Game - WW2 Germans vs. Americans - Big Chain of Command

 Last weekend my regular gaming buddy, Steffen, and I got together for a full days gaming. Originally we were going to introduce a third friend to Chain of Command, but unfortunately he was unable to attend. The plan was to do a Big Chain of Command with 3 American platoons vs. 2 German. Now Steffen and I do enjoy big games so we decided to just play the game anyway just the two of us.

The Americans had an armoured rifle platoon, a D-Day parachute platoon and an armoured platoon with various AFVs. The Germans had a panzer grenadier platoon and an armoured platoon with various AFVs. All the platoons were made from army lists in the rulebook.

We decided to play scenario 6 from the rulebook, as we believed that felt appropriate for the selected forces and the table we had made. The terrain were from both our collections and we were very happy with the table.

The main objective would be the village and the Americans started in opposite end. The patrol phase ended with Germans deploying jump-off points rather far up their left flank, and conversely the Americans also got far up their own left flank.

The 3 German jump-off points. Not the best deployment but I'm still struggling with doing the patrol phase well.

The Germans fortunately also had a jump-off point in the village as this was the main objective.

The Americans had 2 jump-off points far up their left flank. These 2 belonged to the parachute platoon.

And 2 more in the hedgeline along the dirt road. These 2 belonged to the aroured rifle platoon. Because we where playing Big CoC the Americans had an extra jump-off point. A minefield placed by the Germans is also visible on the photo.

The Germans started deploying an infantry squad and a Pz IVH in the village to prepare their defenses. In response the Americans lined the hedgeline with 2 infantry squads, a MMG squad and a mortar squad. A 57mm AT gun and a sniper was placed further forward.

This was a shooting fight, that the German squad was losing quickly. The Germans decided to put more armour on the field to even the odds. Even so the German squad quickly started to take casualties and became pinned.

The American infantry forces were unable to deal effectively with the German tanks, but wanted to clear the minefield before they deployed their AFVs. Unfortunately the engineers were struggling with their task, so eventually the Americans started with deploying some M8 scout cars.

The Americans tried to to push the attack on the village and deployed some paras far forward. The German infantry squad was unable to extract themselves from their position and eventually broke. The Germans responded with more tanks to halt the Americans. Even though one of the M8s managed to destroy the main gun on the Pz IVH, they couldn't stop the German armour.

As the American left flank was halted by the German armour, they tried to advance on the right flank instead. An armoured rifle platoon was sent over the hill, but was eventually decimated as the Germans deployed an infantry platoon in the woods, out of sight from the rest of the American forces.

Then the Germans really went all in and deployed their last tank. The Americans looked on in horror as a Tiger II rolled into the village. As soon as it could the paras in the field outside of the village, it started shelling the poor troopers.

At the minefield the engineers still struggled to clear it. One of the M8s was destroyed by a Tiger I and the Americans were struggling to get anywhere.

The Germans had destroyed the 57mm AT gun so the German tanks fired away on the poor paras in the field.

If the Americans were going to have chance of victory in this game, they had to deploy the rest of their armoured assets, despite the minefield still wasn't cleared. 2 M10 tank destroyers and Sherman platoon leader rolled onto the field.

The hero of the battle was in fact the Pz IVH, which had taken a lot of fire from the Americans. It had lost its main gun from a shot from one of the M8s, but survived shots from both the 57mm gun and a bazooka team. It then drove straight into one of the para squads, killing 3 men. It was ready to drive into the next squad when a shot from one the M10 immobilised it. But it was still alive.

The final shot of the battle came from an infantry gun which deployed in the woods and managed to kill a bazooka team and wound a senior leader. The Americans then finally gave up and retreated.

While this was a great looking game, it has to be said, that the result never seemed in doubt. The Germans still hadn't deployed an infantry squad, 2 bazooka teams and their infantry senior leader when the game ended. However, if the American AT shooting had been a bit more effective, perhaps it would have been more close.

Part of the fault lays with me and my rather evil choice of tanks. I simply could not resist the temptation of using some of my heavy tanks. While Steffen had picked a more realistic and appropriate force, I certainly did not. 

Nevertheless it was still a beautiful game, and we were both very happy to see our fully painted armies in action on a nice looking table. We actually played another game after this with an infantry platoon and a AFV platoon each. However, I didn't take pictures of that game, so Steffen can claim that he won that one.

We are talking about doing another Big Chain of Command game in the future as we both really liked this version of the rules. Some times big really is better.

Game - Undead vs. Wood Elves - Blood Bowl

My brother and I had another game of Blood Bowl the other day. My Undeads took on his Wood Elves. While the Elves were missing no less than 3 linemen, their wardancers and catchers were ready to play. The Undeads were missing a wight, but were otherwise fit for fight.

The Undeads started with the ball and the Elves spread to avoid battling it out with their opponents and see where I took the ball.

Uncharacteristically the Elves managed to stay on the field and even gave the Undead a casualty in the first half. That meant that my attack stalled and the Undeads lost the ball.

In a daring play in the last turn of first half a wardancer managed to get the ball in-between 3 opponents, dodge out, run forward and pass the ball to a catcher, who then ran like to hell towards the endzone. Only one go-for-it was needed to score. Unfortunately the Elves had no rerolls left, so the result was almost inevitable.

The Undeads started second half getting a blitz against the Elves, which didn't do much. The Elves started their attack, but somehow the Undeads stopped them, and even more surprisingly a lone skeleton suddenly had the ball only a few steps from the endzone.

 

It was no trouble for the Elves to steal the ball back, and they quickly moved towards the other end again. Time was, however, running out so they needed to be swift. In the final turn of the game they were in a good position to score. All it took was for a wardancer to dodge out and make a blitz. A failed 2+ dodge with reroll later the game somehow ended 0-0.

A crazy tense game with some unlucky rolls at the worst possible times.

Painting - End of January painting challenge

 So January has come and gone. As mentioned earlier my friend and I tried to do a challenge where we had to paint at least 15 minutes every day. While my friend unfortunately had to drop it due to outside events, I actually managed to do it.

I did have one day where I couldn't paint because I was away on a small trip. Although I actually had taken some painting stuff with me, I had forgotten some things and so couldn't paint one day. I also had one day, where I only did a lot of priming, but I still accepted it as a good day.

My small box of painting stuff for my trip. Unfortunately I still forgot some important items

In conclusion the challenge was very good and worthwhile. It did show that even 15-20 minutes of paint will provide some progress. And even more importantly it actually proved to be motivating in several ways. There were days where I initially thought I wouldn't paint more than the 15-20 minutes but then ended up spending even more time.

Baccus Marian legionaries used as Pontic imitation legionaries

When my friend and I talked about the challenge we speculated on how much we would end up getting painted. In truth it was less than I imagined. But even so I will call this a great success.

I had planned to kind of continue the project, but extending what I could do in the 15-20 minutes to also include assembling miniatures or terrain, painting terrain or other relevant hobby activities. Unfortunately I have some issues with my shoulder at the moment, so this week all hobby work has stopped momentarily.

Here are the bases I have painted in the final weeks of January.

4 bases of skirmishers with javelins

4 bases of skirmishers with javelins

4 bases of imitation legionaries (bases not done)