Up Against it.

 Bolt Action last week, it was supposed to be Dux Britaniarrum, and I wanted to try something new, I am trying to get all my WWII stuff on the table at least once, so I decided to take my Volksgrenadiers, beautiful figures from Empress Miniatures. I did some research into these guys and you can field an Assault Platoon or a Rifle Platoon for Chain of Command or the same in Bolt Action with a bit of jigging about, BA only gives them as inexperienced, this is not quite right but I went that route anyway.

My whole force was inexperienced, I took four squads all armed with assault rifles apart from the LMG team, I also gave two of the squads a halftrack. Neither CoC or Bolt Action seem to know what to do with these vehicles and the rules are pants, but I wanted to get my men into action quickly and with added support from the LMG in the 251, and no, I don't allow a transport to get lifted simply because someone unfriendly is close by. I was playing 'Bad Luck' Jimi with British, he had an elite Commando squad and three others supported by a sniper, mortar (no FOO), an AT gun and a Sherman. Did I mention my support was a Hetzer?

There were five objectives roughly along the centre line, two of which were very close to our own table edge so there would be a fight for the remaining three. I quickly deployed my halftrack and ran my intial troops forward as fast as I could to narrow the range to the enemy, I had warned Jimi that I was taking Volksgrenadiers but he hadn't done his homework and on he came. I opened up and the British began to take horrendous casualties from the assault rifles, I suffered the odd hit from the sniper and thankfully the mortar began a trek across the battlefield to get a shot in, not having an observer. The Sherman and the anti-tank gun turned up, I managed to keep away from the AT gun but the Sherman started lobbing shells at my boys in the centre, not very well as it turned out, sadly it was approaching the squad which had lost its panzerfaust, "Hans, don't touch it, it is dangerous and Herman ist kaput" (no one picks it up in BA of course, yet children and old women could use one). I digress, my Hetzer crew had decided not to turn up until turn four and duly missed with their first shot, in return they were stunned by a reply from the Sherman. Having got the range they did not miss with their second shot and the Sherman went up in flames.

By this time I was doing very well on my left and Jimi was losing units at an alarming rate, in the centre I rushed for the mid objective past the flaming tank so that we both contested it. It was turn five and the British were suffering at least 60% casualties as the Volksgrenadiers turned their right flank and the Hetzer was about to run amok on the left. We shook hands and called it a day, true to form Jimi had some bad dice luck on several occasions while I was fairly average. I had managed to keep my infantry in cover until they could use their assault rifles to overwhelm the smaller British squads and teams, despite them being easier to kill Jimi did not have a great deal of success in that endeavour.

I took a break from painting Italian Wars and built my new Rubicon kits. I managed to get two versions of the T-26 by not sticking the top deck with the turret on to the hull, I can now have it as the twin turret MG version or another 45mm single turret, I have one already, there is a bit of a bad fit with the vision plate on the front left, I noticed this on my original tank as well, it is a bit more pronounced on this model as I wanted the decks to be swopped, I will live with it, just. The 250/7 mortar carrier is a lovely little model, you also get a spare mortar and crew to dismount, but I didn't want them, the whole point was to have it mobile. When I questioned its use in Chain of Command I was told because of the scale it would be off table, damn, money down the drain I thought, but then a nice gentleman put up the ranges for the 80mm mortar from a manual he had and the minimum was 65 yards, and this meant around 18" in Chain of Command. It came to light that other medium mortars had pretty much the same minimum ranges. Yes it would be desperate to fire the mortar at that range but it could be done, it can be used on a 6x4 table, the muffled cries were silenced by "play the period, not the rules", that gave me a smile. I might only bring it in on a table larger than 6x4 but then again.......

We have been slowly emptying the shop of all the junk that has built up over the years and managed to sell the last of the actual shop fittings, and last weekend they were collected. I now have a really large space to play in until the builders turn up hopefully early next year, it really is a large space, upstairs the same area has two bedrooms, a corridor, walk in cupboards and a dining room.

As I said above I put the Italian Wars to the side building the kits, I have only just finished cleaning and priming some Spanish Jinettes and have yet to pick up a brush, I have some map projects which I might concentrate on this week and do some extra time on them, so you won't see them for a bit yet.

The dreaded Black Powder last night, ACW this time with Fran's amendments. The scenario was loosely based on the arrival of the 1st Division at Gettysburg fighting against Heth so it was an outnumbered Union force against a gray tsunami intent on clearing McPherson's Ridge. I was on table awaiting the arrival of the Iron Brigade, I had small regiments in my brigade against two very large Confederate brigades on my flank, the Rebs had to break both Federal brigades to win, how successful they would be would in a large part be down to Lady Luck despite their numbers.

Fran had for added flavour given me a small skirmish unit of dismounted cavalry, a left over from Buford's force, by the end he wished he hadn't bothered. These men were way out in front of my line and for a moment held up the Confederate advance then fell back behind the thin blue line. As the enemy approached I unleashed hell in a cloud of musket smoke and the Rebs shuddered to a halt their leading regiments taking heavy casualties, but the brigade to my immediate right still managed to struggle up the hill.

The massed gray ranks.

Steady boys.

Fire!

The first charge hit my boys but to everyones surprise was repulsed and caused some disorganisation in the ranks following, just as I was feeling superior my centre regiment broke and the reserve had to make its way forward. Another Rebel assault went in and this time my boys narrowly failed to stand but had stopped the victorious Sesech from advancing further, my second and last reserve regiment now took its place in the line and the Rebs went back again. I had also managed to stabilise my centre and some bad command rolls stopped Fran from taking advantage of my weakness. Time and again despite my best efforts Fran managed to make saving rolls only one failure of which would have spelt doom for his regiments. Eventually however I was forced to withdraw, my men could look the Iron Brigade now arriving in the eye and in my mind had saved the day.

Edward's mass undone by their slowness.

The Iron Brigade sets up just in time.

On my left things had gone awry for both sides, Edward's two brigades due to a combination of horrendous die rolls and terrain took almost two hours of the evening to get into action, Alex's Iron Brigade also had problems turning up from turn 2. This meant that as the sun set these two forces eventually got to hand to hand combat in the woods and the Union line held, helped by the death of one of the enemy brigade commanders and the fact they were elite. Despite my brigade having broke the Rebs had failed to break both Federal brigades.

Fran and I had enjoyed some desperate fighting on our part of the battlefield and his tremendous luck at saving rolls had frustrated my efforts time and time again but I was eventually pushed back. On the other flank command rolls ruled the action, Edward took the whole evening to advance to contact and Alex also suffered but not as badly in bringing the Iron Brigade to the front line. I find this and the disorder rules the most frustrating part of Black Powder, Fran had sorted the disorder thing out but failing to move turn after turn is a nightmare, a bit like not getting the right command dice in Chain of Command, there is nothing you can do.

I am taking part in another Chain of Command campaign run by the lads from Grange-over-Sands based on the battle of Gazala, I am commanding a German platoon, their are six of us and we should be kicking off in a few weeks. The club may be closed next week so we are unsure what will be happening next week.