Fickle Luck

Nothing going at the club for me last week so I set up an Arnhem scenario from Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy magazine written by Nick Skinner, it looked interesting and had some Paratroopers holding a defence perimeter against some Waffen-SS with two old Char B1’s in support, one of which was a flammpanzer. The British had two small squads supported by some PIAT teams and a 6 pdr anti-tank gun, they had a special rule to use a ‘PIAT Hero’ once during the game on any leader they wished.

The battlefield.

 Erik turned up, I explained the terrain which was quite busy with trees and copses all over the place. Erik was aggressive with his Patrol Phase, I got to put some Jump Off Points halfway up the table and one where I could set up a MMG to close down the large open area on my left. I managed to get one squad down in the middle of what we termed an Orchard while Erik managed to oppose this with one squad behind entrenchments and another dug in on the left of this covering my right flank, two brave moves for defenders. I responded by putting down another squad which gave me a good base of fire on his forward squad in the trees, very soon it was shot up and had to withdraw, I now turned most of my attention to the last one on my right.

The Paras dig in.

 

Flammpanzer.

 I brought on the Flammpanzer and was looking forward to using it, I had built up three squads now which took the remaining Paras under fire, but it was slow going, I was also having difficulty getting the right command dice in order to push further forward. Luckily for me Erik had left his lucky charm at home and his responses to my shooting were dire. I pushed up the panzer in order to get in range with my flamethrower and the driver did not listen and went hell for leather up the road and left his infantry supports behind. Erik ambushed and missed, he then played his ‘PIAT Hero’ and missed again, I sighed with relief, I cannot remember the exact chain of events but he deployed his 6 pdr which also missed then either the gun or a PIAT got another shot at the Char B1 and this time it blew up. I was gutted as I really wanted to try the flamer.

Paras under fire, notice the stretcher.

Support.

Ambush, oops.

Try again.

Third time lucky.

 It was now down to my infantry and the one remaining tank which had now arrived. Erik by now had lost his anti-tank gun and a full squad and his defenders were now a beat up Bren team and the remnants of his first squad holed up in a house to my front, no matter these had two Brens and were still picking away at my right hand squad which lost their LMG and became pinned. Erik now laid a long line of smoke which hid the house and stopped most of my shooting. I took the opportunity to redeploy my MMG, tank and two squads to be ready to end the turn, lift the smoke and fire everything along with the kitchen sink at the defenders. It took time but I eventually got a CoC die and played it at the beginning of the move ending the turn. Just to annoy me the gods allowed me to throw three sixes which again ended the turn! No matter my plan went ahead, everything that could opened up on the house, death and destruction followed and the game belonged to the Jerries.

Ha, ha, can't see anything, said in British accent.

 

Ooops.

A good start and end, but in between the game was frustrating for the Jerries, I had only one Senior leader but threw loads of 4’s, and each turn a useless 6, I did get quite a few 5’s but used them time and again to hit the dirt. Erik was not helped by his bad luck. I would like to play it again but take the British this time. There was the usual couple of rule questions so I am back to reading and checking the FB page.

My Nashorn and M3 turned up. They are very nice kits, a wee bit of cleaning up to do and I got off to a bad start by dropping the bag containing the M3 but did some quick repairs. The tank riders are also very nice as are the crew figures for the Nashorn, I now have some crew spare as I did not read the small print and got extra, duh. I also managed to finish my first BEF squad for the new platoon, the second is now on the paint tray, I do like these figures from 1st Corps and they sell a whole platoon ready to go.

The Atlas author has finished his holidays so I have several new maps in various stages of completion at the moment. I have knocked back several authors looking for maps but took on a small project for John Hussey who is an amateur historian with a few books to his name, John is 92 and putting together some of his essays into a book, for, as he says, a last hurrah. How could I refuse. Mate Charles is also looking for some work but I have yet to think about this.

I needed some new super glue so popped in to Tesco this morning and got some, seven quid! I don't normally register the price but I did get a brain freeze with this, what makes it worse is that you get just less than 50% of what the bottle could actually hold, much like buying a bag of ready salted air, sorry, crisps.

I have come late to the controversy surrounding the newly refurbished Redcoat Cafe in Edinburgh Castle, one of the usual suspects, taking time off from gluing herself to the highways or throwing beans at art, was arrested for annoying the patrons enjoying their coffee and cake. How long before it gets changed? Oh and the protestors, Action for Scotland, Scottish Republican Socialist Movement and, wait for it, the Scottish Resistance, shades of the People's Front of Judea there?

It's 2026 not 1314.

 Anyway, I should make my return to the club this Tuesday and a run out for my new Roman army, then the next game in the Gembloux Gap campaign with Matt on Thursday and a big War and Conquest duel with everything to play for with my son on Saturday, will Rome collapse at last?