Rommel: Pacific

Bruce and I have played a couple of games of Rommel over the past few months, including a WW3 variant (Russians versus the British Army on the Rhine which basically just added a helos rule) and a fan-made WW2 Pacific theatre scenario. For scale, each base is a company.

The Americans were strung out in a thin line across the middle of the table, defending five victory markers, including two on the Guadalcanal airfield mid-board. The Japanese came in from the north and east edges. This was an infantry heavy game with a a new terrain type (jungle). Troops that were not jungle-trained (the Americans) fought at half-strength in the trees.

Most of the fighting happened on the eastern part of the board as the Japanese sought to evict the Americans from the airfield. The Americans got lucky in the first two turns, dropping a huge barrage on the hex containing the Japanese combat engineers (using an event) and then rolled high during the followup attack and wiped them out. This took away much of the Japanese punch against the American entrenchments. Probably this moment decided the game.

What followed was a long grind in the middle of the board, as wave after wave of infantry hit the Americans and then fell back. We used the offensive and defensive tactics in this game more than in other scenarios because there were so few tank units. The tactics offered the best chance for local victories. 

By the end of the game, the Japanese were exhausted and conceded, withdrawing before the time limit. In retrospect, attacking along a broader front might have been a better approach because it would have strung out the Americans more and reduced their ability to mount spoiling attacks.

Overall, Rommel did a good job handling the infantry-dense Pacific theatre with only one special rule. I can count the number of Pacific theatre ground games I've played over the years on one hand and this was definitely the best, with hard choices and lots of tension.

More 20mm partisans

To flesh out the ranks of the metal partisans I painted last month, I added a few sprues of 1/72-scale Caesar partisans that I happened to see on fleabay. The original set had two different sprues but the seller only had remainders of one sprue so I ordered three copies. 

There were 12 poses on the sprue. Disappointingly, only one was of a woman. The rest were sensible enough poses, include a surrendering prisoner (which is useful).

There were a good mix of weapons (some German and some allied).

Helpfully, there was also a two-man demolition crew and a fellow using what looks like the single-shot pistol sent to the French to be used to upgrade to a better German weapon.

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The plastics mix well enough with the metals, being only slightly thinner in build. Overall, I now have resistance fighters to mount a game using Surviving Nam. I've been thinking this might be an interesting was to play out Operations Sealion (having played out more conventional takes on this campaign three times in the past).

Up next: Hopefully, some more gaming.

20mm WW2 Partisans

Finding 1/72-partisans was hard. Caesar and Strelets both produced plastic sets about 10 years ago but they are hard to find at a reasonable price and also in a non-US location. There are some 3-D printed sets around but they are a mint. Fortunately, I found that Mirliton had a nice set of metals.

There are two distinct sets of figures. Somehow, I ended up ordering three packs (one duplicate) but no matter. Overall, they had pretty decent character and come with a nice mix of weapons (British, German, and a few I couldn't really identify) and clothing.

I was particularly excited to see all of the women represented in the packs.

There were also some heavy weapons, both machine guns and a bren gun. A few fogure shave what looks like demolition charges. Weirdly, I don't see at with Molotovs.

These seem to fit in pretty well with my mixed collection of WW2 plastics. In the photo below the plastics are Revell, Esci, and Matchbox, I think. The metals are a bit thicker, but nothing you'd notice, really.

Up next: Probably some more partisans.

1/72-scale 3-D printed WW2 trucks

So, in thinking about applying the game Surviving Nam to WW2, I've been looking through my 20mm WW2 collection and mulling a couple of possibilities. Maybe Germans versus the French resistance. Maybe a fictional clash between the British and German Werewolves after the end of the war. Maybe something else. In any event, I figured I'd likely need some trucks as targets.

After looking around at what was available and the price of 1/72-scale models, I decided to take a chance on 3-D printed trucks. I got these off Fleabay from a Canadian company for $8 each and I'm pretty pleased. As an aside, I would say that traditional plastics model kit manufacturers are in for tough times.

They are (left to right) a US Chevy, a French truck with adaptors to allow it to drive down rail lines, and an Italian command car. I gave them each a quickie paint job and then left them without markings. I think they fit in well, scale-wise, with the various 1/72 figures I have (I grabbed some Germans).

Up next: Some 20mm metal partisans.

2mm prepared positions for Rommel

Bruce and I have been playing a fair bit of Rommel this summer and, in prepping to get my 2mm tanks on the table, I needed to create some markers for prepared positions. I could have used counters but it has been forever since I have modelled anything.

We play Rommel on a hex grid and my hexes at 4" across so the prepared position indicator needed to fit along with up to three bases and some terrain. I decided on a 2.0" by 0.5" base and that I'd just model some barbed wire coils.

The base was grid plasticard that I had (which is easy to cut into square sections). I use plastic toothpicks to make the posts. Overall, this is a bit out of scale (more 6mm) but it creates the impression I wanted at a size I could still see and work with. Then I textured the base and tried to match the colour scheme from several years ago (a struggle since I never write this stuff down). The colour palette is a vague khaki colour that can do for the desert (if you squint), Italy, or Europe.

The upshot is not bad. The posts are too thick and the coil is a bit big but good enough for my purposes.

I ended up making 12, which is likely way more than I will ever need, but since I was doing it, knocking off a few extra was no big deal.

My next task is to look at doing some markers to denote a forest that I can set atop a green piece of felt.

Rommel

Rommel, by Sam Mustafa, is likely the best WW2 game I have ever played. I had a chance to re-acquaint myself with it this summer at Bruce's place and I think we're on deck to play several times over the winter.

Bruce hosted a very messy German counter offensive on the Russian front. There was a huge amount of terrain in the middle of the table, which pushed play to the flanks. Interestingly, both sides made quick thrusts to capture the other's supply base, impeding future momentum.

In the end, it was a bloody Russian win as the Germans ran out of time and tanks.

I've got some 3mm WW2 figures I painted up a few years back and am keen to run a desert game this fall.

I need to spend a bit of time working up some scenic entrenchment markers as well as a tiny bit more terrain.

Fistful of Lead

In early May, Bruce hosted two games of Fistful of Lead. The first one was a pulpy 1930s adventure. Nazis have stolen a bomb from America and are trying to get it back to the Fatherland aboard a zeppelin. The US rocket corp must board and either grab the bomb or take control of the blimp and fly it home.

This game was fought in very close quarters on two levels (gondola and gas bag) and was extremely bloody, taking almost an hour. In the end, the rocketeers prevailed, grabbing both the control room and the bomb.

The second game was a 1920s/1930s gangster game. (Bruce may have run a version of this at the Trumpeter convention.) The cops need to arrest Mr Big. Both sides have an opportunity for reinforcements and there is a random end game (probably 9-11 turns until starts starts).

The paddy wagon rolled onto the table and disgorged five cops. There was a brief shoot out between the fellow son foot while the driver tried to run down a gangster (twice!).

Using the trolley car as cover, the cops managed to corner and arrest (posthumously) Mr. Big. This game took maybe 20 minutes and had all sorts of tension and hilarity.

Overall, this is such a flexible system that it is hard to find fault with it if you are looking for a light game.

Xenos Rampant WW2 AAR

Bruce and I played two games of Xenos Rampant recently. He hosted a 28mm Vietnam game (for which I cannot find the pictures) set in an urban location. Charlie carried the day. I then put on a 1/72-scale WW2 Sicily game (mostly to get a bunch of figures on the board for the first time). I've no idea why this paragraph in centred (stupid Blogger bug).

This was a 50-point game with two commands for each side. Axis were split German and Italian while the Allies were split infantry and tanks. Three hidden value objectives were placed (town, hill on left, hill on right) and deployment side by die roll (we ended up coming in perpendicular to one another).

The Axis used their superior position and auto movement to grab all three objectives quickly. Above the Italians approach the Brits. Below, the Allies sent infantry against the closest objective (left hill) and the tanks to hook right to move on the centre objective. Bruce positioned his 88 on a hill with good fire lanes, which partly drove the Allied strategy.

A bit of tank jam. I will thrilled to get these model on the table final (some are for Tim in Saskatoon; others a built; a mix of plastics and metals).

The allies also set up their Grant on overwatch support the infantry advance.

This Panzer 3 (sitting atop an objectives) took a real pasting all game long and just kept shaking the hits off. Bruce proposed an alternative hit mechanism where every hit above the armour value adds an additional hit (official rules are every multiple of the armour adds a hit). This would allow for a tank to get a quick kill on a luck set of dice. We'll try that the next time we bring Xenos out.

Below we see the battle taking shape. The Italians are on the hill to the left but are taking casualties from British indirect fire (mortar teams). The Germans are in town and on the hill on the right, with the British tanks cowering behind the hill from the 88.

The Italians were eventually routed and the Allies captured the left hill, which swung the battle (only one German command versus two British).

As the game moves into overtime (rolling each turn for dusk), the British tanks advance up the hill, finally KOing the Panzer 3. In the end, the middle objective is contested and the British eek out a narrow win on points (the British infantry took a beating and most of the Germans lived to fight another day).

Overall, a pretty fun game. I could spend some time further differentiating the tanks a bit. It felt like WW2 in the Mediterranean and we were forced to use historical tactics. Plus, I was thrilled to get these troops out onto the table (I started out with 1/72 figures 45-odd years ago) after years of having them ready and tucked away in a drawer.

Some gaming updates

So last fall, Bruce suggested we pool a list of games we wanted to play again and then work our way through them. There are about 20 games on the list with the sequence being randomly generated.

First up was Struggle for Europe, a reskinning of Lincoln (which I don't think we've played) by Worthington Games. This game focuses on WW2 in Europe and offers one of the best games at this scale that I have played. There are relatively few counters, only 30-some areas, with point-to-point movement and the game uses cards to drive play. There are three decks (representing the three phases of the war), the game ends when one player has exhausted all of their cards (which creates major opportunity costs plus creates a tactical "attrition" option for players), and you win by controlling key locations. 

The strategy for the Germans is to either win early or try to hold on and preclude an allied victory before the cards runs out. I think this is the third time we've played this and every game is a nail biter. This one ended up in a German victory just as the US was invading France (some luck in the desert and at Leningrad tipped it--otherwise, Germany was spent). 

Next up was Sam Mustafa's Longstreet. Other than the Union won, I don't recall much of the details of this ACW skirmish. This is another card-driven game at the brigade level. A few years ago, we played through the full campaign system (which sees the cards and armies change over the course of the war). This is a good game to be the defender in!

Then we played Sam Mustafa's Nimitz. We've done a couple of WW2 games of this but Bruce had bought some pre-Dreadnaught minis so we refought a break-out action in the Philippines between the US and German fleets (I think). Overall, this is a pretty solid game. Sometimes the amount of effort to resolve shooting seemed tedious but, if that were streamlined, there wouldn't be much left.

We then played the same scenario using the 1980s rules Fire When Ready on a hex grid. It was a messier game (no formations required) with preplotting and (I think) simultaneous movement. Not a bad game. Nimitz feels more modern in terms of gaming conventions and mechanics, though. I think the scenarios split one win for each side.

We continued with the naval theme using Mustafa's Halsey rules (basically a map game) of a British convoy run through the Mediterranean during WW2. This is a very solid game and was, I thought, much more interesting than Nimitz in terms of the decisions (I tend to prefer high-level games, I think). 

Once the fleets come to grips, the game has a small battle board mechanic. In the end, the Germans won on points (I could not roll worth crap that night). Overall, pretty fun and the use of blinds created enough fog of war on a shared board to make decisions tough.

We wrapped up the autumn gaming with Taskforce, a cold-war naval game with double blind movement set in North Atlantic. We played duelling convoy runs with surface and submarines (no fixed wing air to simplify the rules a bit). The author is better known for the Victory Games 6th/7th/2nd Fleet series that came out about 10 years later.

There is a bit of fiddly searching (such is double blind without an umpire) but that got easier after a couple of turns. Once there is contact, you switch to a battle board to resolve air, missile, torpedo and gunnery attacks, which is kind of cool. I don't recall who won (it was close). 

There were some interesting battles: a Soviet convoy getting stalked and repeatedly attacked by NATO frigates using guns (having used their SSMs to take out the escorts) and a NATO convoy being stalked and repeatedly attack by Soviet subs and surface ships. This created quite a lot of tension.

For a 45-year-old game, this was surprisingly good and the multi-step battle board gave an interesting feel. Your SSMs, for example, come in, face area AA, then jamming, then close AA, then they strike (or not...). You can decide how many missile from each volley drop at pickets and how many continue into the main fleet (which means being subjected to a second set of defences).