -6VP penalty for lack of VP locations which took them down to zero total required for Auto Alied Victory huzzah.
We both enjoy this game as despite its general course being the same (ie Germans try to kinock out Russia, Soviets desperately hang on as Allies build up in West and Africa is a side-show but cant be ignored), no two games play out the same due to vargaries of card play and of course dice rolls.
My dice rolls were quite awesome in this game (lots of 5/6s) whereas Dads were on the low side generally.
Great stuff.

Am hoping this arrives sometime this week especially after seeing teaser pages and the games run at Salute (sadly only on web). I enjoyed the Kursk rules but Normandy is really much more my 'thing'

Combat Commander Saturday slaughter and a new arrival

Another couple of Combat Commander games played at my fathers this rainy Saturday evening.
And another two hugely entertaining encounters they turned out to be.








First up was a scenario from a C3i magazine (Scn 102 I think) with a Night Time attack set 23rd July 1994 with powerful German force attacking Americans.
Germans had mix of Paratroops and Pioneers (one with a flamethrower) against a US force of Line troops.
Besides Night effects on shooting we both had odd hand rules in force. Yanks had only 1 action per turn and the Krauts only 1 Discard.
This certainly made tings interesting.
Krauts were pretty unlucky in couple of close combats I initiated never having any Ambush cards.
This allowed me to take out their best leader (after several exchanges of the Initiative card for re-rolls !).
This fairly stymied their attack and a virtual whizz through Time Triggers saw them lose on points as Sudden Death arrived.

Next up we tried another Randomly Generated Scenario for which Dad rolled and found himself as Italians "ha ha and great !" roared I and then duly found myself in charge of a bunch of Greeks (ie the dread 'French' hand).
We decided to randomly pick our forces from the available chits and this resulted in an Italian Fucellari Company (a massive 18 Squads) attacking a lowly Greek Detachment (a mere 9 Squads).
Luckily for me the map orientation was narrow as a wide set up would have left me very thinly spread.
The Eyeties looked impressive (almost Soviet indeed) when lined up  with the Plate-smashers looking rather unimpressive in comparison.
However I did have benefit of decent defensive terrain ie hills and had purchased 6 Foxholes to aid my bunch.
I also set up right in the Italians faces (risky as any disaster would leave my rear areas wide open) and the weak Italian Squad firepower became evident.
Several nasty Events struck us both and yet we ended up with 3 Veteran units on the map !
Eyeties had purchased an Artillery support in set-up phase (a nasty 105mm) but this in the end proved their undoing as in the close terrain several stonks fell short breaking more of their own troops than mine. Several of these I then dutifully shot down building up a commanding points lead (one of the random Victory chits was double points for eliminations).
Game ended on turn 8 after second Sudden Death roll with Greeks having amassed an unassailable 22 points.

   











As to the new arrival this was an Ebay purchase of Fading Glory by GMT a boxed collection of 4 Napoleonic battles (originally produced under the VPG  Napoleonic 20 banner - 20 being upper limit of units per side).

This is a low complexity game with low unit count of which I started a quick game of the Waterloo battle.
Quick playing but with bit more meat on its bones than first meets the eye, especially with flexible (if risky) option to use Morale points to assist Combats, Rallying and suchlike.
Several optional rules of which only one I did use was the 'Battle Fatigue' option as bit fiddly to remember and not sure it really suits the complexity level of the game.
Nice to have as option though.
Components wise the game is excellent with nice mounted boards (2 double sided) and good chunky counters.