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 Relaxing after leading my British against Ian and with a quiet weekend coming up I awoke to a message from Paul looking for a game, my spirits rose immediately and my brain went into overdrive, but of course first off I got the green light from the boss, fourth game in a week, it was required.

I have been throwing money away recently, new buds, those little things the yoof have in their ears, the car, books, paints and a subscription to Warfare, Soldiers and Strategy. I have decided to give the magazine a second chance as I gave up with all of them some time ago, my main thought process is that they do a lot of scenarios for Chain of Command and I was flush, for now. With Paul coming I chose an Eastern Front scenario "A Delaying Action at Uman" set in 1944 on the borders of Romania, not Ukraine as I had thought. The Germans were defending a small village and a nearby bridge, the Russians had to drive the Germans off, however if the bridge collapsed, which it might if a tank or large vehicle crossed it, both sides would take a hit to their morale, the Germans needed it, the Russians wanted it.

Uman.

The Soviet deployment area.

Paul got twelve points of support so I got six, in fear of a T-34 or KV-1 I took a Pak 40 along with an extra Senior Leader, Paul went for a heavy machine gun, a Scout squad, sniper and pre-game barrage, oh and a couple of captured panzerfausts.

I decided of course to wait and see where the main attack would come from so I was slow off the mark, the Soviets threw their Scout squad forward very quickly in order to use them as a Jump Off Point, sneaky. Soon there was a Soviet squad on my left, a HMG in a wood to the front of the village and the annoying Scout squad running for one of my JOP's, I was looking at an early disaster as Paul got a double turn and captured my JOP, I scrambled for a plan to get it back. I started with a squad in the large barn which also held the objective, but just as I was looking to advance I threw three sixes and the turn ended, off went the JOP and my morale fell to 7. The brave Scouts were now turned on and their numbers and morale fell alarmingly, to add to this punishment I proceeded to throw sixes like confetti, one throw resulted in four sixes and this brought another turn to an end but also brought heavy rain to the battlefield and visibility fell to 18", all of a sudden most of the Soviet force were blind and the Scouts broke, leaving their leader stunned, alone in the wood.

The objective building.

Reds in the woods.

Every turn after that I prayed to the Gods that no more than two sixes turned up so that the rain could continue. Paul now brought on the rest of his forces and I did the same in order to build up a firebase for the inevitable assault, the Soviets on my left advanced and I met them with the Pak 40 and a squad from one of the houses, these men suffered horrendous losses and were left with only a handful of men and at last the Russian morale also fell. My squad doing most of the damage were now picked on however they held on and although pinned stayed put in the building. Paul now managed to bring a new Squad out of a wood, across the road and towards my perimeter, I countered this by bringing on my last reserves and attempted to shoot them up as they repositioned, this failed and they managed to assault the house and break the survivors. 

Now boys, at em!

Heading for the stunned Soviet.

Heavy machine gun, nullified by the rain.

Blind snipers.

The last men standing.

The morale of both was now at 5 and victory was within grasp of both sides. By sheer luck I got more of those sixes, the Pak wiped out the remaining Russians in the open field and I pushed my right hand squad forward into the wood to capture the stunned leader, this caused several morale throws and finished the Soviet assault, Uman was still in German hands as night fell.

 This was a superb game with a lot of excitement, the rain was a huge obstacle for the attackers and a boon for the defenders, I was terrified of ending the turn and the onset of fair weather as I kept throwing six after six. I thought the quick loss of the JOP had set the pace for my defeat but the Soviets paid dearly for taking it, losing the squad and leaving the stunned leader to be picked up. Paul is a canny opponent and always provides a good game, the scenario too was worth the subscription and I will play it again along with others.

If you are interested in WW2 can I ask you to have a look at WW2TV, Paul Woodage runs the show on his own, he asks that if you enjoy the content, like and subscribe as it helps him to keep up the excellent service he provides. I am being selfish on this as I love the show.

Ups and Downs

I had thought my wargaming was going to slow down but it hasn't, so three recent battles to showcase. I was at the club again this week and was showing 'Lucky' Jimi what War and Conquest was all about, I think he felt sorry for me as I continually moan about not enough games of my second favourite game. Anyway I brought along Thrax and his boys and more Barbarians, I offered Jimi a choice of sides and he took the Romans, both armies were infantry as I did not want to complicate the game by introducing the different cavalry and their styles of fighting.

 

The Barbarians attack.

  

Steady boys, steady.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Clash of arms

We lined up and off we went, I simply went straight for the Roman line hoping to knock a few of the cohorts out before I was flanked as Jimi had one more battle formation than me. I hit the Roman left and the routed Auxiliaries took their skirmishers along with them, this time I caught the routers and that was one down four to go. Jimi got the drop on me and hit my centre warbands while I left my last one to threaten his right as he hesitated. Numbers told in the end and the Roman centre lost one unit while another was in trouble. Jimi now turned a cohort to hit my winning warband in the flank but I got in first and hit his Lanciarii, before his legionaries could take advantage of his formation change the Lanciarii broke and ran. The Germans had won.

It was good to take the troops to the club but there was not a lot of interest shown as everyone else was busy. I enjoyed the game albeit it was a 'training' bash and I think Jimi also enjoyed it, his reputation for desperate dice did manage to turn up at awkward times but at others he pulled off some nice throws.

Matt Crump was back from his European battlefield and Museum trip so we played out the second game of our Gembloux Gap campaign. Matt had withdrew from the first clash and was again attempting to push the French from the village of Perbais. Although the Jerries got extra support points for their second attempt I felt fairly confident as we set about the Patrol Phase. I was taken by surprise and failed miserably with this, so much so that my Jump Off Points ended up pretty useless for me, even as a defender, Matt had managed to get a couple right on my flank.

Plan A.

 

Ooops, Plan B then.

 

Mortar incoming!

The Germans close in.

 I held back most of my infantry but did take cover in a couple of buildings, before this however I had put down my rifle grenadiers to cover a dangerous Gemans JOP but within minutes Matt had wiped them out, the morale loss hurt me and and I fell from 11 to 8 as the team broke and the leader was killed. I used a Shabby Nazi Trick to close off one of the JOP's and covered another from a nearby house, this forced Matt to advance across mainly open ground. I had been busy moving my armour, an R35, up the road to get into a firing position, it managed it and as it settled down to wreak havoc on the Boche Matt managed to blow it up with his infantry gun. 

After that I decided to try and inflict some damage but that plan didn't work out either, Matt dropped a mortar barrage which in the end did no significant damage to my guys but anywhere I did manage to pop my head out was covered by the infantry gun, an off table MMG and German infantry, my morale fell to 3. It was all up for the French, I had been outplayed and sent packing, well done Matt. Due to the difference in morale and the fact I only gave two of his guys a headache Matt hardly suffered at all. I think next time will be a trip to the Dungeon.

Two days later it was Seven Years War and a game with Ian, I asked Chat GPT for an idea and it gave me the bones of a scenario, nothing fancy, a meeting engagement and although the objectives were to capture the ridges held by the other side it would be down to who was left standing. Ian took the French and I was the British, for ever looking over my shoulder to see if the council would be hammering at the door to take my Union flags.

 I got two Dithering commanders and one Reliable, my cavalry turned up with a Dashing leader, Ian also had two dopes, one Dashing and his cavalry was Reliable, the CinC can be used to make one poor commander reliable and we both did that. Ian's Dashing fellow was in the centre and I hoped he would advance quickly into the waiting muskets of my centre, he did but it took time. 

British left flank.

French left.

The battle begins.

I advanced my left fairly quickly and the French opposite also came on in the grand manner, my centre advanced to the stream and halted, the troops there came under artillery fire but they weathered it well, my right slowly advanced through the wood on that side of the battlefield and I was happy for the French to attempt to get to grips with that brigade. I was hoping I would win elsewhere and then claim victory. My artillery now played on the French centre and they were devastating, causing battalions to retreat and disrupt Ian's advance. On his right however he reached the stream and charged across it, my boys stood and their crashing volleys caused mayhem in the ranks of the Irish and German mercenaries, routing some and causing others to fall back.

Battle commences.

The British cavalry triumphant.

The French right in trouble.

The magnificent Royal Artillery.

 Ian eventually managed to get some troops up to engage my centre at the stream but once again my artillery chased some of them away, my infantry then stood up manfully and put the rest to flight, although I had by now lost two battalions.

The French left with nothing happening.

The French centre collapses.

The French left also collapses.

Earlier in the game the cavalry reserves of both sides had turned up, Ian again being aggressive and throwing them across the stream, one squadron charging some infantry and the other being charged by my cavalry. This was a disaster for the French as the infantry volleys put paid to one squadron and my cavalry routing another. After this I sent my cavalry to the left flank as a large gap had opened in the enemy line and I wanted to take advantage of it. On my right I kept my boys in the wood while the French commander there was having a dreadful time inspiring his brigade to move forward. By this stage the French were close to breaking point and were not in a good position so Ian handed over his sword.

I know someone has to do it but it is not easy attacking in Honours of War, add this to the fact my shooting dice, especially the artillery were extremely good and you have a recipe for disaster. It was a good fight and nice to see the SYW back on the field of battle, and no knock from the council.

 I picked up the new car a week ago and promptly got lost after leaving the showroom, finding myself in darkest Lancashire along a country lane which was flooded, this necessitated a U-turn on a road not much bigger than my wargame table with other irate drivers to my rear. Obviously there is more to the story but I won't bore you with it. It has taken us several calls to BMW and looking at videos on YouTube to work out the tech on the thing. Remember when you got the key and off you went.

 I know the world is mad and I generally just shake my head these days but the fact that NATO have issued guidance on using words which offend, offend who by the way, like airman, serviceman and anything else which mentions the overwhelming majority of people in the armed forces of the organisation. I had just got over this when I found out that the MOD have decided RAF vegans, all 7 of them, can have vegan uniforms instead of the normal ones. And they expect our enemies to take us seriously. 

Still awaiting scans.

 Oh, I nearly forgot, I have now had, thanks to some bots, over a million views, did I mention that before? 

Some New Stuff.

I was going to have a quiet week this week but it didn't turn out like that. I went along to the club to take part in a game of "Beneath the Lily Banners", not sure what you would actually call the period but it is around the late 1600's? This is a new project for several club members and new figures are being added every week as the forces grow. I am unsure of the scale, it looked about 10 mm to me, maybe 12, the troops did look very nice and Stuart Simon's contingent were exceptional in this scale as is his 25mm ECW armies.

The battle was between an army of Jacobean Scots and English against Dutch forces loyal to the Crown. At first although the loyalists were better troops it did look like they were outnumbered, especially on my flank facing a much larger force opposite. I decided to take a little wood to my front with dragoons as a speed bump while my infantry camped on a nearby hill, I had an idea that as my cavalry should outclass their opponents I would sweep forward and put the enemy horse to flight. Needless to say Plan A did not work, the order system went against me and only one of my two squadrons charged forward, nonetheless this unit was quite successful routing some enemy and throwing their flank into disorder before being chased from the field. The dragoons did their job and held up the enemy foot for a time which was also played on by my artillery, they therefore reached my own infantry line having been badly shot up.

The enemy advance on my boys.

My one squadron attacks.

Defend the high ground.

Jacobites. Was expecting official to remove St. George's flag.

Over on my left Simon had advanced to the line of a small stream while being attacked by Stuart's lovely cavalry, this did not prevent them from being shot up and routed however. The Jacobean infantry on that flank seemed happy enough to remain in position for most of the game, or that is how it looked to me. Night fell and the victory went to the loyal forces of King George.

I was preparing to settle down and map for the rest of the week when Paul asked for a game the next day on What'sApp and I decided in a high pitched camp voice, if that's possible on a PC, that I was free. We decided on a 1940's clash somewhere in France with Paul as the Jerries and me as the French, I was the defender and would not have my support forces until the first turn ended, this in Chain of Command can take a very long time, so I would be outnumbered from the beginning.

You will have to be a certain age.

The Germans turned up with a couple of squads and an armoured car, at this point I had no anti-tank weapons but managed a couple of times to frighten the crew of the 'little tank' into retreating, but of course it came back. I very slowly built up towards a CoC dice to end the turn while Paul was overwhelmed with CoC points. One German squad tried to advance but was caught in the open and became the target of most of the French lead, it eventually broke and ran, this meant the enemy now deployed an infantry gun to put pressure on the French line and it had an immediate effect. My squads now began to suffer very high casualties, dead rather than shocked, two of my NCO's also got hit and one killed, my morale plummeted to 5 from 9, things had looked so good a moment before. 

Battlefield.

My line.

The Jerries close in.

The game changer.

The 'little tank'.

I had managed at last to end the turn and on trundled my game winning armour, but it was no game changer, it turned out to be useless and as the pressure mounted I pulled back all my squads out of harms way. I did manage this quite successfully but the writing was on the wall and my morale now fell to 3. The crew of the infantry gun were now desperately manhandling it into a better position so in desperation I deployed the last of my reserves in the hope I might pick off the crew or even better wound the leader, when the smoke cleared there was no visible effect on the gun crew. A further turn of deadly fire from Paul put my morale at 1 and I gave in.

 I did look like winning at one point as the Germans came up against my defenders but my morale simply crumbled under the withering fire as my NCO's hit the deck and my return fire merely gave the Jerries a few headaches. I have used that little R35 tank before and it has never been successful. I think in the future for single games I will just use morale ratings of 10 or 11, I never use the lower 8 anyway, the wounding of a couple of Leaders accompanied with lousy morale throws can end a game before it gets off the ground. The wounding or stunning of Leaders cause enough realistic command problems without artificially causing your platoon to leave the area.

Staying with Chain of Command in the next day or two I will have completed the bulk of the Fallschirmjager platoon and they will be in action against American paratroopers in a few weeks. I have enough left over figures for a fourth squad but am waiting for their LMG teams and a sniper to arrive from Black Tree Designs, I have used these guys once before and they are notoriously slow. I have painted this new platoon almost entirely with Contrast Paints, quiet in the back. I never thought the GW paints had a range suitable for WW2, I suspect Vallejo or Army Painter do. Mate Stuart Dobson put me on to a video showing how it could be done and I thought his efforts on his Voksgrenadiers looked fine for my paras. I started and was very happy with the speed and the results, halfway through the troops I changed a few of the colours to represent my own thoughts on the webbing and camo smock, my choices are not as stark as the original suggestions, well I think so. These types of paints are looked down on by many but I think they are wonderful, and I have hundreds of Roman and Italian Wars figures to attest to this. If you ever only buy one, buy the magical Guilliman Flesh.

When it comes to books I am loathe to read women writers, I did however get carried away by the author of 'Eagle Days' who did a presentation on WW2TV. I have now returned it to my shelf, it is supposed to tell the story of the Battle of Britain from the German side, I did not really get this impression, there was a serious lack of information on actual combat experience from the bomber crews and fighter pilots, maybe I picked up the wrong vibes from the programme.

 So just as I was thinking about what was next I found that the second book in Rick Atkinson's trilogy on the War of The American Revolution is out, it has only taken six years so I am wondering if I will still be around when Volume Three appears and will I actually have time to read it, these are vast tomes. I have tried many times to read about this period in history and all have left me unsatisfied, Atkinson however is brilliant and really brings the whole thing to life, already I have only managed the prologue and know it is a winner.

I know I am a miserable old sod but my excitement on hearing about a TV series on Harold Godwinson and that usurper William of Normandy was sent crashing when I realised the BBC were in charge. First off I have never watched it and never will, however I have seen clips and photographs, I will leave out the colour blind casting but the clothes and armour are straight out of someones imagination, if they got 'experts' in they must simply have listened then ignored them. Look at the Bayeux Tapestry for heavens sake. I also noticed that the battle was the usual two mobs running at each other and finishing in multiple single combats, I could be wrong as I only saw a few seconds of this but I doubt it. On the other hand I have started 'Penguin' and it is high quality drama with a good story and excellent script and acting along with beautiful filmography. Colin Farrel is uncanny as Penguin. I am addicted to 'Drive to Survive' and as such I know a thing or two about F1 now, the other night I watched F1 with Brad pitt and immediately saw problems, the major one being a size six model changing tyres in the pit, I could not stop laughing, the movie, it was fine. Box, Box!

 On that happy note, I'm off.

Onwards ever Onwards.

 My wargaming was not over when my son grabbed a victory from my Barbarian assault a week or so ago, I managed one day of rest when mate Robert appeared for the first of our two evening games. Robert had not played War and Conquest but is a seasoned wargamer and was happy to try the rules out, he chose the Seleucids as he has 'prior' with them, I decided to lead the new army putting aside my guilt of not commanding Legio XII.

The game was only over a few hours and was a typical ancient clash, infantry in the centre and cavalry on the wings, Robert kept his elephant way out on his right hoping it would disorder my cavalry, he needn't have bothered as my horse archers were routed by the enemy cavalry. I did manage to hit the behemoth later, it went out of control and as luck would have it it went straight for one of my victorious vexillations, the lads took this in their stride and Nellie hit the deck. As the phalanx reached my line several melees broke out but the Romans were left masters of the field.

A very mad elephant.

Phalanx v legion.

On the cusp of victory.

Thrax.

Seleucis.

Thrax's men had fought well against the pikes and I am sure Robert would be a serious opponent with a few more games under his belt, not that he did anything wrong in this small clash but we all know it takes time to get to grips with how a ruleset plays. I was just happy to play and get my armies on the table.

The next evening we settled on a return to old times and played a small Johnny Reb game, back in Scotland we had a small group which played a lot of ACW in my loft space, melting in the summer and freezing in the winter. Robert as always took the Good Guys while I led the Rebs. We didn't get very far as we chatted, reminisced and enjoyed throwing dice, Robert went on the defensive along a line of fences while I attacked, I had decided to put my strongest brigade into an attack on the Union left but we called a halt as time ran out and things were just getting interesting.

I have been doing quite a bit of painting recently, I got the artillery crew for my 88mm Bunkerflak but found only two would fit on the vehicle, the rest will be additional gun crew for games of Chain of Command which needs five men as opposed to Bolt Action which requires three. I had also painted up my last (for now) Roman unit over two days to get them on the table, or at least giving my son a choice of fielding them. I also managed to scratch an itch and complete some shieldwall markers for Thrax. This left me with nothing left to do for now so I turned to the Fallschirmjager given me by Robert, I had a look at a video on YouTube on using Contrast paints for Late War German troops in camo smocks. Stuart at the club had used this method on his recent Volksgrenadiers and I was impressed, I took the plunge and bought some extra paints and primer. I also needed some more grass tufts, some extra figures, a box filler from Charlie Foxtrot and magnets, I could have gone further and got Fallschirmjager support units but have decided to use my Heer units for these, no need to double everything up as I have done with other stuff. Will I be able to live with this, who knows.

Markers.

Artillery crew.

 Talking about old times, I had a Bolt Action game with Jimi last night, I have been concentrating on Chain of Command recently as you can tell and just could not be bothered to pick up the huge tome that is Bolt Action version 3. Yes there are some nice changes on the side of commonsense but yes, there is still some real stupid stuff in there. No matter I asked ChatGPT for a scenario and it came up with a Soviet attack on the village of Chernovka held by the Germans as they await reinforcements, the AI provided everything including the orders of battle, easy peasy. The AI obviously had a thing for the Jerries as the defenders included a StuG III and a PAK 40 against a T-34/76 and a BA-64 armoured car.

Chernovka about to fall.

Jimi has winter troops.

PAK 40 late to the show.

For the Motherland!

I decided to simply run all my troops at the village and hope for the best before the Germans were reinforced, luckily for me Jimi held off his StuG and the PAK 40, in the latter case because he was unsure what it was and got it mixed up with something else. Jimi is not a WWII rivet counter like the rest of us. I was set upon by a sniper and a panzerschrek team and as I closed the range I managed to take out both of these although I still kept my T-34 away from the StuG. The Jerries countered with a small pioneer squad along with a flamethrower but they could not get the thing to light up and duly suffered for their rashness. To make matters worse the reinforcements only came on in bits and pieces. The Russian steam roller continued and more German units bit the dust, including the PAK 40 crew. With one turn remaining we called it a day, the Soviets had retaken Chernovka. Not a bad little game, Jimi being saddled with his usual luck just when he didn't need it.

We took the car in for a service last week to Mercedes Preston and I saw just what I wanted, unfortunately it cost £92,000 and the Memsahib did not like it, if there had been a small Batman logo on the door or bonnet I would have took my chances and lived a live of lonely penury. On the way out her loveliness asked me to pop into BMW, two hours later I signed on the dotted line. So a service turned into a new car. I really need to keep away from showrooms.

Mine.

Not mine.

On the health front, yep, still waiting.