Last week I have played some games again finally. My father visited and we played some simple and quick games.
W1815 U&P games
The first 4 games where W1815. The famous battle of waterloo. This is a simple game which if you know the rules can be played in 15 minutes. But as it was the first time we played this game, it took 30 min for the first game. It is a very simple game. No movement, max 1d6 dice roll. And fixed orders.
It played very nicely, although I lost 3 out of the 4 games, I have really enjoyed them. So if you search for a gap-filler kind of wargame, just check it out.
One hour wargame modern (Ww2)
The second game was a one hour modern wargame. Two rusian equiped armies met each other in a standoff battle (scenario 1 from the book) we used the ww2 version of the rules, like some african countries withour air support available.
It worked reasonable well. The scenario is not very good for modern fights as it has no cover available. In the end I lost again. But we had a good game night. Hopefully some more games in the future..
A small update for last week. I have made some progress and played a game. My father and I have played our second game of chain of command. Knowing the rules better it went more smootly. But we have still some things to learn. The scenario was a village road crossing, trying to be captured by both sides. My father played the 1940 Dutch forces, and I the opposing German forces. It ended with a firefight accros one of the roads, with the fire power of my mg34 defeating the Bike platoon of the Dutch.
The crossroad. With my squads on the left side, and the bike cycle platoon on the right in a firefight.
Next to the game I have also managed to do some painting/creating. I have started to make a terrain cloth, with canvas lined with chaulk. I have mixed some color into the chaulk, creating a nice earth tone. This is the first very thin layer. Next I hope to apply a second layer, mixing some sand in it, to get a rougher texture. After that I will apply some grass/turf to create some random landscape.
Terrain cloth
I have also spend some time painting the cold war Dutch airforce planes, just spending an sunday afternoon hour. Still a lot of work to do. But progress is progress.
all the cold war Dutch Air force planes, and some USAF 32nd TSF stationed in the Netherlands. Also the B 52 didn’t fit somewhere else, so resides also in this box. I painted the F4’s, some Thunderstreaks and T33 and started with the gloster meteors. Hope to make some more detailed photos when they are finished.
Originally I had planned to play the first two battles of the campaign. But it is nicer to play with an opponent. So Sunday morning after service, we could play a nice game of Infinity. I have not completely finished the painting the miniatures, but colors are blocked in, so it is easily recognized who is who.
I have the operation Icestorm box. In these starter sets is a seperate booklet for the rules. These does not contain all the rules. ( The complete rules can be downloaded on the Corvus Belli Website.) But rather have introductonary missions, which tell the rules bit by bit. Beginning at a very simple level. We played mission one.
The mision introduces to the basic concepts of the infinity system.
Dice rolls (normal, opposed, etc.)
AROs (reactions by non active players)
And the usual stuff, such as movement and fighting
For this they only allow to use a basic character, with the same weapons. Maps are equal for both side, and both start with 3 soldiers. There is a lot of fluff and story on naming the different troops, but for now, they are just basic soldiers. The Red are the Nomads, Blue is Panocean. The PanOceans are sligtly better at shooting, for the rest they are similar.
We both started without any idea what we where doing. Just playing around and testing what can be done. My father played the PanOceans, I played the Nomads. We started with a small firefight. The first casualty was a PanOcean soldier..
Left flank cleared of the first soldier. You can already see, the flanking maneuver planned out.
At that moment we began to understand the system. My father tried to flank my troops form the other side. This resulted in an attack, were my troops were caught in the open. This resulted in a Nomad casualty. Luckily the source, was quickly dealt with, but another PanOcean rounded the corner.
The right flank, PanOcean soldier tries to flank around, and come in from behind.
At that moment we tried out dodging. resulting in some firefights, with a second Nomad casualty. Making the stand even. I tried to find cover from the roof, and we ended in a firefight. After three turns, I was the lucky one, to land the killing shot.
Final result, three panOceans casualties, two Nomad casualties.
All in all, it was a nice game. I am looking forward to play the next mision, and think it is an enjoyable game. My father did like the game, but doesn’t like the sci-fi setting that much. He would probably prefer a ww2 themed version (which might be doable, if you don’t use all the special abilities, and a little more troops.
I hope to play some more games in the future, and finish the models some time. But don’t expect much progress on the short term. Hope I can play some campaign games this week.
During the weekend I found some time to start the campaign. So I played the first 3 campaign turns. Next step are two battles, to end turn 3.
Start of the campaign. Two armies are marching from the South in the west. And the other three in the middle south
Above you can see the start of the campaign. Red pawns are my armies, black pawns are Potential Enemy Forces, turning into a yellow pawn, when resolved to be an enemy army.
My plan is to march with two different groups, as quickly as possible to the capital. Due to the rivers and roads, these two entry point would be the quickest.
End of turn 1 (blue D20 as turn marker in bottom right)
After turn one, marching up along the roads. Enemy movement was not that much, which is quite logical as they will try to defend.
End of turn 2, Slowly marching forward
Closing in on the first bigger towns, enemy forces, will try to block the road.
Battle time turn 3
In the West, I tried to sneak past the enemy, but their scouts got news of our troops, and did catch the second army by surprise. In the East, they just blocked the road and hope to stop us as soon as possible, by moving forward one of their armies. I don’t know what they have in reserve.
On both fronts it turns into a battle. I still have to roll for the scenarios, and find my troops. I have found a solution for the playing area. A printed grid, with some fields from google earth in the background.
I didn’t have time to play the first game, but looking forward to them. Until now, it was just half an hour, including setup and finding nice pawns. Up to the battle next.
Last week we played the Battle of the three roads I posted earlier on. I did not have time to do more preparation. So we just decided to play the scenario, with the rules from the 2-by-2 rule set. I try to describe the changes we made below.
The map we used
We used the map as shown on top. We copied it to the gaming cloth I made. Unfortunatly I did not have enough forest to cover all the forest, so those had to be drawn in. We didn’t include a lot of terrain rules from the scenario. Skipped the weather section. We used the following rules:
The passing trough the water at the top left is fordable, on a 5+ for infantery, and on a 4+ for horses. The French did have a pontoon brigade, which could construct a bridge, allowing easy passage. On a 1-3 it would take 1 turn to construct the bridge, on a 4-6 it would take two turns. Optionally it could be tried to build a bridge on a different spot, but only on a 6+ they would find a suitable spot.
For the high ground in the middle, we decided that people below could see and fire at people up to the road (which runs in the middle of the high ground) If you were on the other side of the road you would be safe.
For deployment, the British would deploy most forces as wished for in the op third of the map. And act as defending forces, only a small portion would act as reinforcements. For the French would start with a small force on the table, and would have to wait for reinforcement every turn. The total French force was larger than the British, but due to the slow reinforcements the British could defeat them small batches.
The goal for the French was to leave the map with an as large as possible force, at the two exits at the top, behind the river. The British should prevent this. The French did have two corps, every corp would rout if 3 or more units were destroyed. (acting independently from each other). The British side would route if 6 or more units were destroyed.
British Forces
The British were divided in three main forces:
1st Netherlands Division: Stedmann
3 regiments of line Infantry
1 battery of foot artillery
4th British Division: Colville
1 regiment of guards
1 regiments of line Infantry
1 piece of foot artillery
Hanoverian Reserve: von der Decken
2 regiment of guards
2 regiments of line Infantry
1 piece of foot artillery
Attachments:
1 squadron of heavy cavalry
1 squadron of light cavalry
French Forces
The French had two Corpses
I Corps: d’Erlon
8 regiments of line Infantry
1 battery of foot artillery
1 squadron of light cavalry
II Corps: Reille
8 regiments of line Infantry
1 battery of foot artillery
1 squadron of light cavalry
Attachments:
1 company of Engineer/pontoniers
As you can see in the forces list, the French are numerical superior, but the British do have slightly better infantry units. Combined with their deployment advantage, we hoped this would match them up evenly.
Battle started
The Battlefield, the highground.
The Battle started with the advance of the two different French corpses towards the top corner (A and B) The British decided to defend near the town and the bridge (C and D)
The French closing in on the Bridge, while the British scouting force was heading back to the other side of the bridge.
This resulted in a firefight and artillery bombardment at both sides of the bridge. (See F on the map)
On the other side the corps did get confused with the heavy cavelry moving close by, and was in the end locked in at the forest at E. After a couple of turn this force started to break, and even some cavalry reinforcements, did prevent the collapse of this front.
On the other side things started to look better, when the first regiment formed a bridgehead at the other side. But reinforcment and relieve couldn’t bring in quick enough. Resulting in a stalled fight. The British which defeated the forces at E now diverted to the bridge, making the situation very risky for the French. A quick break through didn’t happen, and a major retreat had to be called by the French.
The British came out very victorious, by only loosing two regiments of infantry, but slaying 4 French regiments of infantry, a squadron of light cavalry, the HQ of one of the corpses, and capturing the engineering/Pontoon brigade.
Conclusion
This was a real fun game. I had quite a busy week, and did not have a lot of time in preparation. And we had to decide the rules of the scenario at the beginning. But the rules flowed very well, felt quite even matched and did give a nice gaming night. In hindsight I should have focused on one attacking location, and combined the two corpses on the left side (D), hoping to tumble the fronts one, by one. I think we will play more of these games in the future.
Last week I played some Missile Threat in the Falklands with my father. As I was painting the house, I did not have time to write this report earlier.
HMS Glasgow (type 42) and HMS Brilliant (type 22), still unpainted from the collection of my father.
The scenario is loosely based the attack of the HMS Glasgow (type 42) and HMS Brilliant (type 22). Forming a Type 42-22 combo. In our scenario the two ships are patrolling, with two harrier on CAP mission in the vicinity. The Argentinean are planning two attack with two flights of two a-4 Skyhwaks and a flight of two mirages. All equipped with bombs. The Skyhawks are coming in low (level 1) over land, to avoid detection, and mirages are entering on just cruising height somewhat behind.
Begin deployment. The ships are patrolling in the south, two Hariers on CAP in the West, and three flights of attackers approaching from the North-East. The Mirages and two of the Skyhawks are still unpainted from the collection of my father. The Hariers and the other two Skyhawks are from my own collection and painted up. The map is from my father, he designed himself with google earth images and let it print on PVC.
Because the Harrier where some distance away they would not intercept before the first attack. Therefore the first pair of Skyhawks came in low and fast and took the ships by surprise. Damaging the HMS Glasgow, keeping her crew occupied with saving the vessel. So already the air defense of one of the ships was taken out. The Harriers had closed in, and on of them fired a sidewinder on the first pair, from a large distance. This missile tried to track them but was in the end out ranged, and missed. The second harrier spotted the other two waves and tried to get a advantageous position.
The Harrier launches a sidewinder from long distance, just before the first bombs hit. Blue dice is aircraft number (Argentinean blue, British red) Black dice is height and yellow dice the speed.The sidewinder will eventually miss, but the attack is successful heavily damaging the ship. Knocking it out of action. Th HMS Brilliant was still unaware.
The second wave of Skyhawks closed in too quickly and the Harriers couldn’t prevent the attack. The HMS Brilliant was alerted by the previous attack, and was shooting with Medium AA, but the AA missles were not ready. One of the Skyhawks did attack the already damaged HMS Glasgow, and was hit again, sinking the ship. The HMS Brilliant was hit and lightly damaged.
Although now on Battle stations, the HMS Brilliant couldn’t do anything to prevent some minor damage.
The Harriers started to get behind the multiple attackers. Performing some advanced maneuvers to align their guns. They got some hits, wounding one of the Mirage pilots. But this was not enough to stop them, and the Mirages sunk the HMS Brilliant on the next attack. One of the Skyhawks was less lucky, and got shot down after it already had released its bombs.
The Hariers try to shoot down the attacking planes. Mostly with gun attacks.
Then the fight was over quite quickly, the Harriers went back to the carrier as there was nothing to defend, and the Argentineans went home bingo on fuel.
The causalities of the game. One Skyhawk shot down by the Harriers, and two ships sunk.
This was a good scenario, we had hoped the ships would have a bigger impact with their air defenses and that is why the British lost so much. Therefore this was a mayor victory for the Argentineans, as they only lost one Skyhawk, but sunk to ships.
The Missle Threat rules are very interesting and fun to play. But sometimes a little challenging to remember all the pilot actions. (When to perform a pilot check, and which attacks are allowed on which moment) Only the missiles feel a little strange. IR guided missiles are much easier to fire. And do not perform that much differently than radar guided ones. So it is very beneficial to have IR missiles over radar guided ones. Probably will play more games in the future. Hope to do also some solo campaign with the Ethiopian air force.
Last Tuesday evening, the first 2mm Napoleonic battle took place. This is a short battle report. My father was the opponent, playing the British (red) force and I was playing the France (blue) force. When I explained the rules and used a real life example of Quatre Bras, my wife, passing by, noted that on this battle field it are 5 roads. Therefore the battle took place at the fictional place of Cinq Bras. For the rules we used the 2-by-2 Napoleonic rules of Rodvik. Only the the area was actually 60cm by 60cm (sorry I do like metrics better)
Map of the Cinq Bras area where battle took place
As this is the first play of the rules, we just opted for the example forces as described in the rules.
British XXX Corps
1 Corps HQ
10 Line Infantry Regiments
2 light Cavalry Regiments
1 Heavy Cavalry Regiments
2 Foot Artillery Batteries
French VII Armeé
1 Corps HQ
10 Line Infantry Regiments
2 light Cavalry Regiments
1 Heavy Cavalry Regiments
2 Foot Artillery Batteries
The rules put a large incentive on “flow of battle”, which means that over time the different units will arrive onto the battlefield. As result at the beginning of the battle you do not have control of your full force, and you hope the reinforcements arrive on time. Which was also seen in a lot of historical battles.
The first reinforcements arrives, the French have formed a defensive line and British are advancing.The situation just before the action. A and B are the reinforcement points. In the North the skirmish between the two regiments. In the middle, north of Cinq Bras, the French line. And British advancing from the South and the West.
As result the first few turns did not have a lot of actions, but a lot of movement and shuffling into position, to gain some advantage. The action finally started with a short skirmish of some reinforcement regiments which met each other. The Bristish troops were disrupted and routed to the Riquevalle farm, and stayed there the rest of the game. And the French regiment kept shooting from a distance, and was pinned for the rest of the game.
The first encounter, two infantry regiments meet, both on its way as reinforcementsWith some help of some light cavalry, the British are routed, and seek shelter at the farm. The French Regiment was pinned and kept firing from long range. The cavalry followed the river in a try to get some flank attack on the British.
Then the tension rose at the center of the field, as the lines closed near Cinq Bras. Who would be the first to break. The British tried to use the village as vantage point and the French kept a line up to the nearby forest. The French saw the British walking in the village, and before they could a solid position, a bayonet attack was called. Also the two other regiments stormed forward attacking the British at the farm and in the grain fields.
The French have reached the British regiments. In defense the British fired some volleys of musket fire, disrupting one of the regiments. In the rear you can see new British reinforcements arriving.
The French should have hold on longer, and two regiments were quickly defeated, but Cinq Bras village was secured and a position was taken at town center. The gap in the line was put tight with the artillery positioned at the North-East road.
The French lost two regiments in the west, with the melee combat. But secured the town. The artillery had now a free line of sight (bottom of the picture) and was bombing the British line. holding the cavalry which was arriving to sweep the field.
At the other side of the forest (West), some back and forth fighting took place between a couple of infantry and cavalry regiments. And especially the British reinforcements started to dripping in. The cavalry tried to desperately force its way through the lines, to lighten the threat on Cinq Bras village. But did not succeed.
Two French infantry regiments attack, supported by two light Cavalry units. But in the end it was a lost cause.
And with five regiments lost for the French and only two for the British, the British did have a mayor victory, capturing the town, and securing a Bridge head French side of the river.
The French did still have planned to get some reinforcements, but already lost too many troops. They had to surrender. Battle lost.
Conclusion
The game was a good starter game. And both did have a good lot of frustration as troops were not possible to do exactly as you wanted. Especially if they start firing or get disrupted, and how to reorganize them.
For this first time a lot of luck was involved, as we still need to get some feeling, on when to use the different units and if it is better to wait or attack. hopefully a next game in a couple of weeks.
