Konigsberg 2: The Girls School

 My return to the club this week, it ended up a Chain of Command game with Stuart rather than Muskets and Tomahawks, we did an early war scenario from the Blitzkreig 1940 book, I was the bad guys and Stewart was the bad guys, sorry, the French. I had to blow up two culverts in the French sector of the table. 

A busy night.

Goodies.

There was not a lot to write about I'm afraid, there was a brief firefight in the centre of the table and I forced the French to fall back and lowered their morale, but I took a fair amount of casualties and as time was getting on we settled for a draw, neither of us going to achieve anything in the time available. I did my usual and prepared everything only to leave behind NCO figures and some markers, I do need to buck up. Nevertheless it was good to get back to the club, which was quite busy, and I picked up some 3D prints which Stuart had done for me, as usual I was very pleased.

This brings me to Matt and I's second game in our Konigsberg campaign, I was defending the said Girls School while Matt had to cross a lot of open ground in order to eject me. Matt took a Pak 40 anti-tank gun and a MMG as support and had a free PzIV, I had a HMG, a tank hunter team and a free T-34/76. 

Open terrain.

Matt started with a double phase and soon all his men were deployed and on overwatch, I could not afford to show even a helmet on a stick so decided to wait, this decision was almost the end of me. Nothing happened for a while then Matt got five double phases one after the other, my men's morale was holding but mine was plummeting, thankfully Matt only moved one team during this time and ran for the buildings, I could do nothing. He closed off one of my Jump Off Points and suddenly he had an opportunity to again move his team and close off the other two as they were all very close together in the school grounds, I panicked, I was staring defeat in the face and not one Russian had turned up. Matt being a gentleman and having travelled for a fight did not want to end the game this way but such is wargaming.

Drainage ditch.

German firebase.

I suddenly remembered I had a Command die, I ambushed his team before it could move, the close range fire from the HMG wiped the luckless German team out, I breathed more easily. Soon Matt again sent a team towards the school, I did not hesitate this time and the Comrades turned up, I did not need another fright. A large firefight developed but I took far less casualties than I expected. I also managed to pick on the small panzerschreck team to further downgrade the German morale.

PzIV in ambush camo.

With the threat of the anti-tank team gone I now brought my T-34 on to the table and set it up to, hopefully, begin to pick off the Jerry MMG with no interference from the PzIV or the Pak 40. Although both sides in this game had tough decisions to make in order to win, the pendulum now swung in favour of the Russians, they were happily ensconced in their buildings and despite the amount of fire coming their way were they were weathering the storm. With a squad down and the T-34 out of sight of German anti-tank assets Matt decided to withdraw. A wise move.

Using smoke grenades.

Stalwart defenders.

There are two Konigsberg campaigns and they are very, very different, we are playing the 'new improved' one so although the Russians have won or rather put the victory total back to the beginning we will move on to the next table, the town of Metgethen where we will be fighting over a very different battlefield, it has almost no open ground and is covered in buildings and woods. The Germans are putting a lot more effort into this push with sixteen support points

Late to the dance.

Once again I got a nice surprise as Matt handed me a 3D print of an A9 Cruiser tank for my growing collection of Early War British vehicles, I had originally only wanted a tank and an armoured car. I now have four tanks and an armoured car, I also have a beautiful Lanchester armoured car which I now realise was not used in France so I will pass that on to Robert for his Far East forces. I am still waiting a decal sheet for the new vehicles from the Netherlands.

Morris CS9 and A9 Cruiser.

I was hoping to get on to painting up the SYW figures I received but I am being held up by the new vehicles and also now 'need' some odds and sods for WWII. 

Mapping continues, the Battle of Fribourg 1644, the Boer War and the Russians in 1812, at some point I will also be back on the streets of Berlin 1945 and the Indo-Pakistan war.

The LMF has taken a fright recently, I have spent on books, the latest being 'To Save an Army' after watching the author talk on WW2TV and my Illustrator licence has gone up £30, not bad really and I need it. I obviously have too much money as I have, against my commonsense pre-ordered the overly expensive Bolt Action V3, will it be the same as V2, one big change then cut and pastes yet still ignoring the pleas for an index, probably. But I play it along with Chain of Command, I will not be buying any of the army books as I know what WW2 forces look like and if not I can Google it, or wing it being an historical player and not a tournament player.

 

Still nothing on the entertainment side, I have not watched 'The Boys' season whatever as, like most good shows, it seems to have lost the plot, a shame. I caught up with 'Kin' about Oirish gangsters in Dublin, being a BBC piece Dublin is 50% non white and women rule the roost in the gangs and the Turkish cartel, of course they do. It is fairly violent and overly foul mouthed, I could have done without it to be honest but pickings at the moment are slim.

Road to Bremen 1: A Surprise

 Might have mentioned this before, but my old wargaming mate from Scotland travels this far south of the border on business and we mentioned that at some point I could put a game on. Robert is a big fan of Chain of Command so we decided on one of the easier campaigns due to the infrequency of managing to get a full game in. Hence we started 'The Road to Bremen' which takes place in the dying moments of the war as the British head for said town. In their way is a mish mash of German units, Fallschirmjager, Heer and Volksturm along with some Hitler Youth, however the Germans cannot afford to defend every table, there are eight and they must choose where to fight, but even then the chosen defenders may instead simply surrender when the British turn up, so they can only hope for the best and delay the British enough to get a win of sorts.

A straight road.

 

The British get ready hit resistance.

The stalward defenders.

I decided to fight for the first table and took a Fallschirmjager platoon which thankfully decided to put up a fight instead of running, I took up defensive positions in the small village and awaited the arrival of the British. Robert came on in a very  calculated manner and made very good use of his carrier section and their bren guns, a Sherman also turned up in support and his annoying little 2" mortar ruined my lines of fire with smoke bombs. My sniper was a waste of time and the amount of fire I was taking forced me to seek better shelter than the wooden fences, although one of my sections broke for the rear I did manage to bring on my Pak 40 and take out the annoying Sherman, but I was then forced to withdraw the gun. At this point we had to break off the game, I photographed everything on the table in order to pick the game up at a later time.

Run Hermann.

A Target.

 That time came two nights ago, Robert was in the area, five minutes away so I set the game up, as I looked over the table it seemed to me that with some deft moves the game would fall into the British lap, I had a couple of Jump Off Points within reach of the enemy, one section broken on the edge of the table and I was sure my morale, which was at 6 against the British 9, would soon collapse. I offered to surrender andmove on but Robert was happy to continue and get a proper result.

The British again carefully advanced building up powerful fire bases in order to overwhelm my remaining squads. I had a Chain of Command dice and dithered on whether to end the turn and lift all the smoke and overwatch tokens or make an ambush with my panzerschreck team, I chose the latter, a second Sherman went boom and British morale fell. I now also pulled my men back into woods or the dark recesses of a building out of the line of fire leaving the British with no targets unless they moved. I also now dragged my anti-tank gun around to target the hotel where a British squad had been hiding. I took another chance to lower British morale by ambushing the carrier section, although I hit the target I could only immobilse the thing, it was a risk and I lost the panzerschreck team but it could have won me the day as the British will withdraw on a morale of 3.

More angst for the British.

 

Damn smoke.

 

British start to move.

Robert ended the turn and the smoke all disappeared as did my overwatch on several teams, he now began to switch his attack to my left and did manage to cause a couple of morale checks, one of which included capturing a JOP, which I dodged by throwing low, I still had 4 left. As he began to move his forces into position to open up an overwhelming amount of firepower I managed to get a double move, my second although he will say my third or fourth, this along with playing a COC dice to interrupt wiped out a Bren team which caused the Britsh morale to hit 3. Against my initial thoughts I had survived and actually won, a big surprise to me and perhaps to 'We wus robbed' Robert.

Pesky carriers.

Stalwart anti-tank crew.

In out, in out of the woods.

I have taken heavy casualties and I do not receive any extra support or reinforcements for the next game on the same table, the British on the other hand get oodles of support points, so like the second half of this game I shall be starting very much on the back foot, possibly worse. We ended up fighting for three hours a game which I was prepared to surrender, it turned out to be a nail biter and was very exciting, my second most exciting CoC game ever. I have also learned some things from Robert who is a much better player than I am at this rule set.

Yesterday I managed to give Erik a game, it was SYW with Honours of War, I usually struggle to set up a scenario for this so treated myself to Neil Thomas' 'One Hour Wargames' which I got as an epub for £4.99. It is an impressive book for wargamers and contains thirty scenarios which can be tweaked for most periods, he also includes rules but I don't need those and anyway I prefer larger games on bigger tables. Anyway I settled on Bridgehead where two armies feed troops in piecemeal in order to secure a bridge or deny it to the enemy, I also doubled the number of units used.

Road jam.

Steady boys.

Erik chose the British and had to dice for his entry points, our troops would turn up over the first six turns, mine from the south side of the river, I already had two battalions on the north side of the stream. First to arrive was the British cavalry and artillery to the north, the guns set up while the cavalry made a sweep towards my left flank, next up was a brigade of infantry arriving from the north-east which moved towards my right, my own forces slowly arrived and extended my line of battle, I moved out to keep the British from getting too close to the bridge.

British flank move.

The enemy get closer.

The British artillery were a pain and were uncannily accurate, it did not help that the bridge became a bottleneck for my troops as they raced across while cannonballs rained down. I did manage to foil the enemy cavalry's attempt to outflank me as the Scots Guards chased them away, but the British had now engaged my right and I was losing the firefight. Sadly for the British their second infantry brigade had chosen to enter at the north end of the table and at least twice refused to move forward so it took no part in the action. While my right hand battalions were taking a pounding I eventually managed to bring reserves across the bridge and bolster the line so when Erik did charge in although I lost a couple of battalions I had built up a new line which then took revenge and the British had to withdraw.

The British about to be sent back.

Time had run out and the British had not managed to get a unit within range of the bridge to force a draw, they had been close. The scenario needs a bit of tweaking perhaps but then again if the British had brought on two infantry brigades at the beginning rather than the cavalry and had not had two forces arrive to the north perhaps they would have been able to bring more pressure to bear on the French as I had the devil of a time crossing that damn bridge. I have not fought with HoW for a long time and we had a problem with 'grazing fire' as we were not sure how it worked and I see the Forum has gone so I couldn't check it out. Mind you the Osprey Blue book rules are not meant to cover things in great detail and have to be taken with a pinch of salt. I did make a change to rallying hits off, I allowed the brigadiers to do this which makes units a little more resiliant, but only just.

I had expected to be at the club this week but took a really bad turn with chills and shakes about an hour before leaving the house and had to retire to my bed, the bout only lasted a few hours so I will now plan my return for next week. Rob has a Muskets and Tomahawks game planned so I will hopefully join that, I also have the second Konigsberg game to fight next Thursday.

I have added some Waffen SS command to my platoon and have 90% finished another little Vickers MkVI, the decals are on their way but the guy is on holiday so it will be next month before I add it to my early war forces. Mate Stu has a Morris CS9 and Lanchester armoured cars waiting for me as well which I hope to get next week at the club.

Koenigsberg 1: Bloodletting at Moditten

 I was expecting to be reporting on an ECW game this week but sadly it has been rescheduled for August, instead I was back on the Eastern Front at Moditten, but this time seriously as Matt turned up to begin our Koenigsberg campaign. This involves the German attempt to break out from the city in order to save as many civilians as possible.

There are two phases, the first has the Russians on the back foot having not expected a breakout and with  their most powerful forces surging forward to Berlin, in the second phase the Germans have to decided whether to keep going with their panzergrenadiers, or what's left of them and take a risk of recieving enough replacements, or relieve them with an army platoon for the final battles. I had a motorised rifle platoon and took a team of tank killers, an extra panzerfaust for one of the squads and an elite Scout squad. Matt duly arrived and surprised me by spending all his support points on a Panther!

Matt put everything he had on his right flank, there being no cover on the left and cautiously moved forward, his tank trundled along the road. Despite the danger of the tank hitting buildings with HE I deployed into three of the main buildings in the village, he couldn't target them all was my thinking, as the infantry came closer the main action began. A big help for Matt was that he got four double phases one after the other and all I could do was sit and pray, despite this I remained in the buildings and casualties began to mount on both sides. At some point here I ambushed the Panther as it had got to the outskirts of the village, my little group of tank killers performed better than I hoped and a flank shot put an end to the big cat while my boys retreated to safety.

Here they come!

Meow.

The Germans advance.

It all came down now to the infantry and although I was causing quite a lot of casualties I seemed to dole out more shock, we both needed to cause morale checks and I unfortunately lost this race. I did still look like holding my own even as I was down to two command dice with Matt on 4, but it was not to be.

Ooops.

Fortress Moditten, Russians in the buildings.

The end is nigh.

In the end Matt had broken through but it had cost him dear in panzergrenadiers, the next game has him advancing over yet more open ground but with a decent amount of support points and a free PzIV, I get a free T-34/76 but am stuck in one small part of the table. I have to be honest here and say that this was one of the best Chain of Command games I have ever played, it was exciting and went to the wire.

What else, well I have given up and bought a Waffen SS command pack from Offensive Miniatures in order to get one decent platoon commander. I use these troops whenever I need panzergrenadiers and don't want to keep substituting a Heer officer, hence the new guys, two will be officers and the others will just be spares. I am also waiting for some Warbases hex bases, so to get one guy is costing me a bit.

I ordered up some British early war decals from Black Lion in the Netherlands but have not had an invoice yet, that's been a week now, so I may have to look elsewhere as my patience wears thin. At the moment I only have one Vickers MkVI to complete but by next week I will also have a couple of armoured cars.

I have more on next week, I am going to go to the club, I may have some Chain of Command on Wednesday (The Road to Bremen campaign) and a SYW game on Thursday.

I have also returned to mapping and have completed a few small commissions which sitting for a long time has not caused me any distress so full speed ahead there.

Postscript

 It was back to the village of Moditten today, Jimi turned up and we were playing using Bolt Action this time, a different game entirely from Chain of Command. The Germans had to take the crossroads in the town and no Soviet troops could be close enough to contest the objective, a big ask but he did have 250 points more than I did.

I 'hid' some troops in forward positions and left some off table as reserves, Jimi came forward very quickly as he had took transports for all his squads, I opened up on the lead truck and it burst into flames and disembarked its passengers, a good start. With German troops now close to the buildings they spotted a medium machine gun and his assault gun managed to wipe it out before it had a chance to fire, things were now even.

My SMG squad move forward.

SU-76.

With the threat from the StuG to men hiding in buildings I pulled my HMG back into safety while opening up on his halftrack with a squad hiding behind a hedge, the small arms could not knock out the halftrack but they could pin it, which they continued to do so much so that Jimi had a hard time getting it to move. As the German armour moved ever closer to the objective I thought it was time to bring on my SU-76 and the crew immediately hit the StuG, sadly only immobilising the beast, the crew attempted to hit back but missed.

 I kept up pressure on the nearest Jerries in order to drive them off so that I could move my little assault gun out of the arc of fire of the StuG, I had put my only anti-tank asset in a bad place in hindsight as Jimi's infantry also carried some panzerfausts. He now had one squad left on my left so I threw caution to the wind and set a couple of squads to advance along with the Su-76, mortar fire and small arms accounted for one of my squads but my SMG squad massacred the Jerries at close range and my SU was now safe covering the crossroads.

StuG III.

Reluctant halftrack.

Things now really looked good, although Jimi had managed to move his halftrack at last towards the objective and unload his passengers I thought one last push and I would be safe. And of course this is when everything went wrong, all of my squads suffered heavy casualties from the remaining Germans, the immobilised Stug, the mortar and the MG from the halftrack as German command dice came out in one long stream. When I did get a turn my boys failed to hit anything or simply refused to comply with orders. Against the odds Jimi had managed to get a draw, we both had an infantry unit on the objective crossroads, Jimi by design and me by luck.

Two units about to be cut up.

 

The end.

Casualties on both sides have been very heavy and once again I had went forward when I probably should have stayed where I was, but where is the fun in that.

Rob popped in yesterday for a visit to see how I was getting on, he brought me another little Vickers MkVI tankette with a turret designed by mate Stuart, this is beautiful work, the two crew members are superb, he also left me an early war stretcher bearer.

The Invalids Clash

 I have felt the urge lately to get back into my wargaming, although Jimi and I had tried out a game of Dux Britanniarum last week it was not a success, all my fault, and we mainly just chatted all things wargaming. So I made more of an effort this week, I had already built a campaign table hoping to entice Matt Crump to start our Konigsberg campaign but Matt was under the weather so that was out. I then offered a game to Erik but an appointment put the kybosh on that, then at the last minute this was cancelled so I quickly offered fellow invalid Simon a game as I had already sorted Erik out for next week.

We fought on the campaign table and I was the defending Russians while Simon led a panzergrenadier platoon against my village, he had a StuG III and an infantry gun as support, I took a 50mm mortar, a sniper and a tank killer team. I couldn't afford a T34 and as the tank killers seemed a dangerous but brittle trio I also picked up a couple of captured panzerfausts for two of my squads, that along with fingers crossed.

The action opened with the Germans moving forward fairly quickly on my left and me skulking off table and around the village secure in the knowledge they would have to come to me, I did look for chances to open fire but the StuG and infantry gun posed a danger to anyone hiding in a building. I did eventually manage to get my sniper team into a shooting position but the ladies turned out to be girls who couldn't hit a barn door. Time was passing and the game had been less than exciting up until now. I did throw one squad out and began a firefight with some grenadiers in the open but this amounted to very little for both sides, I did manage to wound some NCO's though so that Simon began to rely on his Senior Leader to keep things moving.

Soviets.

Germans.

Slowly does it.

Hold, hold.

Then it happened, I threw four sixes and sighed, the result was that 'Jabos' or fighter bombers were seen in the area but no one was sure whether they had crosses or stars on them, so no one could move for two phases! A dreadful result for me as I had intended to make a push despite being the defender, we had convened for a game after all. I did eventually move when the aircraft disappeared and more to have some fun than anything, I also at the same time ambushed the StuG III with my tank killers and made a spectacular hit which blew up and injured several men following the tank in supposed safety. After this I was punished by the superior German firepower and we called a halt.

"Jabo's" that put the kybosh on the move.

Boom!

A wall of hurt coming my way.

A game which if it had been a campaign game would have lasted quite a bit longer as the Russians would not have advanced, but we were there for some fun and to throw some dice. I was left with some rule questions and mate Robert was on the end of a phone and solved several, we didn't have time to look up and discuss.

What else has been going on, well I finished my support options for Early War British, a 2pdr anti-tank gun and a Boys anti-tank rifle, I still have an armoured car to source and maybe a couple of early bren carriers but we will see. 

While I was in WW2 mode I decided to sort my last German halftrack, for some reason I had used a different paint for Dunkelgelb and when put in the box with all the other armour it just looked wrong and of course it started to bug me. It doesn't look so different in the photographs but the second paint job is much more satisfying, god know though when I will get to use it, when was the last time you saw a mortar carrier, Allied or German on the table.

Old paint job, looked a lot darker out of the light.

 

New paint job, now I am content.

 I am back to mapping, Charles at Helion has sent me three fairly easy maps on the ECW sieges of Newark, so my trial run seems to be going OK, I hope to have these done by next week, I still have a busy schedule this week. Duncan at Helion has intimated he has more projects for me in the pipeline.

I will be fighting over the same table on Thursday with 'Lucky' Jimi, I owe him a decent game, but this time we are using Bolt Action 750 points of Soviets vs 1,000 points of Jerries, it will be an interesting clash. Stewart Simon is bringing his lovely ECW collection up next Wednesday for a four player game. I am driving again so I might manage the club in another week or so.

Oh, and while in Kendal the other day I popped into Waterstone's to await the missus and treated myself, after all I'm worth it. I am a fan of Max Hastings and he has only ever once let me down, as for Catherine Nixey this kind of book is way out of my comfort zone however I did read her superb 'The Darkening Age' and I look forward to this one.