The bear fights back - Verkhniy-Kumkskiy

Winter Storm, scenario 12. The Germans are holding Verkhniy-Kumskiy and are fighting off waves of Soviet reinforcements when a Soviet mechanised brigade manages to move to their rear and attacks.

We rolled a dice and the result meant I was going to play the Soviets. In this scenario, the tanks deploy from jump-off points, the Germans have one tank more than the Soviets, but the Soviet infantry may deploy in the rear (anywhere on the German table edge, as long as they are 18" from any German unit.

The patrol phase ends with my opponent placing one of his jump off point near the table edge. My plan is to seize this jump-off point with the Soviet infantry and then force the end of turn with a full chain of command dice, taking away the jump-off point and lowering German force morale.

The Germans get the first turn, but end up not deploying anything. I seize the opportunity and deploy a Soviet section on the German jump off point and a T34 on the other side of the table. So far so good...

In rapid succession the tanks and panzers are deployed. The German command tank tries to blast the Soviets off the jump off point while the other panzers try to keep the T34's at bay.

The Soviet command tank takes a fatal hit!

The next one to blow up is the Panzer IV.

Meanwhile the Soviet section on the German jump off point is steadily taking hits.  I manage to remove shock with the junior leader but his luck runs out and he is killed.

What is worse: I can't seem to roll any fives. So no full Chain of Command dice to end the turn and take away the German jump off point.

When the last Panzer III arrives I find out I made another mistake.

I deployed a T34 with his side exposed to the Panzers. It is hit several times and takes multiple types of damage.

Both my opponent and I increase our efforts in the fight for the jump off point. He deploys his sdkfz 251 with a German section while I send in another Soviet section with a senior leader.

And an AT rifle team.

Still not enough fives for a full Chain of Command dice!

My badly positioned T34 is finally knocked out.

And while one of the Panzer III's finishes off the Soviet AT rifle team, I succeed in knocking out another Panzer III.

The Soviet Leytenant has been busy running from one section to the other section, frantically removing shock while men are being hit by German machine gun bullets and HE. I'm down to 4 command dice. Still no full Chain of Command dice to end the turn.

And then it's over for the Soviets. The Germans score four hits on the last remaining Soviet section.

All kills.

Remarkably the Leytenant and a junior leader are the only survivors. But the Soviet force morale is down to zero.

The Germans win. My plan failed. But it was exiting to the very last. 

Sharpe Mechsuit

After dropping the What a Tanker mechanics from the mix, my opponent fleshed out the Sharpe Practice with Chain of Command elements rules for Mechsuits and sci-fi infantry a bit more.

In our 4th game in this series I brought two medium armoured power troopers, two AT squads and one light armour squad. They faced two heavy mechsuits with support drones and two armoured infantry squads.

The objective was to secure an outpost on an alien planet which contained something valuable to both sides (otherwise they could just nuke it from orbit).

We used the Patrol Phase from Chain of Command to determine jump-off points and deployed our teams.

Heavy mechsuit with drones and armoured infantry

Hydrissian AT team with portable ECM device

Hydrissian medium mechsuits

My opponent moved in and blew up the sentry gun guarding the outpost door.

My Hydrissians took a beating from the rifle fire of the armoured infantry (too bad that portable ECM device doesn't stop dumb kinetic projectiles).

They did take out half of the armoured trooper squad though. The purple smoke ball represents a lingering cloud of chaff/flares/disruptive nano electronics/etc. This is the only defense against smart ammo/missiles (we're not including force shields, anti-grav and that sort of thing in the rules; it's more The Expanse/Avatar than Star Wars/Star Trek technology).

Fully enclosed suits can move through a disruption cloud but moving around them is safer (and keeps the game dynamic).

Having taken out my two AT squads, my opponent's big guys converge on the Hydrissian mechsuits.

The lightly armoured Hydrissian squad attempts to get line of sight to the vulnerable back side of the heavy mechsuit, but they are spotted in time.

And are charged by the mechsuit!

Ensuing close combat leaves one Hydrissian standing with four shock, but the mechsuit also has two damage points (one remaining!). 

Since scores were equal, close combat continued. My lone, wounded Hydrissian was no match for the mechsuit and collapsed under the power fisted hammer blows of the mechsuit.

When one Hydrissian mechsuit lost his only weapon after being hit by a missile, they left the table, leaving the outpost to my victorious opponent.

The game went smooth and most mechanics work quite well. Eventually we need to come up with a points system of some sort for balanced games, support options and perhaps rules for vehicles. 

What a Sharpe Mechsuit

For the second try-out of the Sci-Fi rules for games with mechsuits and other infantry we based on What a Tanker, some Sharpe Practice elements were thrown into the mix.

In our first game the activation rules from What a Tanker didn't quite work so this time we used the Sharpe Practice system with flags and unit cards/chips.

Units could use an unused flag to interrupt missiles fired at them and respond by trying to jump away or fire chaff/flare/ECM clouds.

My force consisted of 2 mechsuits, 2 power armored troopers and a unit of (very) light infantry without any armor.

My opponent fielded several units of armored troopers, including a menacing looking self propelled grenade launcher.

 

My guys advanced slowly through the ruins, trying to get a bead on the enemy.

One of my mechsuits managed to take out most of the crew of the grenade launcher.

My opponent tried to deflect further missiles by throwing  a cloud of countermeasures in the air. With the help of a large amount of movement dice, my mechsuit sprinted through the countermeasures and defeated the single remaining crewman in close combat.

The power armored troopers climbed the unstable stairs of the ruins and rained down grenades on the enemy.

When the second mechsuit decimated another squad of my opponent, his remaining troops retreated and that was it.

Apart from it being a bit of an unbalanced game, the use of What a Tanker mechanics (move, acquire, aim, shoot & load) in combination with Sharpe Practice activation and the inclusion of infantry units didn't quite work for us either. The use of flags to interrupt/react felt right. So we played another game. This time dropping What a Tanker entirely, using Sharpe Practice for activation and Chain of Command deployment (including a patrol phase). Mechsuits would have 4 actions available to them, power armoured troopers 3 and the rest 2.

Two of my mechsuits would face two of my opponent's mechsuits.

 

The mechsuits fired at each other and responded with chaff. The chaff would linger until an end of chapter so they had to move around to try and get a clear shot or move close enough for close combat.

In the end, one of my mechsuits was incapacitated and one almost. My opponent still had one fully operational mechsuit and one almost incapacitated (down to 1 action). Victory for him!

A game with only mechsuits would probably have worked better with the What a Tanker rules. The Sharpe Practice rules clearly work better when using more (infantry) units. 

My opponent and I are both fans of the Toofatlardies rulesets and I really like toying with them to find a combination that works for Sci-Fi. Plus it allows me to finally use all the 28mm Sci-Fi stuff I collected over the years in games!

 

Finally painted the first 28mm figures I bought

 I finally painted the first 28mm I bought over 25 years ago: a set of Foundry samurai.

I have always been interested in medieval Japan and practised a number of martial arts in my younger days. I bought the miniatures at a convention with the idea to add more samurai later. I got sidetracked however and spent a number of years painting and playing WHFB and 40K before returning to historical miniatures. After playing a game of Toofatlardies I Ain't Been Shot Mum at a gaming club I dug up the 1/72 WWII Airfix plastic soldiers from my youth, based and (re)painted them and played a fair amount of IABSM games. This then evolved into acquiring and painting 28mm WWII miniatures, and inevitably expanding to other periods, including eventually Samurai. 

Not 28mm Samurai at first however, but 1/72 plastics for use with a modified version of Toofatlardies Dux Brittaniarum! The price of the required amount of (metal) figures to play the game prevented me from expanding the 28mm samurai, opting for cheaper material and scale instead.

Only when I found low count minature rules like Ronin, Daisho and FfoL, I bought some more samurai. These then spent years waiting in the painting queue before finally encountering a brush with paint.

The next milestone will be an actual game with these miniatures. Although I might get distracted again by other shiny things... 

Strike Three ‐ Verkhniy‐Kumskiy

Still the battle around Verkhniy‐Kumskiy is raging as the Soviets try to stop the Germans from pushing towards Stalingrad. This scenario (number 11 from the Winter Storm campaign) is again an all tank battle. Since there were no special scenario elements (a straight meeting engagement) we didn't play it using Chain of Command rules but used What A Tanker. Because of the number of tanks we replaced the initiative roll (due to the expected frequent re-rolls required) by the draw of a card (regular deck of cards without jokers). Increasing the chance of taking the initiative was possible by sacrificing a Wild Dice for an extra card, allowing the player to choose the highest (or lowest) card.

The "who takes which side" dice roll left me in charge of the Soviet force: 3 T34-76's and 2 T70's. They would be facing 3 Pzr III's and a Pzr IV.

An unsteady hand of the guy in the spotter plane blurred the aerial photograph of the battlefield somewhat.😉

Germans on the left, Soviets on the right

With this number of tanks on the (6x4) table and little intervening terrain, both sides immediately blasted away at each other, moving forward to gain a better firing position.

My T34's were taking hits and already suffering permanent loss of command dice. Then my opponent's Pzr III scored an overwhelming number of hits on a T34.

 And retreated into the scrub.

The German Pzr IV succeeded in taking out another T34 by total permanent command dice loss. Only one (damaged) T34 and 2 as yet unscathed T70's left. 

But the German force was also taking punishment. One Pzr III was first immobilized and subsequently put out of acting by total permanent command dice loss.

My remaining T34 was crippled by running gear damage (-2 pips on movement dice) so I maneuvred  the T70's around the flanks in an attempt to get a shot at the side armour of the German panzers.

This fortunately paid off and after taking one Pzr III out by total permanent command dice loss the little T70 managed to blast the Pzr III to bits.

Unable to take the risk of exposing his flanks to the firepower of my remaining T34, the Pzr IV was caught in a pincer of 2 T70's firings at its side armour.

The Pzr IV crew finally surrendered, ending the game in a victory for the Soviets.

The game took longer than a Chain of Command game with the same forces and (nearly) the same terrain. I think this is mainly due to the mechanism that in What a Tanker you almost always can do something with a tank in its turn (which will always come) while in Chain of Command tanks can only be activated with the right dice roll. But when they are activated they can do everything (move and shoot), while in What a Tanker you have these (sometimes frustrating) situations where you can't fire because you are missing an aim dice or are unloaded and missing a load dice or something.

I got the feeling that this game was more dynamic (more movement and maneuvering) than the Chain of Command all tank games.

Anyway, it was an entertaining game. Next scenario will feature combined arms (bot sides have a tank platoon and an infantry platoon) and we will play that again using the Chain of Command rules.