All Things Come To An End

 Well, a quiet week, still seems to be hurry up and wait here, hospital results, calls back, appointments and general real life issues non of which seem to be moving forward.

It was Chain of Command at the club and my Russians vs Rob's Germans, it was an attack and defend game, a misnomer actually as will be explained below. I had a normal Rifle Platoon and was lazy and took it straight from the rule book, I actually researched my own and there are quite a few more historical lists online, but hey, anyway I took a T70 light tank and a 45mm anti-tank gun as supports. Rob took the bog standard late German platoon also from the book and he spent money on an extra support squad one with two LMG's and an infantry gun.

I was defending a ford and the Jerries had to take it, or rely on the easier option of simply driving me from the table. Things got off to a shaky start as heavy rain turned up and reduced visibility to 18", I got two squads on, the right flank ensconced in a brick farmstead, I also later brought on my T70 and the 45mm gun, the latter was a bad move on my part. Somehow Rob miscalculated and one of his squads on my left came within 18", my tank and some infantry destroyed the enemy and things looked good, then the rain stopped. Rob had two more squads on the table, a huge firefight developed and it was here I now realise I made another mistake, I concentrated on his troops in a nearby wood which turned out pointless as he had a Senior Leader attached and despite his men being loaded with shock he always managed to reduce it, the fact I could not actually kill anyone helped his situation.

My little tank, T-70.

The old homestead is still standing.

Wasted my time on these guys.

I lost my little gun and the firefight went on, I also lost a Junior Leader so my morale dropped, then perhaps frustrated, I moved my tank forward and it fell victim to a Panzerschrek team, of course it did. As the time flew past and I was at 4 for morale and Rob was still at 8 (I think) and my troops were holding on and the Jerries saw no need to come forward we wrapped the game up.

Skip this bit if you are not interested in Chain of Command. The 'attacker' has no need to attack, he also gets twice the number of support points as the defender so the smart thing to do is simply set up a firebase and plug away until the defender loses out to morale loss, objective, we don need no steenking objective. The downside is it makes for a very dull game. I fell victim to another annoying mechanic, my left hand squad were pinned, I got the shock down but they remain pinned until the turn ends, this can last all game. Despite the fact there was a lovely brick building within spitting distance my boys could not retreat to better cover, all they could do was sit and die, why?

Anyway when the War Room opens if I play CoC here I will sort out the nonesense above using house rules and, dare I say commonsense. No matter, the night put an end to my run of victories although my lawyers are appealing on the grounds I still held my defensive position when we packed away, kudos to Rob for the win nonetheless, always a pleasure.

I have completed at last the last cavalry unit which I am adding for now to the Italian Wars project, now I turn my attention to the three artillery pieces which have been receiving their Dettol dip for about a week, most of the paint had gone but a sticky residue was left, nail varnish remover really fixed that and left the metal like new. I bought some crews for the guns which I had got from Dan so will get them primed and sorted in the next couple of days. This gives me about 14/15 artillery pieces in all, a nice range from heavy to light.

Keeping on the Italian Wars a new scenario book was being advertised on the Facebook page, the price initially put me off and I waited for someone to do a review as a couple of members had bought the book, but nothing concrete turned up. Despite this I bought it and received it today, it is printed by Amazon, hence the price tag I suspect, seemingly they print it for the author and print one when someone orders it, for a fee of course. I am sure with todays technology it could be done cheaper, but it has been at least 25 years since I printed my own scenario books, and I got the lions share of the profit.

I digress, the book is between A5 and A4, has 97 pages and 20 scenarios, the maps are basic and I suspect more for 15mm figures than 28's but I could be wrong there and will find out in due time. The author has done a lot of work on the scenarios and includes exceptional army lists for three rule sets for each battle; Furioso, Pike and Shotte and Impetus. These come with notes where needed to explain troops types and combat factors. I look forward to fighting all 20 battles and getting my monies worth. I am a happy bunny.

I wasted some time at Morecambe Library, very nice by the way, on Saturday at the Model Show. Not a great deal of warlike models but what there was was very nice, I also talked at length with one of the exhibitors, but declined to join in the end, it's a Tuesday and I have more than enough to keep me going with wargaming. 

Even modellers have more Puma's than the German Army.

Plugging away at some WWI maps for the moment, second project almost done but I am getting combat fatigue.

History of the Royal Fusiliers Brigade "Soldiers and Gentlemen".