More Combat Commander

Played three more scenarios from Combat Commander last night this time three from the Mediterranean supplement.
First was Fallschirmjager versus New Zealanders near Maleme airfield Crete.
This one saw NZ triumphant as I was able to get sufficient units off-board (double victory points) to build a good lead when sudden death kicked in.
Second scenario was set in Poland in 1939 with my Polish bunch suffering an absolute plethora of favourable German events (two reinforcements which included an 81mm mortar Radio) Hero, and several selecting a card to discard from my hand.
With a single discard capability (Poles use French deck) the Polish proved unequal to their attacking task.
Last scenario had a mass of Romanians attacking Russians in 1941.
A really good one this one that went to the wire (we were both only 2 unit losses from Surrender) despite my accumulating a huge VP advantage.
Romanians use Italian deck (not just as bad a French but close) but their second line units suffer once broken as low morale (6) means they are susceptible to Rout cards played against them.
Lots of melee in this one.
Great stuff again from a great game system.

Altar Of Freedom 6mm American Civil War game

Game at Stephens today to try out a set of fast play big battle rules for American Civil War entitled Altar Of Freedom, using his Federals and his brother Johns Confederates.
A very good set of rules for the scale the are designed for which is each stand equals a Brigade.
Rules are fairly simple as regards shooting and combat with only a very few modifiers applying.
The hub and flavour of the game revolves around the Command Points available for each Division and the CinC which players use to 'bid' for Initiative.
Lots of decision points around this as to whether to bid to take initiative and to 'control' the game clock (of which more later) or to use points to activate Corps and their Divisions.
This is combined with every General having one or more traits assigned to him such as Inept, Revered, Dour, Unreliable and at least two dozen others, all of which affect his points how he allocates of uses them.
A turn 'clock' (in this case a D12) is used with players both rolling at the end of each 'impetus phase' and initiative holder deciding which dice roll to use to reduce this Time Clock by therefore generating a randomness to length of each game turn.
This can mean Corps assigned low Impetus may not get to activate in a turn.
Rules are fairly brief being only a dozen pages including examples.
They therefore leave out some detail in their definitions but mostly these can be sorted through common sense approach.
Only real problem we encountered was defining a flank charge (Enfilade in rules) as not defined where one can or cannot start from only how it must end up.
The game was taken from one of the copious scenario books available and was action at Stones River/Mufreesboro.
With 25 plus Union Brigades and associated artillery against 16 or so Rebel Brigades this is a real big battle set and worked really well with the 6mm kit on Brigade bases.
Only anomaly was the chaps had Brigades on correct width (60mm) but double depth (60mm instead of 30mm) which required a bit of jiggery pokery with support units and recoils.
Stephen and John being Civil War nerds/buffs/anoraks liked the system as it allows full actions to be played on 'normal' sized table.
Only comparable set I have tried is Volley and Bayonet which I disliked and Polemos ACW which the chaps have tried and also disliked.

Lots of pics showcasing the troops of which the vast bulk are Baccus with a few Adler mounted types.

New Wargames table covering

Yesterday I bought, for a very reasonable price (£14 including postage), a 7ft x 5ft piece of tye dyed faux suede material I found on web (from a fabric shop) which arrived today and so I decided to set up a game to see how the fabric looked in action as it where.

Set up is for 6mm WW2 to hopefully encourage me to:

1. Play a game of Spearhead or Field Of Battle WW2 or other 6mm oriented set that I have neglected

2. Paint my 6mm Russian or British Adler infantry that have been lying about for years !!!

3. Re jig my 6mm terrain which again is somewhat neglected

Combat Commander: Europe first couple games in a while

Played two scenarios from the Paratrooper Battle Pack for Combat Commander: Europe at my Dads last night. Both played on same map but two very different games ala Combat Commander.
First scenario had Peipers column trying to escape of foot across American lines during the Bulge battle.
This one went fairly easily to the American Para force opposing Peipers SS troops as they wracked VPs for killing the Krauts who failed to get forward.
Second scenario was set in early 1945 also in Ardennes area with US Paras attacking German Infantry in a snow blizzard.
This one was a very close run affair with everything hinging on a single building objective that was worth some 20+ points overall.
My Paras invested the building killing all but one leader whom they simply could not get rid of and I could not get a single advance card to enter into melee with this stubborn sod.
Time trigger saw US get lucky missing a couple of Sudden Death game ending rolls. However in a twist of fate that CC can produce a Blaze Event was drawn by The German and guess which hex it ended in ? Yup the bloody victory hex over which Paras had expended so much effort !!!
This pretty much ended their chances and low and behold the next Time Trigger appeared in short order ending game in German win.
Exciting stuff and a reminder of how enjoyable this game is.







Peipers boys failing to escape

And the US Airbourne advance towards the key objective (on left)

Twilight Struggle vs my son and ongoing Vassal games

Played Twilight Struggle today against my lad Steven. And low and behold I managed a win for once.
I played as the USSR achieving an auto win in the mid-war period.
Cue much crowing and dancing !
As ever a nice game to play with each turn generating a hand you have to play as best you can whilst trying to achieve your strategic aims.
Not a 'true' wargame as such but a fine and fun game of itself.

Several ongoing PBEM games via Vassal on my schedule at present:

Another Twilight Struggle game (which I have just lost on last turn as USA)

Turning Point Stalingrad game (into its fourth turn 16th September 1942) 

Barbarossa To Berlin (with me as Axis) facing massive Red build up having failed to advance far into Russia.

Hannibal: Rome vs Carthage (using AH rules but newer board on Vassal) with me as Rome. Hannibal rampant in Italy but Varro now in Western Numidia

Bitter Woods (am brand new to this one) with me commanding US troops (AH 2nd edition rules on L2 Vassal map). Yanks are really thin on ground at start ! 

Another Barbarossa To Berlin game with me as Allies this time and early in Turn 2

Breakout Normandy again.............and some more acquisitions

Another game of the excellent Breakout Normandy from Avalon Hill (RIP) against my Dad.
And another win for my British and US forces.
We realised that we had done Bombardments incorrectly last time as we were adding the defence factor of units instead of just the Terrain modifier. Whilst Bombardments cannot actually eliminate any units they can certainly suppress them (ie in game terms force them from Fresh status to Spent or Disrupted keeping them out of action) with the Naval Task Forces being very good at this against German units at or near the coast.
As per last game the British landings were successful overall as was Utah but poor old Omaha suffered once again.
However Omaha recovered better overall this game and I took the key Carentan area and once again cut-off the Cotentin Peninsula.
I got lucky taking Caen early with its 4 Victory Points, a set-back from which the Germans never recovered as I filled it with troops.
We must try the longer extended game as I think the Germans may fare better in the long game.
Great stuff once again.

And some EBay and new purchases (over past few months I hasten to add !)

And a couple of Miniatures rule sets