A Franco-Prussian Wargame -2

A FRANCO PRUSSIAN WARGAME

PART 2

We returned to "the fray" this past Thursday and some very interesting moves occurred. Full Disclosure: there are so many nits in these games that it is easy to loose track of whom did what to whom! I took many photos and tried to piece the action together from them and my observations of the battlefield afterward but Wellington was right.

The map of what I term "The Middle Moves"

At the beginning of the game on the second day, the Wurtemburgers became more aggressive on the Prusian Right. They pushed the Marines out of the orchard in the only melee of the game and advanced toward the left flank of the French. The French had to abandon the town to the right of the orchard and though the Wurtemburgers had not as yet been able to take possession, the French left was in trouble. Of the  3rd Bde (Marines) of 6 Rgts., two were in rout and two were just about 1/2 strength. 

The French left. just before the Marines leave the Orchard. Note the 1/2 strength unit near the field and the routed unit near the Dice in the center-right. The Wurtemburgers  are at the edge of the town.

 On the Prussian Left, the Colburg regiment advanced toward the Algerians only to be routed back to the wood under Chassepot and Mittrailleuse fire. The Zouave and Algerians begin to advance on the Prussian position. In the Center the Guard is advancing with an eye to placing a unit at the crossroads, the Prussian objective. Meanwhile, a runner arrives to advise General Breen that the French Guard is nigh - will they arrive in time( Being diced for they arrive a turn later than wanted but at least at the entry point desired)?

The Final Moves - The French Guard arrives

The Prussians have placed a Guard unit on the cross roads, but half of White's Brigade (the 1st Bde) is in rout or at half strength. The Wurtemburgers advanced triumphally on the Prussian left where a third French Marine Rgt breaks! The Prussian Guard is advancing on the center and the French Guard arrives scattered. Note that the Two Rgt. of the Guard Grenadiers-see small red flags that I attached to the Gds on the map to deliniate them- are on table almost 2ft apart. (Note that in the scaled down measurement we are using for the 15mm figures this is equivalent to 30"!) the Guard Jaegers are together but in the wood. The French did not seem to worry about their collapsing left flank!

This shows the arrival of the French Guard. Note the French one stand Rgt in the wood and the routed units on both sides. BUT the Prussian Guard is on the Cross Road.

At the end of every turn a count of lost stands is made. When the French loose 33 stands (25%) they have shaky morale and have to remove any unit with a morale of 10 and one or more bases missing must retire from the field. Before this is done, routing units reduce their morale by one level and the unit that caused the rout raise their morale by one level. This reduced several French to 10 and kept Prussians above it. When all of this was accomplished, the French had lost 39 stands (almost 30%) to the Prussian 17. The 3rd Bde was destroyed (4 stands in one Rgt of the 24 stands that 6 Rgts started with were still on the table). The Prussians held the cross Roads. It was determined to be a Prussian Victory.  I have to say that it was the Wurtemburgers under Bill Seamens that had the honor of the day.

OUR (ALMOST) FIRST CHAIN OF COMMAND(CoC) GAME

We have tried several CoC games, one-on-one and a few with several players per side - all learning games. This was our first "Club" game and went well with a few minor rules problems. We chose a scenario map out of the " 29Let's Go" campaign book from TooFat Lardies but modified it slightly and used standard troop selection from the basic rules (Both the "Delaying Action" scenario). The Americans chose an Armored Infantry Platoon with a Sherman tank with a Jr. Leader in support. The Germans chose A Heer Platoon supported by a tripod mtd MG42 and a Sr. Leader.

THE AMERICAN SIDE OF THE TABLE

The scenario calls for the Americans to start their patrol markers spread along their set-on line as shown, while the Germans had to start at one spot within their set on area. The patrol moves went quickly with the Germans opting to hold back and have the Americans come to them. The next map shows the final postions of the Jump Off Points JOPS.

OVERALL MAP SHOWING JOPS AND INITIAL PLACEMENT OF FORCES

The Americans could not place any more than 3 JOPS, The Germans had the same requirement, one of which had to be on the objective (its in the house on the left).

The US had first move and placed their Hvy Wps Squad supported by the Mortar in the edge of the Orchard at the bottom right.

TWO HVY MGS SUPPORTED BY A 60MM MORTAR ON THE US LEFT.

The German move was to deploy a Squad befing a small hedge on their right and immediately took the US MG position under fire. The US did not go on overwatch so had no response. The Next German placement was anothe Sqd in the hedges and orchard in the center of their position.

GERMAN POSITION BEHIND HEDGEAFTER THE US FIRE CAUSED CASUALTIES, SHOCK  & A WOUND TO THEIR JR. LEADER

The US deployed one infantry squad with a bazooka team in the fields on their right before the German position. Though moving tactically, this unit took several casualties and shock as well as a wound to their Jr Leader. Firefights continued along the line of contact and the US brought on their B Squad with a Bazooka team. from the central JOP.  Ther German counter was to bring on their 3 Infantry Sqd. which includes and MG42 (bipod= 8 D6) and their one support a Atripod Mtd MG 42(Tripod = 10 D6). a total fire power of  28 dice when you include the leaders with SMGs. They were in the center house with LOS directly to the two American suads in the field.

THE "POWER POSITION OF THE LAST GERMAN SQD W/MG 42 SUPPORT

THE TWO US SQDS. BEING SHOT UP BY THE COMBINED FIRE OF 3 MG 42
AND 12 INF. DESPITE BEING "TACTICAL"

In desperation, the two US Sqds charged the German central position in the Orchard only to be wiped out in Hand-to-Hand combat. The loss of 4 teams, 2 Squads(sections) and 2 Jr leaders caused numerous rolls on the Morale chart, the US dropping to a 1 and pulling what forces they had left off the field. As the remnants ot the force trudged to the rear, their captain ws heard to mutter "I should have used my tank, but they might have had a panzerfaust".

20 mm FENCES FOR CHAIN OF COMMAND (CoC)

My grandson asked if I could build up some 20mm picket fences for his CoC gaming. Always willing to encourage his interest in the hobby, I undertook the project as follows:

I used a scrap piece of MDF as a manufacturing base and applied a couple of strips of 2-sided scotch tape to hold the fence while under construction. Two "Coffee Stirrer" sticks cut to 6" length form the support for the fence and an identical length of "popsical stick" cut square on the ends for a base. NOTE: Bob Beattie e-mailed me to suggest that those using very smooth "Stirrer Sticks" should use steel wool to ruough them up before using them to impart a better texture to the fence. See Below:

"MANUFACTURING BASE" WITH "COFFEE STIRRER" STICKS IN PLACE

I then cut various lengths of the cocktail stick corresponding to shoulder to head height of a 20mm figure.

SHORT LENGTHS OF STIRRER STICK CUT TO VARYING LENGTHS

Using the base  to insure a straight line on the bottom to align the bottom of the fence strakes, I glue(White Glue) the strakes individually with random lengths and at small difference in angle. (If one wants a moer "formal" fence, one could align strakes of equal length more carefully).

Using the base to align the strakes I weight them down until the glue is completely dry.

Next, using one of  the same cocktail sticks, I glue it to the base at a distance from one edge such that there is just enough room for the fence to fit between it and the edge of the base.

Using some kind of support I now glue the completed fence to its base against the supporting cocktail stick.

One should make a few of these wher the fence is longer than the base on one or bothe ends by the length of the base width. This enables the fences to be abutted at right angles without a gap  for enclosures.

Finally I  spray paint the whole piece black, then dry brush in grey ( one could use white, tan, etc whatever fits your terrain). I finish with terraining the base.

THE FINISHED FENCE IN A CHAIN OF COMMAND GAME

TERRAIN PIECE FOR PITS

TERRAIN PIECE FOR PITS
(Patrole In The Sudan by Peter Pig)

In preparing a scenario for introducing PITS at Fall In 2014, I realized that I did not like my first attempt at making a DEPRESSION piece for the table top. My first attempt was carving out a peice of foam and painting it:

ORIGINAL DEPRESSION

Having read several gamer's descriptions of using cork as a means to build terrain, I thought I might try it with, what I think, a reasonable result.

STANDARD CORK SQUARE AVAILABLE FROM CRAFT SHOPS

Using the standard PITTS terrain size of 6" x 12", I made a base of 1/8" MDF and added pieces of Cork simply broken off the cork square with my thumbnail, managing the shape to fit the base size.

6" x 12" BASE PIECE

ADD CORK EDGE PIECES

I then "terrained" the piece using pre-mixed adhesive and grout, my latest go-to material for terraining bases and terrain peices.

ADDING TERRAINING COMPOUND

I then painted the terrain with diluted white glue and spread Woodland Sceanics Medium Ballast over the surface.

SPREAD MEDIUM BALLAST OVER THE SURFACE 

And painted it all in Burnt Umber.

And finally dry brushed with a Craft paint sand color. I'll make two more like it as 3 such pieces are supposed to be available to the Mahdists to choose.

THE FINAL PIECE

Where is everybody - OOPs Where am I?

I have been perusing my favorite blogs and complaining that no one seems to have been posting much of late - where the hell were they all? Too lazy to post? Then it hit me, I have not posted in too  long a time either, was I too lazy to post. The reasons are many and mostly inconsequential so I hope to change my ways and to start I will list what I have been doing durning this lapse: Painting and organizing figures for new periods. At 79, I need another period? But thats what keeps me young.

So I started writing only to find that the pending loss of support to the XP operating system by Microsoft had impacted my ability to post here! After a long transition to Windows 7, I am ready to try again.

I have been painting up planes to play all the scenarios in the CY6 booklet Gualdalcanal, so far I have the Japanese Zeros and Bettys as well as the US F4Fs. We have even tried a few basic games to learn the rules. More on those later.



PLANES FOR CY6

Back in 2012, at Historicon, I was introduced to Peter Pigg's PITTS game (Patrols in the Sudan) and have avidly been painting figures and making terrain ever since. Even played a few games. It plays on a 3' x 5' table and the whole game can be carried in an 18" x 30"' plastic tote bin.

The games do not need a lot of figures, less than 100/side, so I set about painting a British and Mahdist army in 15mm. I have played this enough and like it so much that I have registered to run two games at FALL IN

MAHDIST  ARMY

BRITISH ARMY

I also have made up all the necessary terrain pieces

TERRAIN PIECES

THE OASIS

A MAHDIST VILLAGE
Using an on-line translator, I wrote the Arabic words on the buildings for: "Painted by Dick Bryant" and
 " May  all your infidel dice rolls be abysmal"

MAHDIST HUTS

KINGSTON IRREGULARS HOUSE GAME RULES

The Kingston Irregulars have decided to formally incorporate the following rules for games under our auspices:
1. The game table layout governs the scenario, not the map of the table. In the real world maps are an approximation of the terrain, the terrain governs. In real life many a surprise has occurred to units assuming the map was a perfect rendition of the terrain. If he did not set up the table, the scenario designer must approve the table layout before game play starts.

2. Any space between the edge of the table and a terrain piece of 3” or less is considered “impassable” to any troops unless otherwise designated by the scenario designer.

3. Once play starts, no terrain feature or its character may be changed by the scenario designer. He/she had ample time to get it right and nothing should change once the game is in play.

4. Once a player’s turn is completed, we may never go back because of a missed rule or other mistake.

5. If any die of a roll goes off the table, all the dice are rolled again.

A NEW GAME ROOM

I haven't published anything on the Blog since just before Historicon. Since historicon I have accrued a large gaming area where i can build a fixed table where we can meet every week on Thursday and on som Saturdays. The main advantage is that we can leave games set up for as many nights as it takes to come to a conclusion. In  our previous venue, we had to  tear the table down each  night and had only about 3 hours to set up, play and tear down. This led to a lot of experiments on how to get into action fast so as to try to come to a conclusion in that short a time. Needless to say, many games became uninterestin shootin matches devoid of manuver except via e-mail with it attendant errors, and inconsistencies..."what I meant to do was........".  The new location, on the outskirts of Brockton, MA near the intersections of Rte 14 and 27, is only 1/2 hour driving time from the previous one in Kingston MA. We will not be chaning our name, just the Venue.



THE NEW TABLE IS 8' X 5' - NOTE THE BEVERAGE REF. TO THE RIGHT OF THE PICTURE



PLENTY OF STORAGE ON BOTH SIDES OF THE TABLE





AT LAST!  MY OWN DEDICATED PAINTING AND MODELLING TABLE

PLENTY OF STORAGE FOR FIGURES AND PRIZED BUILDINGS - NOT TO MENTION A TROPHY WALL!