As you might guess from the title, the Saga rules focus more on the ‘heroic’ version of dark ages warfare as told in the various legends and sagas rather than being a historical simulation (for what that’s worth).  As you would know if you have read the accounts of the Pig Wars games here, that focus suits me fine.  The game focuses on the Viking Age, with initial emphasis on England around the time of the Norman conquest.

The game has a couple of unique game mechanisms that I really like.  First is the Battle Board and Saga dice, which are really the core of the game mechanisms.  Each turn the player will roll a number of Saga dice, which an  be allocated onto the Battle Board to activate units and invoke various special abilities.  Better quality troops can be activated using more different die faces, while lesser troops require the use of less commonly appearing numbers.  That becomes significant as the same pool of dice is used to activate the special abilities on the Battle Board and the better abilities require the use of the less common dice faces.  This system works remarkably well, providing a simple yet vitally important orders phase where the player must make lots of really tough decisions each turn.  It also serves to add fog of war and friction into a rather standard I Go, You Go turn sequence.

The second mechanism I enjoy in the game is the system of fatigue.  Units in the game may be activated more than once in a turn (using a separate Saga die each time, so if you activate a unit twice, you are generally not activating some other unit), but doing so accumulates fatigue markers.  Fighting in melee also accumulates fatigue.  Sufficient fatigue will exhaust a unit, preventing it acting until it rests.  That part is fairly standard, but the interesting part in Saga is that you can ‘spend’ your opponents fatigue, removing it from the unit to give the unit combat or movement penalties.   Another relatively simple system that gives the players a bunch of decision points in the game, each of which seems really small, but can easily spell the difference between defeat and victory.

Beyond that, the rules are pretty straightforward.  Units may move or shoot when activated.  Units coming into contact fight immediate melees.  Combat is by rolling some number of dice against the enemies armor value, followed by a defense roll to cancel the hits.  The better quality troops generate more attack dice per model.  These is only a little bit of weapons differentiation (e.g. dane axes get a special rule, but all other hand weapons get equal treatment), so the game definitely has feel that it’s the man, not the tool (to paraphrase Chuck Yeager).

Most of he differentiation between different forces comes from the abilities on the Battle Board.  For instance, in the basic rules, being mounted has essentially no combat benefit, providing a movement bonus in exchange for greater susceptibility to missile fire.   The Normans however have many abilities on their Battle Board that give combat bonuses to mounted units.  There are one or two special rules for each of the factions included in the game (Welsh, Anglo-Danes, Normans, Vikings) such as Viking berserkers or Norman crossbow-armed Sergeants.

The game includes a very simple point system and six stock scenarios as well.  These have a pretty good range, covering standard meeting engagements, a fight to control a river crossing, a couple of defense scenarios, and a baggage escort.   The rules place their emphasis on point based games, but there is not any reason you could not use the rules for more elaborate scenarios as well.   The inclusion of special rules for various Heroes of the Viking Age such as William of Normandy or Harold Godwinson may cause the grognard’s head to do an Exorcist Spin, but there is nothing saying you have to use them.

The biggest knock on the game is definitely the price.  The rule book is 75 pages, softcover, full color, glossy, with plenty of pictures, but for that rulebook and four heavy cardstock Battle Boards, you shell out $40.  The Battle Boards also come with symbols on them to correspond to those on the Saga dice sold for the game.  The Saga dice (when available – there have been supply issues) are silly expensive at $20 for 8, but the publishers have made a PDF available with the dice symbols and there is a conversion chart in the rules to use regular d6′s.  I like the symbol dice as they add a bit of atmosphere, so I picked up some blank dice on EBay (enough for three sets of Saga dice for only $14 or so) and have made my own Viking Saga dice using the symbols available.

So how did that first game turn out?  Well, I really enjoyed the game and it was very engaging from start to finish.  So much so that I forgot to even take out my phone for some cruddy phone photos.  I took on another new player using my Vikings against Dave’s Normans.  My warlord brought a dozen thralls with bows, 16 bondi in two units of 8, 8 hirdmen, and 4 berserkers.  The Normans lord brought a unit of 12 levy bowmen, a large unit of a dozen sergeants on foot with crossbows, a dozen mounted sergeants, and two small units of 4 knights.  Both of us screened off the center with our archers.  I had my Hirdmen and berserkers behind mine, with a unit of bondi on each flank.  He had his knights behind the archers on my left with the crossbows on my right and the mounted sergeants behind them.

Being less mobile (i.e. on foot) and out-gunned in shooting, I needed to get into contact as soon as possible.  I pushed a unit of bondi on my right forward, using some of my Battle Board abilities to negate some of his shooting, losing only a single model.  That unit then loaded up with Battle Board abilities and hurled themselves against the crossbowmen.  My seven Vikings died, but took down 9 Norman infantry with them, allowing me to invoke another of my Battle Board abilities a couple of turns later and cause the remainder to scatter in fear from the Viking menace.  On the other flank, the other unit of bondi charged forward against the levy archers, only to roll miserably and bounce off, defeated in melee by a bunch of French farmers.  The Norman knights then charged the group, which fought tenaciously, destroying three knights before being overrun.  Only another miserable roll prevented the total destruction of the knight unit, which proved costly.  The number of Saga dice rolled is based on the number of units in the field and this one escapee allowed him an extra die over me for several turns, giving him greater flexibility and access to more abilities.  The hirdmen began to press forward behind the screen of thralls, which was slowly whittle away by the Norman archers.  The berserkers swung around to my left where they eventually met his other unit of knights and the two units annihilated each other.  The main event in the center came as the large unit of mounted sergeants and the hirdmen, personally led by the warlord, clashed.  The Vikings eventually prevailed, but not before losing most of the hirdmen.  The Norman archers then shot down the remaining hirdmen and the last valient charge of the Viking warlord ended ignominiously as  he fell short and died in a hail of arrows.

I’m sure that there was some scenario end that was supposed to occur before my Viking band was wiped out to the last man, but Dave and I were having so much fun exploring the Saga system that we just kept fighting.  Saga has also inspired another burst of dark ages painting.  I have now finished every Viking figure I own, which is a bit of a unique occurrence.  Can’t call the Vikings “done” though yet, as I think I need about 8 or so more various models to fill out some units.  Crusader has recently started selling single figures in their Dark Ages ranges, so that looks like a good route to go to pick up those few odds and ends.  I’m now going full-steam on the Irish to bring them up to strength for use in Saga.  There is not Irish force list or Battle Board yet, but the Welsh fighting style is very close to that of the Irish, so I can use that one in the mean time.  Saga will probably be making more appearances, as it will fit nicely with my spring gaming time.  I’ve got a busy work load for the spring, so most gaming I get in will probably be of the low maintenance variety, so the ability to show up at the FLGS with my figures and get in a game of Saga with minimal planning will push that game to the front.

The scenario for this game was Scenario 7: The Road to Scoglitti.  The Americans are ashore and forward elements of the 180th Regimental Combat Team, 45th Infantry Division, have established a blocking position north of the beachheads.  On the German side the Herman Göring Division is counterattcking toward the beachheads.  Lead elements of Kampfgruppe Links are tasked with brushing aside the US roadblock and opening the way for the rest of the battle group to drive the Americans back into the sea.

The players were given briefs for their side only and in keeping with the confused situation after an assault landing, neither side had a very accurate intelligence picture as to the other side’s forces or mission.  The US had essentially an infantry company composed of good regulars and some airborne troops, reinforced by a machine gun platoon and fire support from half of a battery of 105mm howitzers.  The sum total of the American anti-tank assets was four bazooka teams!  The Germans attacked with a reinforced infantry company as well, but enjoyed a greater level of support.  Each of their platoons was plumped out with an extra squad and one of the platoons was mounted in armored halftracks,  They also had a machine gun platoon, but the real danger to the US lay in the platoon of two 15cm self-propelled guns and the platoon of three PzKw VIE Tigers.   The main German weakness lay in their leaders, who were all of lesser quality than their American counterparts.

The terrain was relatively open, with some terraced hills covered in olive groves on the American side giving some limited cover.  I made these light cover, giving the US troops a place to conceal themselves, but not blocking line of sight, so once revealed, any German could see and attack them.  The ground though was strewn with boulders and rocks, making off road travel for tracked vehicles slower and stopping the movement of wheeled vehicles off-road.

The US deployed their forces evenly, with a couple of platoon, two MMGs and two bazookas in the larger grove to the west and a single platoon, one MMG, and a couple of bazookas in the smaller grove to the east.  The Germans entered the table on blinds from the road from the north.  The Americans had a couple of dummy blinds on table and used these to spot some German units and soak up German spotting attempts in return.  The first German units were revealed to be a unit of a truck and a kubelwagon screaming up the road and a unit of halftracks.  The halftracks headed off road and toward the olive groves but were finding the boulders (and their bad movement dice) to be slowing their progress.  As the grunts debussed and started forward the platoon came under fire from US artillery and a pair of MMGs that were revealed and started to fire on the oncoming panzergrenadiers.  The German squad and MMG from the truck on the road also debussed into a hail of fire.  These squads were cut down and gutted by a large volume of US fire, leaving the first panzergrenadier platoon with only a squad and some halftracks.  The halftracks began to return fire using their pintle MMGs though and started to put some shock and casualties on the US machine guns.  This brought down 105mm of US retaliation and two of the tracks were destroyed by artillery fire.

As the Germans fire began to reduce the effectiveness of the US machine guns, the US commanders moved two blinds forward to give them more firepower on the front line, each of which represented a full platoon of infantry.  Once these blinds were spotted and the troops placed on table, the US forces found themselves tightly packed and presented excellent targets to the surviving Germans.  This blunder (which was more of a game familiarity issue than a tactical blunder per se) opened the door for the Germans as the US troops took heavy fire and serious casualties.  A couple of reduced German squads managed to reach the US lines and assault some of the suppressed squads, but didn’t have the strength to inflict telling losses and were subsequently wrecked by fire from the US line.

The Germans had suffered a few turns of delay where they did not get any Blinds cards to enable them to bring on fresh troops, but eventually began to bring on more blinds.  One dummy blind raced across to the east olive grove and revealed a US MMG and bazooka.  Another platoon of infantry moved on and immediately debussed, but before they could move away the tightly packed mass was hit repeatedly by American MMGs, suppressing the troops and heavy losses and shock.  Two squads were chewed up before the German’s own MMG could begin to lay some effective suppressing fire on the American MGs and permit the surviving squad to clear out.

While the packed Germans at the road were being hammered, another German blind had moved about halfway up the road before being revealed as the platoon of three Tigers.  A brave (foolish?) bazooka team crept to within range and fired off a rocket at the beast – and scores an immobilizing hit to the track!  More importantly, the vehicle also picked up two shock and as it was immobilized and Morale III, one more shock would send the crew packing.  Fortunately for the Germans the American bazooka was unable to score another damaging hit before two German Rally cards had come buy and allowed the tankers to recover their shock.  A platoon of American infantry had been trying to cross from the east grove to the west grove when the Tigers appeared and now it was their turn to experience the rocky Sicilian ground.  The lead squads of the platoon were only about 7 inches from the cover of the grove, but rolled miserably for movement and were caught in the open and hammered by all three Tigers.  Only a few men ever reached the safety of the trees.

As the end game approached, the US players shifted their artillery onto the Tigers and between that and the work of their intrepid bazookamen, the big tanks slowly began to accumulate damage to optics and running gear.  Their morale didn’t falter though as the German CO, Hauptman Klink, moved forward and used every bit of his limited command initiative to remove shock from the big tanks.  The SP infantry guns had suffered rather bad luck in the card draws (slow loading crews perhaps), but were able to add additional fire against the US line.  The German players finally decided that no nasty American AT gun was going to pop out of hiding and that no Shermans were on the way and dedicated full resources to squishing the last of the bazookas.  When the last one was killed we called the game at the next Tea Break.

The game was decided to be a very, very minor and very, very Pyrrhic victory.  The US infantry strength was dangerously low, they had no machine guns or bazookas remaining, and their AT power was reduced to the incoming artillery.  The Germans on the other hand were also virtually depleted of infantry and their heavy panzers were all damaged.  The SP guns and Tigers would be able to clear off the remaining American infantry, but there was no way this company was making any further advance on the US beaches.

Another great fun game with lots of tension on both sides.  The friction introduced by the IABSM system was definitely at work on both sides during the game.  The US, with more and better leaders was able to offset some of the friction on their side, but not always, as was the case for the ill-fated first platoon caught crossing between the olive groves.  We also got to try out the artillery system extensively in this game and it is definitely a great improvement over IABSM2.  Clean and easy to use, but still with a lot of the air of uncertainty that characterized WWII artillery close support.  Against moving targets, it required great luck to bring the guns in before the target had moved off.  Against a sitting target like the immobilized Tigers, the guns could be brought in and reliably hammer away at the target.  Shifting to a new target was always a decision not to be taken lightly as it required restarting the entire process. I ran into a couple of the players a couple of days later and they were still thinking about what they could have done differently.  A sure sign of an engaging game.

Notes on converting the scenario to IABSM 3.  I used the conversion PDF that Rich has provided to rate the leaders.  This produced Level III company and platoon commanders for the US, with the exception of the weapons platoon commander which was Level II.  The Germans commanders were all Level II.  The stats for the Tiger are in the IABSM 3 rules.  The German OOB calls for a pair of Hummels, which I do not own, so I substituted a pair of Grilles, (which I rated as Armor 3, Strike 6, 15cm gun, average tracked).  They would only be shooting at infantry, so the stumpy 15cm was just as useful as the longer barrel of the Hummel.  As the Herman Göring Division was prone to morale breakdowns throughout the  campaign, I made the German armor platoons Morale 3.  The biggest consideration for this scenario in converting from the IABSM 2 stats to version 3 was the stats of the bazookas.  In version 2 they were strike 8 (the number of dice rolled against enemy armor) and range 16″, while in version 3 they are strike 7 and range 12″.  This is a significant difference when they comprise the only AT assets available to the Americans and have to take down Tigers with 11 dice of armor.  The adjustment I made was to add an extra bazooka to the American company HQ, which seemed to work out pretty well.

Looking forward to the next IABSM game.

For this game I decided to base the scenario around the defense of L’ Abbaye Blanche north of Mortain, where the Americans established a roadbloack during the German Operation Luttich counterattack.  I had a couple of pretty good articles on the actions there with good order of battle information and maps.   I made a couple of alterations for the sake of game play.  First, I only own a pair of American towed 3″ AT guns instead of the 4-gun platoon that was there.   I also currently don’t have any crew for those guns.  So I switched the towed gun platoon for a platoon of M10 GMC tank destroyers (which I have four of).  This filled out the platoon and gave the Americans a little mobility.  The second tweak was to compress the timeline of the battle.  Historically the German attacks filtered in an hour or more apart, and the US position was able to defeat each one in detail.  I pushed the German attacks closer together, creating a more tense situation for the US players.

The German attack started up Highway 3 with a column of blinds that moved up and made some attempts to spot any enemy in the hedgerow at the base of the ridge.  The fog and cover made spotting hidden units difficult, but the Americans obliged by spotting the German column and oping fire with MGs and 57mm ATGs.  A platoon of panzergrenadiers came under fire and was forced to abandon their tracks and seek cover in two stone farmhouses.  The Americans attampted to destroy the German ammo truck, but it escaped an was able to sneak behind a house and hide.  The Panther leading the attack was revealed and came under blistering fire.  The 57mm guns were not able to penetrate the Panthers armor, but did apply some Shock.  At this point the American committed their M10 platoon, which rolled around the corner and began pounding the Panther with 3″ AP rounds.  The Big Cat rattled under repeated hits and after suffering 5 shock the crew had had enough and abandoned the vehicle.

The Americans were feeling pretty confident, having driven off the Panther and causing a slow but steady stream of casualtries on the Germans in the houses.  However, Lt. Marzen, commanding  the 1st Panzergrenadier platoon began to impact the battle, rallyng his men and directing effective fire onto the US M2 0.50 cal MG.  The M10′s were starting to roll forward toward the houses to shell them with their limited stock of HE when the second German group rolled out of the fog and straight into the rear of the M10 platoon.  The Germans immediately debussed, moved forward, and put a couple of panzerfausts and a 75mm HEAT round from the accompanying gun halftrack into the rear armor of the M10s.  The tank destroyer platoon immediately lost three vehicles and the remaining one put the pedal down and scooted back toward the US lines before turning around to establish a defensive fall back position.  The German infantry then poured into the orchard atop the ridge and made a series of aggressive attacks on the US machine guns and 57mm AT guns.  The heavy fighting saw both the overall US commander and the commander of the 2nd panzergrenadier platoon killed in fierce hand-to-hand fighting.  Supported by withering fire now being directed against them from the squads of the 1st Panzergrenadier platoon, the US position on the ridge was rolled up, although second platoon took heavy casualties in the action.

The morale of the German players took a further hit as the final group of German reinforcements came up Highway 3.  The surviving M10 spotted the armored halftrack platoon on one of the blinds and promptly destroyed one track with a 3″ gun, killing everyone on board.  The other two debussed and began moving forward with the 1st panzergrenadier platoon.  When the three tank Panther platoon was revealed from their blind and disabled the gun of the remaining M10, the Americans decided that it was time to fall back and join the defenders of Mortain.

The game was really fun and flowed well.  The commander of the lead German group was a player who was completely new to miniatures games (except for a brief try at Warhammer back in his youth).  He played his role excellently, revealing the main American position, then pinning them with fires while the reinforcements arrived, then moving out to assist in the final assault.  The US players believed their intel reports a little too much and considered their flanks secure.  The Germans made good use of supporting fires and assaults to clear off the main US position.  The US had an entire infantry platoon in reserve, but they did not move them out in time and the once the Germans controlled the ridge, they would have had to cross a lot of open space in front of German guns.

As for the new version of IABSM, I really liked it.  The TFL guys have come a long way since the last version of IABSM in terms of rules presentation and this set is very nicely produced and laid out.  The rules have been streamlined in many places, making a cleaner game while retaining all of the flavor of the original.  I especially like the command initiative system for the Big Men, which is the feature of Mud and Blood I enjoyed at Historicon, as it really helps the gamers to use their leaders to affect the outcome.  I’m definitely looking forward to more games of IABSM 3 … and hopefully the return of regular installments here at The Repple Depple.

Here are my games for this year’s con

S-585 – CY6! – Rude Insult – Port Moresby, New Guinea, 18 May 1942
Sat. 9 AM, 4 hrs, 6 players
GM: Brian Cantwell and Skirmish Campaigns
Sponsor: Fight’s On! Miniatures and I-94 Enterprises
WWII 1/300, Rules: Check Your 6!
Facing stiff opposition from the skilled Japanese pilots of the Tainan Air Group as well as their own balky aircraft, the young Americans of the
8th Fighter Group aggressively attacked at every opportunity. On this mission, future ace and flight leader Tommy Lynch scored his first
confirmed kill during a Betty raid against 12-Mile Strip.
Younger gamers welcome with supervising adult.

S-586 – CY6! – A Day of Firsts – Buna, New Guinea, 27 Dec 1942
Sat. 1 PM, 4 hrs, 6 players
GM: Brian Cantwell and Skirmish Campaigns
Sponsor: Fight’s On! Miniatures and I-94 Enterprises
WWII 1/300, Rules: Check Your 6!
Nine days after arriving in New Guinea, the Japanese Army Air Force’s 11th Sentai embarked on their first joint operation with JNAF units,
joining Zeros to escort Aichi D3A dive bombers attacking the newly established Allied airfield near Buna. The group had its first encounter with
two future foes: the P-38 Lightning and Richard Bong.
Younger gamers welcome with supervising adult.

S-587 – CY6! Jet Age, Arab Israeli – Turning the Tide – Sinai, 19 Oct 1973
Sat. 5 PM, 4 hrs, 5 players
GM: Brian Cantwell and Skirmish Campaigns
Sponsor: Fight’s On! Miniatures and Pico Armor
Modern 1/300, Rules: Check Your 6! – Jet Age
As the tide of the war turns against them, the Egyptian Air Force launches attacks against Israeli columns pushing west toward the Suez Canal
and Egypt. Two veteran Nesher pilots of the IAF’s 144 Squadron are vectored in to intercept EAF strike aircraft escorted by MiG-21s. Can skill
and superior missiles overcome the numerical superiority?
Younger gamers welcome with supervising adult.

Hope to see you in a couple of weeks.  If you enjoy the blog, feel free to stop by and say Hi.

The first I Ain’t Been Shot Mum! game was quite well received and the group was eager for another action.  One of the players requested more tanks, so I cast about a bit for another action and settled on the the French counterattack by SOMUA S-35s of the 3rd Light Mechanized Division  against the panzers of the  3rd Panzer Division on the morning of May 13, 1940.  The Panzers had pushed the French Dragoons out of Orp in the morning and were reported to be moving to Jandrain when the French launched the attack by the 1st Cuirassiers.

Google Earth is one of my favorite tools for generating realistic looking battlefields when good period maps are not available, especially for Europe, where many of the features will remain as they have for generations – the towns and roads get bigger, but much of the rest seems to be pretty much the same.  For this game I zoomed in on the region between Orp and Jandrain and we used that as the basis for our table.  The terrain in this area is largely flat farm land and  main feature of the terrain was the long line of woods surrounding a stream that ran to the east of the main north-south road between the towns.

The French forces consisted of 3 understrength platoons of SOMUA S-35 tanks and a platoon of motorcycle reconnaissance troops, led by the Company Captain, and two additional Big Men – a Lieutenant in one tank platoon and a Sergeant in the motorcycle troops.  Two blinds started deployed on the road with the rest entering on the French Blinds Move card.

The German forces consisted of a Light Panzer platoon (mixed Pz IIs and Pz Is), a Panzer II platoon, a Panzer III platoon, and a Panzer IV platoon.  These were supported by a platoon of armored cars and a platoon from the divisional anti-tank battalion with four PaK 36 anti-tank guns.   The Germans also had a forward observer in a radio car with contact to a battery of 10.5 cm howitzers.  Unbeknownst to the French, the Germans had been able to send some elements forward and establish positions.  The Germans started with two blinds on the road and had two groups deployed hidden on table, one in the woods east of the road and another in the woods along the west table edge.  The German PzKw III and PzKw IV platoons had to be the last two blinds onto the table and they unfortunately rolled the maximum for their number of dummy blinds, providing them with more decoys than they needed and requiring them to fight longer with their light units against the superior French armor.

The game opened with each side sending blinds forward to try and spot the enemy.  With the flat terrain, sighting distances across the wide plain to the west of the road were quite long and the recon elements of both sides were revealed.    The French motorcycles decided to bail off of the road before anything with guns started to light them up, and drove off toward the woods, where they forced the hidden unit there onto a blind, but were unable to spot the units through the woods.  The first unit of S-35s was soon revealed as well and opened fire on the lightly armored SdKfz 222 armored cars, brewing up one of them.  The other promptly scooted away and began to try and move across the stream to provide sighting against any French movement up the east side of the battlefield.

The German units on the blind discovered by the French reconnaissance platoon revealed themselves and opened up on the dismounted French motorcyclists.  The hidden elements consisted of two PaK 36s with an attached Big Man and three PzKw IICs and their combined fire pretty well crippled the recon troops.  The squads began taking a lot of wounds, which in IABSM provide a negative penalty to movement and shooting.  Since the troops were also in the woods, they suffered additional movement penalties, with the net effect that they could not move away from the withering fire and could only stand there and rack up wounds.  Eventually I made a GM ruling that any section with more wounds than effectives was routed and dispersed/surrendered and pulled them from the table.

In the meantime, the French armor began to fire on the German ambushers, shooting off a well aimed shot each turn and advancing slowly forward.  The PaKs and Pz IIs engaged the French armor but their shots just bounced off of the thick armor of the SOMUA tanks.  Most units in IABSM have one card per platoon, allowing coordination of the platoons sections, but the French armor has a card for each tank to reflect the poor communications and overworked commanders of their vehicles.  However, if not under fire themselves, the French officer Big Men could activate their entire platoon.  The German fire was concentrated on the lead French units allowing the French Captain to coordinate the actions of the following platoon.  The advancing French slowly got the better of the German ambush, destroying one of the guns and three Panzer IIs, but not before one of the French vehicles wandered within close range of the remaining PaK 36 and was immobilized and eventually abandoned.

The French advance had been focused up the main road, allowing the Germans to steadily bringing blinds onto the table and use terrain to prevent them from being spotted by the French armor.  These began working their way across the stream to move up the east side of the table and counter the French blinds advancing there.  The Germans sprang their other ambush of another 2 PaK 36s and 3 more Pz IICs.  The PaKs began long range fire against the SOMUAs, which was predictably mostly useless, while the PzIIs began moving down the west table edge hoping to get in behind the SOMUAs.

Late in the game the French had a run of bad luck, twice drawing the Petrol Shortage card and then rolling the 6 required to immobilize a tank.  As the night was winding to a close, the German heavy armor finally arrived, with the Pz IVD platoon leading the way.  The first exchange went badly for the Germans as one of the Pz IVs was brewed up by the S-35s, but subsequent fire from the German tanks led to another immobilized S-35 and the loss of the main gun from another.

At this point our game time was running out and we called it a night.  The French counterattack had stalled, with 4 SOMUas immobilized and another combat ineffective with a busted main gun.  The remaining three French tanks remained on their blind, slowly slogging through the woods and stream on the east edge.  The Germans for their part had lost 3 Panzer IIs, 2 PaK 36, 1 Panzer IVD, and 1 armored car, but were in a position to overwhelm the remaining operational SOMUAs and to possibly exit the south edge with some armor.  In addition, much of the French armor was within the beaten zone for the German artillery in the unlikely event that the golden card sequence needed to call in artillery in these rules happened to come up.  Lucky rolls for French crews to continue manning the immobilized tanks could definitely have added an additional toll to the Germans, but it seemed likely they would hold the field on this day.  A perfectly historical result that closely mimicked the actual French counterattack of may 13, 1940.

Unfortunately, I got caught up keeping the game running at the end and didn’t get any pictures of the end game or the clash between the S-35s and Panzer IVs.

The group once again really enjoyed the game, which is a great result since these guys are all primarily board game players.  The table looked quite nice, although I really need to work on getting some fields of crops and such.  The scenario seemed to offer a good challenge to each side, and although there are definitely a couple of tweaks I might make, it seemed to provide a decently balanced game.  The French armor was very tough and significantly outgunned the Germans, especially the Pz IIs available at the outset of the battle, but the command and control issues built into the rules as well as the Germans ambush positions built into the scenario seemed to compensate.  Another game is planned for next month.

A while back I got the opportunity to go for a day of games doing more tests on the forthcoming company level WWII rules, Fireball Forward.  I’ve gotten a chance to play a few games at the HMGS cons and have liked what I’ve seen so far.  I knew Mark and the guys had been working on PTO a lot, so jumped at the chance to drive to “the city” and take in a couple of PTO games.

The first game I played in was part of a series of games covering the assault by the Ichiki Detachment against the Marine positions along the Tenaru River/Alligator Creek/Ilu River south of Henderson Field on Guadalcanal .  This scenario depicted the initial hasty attack by the Japanese and was conducted with minimal support or preparation, so we knew we were in for a tough slog.

I was on the Japanese side and the other Japanese player and I (my apologies to anyone present – I’m awful with names even in the short term, so totally hopeless here 3 weeks after the fact) devised a plan to send half our force to try and force a crossing upstream while the other half (my half) pinned down what we expected to be the bulk of the Marines positioned near the sandbar at the river’s mouth.  As our forces moved up through the coconut groves and jungle along the river the opposite bank exploded with Marine fire, driving many of our squads back into deeper cover.  It soon became clear that the Marine defense was extended much further upstream than we originally anticipated.   We quickly decided to reverse our roles (a possibility we had considered), with the guys upstream providing pinning fire as much as possible while I tried to work my way across the sand bar.  HQ had sent one single supporting asset with us – a flamethrower team.  If I could work that weapon up to the marine positions, I could perhaps turn their line.

A couple of my rifle squads moved out to try and reconnoiter the Marine positions across the sand bar.  The initial attempts were driven back, but eventually my troops reached the Marine barbed wire and destroyed it with bangalore torpedoes.  Our rifle squads moved up and poured as much fire as possible on the Marine positions, killing few, but suppressing enough to allow the flamethrower team to move out.  The unit sprinted across the sand bar and let loose with the flamethrower.  The targeted marine MG team survived the blast, but the sight of the flamethrower sent an panic through the Marine lines and marine squads all along the lower end of the river retreated in panic into the coconut grove.  However, only a single squad of Japanese infantry was available to follow up the attack.  The platoon commander pulled his katana and led the squad forward in a banzai charge.  However the sprint across the sand bar must have taken too much out of the troops as they were unable to press the advantage.  Soon the marines rallied and pushed back few Japanese on the Marine side of the sand bar.

With my attack defeated and my company mostly shattered, the last desperate hope fell to the other Japanese company who made a valiant effort to ford the creek upstream and reach the Marine side of the river.  My remaining squads moved up to provide as much covering fire as possible.  We were able to get a couple of teams over the river, but the marines had reserves in the deeper jungle (reinforced by Marine teams previously forced back) and counterattacked to drive back the IJA.

We had not managed to get a foothold on the opposite bank of the river, but we gave the marines a good scare.

The second game I played was a very interesting scenario depicting the first U.S. tank battle of the war during the Japanese invasion of the Philippines in late December of 1941.   Elements of the US 192nd Tank Battalion encountered Japanese while attempting to break through to counterattack the Japanese landings.   I switched over to the US side for this game and had command of a section of 2 M3 Stuarts.   Our side also had a second section of three Stuarts as well as some US and Philippine infantry units.  The infantry was already engaged with the Japanese in confused fighting, so the US and Japanese were randomly scattered around the table.   However tanks were known to be in the area and each side could score victory points primarily by killing enemy tanks.  There were some huts in the village that could be captured for VP, but they could also be crushed by tanks and rendered valueless, making them a dangerous gamble.

The game opened with some infantry movements by both sides.  Some advancing Japanese infantry was caught by fire from the Philippine MG team.  The Japanese responded with a charge against the Philippine troops, driving them out of their initial cover and across a dry rice field.  A pair of concealed Japanese Type 89 medium tanks opened up on them as well, and although they were forced to retreat further, we Americans considered that a huge win in exchange for identifying the positions of some of the Japanese armor.

Soon additional Japanese armor was arriving in the form of some Type 95 Ha-Go light tanks.  The first US Stuarts arrived on table and went zooming up the road to engage one of the Ha-Go platoons – only to run right into an ambush by a Japanese AT gun.  The gun was concealed in some terrain right near the US edge of the table and in typical wargamer fashion, I had overlooked the possibility that the enemy was not politely “on their side”.  The gun knocked out two Stuarts before my tanks arrived and rolled over the gun from behind, driving away the crew and crushing the gun under my tracks.  However, the AT gun had done it’s job and we were down a couple of VP early.

The Japanese infantry pushed all of the Americans back and occupied the village building closest to them.  Then a Ha-Go made a death run down the road and right through the two remaining buildings, collapsing both but getting trapped in the rubble of the second.  We were denied the possibility of VP from those, but did pick one up from trapped Ha-Go.

However, the Stuarts were now outnumbered 7:3 and spread out a bit too much.  That allowed the Japanese to maneuver pretty freely as we had limited opportunity fire coverage of any given area.  On the plus side, the Stuart was really quite a good tank for 1941 and was both better armed and better armored than the Japanese tanks.  For a turn they were content to sit tight, hold onto their VP lead and try to pick off another Stuart, but the poor guns of the Japanese tanks made it hard for them to make any impact on the Stuarts.  For our part, the rules put a very heavy penalty on a moving tank (not unreasonable at all), which with out reduced number of tubes, severely limited out ability to move forward and score any kills.  We did get set up and kill off another Ha-Go.

The Japanese charged some Ha-Gos forward to try and get within short range where their low-velocity 37mm guns  might penetrate the armor of a Stuart.  We had one chance to tie the game before the end and one of our Stuarts went rampaging across the table to get a shot at one of the Ha-Gos.  Virtually every Japanese tank was able to rip off an opportunity fire shot and shot after shot bounced off the armor before the Stuart finally suffered a morale failure and stopped moving, giving the Japanese a narrow win.

I like a lot of what I’ve seen of Fireball Forward so far.  Mark and the other lead authors are taking a lot of time to develop a game that is very playable and has a great cinematic feel with dramatic swings of initiative, plenty of maneuver, bold actions, and a focus on leadership.  At the same time, they are paying a lot of attention to getting the math right so that they produce realistic results.  Much of the early playtesting was done with the familiar equipment and forces of NW Europe, and that’s where a lot of WWII rules seem to just stop and assume everything else will work as well, but Mark has stated that before the rules go to print he wants to make sure they work as  well in the jungles and deserts as in the fields of France.

How do you say "Oh! Crap" in Hebrew? 3mm IDF Centurians and M3 Halftracks with Navwar 1/300 Su-7

Last year I picked up some 3mm artillery and 23mm AA guns for use as ground targets in my CY6! – Jet Age games.  My aircraft models are 1:300 / 1:285 / 6mm, so I decided to go with 3mm to get that “stuff down there below us” scale effect.  I had heard good stuff about the Oddzial Osmy stuff from Poland and the pictures on the website at PicoArmor certainly looked good, so I ordered up a few.  They definitely looked great and so recently picked up some more stuff  (painting half on commission for Scott even payed for the order).  This time I got a variety of tanks, soft skins, APCs, and infantry.

The quality of these little models is simply astounding.  The details are exaggerated a little so that these paint up really nicely and very quickly.  In fact, it’s safe to safe I spent more time on the bases for these than I did on the models themselves.

Three bases of Israeli Centurions

Egytian Infantry and BTR-50 PK armored personel carriers

Size Comparison - M3 halftracks shown in 15mm/1:100, 6mm/1:285, and 3mm/1:600.

I really like how these turned out and now I’m considering getting some specifically to do some higher level wargaming than my usual tactical scale stuff with 15mm.  At the platoon/base scale, you could actually base these at 1:1 for the vehicles, with 3-5 vehicles on a base representing a platoon.   The same basing would also give a much better appreciation of size for doing company / base scale gaming as well.  With careful choice of basing, I could probably use these with Look Sarge, No Charts or Piquet Field of Battle:  WWII.  My first thought is to use these to do some actions from Barbarosa.  Using the FOB:WWII TOE’s, I should be able to field an entire Soviet Tank Corp for around $80…  Something to think about a little…

Now more Gratuitous Eye Candy

Israeli M3 Halftracks

Egyptian T-55 main battle tanks

Close up view of IDF Centurions

Close up of Egyltian Infantry (using Soviet infantry pack). One lesson learned from this first batch is to always work in good light, lest you glue half the infantry down 'advancing to the rear'

Front and back views of 152mm artillery and the artillery command

Air defense units - ZSU-23-4 self-propelled AAA, ZPU-23 23mm AAA, and SA-7 man-portable surface to air missile teams

Soviet-made GAZ-66 and ZiL-157 Trucks

Israeli Mirages look to do some 30mm interdiction on an Egytian supply column

Recently I got a scenario from Scott at Skirmish Campaigns to playtest for the upcoming Arab-Israeli scenario book for Check Your 6! – Jet Age.    So I hopped up to the FLGS to put on the game.  The scenario is set in 1970 during the War of Attrition and features a clash between the Israeli Air Force and a elements of a Soviet air regiment.

The Soviets had sent fighter squadrons to cover Cairo and prevent Israeli intrusions into Egyptian airspace.  The Soviets gradually expanded their patrol radius and eventually came into conflict with an IAF strike against Egyptian positions along the Suez.  The Israeli’s resolved to teach the Soviets a lesson and assembled a crack group of pilots and organized an ambush.  The Soviets rose to the bait and a large dogfight was fought.

The scenario starts with 4 IAF Mirage IIIs at high altitude and a flight of 4 Soviet MiG-21s rising to meet them.  A second flight of 4 MiG-21s comes on around turns 3-4, followed by IAF reinforcements (a pair of F-4E) on turns 6-7.  Jason and Dan grabbed to MiGs and Mike and I took the IAF Mirages.  The initial merge was uneventful as the Israelis were reluctant to dive down too low since the reinforcing 2nd flight of MiGs were able to bounce up from underneath.  Eric arrived as the reinforcements were coming on and took a pair of MiGs while Dan and Jason (who had played at least one CY6! game before) took on an extra MiG-21 each.  With all of the Soviets accounted for, the Israeli players dove into the attack, relying on their superior pilot skill.   My veteran Mirage pilot found himself among a number of enemy and so maneuvered to minimize enemy fire, ending up with a head-to-head shot at  short range against a green Soviet.  Unfortunately the Soviet was lucky even if he wasn’t good and my Mirage swallowed a hail of 23mm shells and was destroyed.  The pilot punched out but the fight was over Egyptian territory.

We had rolled a good result for our variable scenario roll and the F-4Es were arriving a turn early, so when they arrived I handed my remaining Mirage over to Mike and took the two F-4Es.  I was able to come up behind a couple of the MiGs  and shoot off some long range missile shots.  The Sparrow from the flight lead was a miss, but the skilled pilot shot down a green MiG with a pair of AIM-9D.

The skilled F-4E looked up to find himself in the middle of about 5 MiG-21s.  The MiGs screamed down to engage as the Phantom went defensive and the veteran F-4E raced to the rescue.  Unfortunately, racing to the rescue placed the veteran F-4E in position for a head-to-head gun exchange with another green MiG-21 pilot…. and again the veteran whiffed completely while the MiG’s 23mm guns shredded the big F-4E.  This time the crew was unable to bail out.  The IAF was in serious trouble at this point, having lost two veterans with only a single green MiG shot down.

The rest of the dogfight was a swirl punctuated by loss of a skilled Mirage and a couple of  MiGs.   The Mirage driver ejected, but none of the Soviets made it out of the aircraft in the game.   The IAF tried to get back in the game by targeting the two veteran MiGs.  Dan’s veteran was repeatedly the target of Israeli attacks.  Mike slammed a pair of AIM-9Ds into the Soviet at one point, with one direct and one proximity hit.  However, the MiG absorbed all of the damage and emerged unscathed (which required a couple of 2d6 die rolls of 11 or 10) .  A close range gun pass by my F-4E was twarted by a damage roll of 3 on 2d20.  Another gun pass by Mike’s Mirage was also saved with a die roll of 11.  Finally we were able to inflict some engine damage on the MiG, but in the end he was able to evade us for the duration of the game.

Eric was able to pick up the game easily in hist first outing and was in the thick of the fight through the game.  At the end of the game he expertly slipped off the Soviet home edge with his veteran pilot, denying the IAF any chance to score VP from him.  As the goal of the IAF is to intimidate the Soviets into restricting their patrols, they must dominate the fight to win and so score half normal VPs.   The IAF starts with a much superior pool of pilots and so once they lost the two veterans, their only chance in the game was to shoot down the Soviet veterans and hope the two bailed out IAF pilots could escape and evade.  Unfortunately, both were captured and displayed on Egyptian state-run television.  The final score was a crushing 22-9 victory for the Soviets.  Thanks to Dan, Jason, Mike, and Eric for a great game.

Historically the Israeli’s shot down 5 MiGs to no losses of their own (although at least one Mirage was heavily damaged but reached base).  The Soviets were so concerned about their losses that they restricted further contact with the IAF unless the Soviets enjoyed overwhelmiung odds.

I was recently able to go to a gaming weekend with the CY6! developers inner circle and play nine CY6! – Jet Age games in one weekend, playtesting a bunch of scenarios for the Arab-Israeli scenario book, including the entire War of Attrition mini-campaign.  It is definitely going to be a great book.

I wrote a scenario based on the encounters between the French 3rd DLM and German 4th Panzer near Hannut in May 1940.  With a first game, the smart play is to start small…  but I am not always smart .  I wanted to get a good taste of how the rules handled things, so threw in a little bit of everything.  The French had a couple of infantry platoons, some MMGs, and a pair of 25mm ATGs.  A platoons of SOMUA S-35s were in reserve along with a couple of 47mm ATGs.  The Germans had a company of infantry to start the game, backed up by some MMGs with the company HQ platoon, a platoon of off-table 75mm infantry guns, and a patrol of a couple of light armored cars.   Coming up behind the forward German elements were three tank platoons (a light panzer platoon of PzKw Is and IIs, a section of PzKw IVD, and a platoon of PzKw III).  The German mission was to push armor off the other side of the table.

IABSM incorporates all of the standard Two Fat Lardies staples (or rather, TFL games mostly incorporated IABSM mechanisms, since that game came first) – card based activation, deployment of troops on ‘blinds’, and the role of Big Men on the battlefield.  The French had a number of blinds on table (which could be units or dummies and in addition, each terrain feature was considered a blind, so the French could be anywhere.  The Germans deployed the infantry on 4 blinds with a section of  MMGs and the FO for the 75mm guns tasked to support two platoons on the left moving against the town.  The HQ kept 2 MMGs and was to support one platoon and the recon armored cars moving againt the farmhouses on the right.

The first turn saw the French blinds card come up first, so they were able to reserve their dice in case Germans later came into view.  the Germans then moved forward and began trying to spot the various French blinds.  A successful spotting check verified the farmhouses were empty, but the HQ platoon foolishly tried to sprint across some open ground in front of the orchard.  Suddenly French small arms fire erupted from the low stone wall enclosing the orchard.  An entire platoon of French infantry was packed into the space!  The HQ platoon was decimated, with many casualties and wounds (a colorful term in the game for negative cohesion), and would play only a minimal role in the rest of the game.

The Recon armored cars rolled forward up the road on the right and paused to machine gun the French infantry in the orchard while trying (unsuccessfully) to spot some of the blinds.  The German infantry on the left moved up cautiously through the woods and revealed a couple of French dummy blinds.  The first German tank reinforcements arrived in the form of a platoon of Panzer Is and IIs  and were committed to supporting the infantry against the town on the left.  As some Frenchmen were discovered on the edge of town, the tanks rolled out to hose them repeatedly with 20mm and MG fire.

Back on the right, the third German Shutzen platoon was attempting to move forward to seize the farmhouse and outflank the orchard.  However, apparently the hedge at the end of the field was covered in razor sharp thorns as my troops had great difficulty getting over it, leaving them caught out in the open to be fired on by the French in the orchard and some MMGs further back.  One section was badly mauled but one had reached a marginally safe position.

With time getting on, the armored cars began to press up the road looking to ID more French blinds.  They succeeded in locating the french 25mm ATGs – the hard way.   However, the thin skinned armored cars survived the onslaught with only some engine damage to one car.  The tank fire  against the town was followed by an infantry assault.  Despite a substantial advantage due to defending the buildings, the French were driven from the front of the town and German troops moved up to take the first row of buildings.  In the last turn the SOMUA platoon deployed off of their blind and fired off a barrage of shots against the light panzers, but succeeded in only damaging a couple of engines.

At this point we ran out of time and called off the game, but it was clear that the French enjoyed a substantial advantage.  The unit holding the orchard was a little beaten up, but so was the German platoon near them.  A couple of Panzer IVDs had arrived to help, but were very slow in deploying forward.  The Germans had seized the front of the town on the left and inflicted a lot of damage on a couple of French sections, but still had a number of French in the town that would have to be overcome in close street fighting.  They would get little help from the light panzers, as the thinly armored and lightly armed tanks would be no match for the advancing SOMUA S-35s.

I knew that I had put together a game too large to likely finish with the first try of a new set of rules, but as stated above the real purpose was to try out the rules and see how things worked.  The game was fun and I’ll happily play it again… but probably only until Fireball Forward gets finished!  I generally like games with a little chaos in them, as it seems to better reflect first person accounts from the war.  Not knowing exactly when things will move or whether your infantry can make it over the hedge adds interest and forces you to make really sound judgments – or to take risks.  However, the rules are very British, meaning that they are written in a manner that is long on flavor and short on specifics.     For instance, when firing rather than have a lit of modifiers, each shot is simply classified as Great, OK, or Poor.   In and of itself this is not a bad thing, but in a game a without an umpire, it does add to the resolution of each shot as you have to stop and make sure that you have an agreement with the opponent as to what each shot is rated.  Like a lot of other British game rules I’ve played, it also tends to have a separate mechanism for each type of action, which definitely adds to the learning curve and makes a reference sheet essential.  I also have a love-hate relationship with card-based activation – I like the randomness and the ease of inserting special events brings but dislike the waiting around while each individual unit takes it’s turn.  However, most of those issues are either acceptable parts of the game’s charm or just things that I can get better at with increased play.  However, the firing chart is unfortunately central to the game and a real drag on it.  Having to total up several dice and cross reference the results on a full-page table to find the results of each shot is just a pain.  Other gamers may not be put off by it as much as myself I guess.  We definitely need to give it another go (or two) to give the mechanics a fair shake.