Miniature War Gaming

Time to catch up on some past games…

As someone who sort of lives out in the sticks it’s about 90 minutes either up to the Twin Cities or to LaCrosse to play Flames of War. In LaCrosse we have a really active group that plays ever weekend on Saturdays. It’s kind of a bummer that something like that isn’t also up in the Twin Cities. With The Source a really great game store up there, you’d think it’d be a given, that would be going on. Well .. no.

So, what’s a fella to do. Well I’m sure I’m not the only one who has to deal with this kind of situation. So here’s what happened. First, between the forums on wwpd.net and flamesofwar.com, there’s plenty of opportunities to post and try and find someone local to you.

Thankfully with wwpd.net they even have a Twin Cities special sub board. So few posts later and turns out meet a fellow up there. As a double bonus he likes to play early war which is a period I really like since I have an early war French force.

So we finally set the date and actually met at The Source, I grabbed a table and started to gather terrain from the shelf. Alas it wasn’t until I had grabbed terrain to set a table that I noticed there were perfectly great painted 4×6 boards stacked against the wall. N00b mistake and sadly a less than pretty table as a result. There isn’t a huge amount of terrain tho at The Source so be warned if you game there, you might want to haul some in.

Keith played his early war German light panzer list and I had put together a French infantry list. We both spec’d out to 1390 points. For the French that’s 3 platoons of infantry, a mortar platoon, 2 MMG platoons, 3 Char 1s, and 3 H35s (long). Alas no AA because I haven’t painted it yet and not knowing what Keith was going to bring I figured I probably could handle a reasonable amount of armor even with the 1 man turret problems and awkward layouts that French tanks suffer from.

Objective left, objective right, Keith is on the attack. I have delayed reserves, I center the Chars, have one infantry platoon augmented with 25mm AT guns covering one objective and my H35s covering the other.

Keith rolls forward with a platoon of Pz IIIs, 2 8-rads and then a light platoon of Pz IIs, and a command vehicle. I’m thinking ok .. I can deal with this.

The air … now that I couldn’t deal with, more because I hadn’t gotten to painting my AA guns…. that’s fixed now. 🙂

Turn 1 .. burning Char … thanks Stuka dive bomber glad you could hit the roundel right square like that… we’re really impressed down here I can tell you…. but otherwise little action as the armor dance began. I pressed with both my Chars against the Pz IIIs and the H35s against the 8-rads thinking I need to push both of these back and quick before Keith’s reinforcements arrive and try and hold out for mine.

I manage to brew a Pz III so bottom of turn 1, thinks aren’t looking that bad ….

Turn 2, I get my first set or reinforcements and pull on my mortar platoon. Keith’s air bails out another Char. I bail an 8 rad but otherwise the battle isn’t too bad for either side. The PzIIs on the opposite side of the table are frustratingly out of the range of my 25mm guns so not much to do but sit there and take fire.

With turn 5, the armor is still dancing. My H35s have been pretty ineffective. My char is still bailed out but otherwise the air hadn’t taken more of my tanks out but seems to show up and show up and show up. I drop smoke on top of the PzIIs perhaps to inspire them to come in a little closer. Keith at this point has two platoons of reinforcements he’s brought in, panzers to the right of me, panzers to the left, Keith is well set up to go after either objective. 

On my right flank he presses in attack with both panzer platoons. Infantry with Tank Assault 2 just isn’t any match and my 25mm while not a bad gun just isn’t able to push back the attack, given I’m pinned.

A last view at turn 6, with Keith in firm grasp of the hill and the objective on my right flank. On the left I’m still in contesting the objective. I have plenty of reinforcements coming in but both our out of position to help with the defense, so it’s game.

Pretty fun!

This Sunday we put together a sort of impromptu… (Well impromptu for me) Flames of Was Game at Deaf Ear Records in LaCrosse WI. Originally I was to be off reenacting but with potential impending business travel and a few other factors pretty much trashing the next few weeks for me, was best to be sticking close to home, getting things done. Tho all work and no play makes for a dull boy so a bit of fun was called for.

We did a 2 on 1 game with roughly 3800 pts a side with forces taken mostly from the Market Garden and Bridge by Bridge books. Chuck and I both fielded allied, American Airborne with British artillery and British Infantry with Lend Lease Sherman tanks in support for me. For Bill I had a couple of German lists ready so he could pick and use my lead augment his list. He picked the 85th Infantry Division list which also had 3 jagdpanthers to spice it up. He had his Hungarians for the other half which was infantry, artillery and panthers, but still a tank formation.

The plan for the group is in number of weeks we’re going to do A Bridge too far with several tables all setup in a line and of course play out of the Market Garden books. Not only a good time to figure out what we’re missing from our collective lists but also test out terrain. Yet another true to form very pretty table for the group!

For the lowlands, the “low areas” for the most part were impassible to vehicles. The center of the table between the roads and then to the right of the right most road however was passible for vehicles. Made for an interesting dynamic. For this game we rolled up the Cauldron and given that Chuck and I both had infantry lists, we were on the defensive.

We decided to pick the right side of the table. It was a double wide, so we also doubled the side of the box we were bound too.

I deployed a platoon of infantry, my 25 lbers and then a tank platoon of 3 Sherman Vs and a Firefly.

Chuck deployed a platoon of Sextons, a platoon of recon armored jeeps and then infantry. We had lots of stuff off table held in delayed reserve…

As defenders we started the game. Bill lined with his variable setup deployed infantry across us in three spots, 2 artillery batteries (155s and I forget the other, 105s I think) and more or less had us boxed in lightly. Chuck started things off by kicking his recon jeeps down the road toward some of Chuck’s artillery.

In this picture on the far left side you can just see the 3rd german infantry platoon lined up in the low lands and then the 2nd platoon deep in the crops out of sight. The fourth set of Bills infantry was by his guns up on the hill.

These were the fellows along with the guns about to be visited by armored recon jeeps … tacka tacka tacka. Otherwise the turn was pretty quiet. I rolled up my tanks to just within 16″ of some of Bills dug in infantry and fired off a few rounds.  For bottom of Turn 1, Bill rolled up reinforcements but Chuck had a hero (I forget his name) but basically the one that can cancel out reinforcements… and did so.

A view from my flank… dug in infantry against dug in infantry both gone to ground. With top of turn 2, Chuck rolled up some air and decided to give the artillery on our right flank a double whammy of attention from both the armored jeeps and air.

Bottom of turn 2, Bill rolls up reinforcements and brings on the Jagdpanthers. They immediately brew up a Sherman. With just one firefly, we’re not exactly prepared to have an at range tank battle. Additionally Bill brings down heavy artillery down on the Sextons in the middle, knocking out both a gun and the staff team. So much for cooperating artillery on our side….

Meanwhile on the other side of the table, for top of turn 3 for our first delayed reserved Chuck brings on more Sextons as part of his reinforcements which Bill counters at the bottom of turn 3 with a Panther platoon. It goes about how you’d expect with the Sextons taking hits and being on the losing end. Meanwhile from our side of it the recon jeeps take out a couple of Bill’s guns reducing it to a 2 gun battery.

Also as part of turn 3, Bill gets air and attempts to bring it down on my staff team for my artillery. Thankfully a double miss and no damage.

To push off Chuck’s recon jeeps, Bill throws his command tank and infantry…. this also happened in turn 3.

Top of turn 4, I bring in my Shermans which basically enter on the rear and flank of some of Bill’s artillery which was being super effective. I take out a gun and obviously give them something to think about as the noose gets a little looser. With the Jagdpanthers having their way with me, I’m down to just one Sherman and my Firefly at this point in the cauldron, so start to retreat them and still haven’t so much as damaged one in return but hopefully with these reinforcements I might be able to keep them from pressing into our lines. While I have a number of PIATs, rather not see how good they’d do against Jagdpanther armor.

Meanwhile bottom of turn 4 Bill counters my reinforcements with some of his own. Thankfully with his moving fire, the shots to the side/rear of the Shermans while dangerous do no damage.

Bill also decides to come forward. Turn 6 isn’t far away and he needs to start to press on the objectives.

Likewise on the opposite side of the table he starts to bring his men forward and press home the assaults.

On the opposite side, one of the Panthers was brewed up from Chucks air but traded for one bailed and one brewed.

With the assaults into the center of the table Bill attacks but is throw back unable to press home. Had he made it he would have been within 16″.

At this point we had to pick up. The store was closing at 6 and we needed to get everything cleaned up. A very satisfying game but frustrating we couldn’t get in just a bit more time to play it out. With the pending expiration of time (not turns) Bill was basically throwing stuff at us about 1 turn early. He might have with a little prep work and then an assault been able to push in and thus satisfy the “within 16” requirement to keep the game contested.

If only….