D-Day Part 2

When the store opened on Saturday (June 6), the bigger part of the game got under way. Even more players arrived to play the beach defenses and the amphibious landing. I believe I heard Craig say that this was the largest attendance for a Saturday Mega-game that the store has ever seen. Fitting that it would be for D-Day. Turn four of the game began, it was dawn on the 6th of June (for game purposes - I slept in this morning).

6th Airborne takes Pegasus Bridge. 21st Panzer assembles off-table.

4th US Infantry Division starts its landings.

4th turn started with a pre-turn aerial bombardment and then the landing craft were placed on the table. Alas, this blog will mostly cover only my part in the battle, so waddle over to http://www.gajominis.com and wait for them to post a complete battle report. My concern was defending St. Mére-Église from the 82nd Airborne.

The MG42s are silenced. 91st Luftlande troops defend the HQ across the street from the church.

The 82nd commander, Wil, played a great game. The 82nd troops launched several assaults to consolidate their positions and remove the German fighting platoons. First, the 91st's AT platoon bogged down trying to remove their guns from the woods, and were wiped out by the 82nd's hardest-hit platoon. So, the woods were gone. Luckily I placed my remaining sniper well at the crossroads (oops, a mistake, as I wasn't supposed to place a sniper within 4 inches of friendly troops - sorry, Wil). The mortar platoon and the MG42s did sterling work holding off the final 82nd assault. 

The Church falls, HQ bugs out, leaving the sniper to cover the retreat.

Eventually Wil got his reinforcements. The 75mm pack howitzers landed a smoke barrage perfectly on the center of town and the 82nd's second platoon assaulted the MG and mortar platoons, wiping them out. As the US airborne consolidated, the German HQ began to retreat toward Carentan leaving the sniper to delay the American advance. Additionally, the remaining flak platoon would keep the airborne divisions from linking up.

The Fall of St. Mére-Église.

The sniper was never seen again, although small -arms fire was heard from the center of town. As the HQ retreated, the Flak platoon began raking the church tower with fire, knowing that the Americans would place observers there. No luck in stopping that, however. Soon the 82nd was raining mortar and artillery fire on anything wearing a feld-grau uniform. Unfortunately, the German defenders of Utah beach eventually caved under the weight of allied assaults and naval bombardments. Sherman tanks advancing from Utah finally linked up with the 82nd.

 

As the final paratrooper assault took out my flak platoon (leaving just the HQ survivors- and those at half strength), the security of Carentan was assured as the 101st ran out of assaulting platoons. In the end, the allies won the battle with 5 objectives captured to 4 objectives held. Not too dissimilar from the actual event. 

A photo was taken of most of the participants, and I'm told an article with photos will appear later in one of those great British wargaming magazines. Looking forward to that.

D-Day 65th Anniversary

GAJO set up a massive Flames Of War battle to represent the actions surrounding D-Day in WW2. This was a tremendous effort put on by the GAJO staff and the many participants. Chris and Craig and the GAJO staff have been preparing terrain and figures for months, as have many of the game players. It's all coming about just great!

The scenario is of course, representative of the large battle since it's impossible to accurately portray all the units and actual terrain of the event. Model Railroaders call this sort of scaling down as "Selective Compression." The idea is to at least get a "Feel" of the action and the strategies involved. Chris and Craig definitely got the feel of the Normandy coast, even though for the game's sake they had to shorten the beaches and represent familiar landmarks with the buildings available. Still, it was nice to see touches such as sign posts correct for the towns and roads of the area. Pegasus bridge was nicely represented as well as Pointe-du-Hoc and other objectives. The players are all big WW2 history nuts. One participant even wore his WW2 re-enactor's uniform for the 82nd Airborne! Nice touch to the atmosphere of the game.

The game was set over a two day period. Last night, June 5th, we gamed the airborne landings. After three turns, a roll of the dice indicated dawn arrived on time (meaning weather was not so bad as to obscure the dawn light). Play was suspended until the store opens today, June 6, with the dawn turn and the commencement of the landings.

Defense of St.Mére-Église. Dice ready for action.

My focus for this blog are the actions I was involved in, the defense of St. Mére-Église. To defend against the U.S. airborne I shared the command of the 91st Luftlände troops. This was a unit of former Luftwaffe troops trained to be airlifted into emergency situations. The game started with the 91st already in the defensive areas of St. Mére-Église (facing the 82nd) and Carentan (facing the 101st). The American players had to set out pathfinder markers and roll to see which units arrived randomly among the pathfinders or marched in off-board. Differently than the actual event, platoons arrived intact but randomly placed for arrival. This made it very difficult for the German players at first.

The bad luck die rolls hit the 101st player. He only managed to get two platoons of airborne to advance towards Carentan. His first platoon managed to overrun the outer defense, but snipers managed to pin the unit before they could overrun a 105mm battery. Because night rules were in effect, by nearby 20mm Flak platoon was unable to see the Americans well enough to target them. The second platoon has moved on slowly and cautiously. The Germans in Carentan are able to adjust their defenses.

82nd attacks 91st. 82nd will take the building at high cost.

In the 82nd sector, the Americans got 3 infantry platoons to come on through the fields outside of St. Mére-Église. The 82nd went into assault attempts immediately, and it was a fierce fight for the woods outside of town center. One sniper team helped to pin a platoon and accurate mortar fire helped pin another. Nonetheless, by the end of the third turn I had lost my two grenadier platoons, my sniper, and the Americans held the road to Cherbourg and one third of the town. I am left with some MG42 teams, a mortar platoon, an anti-tank platoon, a flak platoon, and Company HQ.

Find the sniper team pinning down 2nd/82nd.

Dawn is breaking. There's a tremendous rumbling from the coast. While my position in St. Mere-Eglise is precarious, Carentan is held strong and a Fallschirmjager company will arrive next turn. Plus, the night rules are over, and I think my observer in the bell tower will be quite busy...

Remains of 82nd 1st and 2nd platoons hold the center building and part of the distant woods. In the church just to the right are the observer team and a small MG42 platoon. It will take careful coordination between remaining German teams to pin the 82nd until (hopefully) reinforcements can arrive. But the 82nd gets more reinforcements shortly...

Last Stand in the Brimtok Bush

Weird planets have weird forests. This time my Mantis Warriors had a 500 point patrol up against a 500 point force of rampaging Space Orks.  Annihilation mission, Spearhead setup. Played at GAJO. Dave Baker played the unstoppable Orks.

Main Mob advances while stormboys leapfrog past them.

Mantis Warriors use cover. Firelanes ready...

The Chaplain joined up with the tactical squad. The scouts tried to pick lines of fire on probable ork approaches. The attack bike squadron zoomed out to harass the mobs. My main idea was to try to lay out lines of fire to hose down the horde of greenies. It was not to be...

Wait - where's the Boss and the nobz goin'?

Throughout the game I rolled very poorly, and the attack bikers failed to slow anyone down. All they did was attract the attention of the biggest mob!

Suddenly the truck backs up and out spill the Nobz!

Stormboyz jump in just in time...

It's Whomping time!

Everybody Piles In. Most everyone dies.

I rolled bad for assaults, too. The marines were strong enough not to run away, so they died off in ones and twos. Or threes and fours. The Scouts rushed in to help the chaplain. The main mob, having finished off the attack bikes, rushed in after them. When it was all said and done, the marines had been wiped out and there were but few orks left.  

A chance for revenge will be coming soon...

2nd Brimtok battle

The Brimtok Campaign is off to a good start finally. Another game has taken place between my Mantis Warrior space marines and my brother's Tau forces. Our battle this time was a 1500 point space marine force versus 1000 points of Tau. Advantage marines, but the Tau got extra bonuses in the form of orbital bombardment and anti-plant barrage. The struggle was for an observation post located in a mountainous and forested region. Unfortunately, I don't have any mountain terrain, so hilly would have to do (small hills). You be the judge:

The mission was Annihilation and the deployment was Dawn of War.  Not a good prospect for the Tau, as they were on the short points end of the stick. This time I thought I would put my heavy hitters in the center of the line and flank with lighter forces.

Marine scouts infiltrate through woods and brush.

Too late! Tau infantry have reached the larger post. Tau commander approaching.

The Crisis battlesuits moving in with a unit of gun drones.

The allied Leman Russ could pose quite a problem!

The Tau commander is moving under the platform.

Scouts reach the edge of the woods and engage the Tau. One scout down!

The attack bikes moved around the scout's side to flank the large platform. By now, the Tau had taken the smaller platform as well and a hovercraft was entering the field by that tower. My Chaplain joined a squad of tactical marines heading for the small platform while my Devastators, Whirlwind, Vindicator, and Dreadnought headed toward the Leman Russ.

The Mantis Warriors move up.

The Landspeeder and attack bikes figured to flank the large platform and engage the gun drones and Crisis battlesuits. The scouts job was to pin the Tau infantry in the platform. The Whirlwind wanted to stay out of line of sight and fire barrages. But what to do about the Leman Russ?

Mantis Warriors keep the Tau from taking the platform.

But watch out for the Hovertank!

I tried to knock out the Tau vehicles with Hunter Killer missiles, but those all missed. All fire directed at the Leman Russ was either too short or missed. At least the Tactical squad kept the Tau infantry from advancing. Lucky for me, the Tau commander kept forgetting to use his marker lights and guided missiles launched from the hovertank! This would have been a perfect time for the Tau to use an anti-plant barrage to wipe out the cover for the marines, but it was completely forgotten. Unfortunately, for the Tau, the opening orbital bombardment was a disappointment as well.

Frack! The Crisis unit has joined up at the platform and begins eliminating the scouts. 

Bad luck for the marines. The Landspeeder gets shot down, and the attack bikes take hits. The Vindicator weapon is destroyed, and no missile launchers seem able to get any glancing hits on the Leman Russ. Then luck changes a bit. A lascannon hit stuns the Leman Russ crew. The Tau commander rushes out to engage the tactical squad.

Tau Crisis battlesuits attack!

David launched his Crisis unit toward the scouts to use his flamers. The scouts took casualties but stayed in action. The gun drones were whittled down by the attack bikes. And now, the Crisis unit was in view of the dreadnought.

Tactical Squad and Chaplain Maximus engage the Tau commander.

The tactical squad assaulted the Tau commander and cleaned his clock. The dreadnought began picking off Crisis battlesuits. The Whirlwind made a mess of Tau infantry on the platform.

The Dreadnought makes a mess of the Crisis Unit.

The Dreadnought eventually finishes off the Crisis unit, the remaining scouts finish the Tau on the platform, and the attack bike ends the gun drones. The lascannon in the devastator unit has had the only luck with the Leman Russ so far.

Chaplain Maximus and the Tactical squad assault the Leman Russ!

The consolidation of the tactical squad after defeating the Tau commander put them in range to assault the immobilized Leman Russ (lucky lascannon shot!). Their grenades did the trick just barely, knocking out the tank. The Tau now remembered to use their marker lights but failed to get a lock. The hovertank moved in towards the smaller platform to engage the marines.

Last moves of the Tau. Their marker light just wouldn't engage!

Maximus and the boys assault the hovertank!

Maximus and the Tactical squad just barely manage to knock out the hovertank at the end. I forget who wiped out the last of the Tau infantry. A devastating win for the Mantis Warriors.

Our next battles should be a couple of 500-point patrol games of Space Marines versus the Space Orks!

For the SNS game night in June, we're planning two games: Field of Glory ancients, and some sort of WW2 dogfighting game in the Pacific. This weekend many of us will be involved in the GAJO store D-Day games using Flames of War.

Saturday Gamenight

On our last SNS gamenight, our clubmembers organized two games. Out in the main lobby of GAJO's store, I set up a game on one of the 6 x 4 tables. It was a French & Indian War skirmish using the Warhammer Historical rules, Legends of the High Seas. LOTHS is basically a pirate skirmish rules game, but it covers the basic black powder period so I thought I'd try a different theme to it. In the scenario, a force of French-led warriors is raiding the frontier while the settlers must defend their homesteads with the help of a squad of British soldiers and frontiersmen. The actual object of the battle was for both sides to keep possession of Mrs. Jones, a settler with wide reputation for her cooking skills. She had to be protected at all costs!

The French and indian forces deployed randomly off table edges after the colonials had set up. As luck would have it, most of the native units deployed close to the cabin where Mrs. Jones was holed up with the militia. The British soldiers were located by a barnyard in the center of the table while the best unit on the table, named the "Albany Rangers" were positioned on a hill some distance away!

Seen above, the French Captain in charge of the raid led a Canadian militia section across the fields to try to pin down the British soldiers and keep them from reinforcing the settlers in the cabin (upper left corner). Unfortunately for Dennis, his men were gunned down by the Redcoats and long range fire from the Rangers who were coming off the hill off picture to the right. Eventually the French Captain and a couple of his men faced off in the barn against the British officer and his men. In a classic sword and bayonet duel, the French officer and his men went down fighting.

My poor roll for deployment landed my band of warriors led by Thunder Badger into a swampy marsh. I could see there were plenty of warriors attacking the cabin so I decided to try to get past the marsh and hold off the Albany Rangers before they could help the colonial militia. Unfortunately the wetlands really slowed me down. At least there was some vegetation as cover.


As my band of braves emerged from the marsh the rangers were taking aim from the edge of the woods at the bottom of the hill. A lively firefight began. In the meantime, the warriors attacking the cabin were being pinned down in a stream gully . Dave's militia were picking off some of their attackers from loopholes made in the cabin walls. Terry and Jeff (visitor for that game) were organizing for a rush from the stream embankment. With the failure of the French Captain and the Canadian militia, for some reason the British Captain and a couple of his men pulled away from the farm  - perhaps a "strategic regrouping"?

Crazy Squirrel and Red Hawk led their warriors from the stream embankment for a rush to the cabin. The militia seen outside the cabin are assumed to be inside at the loopholes. After a couple of volleys some warriors fell, but others quickly surrounded the cabin and hand-to-hand combat began. Some warriors set fire to the empty barn, the militia outside of the cabin at the fence were dispatched, and a warrior pulled Mrs. Jones out of the cabin! Belatedly, the British Captain began heading back to the cabin. Unfortunately, Thunder Badger's warriors attempted to engage the rangers in hand-to-hand, and Norm rolled better than I did. Thunder Badger and two of his warriors survived to escape back through the marsh. At least they kept the rangers from reinforcing the cabin fight! The French and Indians won the day with the capture of Mrs. Jones.  

Everyone said they enjoyed the skirmish. I think we were all surprised at how the LOTHS could be applied to other-than-pirate scenarios. We'll be playing these rules again. Quick to learn, and easy to modify. The figures are all painted by GAJO. I'm slowly building up enough forces to do a more tactically  oriented game using the rules This Very Ground by Iron Ivan.

The other game was going on at the same time in the back room on the larger table.

Gary, Lynn, and Paul were playing a large game of Flames of War set in Normandy 1944. I have to apologize to the guys, most of the pictures I took of that game turned out poorly. Here we see Paul's panzer forces advancing through hedges and fields. I love the sunflower field that Chris created (originally made for the Kursk game). It's created in sections so that as vehicles drive through the sections are removed as flattened.  I don't know how the game went. I suppose if people want accounts of the games I don't play in to be posted, they'll just have to email me a report! I'll try to do better at photographing the other games though.

Next month we'll be playing Field of Glory ancients and Johnny Reb III American Civil War. Should be fun! We've also decided that we're not playing enough FOW games... so we've created an Auxiliary gaming night starting next month.

Brimtok Campaign - 1st battle

Some of us in the group also dabble in various sci-fi and fantasy games, including the various Games Workshop products. Nothing like a campaign to provide incentive for gaming, so Dave Baker created a planet named Brimtok which needs fighting over. It seems the industrious Tau have been spreading their influence throughout the region, and have managed to swing over planet Brimtok to their side. The Imperial Guard regiments stationed there have given up on the Imperium and have sided with the Tau. Well, we can't have that now, can we? So, the Space Marines have been summoned to give each side a bloody nose and sort things out. Unfortunately, some Chaos forces and their allied Ork forces have entered the arena in the hope of taking advantage of the mess.

Our first game pits my Mantis Warrior space marines versus a combined Tau/Traitor Guard force. 1500 points against about 1200-1300 points. The photo at the top is our battlefield, an Imperial orchard farm.

Above, Dave D sets up his Tau/Guard with fast forces on the wings and the Tau commander and a Leman Rus in the center. Marine objective is the hill.

The Mantis Warriors deployed in similar fashion. The Tau objective is the farm building.

As the battle begins, one of the planet's giant natural lifeforms makes an ominous appearance! Slightly larger than an Ork Stompa and smaller than a Titan, the enormous felinus giganticus (who goes by the name of "Mutton") strode across the battlefield, perhaps attracted by all the commotion. Weaving between the large yet deftly moving legs of the creature, a Tau squad moves forward to support their advancing right wing recon.

Mantis Warriors engage the Tau right wing. The scout scout moves quickly into the orchard while the Rhino and dreadnought move up. The landspeeder begins gunning down hovering drones before turning toward the Tau hovercraft.

The Tau commander moves up a well as the Guard tank. The tank is the 800 pound gorilla in the room. How to stop it?

Mutton the war cat settles down in a nearby lair, oblivious to the noises of battle nearby. The Mantis Warrior assault bikes and Devastator squad begin picking off the Guard sentinels.

On the marine left,a shootout begins between the Tau and Mantis Warriors. The Landspeeder is shot down but takes out half the drones. A squad of marines debarks from the Rhino before it might get destroyed...

The Sentinels take hits. In the center (left of picture), the marine Vindicator and the Guard Leman Russ trade wasted shots at each other.

Aaaieee! Disaster hits a Guard squad. Well, actually it was heavy bolter fire, not the giant claws reaching out for tasty morsels of mortals.

As the Leman Rus moves toward the Vindicator in the center of the marine line, a Guard squad moves through an orchard in support. Vindicator fire is joined by Whirlwind fire, but nothing seems to slow down the tank.

Attrition on the marine right wing. The assault bikes are lost but the Devastator squad takes out sentinels and guardsmen. 

The Tau commander engages in hand-to-hand with the scouts in the orchard. Not seen on the marine left, the Tau lose the drones and hovercraft. The dreadnought moves to assist the scouts. In the center, the Vindicator is finally destroyed (has not survived a game yet) and the Terminators take some casualties but wipe out the Guard squad. Tau infantry drop like flies (big, humanoid ones). 

Then we ran out of time, and called the game. The Mantis Warriors just squeak by on points, with no objectives taken by either side.  Good game to learn the rules, however!

SNS Gamenight - April 2009- Age of Sail

There was only a small group of us for our monthly gamenight (I'll bet Easter week had something to do with it). I had planned to present a demonstration of Warhammer Historical's new Trafalgar age of sail naval rules. For this game, the British and French ships shared similar crew qualities and ship statistics.

Trafalgar is aimed primarily at the Napoleonic Wars period of sailing combat. You can use multiple scales, but as my small fleet of 1/1200 ships is not ready, I decided to use the GAJO store fleets of 1/2400 ships by Figurehead. Chris has done a great job painting these up, and I've used them in a couple of games using Grand Fleet Actions. For Trafalgar, one must reduce ranges and speeds in half for this scale. Fortunately, the Yahoo! egroup supporting these rules is a busy group, and someone has already provided downloadable charts and rosters with the scale modifications already made. Of course I made full use of these.

Dennis and Russ took the French ships while Lynn and I piloted the British ships. If we had seen more players, we would have included 74-gunners. As it was, 2 first-rate and 2 second-rate ships on each side hammered it out. Trafalgar requires several templates for turning and cannon fire-arcs, as well as a multitude of status counters. I made cut-out copies of the templates, and we used different colored pipe cleaner segments to represent ship status.

After several rounds of maneuvering, the fleets came within average contact distance. In the top photo, one of the French ships has taken enough damage to have started a fire.

I decided to use Litko mini-splash markers to enhance the battlefield appearance. Although not necessary, you could also use them to help you remember how many hits your ship has taken that turn.

The lead French ships on the left have both suffered rudder jams and must continue sailing straight ahead. Formidable (80) is beginning a turn to try to cut off the rearward British ships, she takes a severe rake from Royal George(100). Behind the Royal George, Cornwall (80) also suffers a rudder damage and sails straight while Boyne(80) steers around. While Ville De Paris(120) burns, poor Victory (100) in the front of the British squadron suffers a critical hit preventing firing that turn.

While the French leads L'Orient(120) and Ville De Paris fail to fix rudders and sail on, action gets fierce in the back. A non-fouling collision between Formidable and Royal George hurts the British ship more than the French, and yet Formidable's hull takes a severe pounding from other ships. The French are aiming high, however, and both Cornwall and Boyne lose a mast each and much rigging. Fire breaks out on Royal George.

Unfortunately, we had started the game late and so decided to call it at this point. Everyone felt the game was nicely done, and there seems to be enough detailed damage to satisfy each player. We felt that new players should start with a couple of ships but once the rules are learned a player could control a small squadron. We will definitely be playing this set of rules again.