Down, Down into the Depths

So game 9 of our Mordheim campaign rolled around, and despite a few issues with access to terrain nearly cancelling the game we all turned up.

This scenario involved trying to gain entrance to evil necromancers dungeon, which was guarded by one of his minions, some skeletons and a bodyguard.  He was hiding behind a wall and the only way in was through a locked gate. The key to this gate was obtained in an earlier scenario, which I was fortunate enough to have won.  In addition to this the courtyard in front of the gate, which made up a large section of the board was being patrolled by 4 forest spirits, and large possessed tree, all of whom had been corrupted by the evil magic in the area.

The usual suspects were involved, although Rory had retired his warband so that he could control the forces of evil.   that left Dave and his Marienburgers, Andy and his Sisters of Sigmar, Ian with his Reiklanders and me with my Beastmen.

As I had won the last scenario I got to choose my deployment area while everyone else was random, and also got to deploy 12" in, rather than the usual 6".  I decided that this week I was going to concentrate on the scenario objective and deployed as close to the gate as possible.

Ready for the off.

I even managed to get the first turn of the game and made a dash for the gate, while everyone else was a bit more cautious, looking for good firing positions for their archers (not much of a consideration for me!). 

Two tree spirits advanced towards my position and in my turn I killed one with my Centigor, and the other with a spell from my warband leader.  

Andy advanced towards another tree spirit, while Ian got the short straw and the random movement of the large tree put it heading towards his warband. 

Holding the gate.

Sneaking!

Sisters trying to cut down a tree with Hammers.

Reiklanders try and avoid a big angry tree.

Mid game saw Dave sneak down the flank, taking the odd potshot as he went, Andy having a hard time against the large tree spirit and Andy getting stuck in to the one of the smaller tree spirits and Ian's warband.  I managed to tackle another tree spirit, while losing one warhound to an arrow from Dave's Marienburgers.

I managed to get the gate unlocked and at this point my Centigor decided to have a little to much to drink. I stalled a turn and then charged in, and between my chargers and managing to get another two(!) spells off made short work of the evil Nercomancers minions before being the first to exit the board into the underground vaults of the evil overlord.

Getting ready to charge.

Charge!

During this Ian had taken some casualties and was trying to advance towards the centre of the board, but eventually casualties were too much and he failed his rout test. Andy laid into all the evil forest spirits and managed to do a lot of damage, but eventually casualties mounted and he too failed his rout test, leaving Dave to try and mop up the remaining tree spirit on the board. He managed it eventually, but not before he had taken some pretty hefty casualties.

Sneaky Marienburgers

So victory for my Beastmen, and I only lost one warhound in the post game phase.  The others were not so lucky, with Andy suffering particularly heavy losses.  The final game of the campaign take place in the catacombs, and should be quite a different experience.

May Gallery

More Progress on my Chain of Command Germans.

THis tim it is infantry support that is completed.
A MAchine Gun team, Snipe and Mortar Spotter are now added to the mix.

In addition to this I have made some markers for general use.

I saw John use them a wee while ago and thought that they had lots of potential uses. I saw them on sale at the Pendraken stand at Carronade and decided to get some. I think I went a little bit to small and opted for the 5mm option, but I will see what happens when I get a a chance to use them.

Assault on Baincthun

Monday night saw the continuation of our Chain of Command campaign, "48 Hours in May". In the opening games of the campaign both Marco and myself as the Germans had broken through the French lines, commanded by Ian and Barry.  These early games were fairly bloodless and we decided to press out advantage and attack the town of Baincthun.

Marco kicked off the assault along the main road against Allan's French, as Ian has a new job offshore and was going to be away for a while.  He had a disastrous game and the German assault was soundly repulsed, with no French casualties, so there was a bit of pressure on my Platoon, who would be attacking along the dirt track that  ran into the village.

The view down the road into Baincthun

 I rolled a 7 for support and opted to give the sniper and a HMG team a try for this game, figuring that as armoured cars had featured heavily in the opening of the campaign that Barry would take some kind of Anti Tank options, which he duly did.

Looking at the board I decided that the only real option I had was to push down my right, as the left hand side of the board was looking rather empty.

My initial probes involved deploying one squad and the light mortar on my right and seeing what Barry would do to counter this.  He deployed two french squads against my right and put his anti tank gun in the centre.  At this point he also deployed his platoon commander, all by himself with no support.  I could not resist the temptation and in my phase deployed my sniper who managed to kill the unfortunate officer with his first shot of the game!  Barry was none to pleased with this and en exchange of fire ensued on my left, with my Germans coming off slightly worse, with four sixes resulting in four casualties to one French salvo. Not good.

Initial German probe.

 Emboldened by this success Barry started to advance on the German positions. He used one squad to give covering fire, while advancing with the other.  I decided that I would sit tight for now and deal with the advancing French, which I started to do.  I poured a lot of fire into them, and then deployed my Machine Gun and and additional squad into the centre. The additional squad was to provide suppressing fire onto the French that were in the ruined building, while the HMG team added their considerable firepower to those already firing at the advancing French. The German machine guns took their toll and I managed to Kill the junior officer, wipe out the machine gun section and then rout the remaining few rifle men.  In addition to this I had managed to wound and then kill another of Barry's junior officers, leaving him with a command problem and a Force Morale of 1!

He decided to call it a night at this point, having suffered 9 casualties and three dead officers. Thanks to the difference in Force Morals scores I was able to recover all my casualties and came through the game relatively unscathed.

French start to deploy onto the field.

Germans fall back under heavy fire.

The French retreat in disarray.

Another interesting and entertaining game, but in truth Barry had some very bad luck with officers getting killed, and I think my dice rolling was about average. One thing to be said is never advance over open ground into the teeth of German Machine Gun fire, as it was surely Barry's undoing on the night. Also never deploy officers on their own.  For myself this was my first time using the sniper and HMG team and one thing it did throw up was the additional strain on Command dice all these extra elements add.  I had an additional two units that both required 1's to activate, and I think I only managed to get my sniper to fire three times in the whole evening.  This can of course be mitigated by the canny use of senior officers but they are sometimes needed for other things.  Snipers and HMG teams are useful, but can tie you down to quite a static style of play, although the psychological effect of snipers is going to interesting.  

As we play more and more Chain of Command and each element of support is tried on the table there is a certain amount of paranoia about facing them. First was the off-table mortar barrage as they can be very devastating, then armoured cars became a bit of an issue but people are now adapting to them. Now we are onto exploring the snipers and additional firepower. I can't wait until I get to try a Flamethrower!  This is a good way of exploring the game and keeping everyone on their toes, as we widen the rage of support elements that we can potentially use in a game, so you have to think careful about potential strategies to counter them.  It all makes for a more interesting and balanced game, in my opinion.

As this was the first outing on the table of my own painted Germans I expected it to be a disaster, as the first outing for newly painted toys usually is, but this could not have gone much better to be honest.

Chain of Command is my new 40k

Its a sort of weird title but it feels just like that.

I spent my formative war gaming years playing 40k Rogue Trader. Back then the game was just that, a game with some nice miniatures and the setting captured the imagination of my 12 year old mind very well.   Back then GW was a fraction of its current size and the game was a lot smaller in scope and size.  

My memories of playing 40k back then were of choosing a core of troops and adding in a few nice toys to add a bit of flavour to the game. This was usually a few dreadnoughts, or a some buggies and jetbikes. Then we added in a few Rhino's and perhaps a Land Raider. It made for a good fun game but at the core of the forces were always the various troops and their variations.  Back then the most common choice was a tactical squad of Space Marines, with a few added Assault Marines and Devastator Marines. Orks were similar, with a sea of troops, some leaders and loads of buggies and bikes. Eldar was mostly troops, with lots of Dreadnoughts and War Walkers, mostly as that was basically all that was available at that time.  We had great fun playing  these games, and list selection and min maxing was not really of any concern, you just picked what you liked and could afford!  Nowaday I still enjoy the setting, but more through the slightly more interesting and balanced mediums of the novels, although they can be variable in quality.  I am still a huge fan of Epic as well, and feel that 40k these days is increasingly being played in the wrong scale and would be a lot more fun done in 6mm.

40k has a bit of a kitchen sink feel to it now, with the constant desire to chase profits and sales meaning that GW are constantly looking for new ways to shoehorn new toys into the game regardless of how they effect the feel.  I did not play much 40k 2nd edition as that was my drinking and going out phase, and when I came back to it 3rd edition was just not the same game, although it is pretty playable if you only use the rules and lists in the main rulebook.

Fast forward quite a few years and I have played few other skirmish level games, most notably Void and Urban War.  Unfortunately Sci-fi skirmish gaming has been on the back burner for a long time as I played Warhammer Fantasy Battle, Lord of the Rings and Impetus.  

What has all this to do with Chain of Command?  Well to cut a long story short of all the games that I have played since I have been gaming for the last ten years Chain of Command feels the most like the 40k I used to play.  It is a core of infantry squads with a few added elements of support, all tied up in a very nice set of rules.  It is the fact that the heart of the game is the infantry, with a few elements of support to add flavour and a bit of unpredictability.  It is probably about as far from 40k in terms of setting and aesthetic as it is possible to be, but in terms of how the game feels to play I find it reminds of my early 40k gaming a lot. That probably explains why I am so fond of the game, which is especially surprising as I have never really taken to WW2 gaming before.   

That turned into a bit of a wall of text, but I hope is not to boring to read.  I have a large pile of Rogue Trader Orks in my loft waiting to get painted and I find myself sitting when I get a moment and wondering how the Chain of Command rules could be applied to the 40k setting. I'm sure it could be done quite easily.............

And now the Gallery ( a rubbish one)....April

I have not managed to get a game in for a few weeks now.  I was away on Holiday at Easter and my planned game of Epic fell through on Monday due to a  mix up (boo!). A real same as I was really looking forward to getting a game of Epic in.

So I have just finished painting my German Platoon for Chain of Command.  They are all from Crusader miniatures. I still need to base them and then get them all varnished, but at least I can get a game in now and not have to borrow someone else toys, or maybe I only need to borrow some for the support elements until I get them painted.

They are a bit of a rush job and certainly the last squad of the four was.  I found them quite frustrating to paint as all the straps, pockets and pouches made them quite "bitty".  I will certainly be glad when I get all the support elements finished.

The other thing is I was suffering a slight case of painting fatigue due to painting them so quickly so the quality is quite variable.

Once again the photos are taken off the cuff and are off a terrible quality. Hopefully we will be moving house this year and will have the space to allow me somewhere to take decent photos of my miniatures.

No game on Monday as I have somewhere else to be. 

Assault on La Quesnoye

This Monday we kicked of our WW2 Chain of Command campaign, "48 Hours in May."

John has kindly agreed to referee a short campaign with six players. There are three a side and it is set in France in 1940.  

Marco, Pete and myself opted to play the Germans, while Barry, Ian and Allan were the French.

We were going to play a ladder campaign, with a possible three points of Assault. After some discussion we decided to attack at two points, keeping a third platoon in reserve just in case of heavy casualties.

I was given the task of assaulting the small village of La Quesnoye, which was on the German right, next to the main target of La Mahon.  Ian would be commanding the French defenders, and as such was allowed to use the terrain maps provided to set up the board.

The scenario was number 2 from the Chain Reaction rulebook, "The Probe".  The German objective was to get a single section or team into contact with the French table edge, while all the French had to do was stop them. A difficult one for the Germans to win, especially given the time constraints of a Monday night.

I rolled a five for support, which by the time you factored in the bonus the French allowed to even up the forces allowed Ian to choose the almost obligatory Off table mortar and spotter, and a few minefields. The scenario also allowed for him to have a couple of emplacements. I opted for an adjutant, as I wanted to get all my commanders on to the board and not have to worry about whether or not the rest of my troops would deploy without a senior officer behind the lines egging things on.  For the other four points of support I opted for an armoured car.  It was very lightly armoured but had a decent main gun, plus I warned my opponent before hand that I was going to bring one.

The patrol phase kicked off and I managed to get two jump points on the outskirts of the small village on my right flank, while I ended up with one on the left, back in the wood lining my edge of the board. 

Early game I deployed a squad of Germans on my right flank and started to try and get into the town. Ian deployed very quickly and in two phases had virtually his whole force deployed, heavily weighted towards the German right flank. After he had deployed Ian pretty much went to ground as his entire force was deployed in hard cover.  I quickly brought on my 5cm mortar and my armoured car and tried to push up the board.  

There was some exchange of fire, with my single deployed squad starting to come off second best against the weight of French fire against it. I managed to get a second squad deployed nd advanced into one of the central buildings, which put some pressure on the French, basically cutting their forces in two.  I managed to bring the armoured car up the centre and between that and the central squad they inflicted heavy casualties on the French squad that was guarding their right flank, pretty much leaving it wide open.   At this point Ian had finished thumbing through the book tried to find a solution to the armoured car but the best he could managed was to drive it off, so he decided to withdraw before his casualties were too great, leaving the Germans in control of the field. First combat of the campaign and victory to the Germans.

Patrol Phase

Germans start to probe the French defences

The French deploy in numbers to deflect the German probe

The French line is looking pretty strong.

A fairly bloodless game, with only three Germans felled during the game, and 4 French. 

We are both complete novices at Chain of Command and it showed. We both spent a lot of time looking through the book to check rules and make sure we were doing thing correctly. This was my 5th game of Chain of Command, while it was only Ian's third. 

Ian never managed to get a mortar barrage off during the game as he just could not get his spotter into the right position, which was telling.  He also did not bring my anti-tank ability so was on the back foot right from the start.  I also was a bit nervous about the mortar barrage and the effect they could have on the game, so I opted not to take one and see what sort of things could be achieved without relying on it.

The first game I played of Chain of Command John talked about the "four f's."   Find, Fix, Flank and Finish.  It is easy to dismiss this kind of thing while getting buried in the game and all its rules, but I am beginning to realise that it is in fact the key to success.  If you hunker down and not move you will be outmanoeuvred and eventually you will lose. You cannot rely on just your firepower to do the job. 

I also think that having a good range of support options is essential to get the most out of the game. The threat or coming up against some kind of armoured vehicle, even just a small armoured car is enough to make your opponent think carefully about what he takes as support. While I am not advocating taking a Tiger2 at every opportunity it is still a good thing to have the threat.

The fact that this was a campaign also altered the dynamic a lot. Under normal circumstances I am sure Ian would have fought on a lot longer and tried to hold my Germans off until the end of the evening, regardless of casualties, but as he was going to have to use the same force again in the follow to this he decided to give ground and preserve his forces. A pretty good decision in the end.

I really need to get a move on and get my Germans finished, so that I can stop pestering John to borrow his toys. I onyl have ten to do and then I will have the basic Platoon painted. Then I jst need to select what support options I would like to have access to.

So the Germans are off to a good start, and it is up to Marco to repeat the success next week on the road to Fort Mahon.  I am away on Holiday next week so will need to wait until I get back to find out the results.

Getting Near the End

Game Eight of our Mordheim campaign rolled around, with all the usual suspects involved.  This time were trying to capture one of the Dark Lords minions, so that he could be questioned to ascertain the whereabouts of his lair.

We had a pretty dense table set up with lots of ruins littering the table.  The evil minion was deployed in the centre of the board, with his four skeleton bodyguards. We rolled randomly for deployment and I ended up wedged in a corner, with Rory to my right (again) and Ian to my left.  After the last game I decided that I could rely on Ian to be a bit cautious and bide my time to see what people did.

Andy moved straight towards the centre of the table. Ian and Dave advanced cautiously, trying to use their archers for cover. Rory decided to split his warband in two. Half of his force advanced towards the centre of the table, while the other half formed up to keep an eye on my Beastmen. His first shot of the game managed to take one of my warband out of action though. Not a good start!   

On my third turn my Centigor went Frenzied and charged straight into Rory's ogre bodyguard, so basically the whole warband followed in behind.

I managed to do a fair bit of damage, with my Centigor taking out the Ogre with his charge. It was not without casualties though, with another two of my Beastmen going out of action. Still I managed to take out 7 of them in short order, by which time I had lost three of my number.

Elsewhere on the table Andy had taken some casualties to sniping and from fighting the evil minion and his skeletons, while Ian advanced very cautiously towards the centre.  Rory failed his rout test and was out for an early bath.  I circled the action cautiously.  Andy and Dave then got stuck in where Andy's early losses cost him and he eventually decided that his losses were too great and he retreated from the field. Then there were three.  We started circling round each other, with my Beastmen using their superior movement to put the two human warbands close to each other in the hope that they would have a go.  They did and I started to move in to pick off some of Dave's stragglers.

. After a few rounds of fighting Dave decided that his warband had had enough and called it a day, leaving me to face off against Ian's Reiklanders.  I advanced quickly, while Ian managed  a few potshots that hod no effect.  I eventually managed to get in a good charge with my warband and started to inflict a few casualties, but Ian has made his warband quite resilient and I did not do anything like as much damage as I would have liked.  Apparently I did enough though as Ian decided to preserve his warband and fled the field, leaving my beastmen victorious!

To top off the evening I did not suffer any casualties and found a fairly hefty amount of loot. I even managed to capture the Matriarch from Andy's sisters of battle. I had a few options hers, ransom and sacrificing her among them.  Being nasty evil types my Beastmen nicked all her gear and threw her in the cooking pot.  Winning this game has given my Beastmen an advantage in the penultimate game of the campaign, where we search for the entrance to the evil necromancers lair.

All in all a successful game for me, and a disaster for others. I sometimes think that failing your break test as soon as you have to take one can be a blessing as some of the members suffered some pretty horrendous losses from this game.  Two games to go as part of this campaign, and I am really looking forward to seeing what Rory has up his sleeve for the last games of this excellent campaign.

Next week we are kicking of our Chain of Command campaign, with my German Platoon leading the assault on a French defended stroghold in 1940. Looking forward to it.