A Nip in the air

Something different at the club this week, well the same but with a twist, Chain of Command Far East, Malaya 1942 to be precise. Now I am not a fan of WWII Japanese and would never play them but I was offered the chance to play against them this week so my 1944 British pretended they had left their shorts at home and plunged into the Malayan jungle.

Guessing the Japs would be infantry heavy I also took plenty of infantry and my only nod to armour was a Universal carrier carrying a Bren team, I was defending with a Japanese roadblock to my rear preventing me from leaving the table which of course was my objective, they were also inches from my Line of Communication marker which if they captured would make it twice as difficult for me to retreat.

Somewhere in Malaya.

 

Japanese roadblock.

I managed to quickly swamp the Japs at the roadblock and prevent them from moving on the LOC marker, I also managed to set up a line of defenders ready to block the main enemy effort which would be coming down the road. Things looked very good from my perspective albeit it was taking time to move through the damn jungle around the roadblock and actually reduce the enemy squad there. The little carrier also turned up in the rear of the Japs and although they shot at it with an anti-tank rifle the little 'tank' remained unscathed and a pain in the Imperial rear.

Looking good.

 

No, disaster, run away.

I was so engrossed in the game I forgot I had an MMG waiting to come on, this was a big mistake on my part. As time counted down Paul threw a wild charge into half a squad holding my right, this should have been a walk over for the enemy but my boys actually held and beat them, Banzai that mate. Sadly the Japanese at this point were aggressive, so they did not fall back but continued fighting, this sealed my doom, I quickly lost a squad, a leader and a Jump Off Point which caused my morale to plummet. On the other side of the table I sent two squads into a nearby Jap section, I lost and was pushed back, this meant another JOP was left undefended, I gave up. In short time I had gone from winning comfortably to losing desperately.

This is a lot different from fighting in Europe with CoC, the jungle terrain which comes in all shapes and sizes is a real struggle to move through and has all sorts of nasty effects, I found it very frustrating and it took a long time to get anywhere, where my objective was turned out to be really, really deep jungle. There are a lot of characteristics to get your head around in order to give an historical feel to the forces, the Japanese at first seem to have the upper hand but I believe the shine is taken off this as the war progresses. It was an interesting game.

My second run out of CoC was back in France, 1940 with Matt Crump taking the French and me attacking as the Germans. I had an infantry force with a StuG III for support. my objectives were in a village at the opposite end of the table. I didn't get far in the Patrol Phase and managed to set up a measly 12" from my table edge. I would have a long way to go to win the day. I set off determined to make some kind of effort at attacking and not simply setting up a fire base and wait until the French died in droves. Someone should have told my StuG crew we were here to win, I was relying on them to weaken the defenders but that did not happen and their efforts left a lot to be desired.

Now boys, now!

French on one objective.

Vorwaerts or whatever.

Matt made a wrong move and sent his rifle grenadiers into a wood outside his defensive cordon and I took the opportunity to attack and wipe them out, but I could not continue into the French troops lining a nearby hedge who were waiting for me. I tried suppressive fire and overwhelming fire on the French left but could not sustain it and had to pull back. Once again time was running out and it was obvious it would take hours for my StuG III to make a dent and by then I probably would have had no infantry left to push forward, also we would have fallen asleep.

French cordon.

That's where we should be Johanne.

I was frustrated at my lack of progress in this game, I also made some mistakes which might have given the StuG more of an opportunity of handing out punishment, but them's the breaks, I won't forget next time. CoC2 again showed that it plays better than 1 although I am more convinced than ever that its strength lines in playing small campaigns and not one off battles. Therefore if things go well I will kick off a couple over the next few months.

Tiger, what's a tiger?

A little tank.

You may know that I gave up with the expensive Winsor and Newton brushes some time ago and began to rely on bundles I picked up from ABC Brushes, I then decided to try Rosemary brushes as they give you a bit of chocolate in the package and they have a good reputation. I also thought I would take the advice of lying them flat to dry therefore stopping the bristles from fraying at the ends. I can now report that is a lot of codswallop, I have around ten of these brushes and yes, the hairs do fray, stood up or lying down, I will though confirm they have excellent points on them, but the down side of that is they do not hold a lot of paint, perfect for small details but not 'splashing it all over'. I have bought ProArte for that side of things, but they do tend to hook at the ends. Now recently I cannot escape something called Temu on Facebook and they/it offers 100 brushes for a quid or less, now even if one brush does a couple of figures that must be a win win?

I am enjoying reading Max Hastings' new book Sword, which is both exciting and sad as it deals with the personal experiences of men during the run up and landings on Sword. One passage caught my eye "McKinnon stood in a Highland bonnet, playing his bagpipes on the bridge of the destroyer Undaunted as craft ploughed past." The first ship I served on in late '69 was the Undaunted, it was a training draft for only a few weeks running out of Portland, she had portholes near the waterline and we slept in hammocks, I remember even then thinking the ship seemed tired. Although only 17 I do remember being allowed cans of 'Yellow Peril', small tins in a yellow tartan of Younger's Tartan Ale. I was glad it was only a few weeks, Tartar was like a cruise ship in comparison.

HMS Undaunted.

 

High Water Mark?

 Time for another clash between the Blue and the Grey, this small part of the Valley has seen three battles between the combatants with each getting larger and larger as troops are drawn in from surrounding areas with both sides desperately trying to get an advantage in numbers. This time as both licked their wounds from the recent combat at Bartlett's Creek the Rebs advanced once again to pressure the Union forces, circumstances had allowed them to steal a march and position a brigade behind the Union position. General McCabe could only pray that General Johnson with the surprise troops would turn up at the appointed time and at the right place.

The battlefield, Union camp on right.

At 0630 the Confederates advanced, holding back their right flank and sending four brigades against the Federal right hoping that this solid wall would sweep away the defenders and then turn on the Union camp and roll up the Yankee left. I was given the task of holding the Reb right with two brigades and acting in a threatening manner to tempt the Federals in front of me to attack, this turned out not to be a problem as a full division was in front of me and seemed happy to take me on.

The Rebs march at dawn.

Union left moves out.

Yankee artilley moved swiftly forward to take my line under fire while cavalry skirmishers moved on my right, more infantry were behind them, I threw in a reckless charge against the skirmishers and ended up losing that regiment as they were overwhelmed by the troops moving up. Things were looking precarious from my viewpoint as I moved men from left to right to build up a firing line. Over on my left the juggernaut had been stalled as one of the leading brigadiers fell from his horse momentarily stunned by a sharpshooter in the woods on the hill, the confusion was brought under control and the whole line moved forward against the thin blue line on the hill. From my perspective it looked like a walk in the park, but Yankee Gary put up a stalwart defence as his men fell around him, despite horrendous losses time after time the Federals stood their ground.

Rebs approach Gary's Hill.

 

Ferocious fighting.

Gary under pressure.

Union pressure my position on the right.

Riders now came from the Union rear areas warning of Confederate troops behind the lines, although they had arrived on time they had appeared behind the Federal left giving Matt time to pull back a full brigade and rush artillery towards the threat, at this point he continued to pressure my men on their hill and it was not looking good. Gary on the Union right was now trying to rush troops to support his crumbling defence on the hill but they found themselves under fire from Rebel guns which took the reserves in the flank time and again. Despite this the Federals carried on but their morale began to break and several regiments fled leaving a large gap between the Union divisions, the men on the hill had had enough and they too fled to the rear.

Rebel surpise attack.

Rebel race for the camp.

The Confederates now turned on the Union camp and headed for Matt's right flank, Matt had now weathered the suprise attack on his rear but with the collapse of Gary's division he had no option but to pull back. I did not have the infantry strength to follow up and prevent the break off although my guns did continue to pound away at the enemy. The battle was over.

 We had been fighting for just over six hours and it proved an excellent game and visually a perfect wargame. My thanks to the guys for taking the time.

 Nothing else to report, I did go to the club last night and played a game, not a wargame simply a bit of fun. My painting has slowed down again for reasons I won't go into for now although I have now taken delivery of the last packs to finish the army. 

Yankee Doodles and a Gift

 After visiting the Seven Years War and getting to at last use my big bag of smoke I returned to Chain of Command which is consuming quite a bit of my time at the moment, why, because I am enjoying it, simple.

Matt from the club and I are hoping to kick off the 'Many Rivers to Cross' early war campaign in the near future but as Matt hasn't played CoC for a while we decided to have a refresher game here in the Bunker. Matt has chosen the French and I will be playing the Germans, we played The Patrol which only uses infantry so a bit different. I was quite engrossed in the game so there are only a few pictures, I started on the wrong foot and got an 8 for my Force Morale which is the lowest you can get, this is a real bummer and tends to make you cautious. No matter I anchored my right in a small wood and pushed my left forward, as the game progressed we were both down to 6 morale points, then Lady Luck deserted me and I fell to four after having an NCO wounded and throwing a six, this meant I had lost.

The battlefield.

Too little, too late.

Holding the woods.

Frenchies at the Estaminet.

It had been a good little game and exposed a lot of the new rules which really do improve the game and offer so many more choices. I normally play along the table and I found playing across unusual and I was quite unsure what to attempt in the Patrol Phase. No matter we are now ready for the campaign, more of which later hopefully.

After clearing and rearranging the table I was ready for my second game the next evening, friend Robert was in the area and had made time in his schedule to pop in for a game. He brought his Americans while I took Late War Germans, I took the opportunity to use my winter mat and pretend my Jerries were trying to grab a crossroads during the Battle of the Bulge. Expecting to play along the table I laid it out to be neutral for both sides with plenty of cover for placing Jump Off Points, in the Attack and Defend scenario you dice for the approach and to my dismay we got to fight across and not along the table. This left me with almost nowhere to hide and my start points were basically at the table edge as Robert closed me down quite swiftly. To top this off I got a morale of 9, as the attacker not the best roll, you can see where this is going.

I also managed a rubbish support roll but still managed to get enough for an extra squad, a Senior Leader and a PzII Luchs, I could have went overboard and got a real tank but thought that would be unfair on my Yankee opponent to turn up with a PzIV or worse, a Brummbar, I need to toughen up. Robert went with two bazooka teams. I first brought on a couple of sections, one in a wood the other just outside as the Americans did not have a good line of sight on them, despite being in the open. I had an idea of moving on the enemy right but never seemed to get enough commands. Robert ended up with most of his men behind a stone wall near the centre of the table, I brought on my little tank and it proved to have rubber bullets as it failed to kill the enemy time after time, the firefight continued with the bazooka teams trying their best to kill the tank while I tried to kill the bazooka teams.

The battlefield, I came in on the left.

My big hope.

Yanks holed up in the wine merchants.

The Yankee firing line.

The end of my hopes.

The Luchs was hit several times and at one point was driven off table, but it came back again. I managed to get several double phases but was still struggling to put some hurt on the Yanks. Robert was in the same boat and both of us decided to change dice half way through the game. We both now started to lose men however the end came quickly, the surviving bazooka team managed to at last get a powerful hit on the tank and it exploded, killing the commander and hitting the troops nearby, two morale throws followed and I went from six to two, in the blink of an eye I was done.

More of the new rules showed themselves and I got to use the smoke dischargers on the tank, I also used command pips to 'hit the dirt' several times which was very handy. There was a contention about the 'bunched target' rule but I have since had it explained on Facebook. This is the first time I have fought against Americans and I cannot say it was fun, especially as Robert knew how to take advantage of their capabilities. They can move one dice and fire without any penalty, yes I know all about the marching fire nonsense, this to me is more suppressing fire while you manouvre, not an excuse to move, fire and suffer no penalty despite what Rambo and others do in the movies. They also get to reroll 1's as the Garand is semi-automatic, I can live with that. No matter I still enjoyed the game although my report card should say "can do better".

Before he left Robert joined the ranks of Matt Smith, David Bickley and Phil Robinson by gifting me figures to paint when I had made up my mind that it was 'no more.' The gift this time was a full Fallschirmjager platoon to which I would only need to add a mortar and maybe the odd figure, it was unexpected and caught me by surprise. I will finish the Romans, of which I have now ordered the last, yes the last, two units from A&A before moving on to the Paras but already I am looking forward to them.

My gift.

Talking of Romans I have completed the fourth cavalry unit which are heavy cavalry, they could also be upgraded to Contarii should I wish, I will have the option in the army list.

There will be a large ACW game here on Sunday as part of the ongoing Valley campaign, later in the month Matt Crump will be coming for some CoC2, I have one day open next week which I might try and organise something for. Big Ed has intimated he may be able to visit at the end of the month, I will look forward to that.

AI is taking over.

 Jimi and Simon asked me to join in a Dead Mans Hand game at the club, I was happy to do so as my wife was having some friends round for dinner. Now before we go any further here is a big reveal, I am impressed with ChatGPT, now I may be coming late to the party here as I usually spurn modern 'rubbish', but it now joins my hobby as a very useful tool. My son uses it for his work and on a whim and a day before the club game I asked it to give me a scenario for a three player game set in the Old West. Up popped an excellent, well thought out game for a shoot out, and what's more it asked if I wanted to print off special cards and did I require a map?

I was like a kid in a candy store, next up was a WWII platoon level scenario then a Seven Years War battle involving three brigades a side, I had such a game coming up on Friday and although I tweaked the robot's forces a tad I went for it.

Firstly though, in the Cowboy game I was once again the Mexicans as there just happened to be a gang from south of the border down Juarez way, the objective was a large crate in the middle of town which had to be grabbed, opened and hauled away. Jimi was a bunch of cutthroats, Simon deserters from the 7th Cavalry, I figured I could take a chance and just run straight for the crate as the troopers were only armed with carbines and had one shot per turn, Jimi was basically hiding from Simon around the Undertakers large house. I had not figured on Simon's deadly dice, he shot Jimi up and then turned on me, Fat Pedro with the shotgun was a big disappointment (again) and he failed to clear the way, quickly my compadres hit the dust joining quite a few of Jimi's men. Jimi and I now hoped that the crate booby trap would blow the Yankees away but it failed and the troopers had the win. A thumbs up for the robot, now if only it could do something for my dice.

At this point I still have some men.

The Seven Years War scenario had a village in the centre of the table and a large hill nearby as objectives, there was early morning fog as both sides groped towards each other, seemed fine to me. Ian arrived having not played Honours of War before and took the French as he was sat next to them as we chatted and had a coffee before starting. I had the edge having played quite a few games and thus knew I would need my artillery to either defend or attack the village as infantry would have a hard job doing it and deployed accordingly, to support this effort I put my best brigade with the grenadiers on their left. My small cavalry force was also on the left, on my right I had two brigades which I hoped would run pell mell for the hill.

French line.

British line.

British army.

French army.

Ian advanced a lot quicker than me and managed to get a brigade up to the village and his Garde de Francais to occupy it. My centre had a dithering commander and I managed to keep throwing an awful lot of one's and found it difficult to coordinate my forces on the right, so then decided to just hold and ready my boys for the French onslaught. I had more success on my left, my artillery were exceptionally good and casualties mounted on the Garde while my grenadiers led my attack on Ian's right, quality won out and after some time the village was evacuated and the French brigade cut to pieces. On my right Ian had pushed his brigades into the teeth of British musketry and for a moment the result could have gone either way, but in the end the steady fire of the redcoats decimated the Irish, Scots, Germans and French opposite them. What happened to the cavalry, the enemy squadron on my left were sent packing and the one on my right never managed to get in on the fight, terrain and circumstances being against them.

The Garde retreats and reforms.

Irish, Scots and Germans move up.

The French left in disarray.

Firefight on British right.

The village is cleared.

 

Once again it was nice to get these troops back on the table, the rules are not complicated and may be too simple for afficionados of the SYW but they suit me. Ian was at a disadvantage this being his first game but I am sure things will play differently next time.

My days are flying past at the moment, my presence seemingly being required here there and eveywhere, or it seems that way at least, it is no fun getting old. Club Tuesday, not sure what I am doing or if I am actually going. The coming week will be busy, three games here in the Bunker, Chain of Command Wednesday and Thursday then a large ACW campaign game on Sunday.

Still plugging away with the Roman cavalry, though due to the rain over the weekend I have managed to get them 85% done, probably finish the riders today and have them all mounted and based in the next couple of days. Next up is the last legionary vexillation, this should complete the army but I have enough odd figures to do another close order unit of auxilliary's or lanciarii, not sure. I have a mad urge to finish off with another cavalry and skirmish unit. We will see how I feel.

I am just catching up with all the map work I have, although a couple of projects still linger unfinished. Next week it is the Royal Irish Regiment in Afghanistan, at the siege of Musa Qal'eh in 2006.

On the subject of books, yep, the Malta fiasco has gone, the actual siege seems to have been an afterthought and not the focus of the book. I am on a political book at the moment but am just about ready to get back to normal, Max Hastings' Sword (beach) is waiting in the wings. It has been a good week also for wargaming publications and having influential friends in the hobby (tongue firmly in cheek). First up was a freebie from Simon Miller, a follow up to the Montrose book, secondly a copy of the new Warlord Italian Wars supplement to their Pike & Shotte rules, delivered personally by the author Charles Singleton, look out for names being dropped. Both of these are excellent productions.

Carnforth at least still has pride in Mr. Churchill, during a 1940's weekend this gentleman was very popular photographers.