White Flag Week

New club member Simon put on a WWII 6mm game at the club and brought along his set up, very nice it was too, the rules were "All Hell Let Loose." I was part of the German team and the game was set in June 1941. Mike was fairly well up with the rules having played it before and I think Simon had dabbled but Paul and I didn't have a clue. The Germans had to take a village with a crossroads and I was all for simply charging forward but this was frowned upon by my CinC, so we cautiously approached the objective while Mike fought off a counterattack on our left. As the clock hit 2200 or rather 2140 we stopped and I think the Germans were lucky to get a possible winning draw, or it was simply a draw.

My Kampfgruppe attacks.

Lovely board.

I don't know the rules and I am not good with new rules unless I have bought them and specifically want to play them, which I confess I have not done (I am not counting versions) for a long, long time. The game was beautifully set up and was fun to play and Simon had put in a lot of effort, he also seemed to have everything for 'Barbarossa' in 6mm.

Mate Robert has been told not to drive for two weeks so he had to cancel our upcoming campaign game, so three days later I took Erik up on his offer of an ECW game at his, more new rules. Erik's troops are mainly old (vintage?) Minifigs and he managed to provide two small armies for a simple meeting engagement to try out some rules he was tweaking. I completely cocked up my arrival and was banging on the door of the wrong house, I shall leave it at that and not make a fool of myself with the whole story.

Anyway, Erik had set up a nice table attached as if by magic to the top of a bed, I just happened to be on the Royalist side of the table and raised the King's standard. As the game kicked off my right wing cavalry seemed to be getting roughed up by the Parliamentary horse, but I sent some reserves to that flank just in case. With the rest of the army I flung them at the enemy hoping something would happen before my flank disappeared, this turned out to be spectacularly effective, my infantry began shooting and chased two enemy regiments from the field. My left wing cavalry had started off well, been pushed back then returned with a vengence, meanwhile my right had stabilised. With the bulk of his army running from the field Erik called a halt.

Parliament to the left the good guys on the right.

 

Rupert goes in.

Forward boys.

The rules were in modern parlance, quick and easy, the Parliament army fell apart in dramatic circumstances, I must mention Erik's dubious morale throws didn't help. These rules are going to be tweaked as the game was also a test, I would play these again, not too serious and quite good fun.

 Julian has been very busy for some time but had found a gap in his schedule for a game, he had bought Bolt Action Version 3 and he wanted to try it out. He has an Italian force for the Desert but wanted to use his Americans, they are fairly new so I said I could make up anything he needed with my British.

I took the Germans of course and had an infantry platoon with some supports and an armoured platoon with my new Sdkfz250/9 and a Hetzer. We used a scenario from the BA book, we both had to get troops in the enemy deployment area to gain points and/or wipe out the enemy. I stupidly kept troops back and paid for this arrogance with my Hetzer not turning up until halfway through the game, Julian came on good style. Too late I realised I was running out of time while the Yanks were like a tidal wave, the pathetic shooting of most of my troops was matched by Julian wiping out several squads/teams, on turn five I put up a white flag.

Get the bazooka.

My new halftrack advances.

Keep down Hans.

Fury, of course it is.

Before the mayhem.

I think this was my third game of V3 and I cannot say I am over the moon about it, there are three or four changes which I think were warranted and improve the game from an historical standpoint but I am not convinced of the new shooting procedure, in the open you are simply dead but even behind soft cover you need a 5 or 6 to save.

Being a glutton for punishment Matt at the club offered a Bolt Action game and as I had nothing else planned I volunteered, somewhere in southern Russian 1942, well that was the plan. We followed the new scenario choosing rules and ended up with both sides facing off from opposite corners of the table and Fog of War. This means that the half of each players forces held in reserve can turn up on any table edge from Turn 2, yes it is as fearsome as it sounds and frankly pretty daft. Anyway another shock lay in store for me as I had 10 order dice and Matt had 17!

We both put our first wave on the table (Matt won the toss for choice of quadrant), there were 7 objective markers there for capture, I basically was close to three, I think Matt had the same and there were a couple in No Man's Land. As the dice bag was shaken out came a flood of grey (German) dice, I was the Soviets, I took quite a lot of casualties which led me to have to put troops on Down or have them destroyed, this took away more initiative dice from me, do you see where this is going.

A festung.

Try harder guys.

Pointless Soviet armour.

Are we winning?

My predicament was not helped by my knee jerk reactions to German troops appearing out of nowhere, I deployed my troops to hit back but this left them miles away from the remaining objectives, also I didn't quite wipe all the infiltrators out. I brought on a little T-26 but it proved pretty useless as I let my fear of a Pak 38 stop it running amuk, I had a T-34/76 to help the light tank and had a plan for it but it refused to turn up until almost the last move. As the clock wound down and with no real prospect of doing anything other than reacting to the enemy I was lucky I had brought that white flag along and started waving it.

Matt played well and grabbed objectives from the get go, I, as usual, only wanted to kill the enemy and objectives etc. seem to come second. I am still not convinced, not at least with the scenarios from the book which are obviously tournament driven, Matt Crump designs his own and they are a joy to play and so different, I keep saying I must go this route but never do, but this time. I found my little T-26 fairly useless with a vehicle machine gun's shots now halved, I think I also played it badly, I would have had more success simply running over things. There are more battles to be fought and perhaps I can be persuaded to continue otherwise the new, good tweaks could be added to V2, I am keeping it close for now.

I have made a leap and started an ACW campaign in the Shenandoah Valley, there are four players aside and the armies are fairly even with around 13 brigades each, the rules will be Johnny Reb II and the games will be played here in the Bunker. The main idea is to play some fairly large games over the otherwise dreary winter and of course to get my favourite period and rule set back on the table.

The club is getting busier and we have grown more in the last year than in all the years before since I became a regular. You know I am not keen on the Warlord Black Powder etc. stable but for the last two club nights Ed has set up some lovely Hail Caesar tables with 28mm armies, this week he brought a mate with Romano-British and Irish armies and they were lovely, real armies for a change, big and beautiful. You all know I am a War and Conquest guy but Ed and Pete were having a lot of fun at their table.

Quite a few people do not believe me when I say that is it for me now, I do not intend to start any new periods or armies, I am done, I want to concentrate now on playing more with everything I do have. I will continue to add the odd piece to what I have but pretty much on the small scale, and talking of that I have a Panzer I and a Pz IV Flakpanzer (Mobilwagen) coming. The former as how can I have 1940 forces without the choice of a Pz I, the Mobilwagen because I just like the look of it and I have several flak vehicles but not this iconic one. The other thing I have on the way is a Soviet 50mm mortar, I did not want the get the Warlord one as I didn't need the other figures which came with it and to be honest their new prices are a bit steep, hence the Pz I and Mobilwagen are 3D prints.

I cannot resist this parting shot, we went for a new mattress last week and Dreams have a machine on which you lie and it recommends the right mattress for you (yes, usually the most expensive). However the assistant has to put in your details, age, Male or Female, and wait for it, Non-Binary. I couldn't let it go and asked how the computer could tell the difference, especially as no human can, "We never ask" was the reply. Where did I put that white flag.