The Fabulous GeMiGaBoK Blog!

Battle of Burgos

2012-02-01T22:49:00.000-08:00

It has been a long while since we played napoleonics the last time and it probably has something to do with our 1808 Russo-Swedish War project too. Like battle weariness coupled with the fact that not everyone in the club is into the period...

Aksu had bought Too Fat Lardies' Le Feu Sacre III -rules and painted some 15mm Spaniards so he wanted to give both a try so he put together a scenario for the Battle of Burgos. There was no doubt about the outcome, the Spaniards were going to get their heinies kicked. Hard. No probs there though -the battles definitely don't have to be fair and even to be enjoyable. Quite the opposite.

Spaniards deployed for the battle. Since the actual commander had fleen the forces were commanded by a count, or some other noble, who had no military experience at all. On the right side of the road you have crap de la crap, Spanish militia which is a bad troops as can be. On the left side of the road are Spanish guards supported by regular infantry -these are more or less the quality of regular Frenchies. On both sides of river there's a regiment of not-so-trained light cavalry. Excelente!

Froggies arrive using blinds. Took them a couple of turns to get this far from the board edge -these brigade blinds are supposed to quicken the play as you don't have to fuss with fiddling of the miniatures. Spaniards could also have been deployed like vise but we kinda forgot that...

Blinds can be spotted by enemy commanders but they are notoriously bad at this -units in the open within artillery range are probably not going to be recognized so you can't even tell whether the blind is actually a dummy without any troops or it if contains cavalry, infantry or both. Fog of war and all that. Hrmph!

Trying to avoid the historical events by deploying the militia into squares...

...which wasn't in vein as the blind on French left flank contained three regiments of medium cavalry. Luckily the Spaniard light cavalry is absolutely inferior to them but now also heavily outnumbered. Fleeing seems like the most valid option, but unfortunately they have hold-orders so they are waiting for a sound trashing.

Fearing the couple stands of Spanish artillery (the only unit type eligible to shoot in LFSIII) the French infantry deploys in the forest.

Surprise of the surprises! Against supported attack by French dragoons led by their commander the Spanish cavalry manage to get a result where they both combatants retreat a bit without casualties. Ay ay ay! Muchos cohones!

Infantry vise the Spanish artillery manages to score, against all odds, a couple of hits to some of the numerous French battalions, but nothing that has any effect on the game. The Frenchies advance out of the forest and especially against the unlucky militias in squares.

Caramba! Francés de infantería.

While the three French cavalry regiments drive off the hapless Spanish cavalry, the French infantry gives a good ol' whupping to one square making it flee and, as the militia is brittle, the remainder join in. The last remaining French blind contains two more regiments of dragoons -things are looking might grim for our heroes!

The remaining French infantry also start closing in on the better quality Spanish troops. Ah, and the Spanish artillery (previous in the middle of the formation, now suddenly in the right flank) is forced to flee by flanking attacks.

The militia is rallied for a while, but new attacks send them running for the hills again. The other Spanish units are now also engaged and thus pinned.

The most beaten militia is allowed to flee while the others are rallied.
Elsewhere the Spanish guard is routed by flanking attacks.

One dragoon unit routs three battalions by flanking attack and the subsequent breakthroughs leaving one Spanish battalion to defend the field in addition to one cavalry regiment on the left flank on the other side of the river. The Spaniards are soundly beaten -a historical result even if our guard units didn't get to put up a proper resistance.

The system uses unit cards to see which brigade is acting. Each commander also rolls initiative point dice -being in the opposite ends of spectrum French had a positive modifier for this while the unlucky Spaniards a negative one. Quite often the card system meant double actions for one side as they got their card last from one deck and then first from the next turn's deck -never that good a thing for a game.

Combat resolution and results seemed a bit foggy and cumbersome. Had plenty of fleeing/routing and surprisingly little damage. Undecided if this is actually a good or a bad thing.

Some interesting concepts in the rules that look promising when you read the rules but most of them didn't really seem to work all that well in practice. The one I thought was the best was one that made the rallied units permanently shaken -no more infinite rallies with no adverse effect on the morale! British style of rule writing (sloppy or non-existing editing) don't really help using the rules.

The rules are supposed to be quick play rules but even if you take into account all the problems involved in the first game I thought that the rules were pretty darn slow.

Dunno if it was because of the lack of shooting but the worst part of the game was that it lacked the period feel. I think that in that aspect the game was probably the worst nappy game I've ever played and that also includes the few games of Piquet we played years ago. At least with Piquet the game flow was much better. Actually this experience was not that unlike other set of Lardies rules, TWaT, we tried out last fall -seemingly simple and sound in theory, but throughly rotten experience as a game.

Based on the experience from this game (and I don't mind losing, mind you, the Spanish defeat was a certainty from the first moment) the hype from the publisher seems like as inaccurate as can be:
"The result is a set of rules that is fast and enjoyable to play, but also captures to true feel of the period."

YMMV, butI think I'd rather have my teeth pulled than play with these rules again... :(

Wikipedia entry of the battle

Janne
(Played: Jan 30th. GM: Aksu. French: Chris, Mr V. Spain: Aksu, Janne.)

The Battle of Logan's Cross Roads

2012-01-26T11:05:00.000-08:00

Confederate probing attack with all kinds of disadvantages:
-Overall commander who was drunk as a skunk during the battle
-Nearsighted brigade commander destined to die
-Almost all troops are as green as they come and armed with antique flintlocks to boot.

Overview of the battlefield from the Union's side.

The initial setup -Union pickets are beset with the Confederate horde.

Chaaaarge!

Union pickets start withdrawing as well as reinforcement battalion arrives at the ravine.

The pickets have withdrawn behind the second fence.

The other Union picket unit, Cavalry, gets annihilated in close combat and Crittenden starts to arrive with the Confederate main force.

Marching towards Washington!

Union reinforcements.

On the Confederate side only the Mississippi boys have guns that have any range.

Rebel trafic jam in making. Also, Zolicoffer gets killed.

Some not so spirited shooting.

Union reinforcements get closer. Those 2 batteries don't promise anything good for the rebels.

Confederates slowly organize their troops.

It is better not to shoot at enemy infantry at you when they are providing a meat wall against numerous enemy artillery...

Green troops on the receiving end of couple batteries is likely to result in a rout. Other units scramble to get off the open to avoid being bombarded to pieces. Confederate guns are finally in position too.

Flee! They're are shooting human beans ovah there!

Artillery duel. Some additional Union reinforcements arrive.

Pound 'em into oblivion boys!

Union dilemma: how to get past the batteries?
BTW I have no idea why this picture is totally of different color range...

The Confederates gain control of the Mill Springs Road.

Here starts the lesson of not tarrying in the road column on the battlefield.

Plenty of fire but to little effect.

Advancing in heavy woods in quite slow. Even more Union reinforcements arrive.

The Mississippi boys keep on taking the beating...

...so the Tennessee rookies need to bail them out by charging and driving away the enemy.

More Union reinforcements advance.

The Union troops didn't stay away for long though...

Firefight ensues on the other flank as well as the battalions battle it out in the orchard.

Confederates start taking positions on the edge of the wood -too bad their flintlocks have abysmally poor range.

Although it seemed to control it in the beginning the Confederate artillery lost the duel and retreated to the cover of the forest to secure the right flank with the Cavalry.

Lines are clearly forming on the left flank.

Unfortunately we had to end the game at this point since it was getting late.
Chris was going to play the last remaining rounds as a solo game to see how it went.
The confederate players informed Chris that since they are outgunned and outranged the only way they'll be able to win is by getting into close combat.

Here's his report:
Thanks! I hope everyone had fun with a very confusing and sprawling game. Strangely enough, I had thought it would get congested around the clear "lane" in the middle of the table, and instead the forces scattered to the wooded flanks! Is the artillery that powerful? Hmm ... I guess if you have flintlocks, yes, but they seem awfully easy to silence.

At any rate, I did finish out the final few turns. And ... how much detail do you want? In the northern woods, the Confederates retired out of close range and the Union troops realized that if they advanced they would get hit by the CSA guns in the field, so they held tight waiting for reinforcements ... which rolled Tardy every turn. So, no real action there.

In the main action to the south, the CSA launched its assault on turn 10, but a critical rally/retreat result on the middle regiment messed up the support waves, the far flanking units weren't able to move up in time, and the Union checked one of the two charges (both by the Trained units) with fire. The other charge started at CSA +1 and Union +0, and the CSA won by 2 and pushed the Union regiment back 2". During Union turn 10, a whole brigade piled into the CSA regiment in the salient, and pushed it back out of close range. Everybody was disordered, but the Union line looked pretty strong.

On the CSA turn 11, the CSA regiment at the rear table edge finally routed off the table, which brought the CSA to Heavy Casualties and Greater Casualties ... ouch (but they don't apply until next turn). The CSA managed to rally everyone in the south and launch another supported charge across the open field, but it was checked by withering fire. The CSA did manage to disorder the entire Union line again, but it was looking gloomy for the South. In the Union turn 11, the northern part of their line had to retreat out of close range - but even this was bad for the CSA, as they had to retreat out of enemy musket range but had rifles themselves to reply with. The rest of Union line rallied and kept up the fire on the CSA line, hoping for bad morale results next turn.

On CSA turn 12, the main CSA brigade in the south broke (all it took was rolling a 4). Four of the five regiments broke, and the fifth retired into the woods. The other pair of units from Zollicoffer's old brigade rallied, and established a sort of rearguard line. That pretty much ended the game as I saw it, but despite being driven back the CSA still held the Cumberland Pike at game's end.

So, the final results were: Union 2 (inflicting heavy casualties and greater casualties), CSA 1 (key position). It was a marginal victory for the Union, but all in all the CSA did pretty well with the vast limitations of their forces.

Wikipedia entry of the battle

Janne
(Played: Jan 23rd at Chateu d'Tenwolde. GM: Chris. Confederates: Janne, Mr V. Union: Aksu, Chris.)

Libya 2011

2012-01-21T14:30:00.000-08:00

Janne N devised us a rather topical Force on Force scenario.

There's some Libyan regulars who are emptying secret base number 45 (originally built for manufacture and storage of chemical weapons) from the gold that has been hidden in it. Leading this operation is a cousin of Gaddafi. They want to escape with their lives and as much gold as possible.

Numerous irregular Libyan freedom fighters have arrived in the vicinity and capture the gold and the cousin of the hated former leader.

Few British SAS troops are here to capture the chemical weapons in the base. And give the rebels support.

Overview of the base with rebels surrounding it from two sides.

The local sheep farmer is about to get the surprise of a lifetime!

Couple of squads of rebels manage to reach the fence but are slaughtered there almost to a man (from the leftmost one manages to survive. This guy, Ali, picks up a machine gun from a fallen comrade and later on... it is payback time.

After the positions on top of the houses have been silenced the remainder rebs on this flan surge towards the compound and the poor SAS sods, dressed in civvies, have no choice but to follow them.
The rebs occupy the positions now, as well as hold the enemy leader as prisoner on the leftmost building. But there's still plenty of stiff resistance from the remaining regulars. The other reb flank also starts to advance towards the compound.

The fire from the regulars sweeps the rebs from their positions on the left building. Ali has moved to the low middle building.

Enemy prisoners in the process of being moved away from the combat area.

Both reb technicals in action -they are rather fragile...

All the regulars have been shot to pieces.

Resultwise, everyone went into negative points, but the Brits least (their commanding officer was their only casualty) so they won.
Rebs were almost killed to the last man and none their leaders survived so they weren't able to get the gold as the rank & rile hardly knew about it. And besides there were too few of them to try to get it from the Brits after they noticed that the barrels contained something else than chemical weapons. At least they managed to capture the Gaddafi's relative alive.

Janne
(Played: Jan 16th. GM: Janne N. Libyan Army: Aksu, Mr V. Libyan rebels: Eero, Janne L. British SAS: Mr H.)

Battle of Hanover Court House

2012-01-21T14:16:00.001-08:00

May 27th 1862
As the Union Army of the Potomac made its way slowly towards Richmond in the summer of 1862, General McClellan received reports that a large Confederate force had maneuvered to threaten his right flank near Hanover Court House. He dispatched the entire IV Corps to counter what turned out to be a single reinforced brigade, however during the confused maneuvering the Confederates were offered a brief opportunity to smash a small Union rear guard. This scenario recreates that action, as the Confederates race against time to defeat the rear guard before the bulk of the Union IV Corps arrives on the field.

Although outnumbering the Union troops by more than two to one, the Confederates have only 8 turns to defeat the rear guard before the IV Corps arrives on the field and they have no choice but retreat.

Instead of sending just two battalions against the Union as happened in reality the Confederate players were allowed to use the whole force in their disposal which meant that the outcome should be pretty certain.

Overview of the battlefield before the game started.

View from another direction.

After the initial move we have immediate firefight.

Union starts refusing their left flank.

The mauled Union section retreats to safety.

Confederate left flank moves too close and gets drawn into the firefight. On the right flank the flanking maneuver is not successful.

Plenty of shooting on the field.

While one Union battalion acts as rear guard the remainder keep on slowly sidestepping away from the field.

There seems to be no stopping Johnny the Reb!

The Union rear guard is having its left flank threatened.

A Confederates kinda just were drawn into this firfight. Their left flank is continuously threatened by the possible arrival of Union reinforcements.

Union troops start routing.

Confederates push on.

Union boys decide to sell their hides with a high cost.

Reorganizing the confederate attack took a while.

Union gets "greater casualties" marker -never a good thing. Kinda like the beginning of the end if you will...

Protect the wounded!

Confederate flanking unit finally gets into contact in column and wrecks havoc in Union troops. The other Confederate flank prepares for possible arrival of Union reinforcements.

The last Union foothold.

Quite different result than historically, but with the unhistorical outnumbering there was little else than could happen.
Also, the Union was extremely lucky with their reinforcement rolls -these never arrived!

Some mighty fine southern Belles for the unusual occasion of Confederate victory.

Wikipedia entry of the battle

Janne (afteraction report by Chris)
(Played: Jan 9th at Chateu d'Tenwolde. GM: Chris. Confederates: Chris, Janne. Union: Aksu, Mr V.)

I Ain't Been Shot Mum -Stalingrad

2012-01-21T14:13:00.000-08:00

No one else than Mr H and Janne showed up, so first we cleaned the clubroom for a while while waiting for possible other players to show up. AS no one did, we played a quick game of IAMBS set in Stalingrad with about a platoon of troops per side. The Jerries are almost at the river and just need to push a little bit further. the glorious defenders of the Motherland obviously are not going to allow this.

While all Germans are still blinds half of the Russians are already deployed. The German flanking maneuver was not done by an empty blind as Mr H originally thought.

The last remaining Soviets join their commissar in a charge against the last remaining battle worthy Germans who managed to shoot the Soviets into ribbons.

Plenty of ebb and flow during the game with the ruins providing good cover for the troops so finishing enemy off was an arduous and bloody task.

Janne
(Played: Jan 2nd. GM: Mr H. Germans: Janne. Soviets: Mr H.)

Gemiyear 2011 in Review

2012-01-21T14:12:00.000-08:00

Quite a solid year all in all.
Started off with playing some of Mr H's GREAT Paul Carrell influenced scenarios with Battleground WWII. Also missed some game days due to people having personal matters requiring attention.

Late May Aksu finally managed to present us the Germany 1984 game that has been talked about for years. This was originally going to be played using Modern Spearhead, but we decided to switch over to Cold War Commander which is a more solid set of rules.

Summer was quiet on the game front, as usual. Weekend at the countryside and summer vacations etc. At Chris' we managed to play one game of Regimental Fire & Fury with 10mm figures, a project Chris has been doing with Andy.

In the autumn gaming started with new vigor and in WWII games Battleground WWI was replaced by I Ain't Been Sot Mum, although we did give the more complex TooFatLardies ruleset, Troops, Weapons & Tactics, also a good ol' try. Autumn also brought Janne N with Force on Force which was immediately a hit among us.

And finally ACW rules at Chris started again. The schedule seems to be that on odd weeks we play at the clubroom and on the even weeks we play ACW at chateu d'Tenwolde.

If for some reason an ACW game can't be played, as a backup plan we are prepared to start processing the unpainted plastic at the clubroom -that is, start a sweatshop production line with them.

Operation Smash and Grab - Feb 14th 1945

2012-01-21T13:12:00.000-08:00

Aksu wanted to give Force on Force a try with a WWII scenario.
In it British paratroopers try to intercept a small German convoy and capture a top rocket scientist. For simplicity's sake we used the same terrain as in the previous FoF games as it was still on the table.

There was a small outpost of Jerries guarding the crossroads and just as the paras had managed to overcome these a Kubelwagen zoomed in. And a truck after that. The paras managed to finish off the Jerries in no time and didn't even hurt the scientist in process.

Here we have the outpost silenced, Kubelwagen halted and the truckful of Jerries kept in bay.

It seemed that Force on Force worked just fine with WWII troops too.
Hmmm, the club has kilos of unpainted 20mm plastics, like colonials, so using the rules for skirmishes involving Foreign Legionnaires or British redcoats would probably work too. Also doing a Finnish Civil War game has long intrigued me...

Janne
(Played: Dec 19th. GM: Aksu. British: Janne, Mr H. Germans: Aksu, Mr V.)

Battle of Misty Creek

2012-01-21T13:03:00.001-08:00

The game begun by having both sides encamped on different sides of a river with plenty of mist around the river limiting vicibility. The river had a bridge and several places where it might be fordable -meaning you randomly rolled when your troops were near enough of the suspected ford.

Here we see the battlefield from the Confederate side. The mists haven't yet been placed.

Both try to flank from left by fording. The leftmost Confederates have to wade through forest for a wile to reach the ford and the other Confederate battalion in extended line searches for ford in vein. The Union however finds a usable for right next to their encampment.

Manning the fences while pickets probe the possible ford/enemy.

Morning mists have lifted so it is time to produce some gun smoke instead...
Union's flanking attack is already on firing range and they are getting a third battalion over. The attack is also supported their pickets on the other side of the river. Also they got their battery to the bridge where it has a good field of fire and a central position.

Confederates getting outgunned...

...so they decide to get the hell out of Dodge.
Note how Confederates have managed to start their flanking maneuver with one battalion over the river while Union has four battalions over and penetrating deep into enemy side.

Confederates retreating into less precarious positions.

Confederate flanking attack gets finally underway. Unfortunately Union begins to redeploy their artillery in order to receive them.

New defense lines. On the right there's a hill between the lines.

View from the side.
Far off the Confederate flanking maneuver is being shot to pieces by two Union batteries.

Union camp and the murderous batteries.
They managed to destroy the flanking Confederate artillery and inflict some casualties on the infantry before these decide to head back to safety of their side of the river.

The "Battle of Misty Creek" - a scenario loosely based on an early war encounter between two divisions of raw recruits who were surprised to find themselves camped in close proximity after the morning fog lifted! A special welcome to Eero, who braved Horse & Musket gaming from his usual 20th century haunts and also doubled as a photographer - hopefully we didn't put you off!

The battle opened with a swift Union flanking attack over a ford in the north with one of their infantry brigades (Mr V), while the their artillery massed in the center to hold the bridge, supported by their second infantry brigade (Aksu). The Confederates were slower in launching their own flank attack (Eero), due to the confusing terrain, and thus the Union attack caught them in the north before they were able to organize their own offensive efforts. The Union attack pressed forward steadily, however the CSA defenders (Janne) were able to pull back and form a solid defensive line.

As the fighting settled into a protracted firefight in the north, the Confederates finally crossed the stream in the south only to find themselves facing the hastily redeployed second brigade backed by the massed Union artillery. The 24 Union guns proved too much, and the CSA flanking brigade withdrew back over the river. At this point the battle drew to a close, with neither side eager to advance and come to grips, but the Confederates faced with the necessity of an eventual withdrawal in the face of superior Union artillery, especially after losing most of their own guns to the withering union rifle and artillery fire. Losses on both sides were very light, amounting to only about a hundred men for the Union (3 infantry stands of a breakpoint of 30) and a couple hundred for the CSA (4 infantry and 3 cannon from a breakpoint of 31), although the loss of their artillery would be felt. All in all, its seemed a faithful reproduction of those "confused probing attacks" one is always reading about!

Due to me being late in finalizing preparations, a somewhat complicated and slow start to the battle (which was double the size of previous encounters), nasty terrain, and the problems inherent in maneuvering green troops with inexperienced leaders, we only managed 10 tens in about 3 hours of gaming time. This was a slower pace than previously, and unfortunately we didn't come to final grips as we had in previous battles. As Mr V mentioned during our discussion, given more time to prepare I probably could have done a better job of streamlining the first 2-4 turns of breaking camp and initial maneuvering, and I'm sure that with a full four hours and some better planning we could have made more progress (although it may still have ended in a face-off). Live and learn!

Janne (afteraction report by Chris)
(Played: Dec 15th at Chateu d'Tenwolde. GM: Chris. Confederates: Eero, Janne. Union: Aksu, Mr V.)

Traditional Christmas Party

2012-01-21T12:59:00.000-08:00

No games this year though, but instead a video evening at Mr V.
So we ended up boozing and eating all kinds of goodies -Chris did American style popcorn but kinda went overboard with the butter...

Started off with The Battle of the River Plate aka. Pursuit of the Graf Spee (UK 1956).

Eero had some bits to show from a contemporary US TV series set in Afghanistan. But for the life of me I can't recall the name of the series anymore...

We also watched assorted bits from They Fought for their Country/Motherland/Land (USSR 1975). I recall seeing this on the telly as a wee lad and it was nice to see the few familiar scenes again. (Click the link for the movie -they don't want it to be embedded)

Since we didn't have time to watch another whole movie we checked the Poltava battle scenes from Sovereign's Servant (Russia 2007).

Mr V also showed bits of A Game for Vultures (UK 1979) which was kinda topical for us due to our recent games of Force on Force.

Finally we finished the evening off with some Black Adder Goes Forth as Chris hadn't seen any episodes of this brilliant series where Rowan Atkinson shows his true talent. Plenty of other great British actors like Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie are in it as well.

Dec 8th (Present: Aksu, Chris, Eero, Janne, Mr H, Mr V)

Battle of Boonville

2012-01-21T12:41:00.000-08:00

Troops from both sides arrive to the field. The farm is already occupied by the best troops the Confederates have.

The Confederate defense line.

Union troops organize their attack.

The Confederate flanking threat is immediately halted and routed by the first Union salvo earning the fleeing unit the dreaded chicken marker.

The Confederate reinforcements join the line in time to receive the Union attack and plug the gap made by other fleeing battalion.

As the firefight continues both routing Confederate battalions reform and move back towards the fray. Union infantry mounts an attack against the farm.

The farm defenders drive the attacking Union infantry away but the situation doesn't exactly improve for them as Union artillery starts pounding them.

Confederate mounted infantry has managed to secure the flank.

Both units involved in the farm fighting are no routing -the Confederates from the artillery fire.

More Confederates start running towards the hills...

...until finally there's no one to defend the fence line against the Union troops

The 10mm Confederate mounted infantry.

The mighty Union chicken troops.

"How far are my routed troops fleeing?"

"Hot diggity dang, ah say that we draw the line... here!"

When he heard that we were going to play a ACW game, Janne N supplied Aksu, Janne and Mr V with mighty fine ACW ties he had bought on his travels. The guys all dressed like gentlemen and wore these fine garments to surprise Chris who didn't even notice them. Until he was told about them at the end of the game -cheers!

Considering the long break (and the fact Janne and Aksu hadn't played it yet), we fought the Battle of Boonville again, since it is a nice introductory scenario. The Confederate Missouri State Guard was defending a vital crossroads (and chicken coop), which was being attacked by the lead elements of the Union army's Northern Missouri Column. The CSA troops were about as bad as you can get ... Green, Unreliable, and armed with grandpa's old squirrel guns. The Union troops were better armed (with smoothbore muskets, and even bayonets), were also Green, but were Reliable troops. The Union was also led by a Gallant general, while the CSA was led by an Able general ... who got himself shot on the first round of fire and was replaced by a Poor subordinate!

The Union deployed their strong infantry and single artillery battery in the open ground to the south of the crossroads, intent on rolling up the southern line. The Confederates made an attempt to distract them by advancing a regiment through the woods on the north flank ... only to have it shot to pieces by combined canister and musketry and rout!

Although this was not a promising start (especially with the general being killed as well), reinforcements in the form of a large regiment of infantry and a small regiment of mounted infantry arrived to bolster the southern flank just as the Union started its attack. Despite their advantages (partially countered by the Confederate position along a sunken road), the Union troops were thrown back several times as they tried to assault the line with the bayonet, and the Confederates even managed a brief and glorious counter-attack from the farmstead at the crossroads, routing a Union regiment. However, as casualties from fire (and several routs) began to mount, the poor quality of the southern troops, combined with poor leadership, disorder, and some low rolls eventually resulted in the majority of their forces retreating from battle just as the Union troops appeared stalled. Although the Union had won (again), it was a hard fought battle and certainly gives some measure of hope to the rebel forces that they could do better in the future.

We managed about 12 turns in about 3 hours of play (although we also spent some time before and after with rules talk and such), so I continue to think that Regimental Fire & Fury is a good choice for the period, and with more play I'm sure we'll be zipping right along.

Wikipedia entry of the battle

Janne (afteraction report by Chris & pics by Aksu)
(Played: Nov 28th at Chateu d'Tenwolde. GM: Chris. Confederates: Janne, Chris. Union: Aksu, Mr V.)

Force on Force - Vietnam 2

2012-01-21T12:38:00.000-08:00

Continuing with the TET '68 scenario from the previous session.

In the ruined suburbs the VC manage to close assault one American squad and even capture one wounded US soldier who is quickly carried away via the spawning point. A long march towards prisonment ensues for this unlucky GI. The remaining Americans still manage to secure both spawning points in the suburbs despite the VC's willingness to throw themselves into the fire.

By the other bridge large amounts of VC have slowly amassed and they finally open up against the Americans.

Despite of the murderous American fire the VC slowly manage to silence all the US squads. All it took was total lack of human life as squad after squad was thrown into the meat grinder -too bad we didn't keep a bodycount...

A nice game that quite nicely solved the problems involved with totally different units/tactics -small number of better equipped troops against poorly equipped hordes.

Unfortunately I didn't manage to take any pics of the rural side's hamlet -hopefully Eero has some?

Janne
(Played: Nov 7th. GM: Janne N. NVA/VC: Janne L, Mr H. Americans: Aksu, Eero, Mr V.)

Force on Force - Vietnam

2012-01-21T12:29:00.000-08:00

Janne N had recently started playing Force on Force and as he had immensely liked it he wanted GM a game to the rest of us so we were learning the ropes during TET '68.

In the ruined fringes of Hue some NVA troops are creeping towards a bridge guarded by US troops.

Unsurprisingly a firefight ensues.

After the initial try-out game is over a bigger scenario is begun on the same table. On the table there are several hot spots which the few US troops need to investigate/secure and thus remove from the game. The VC troops use these spots randomly as spawning points for their randomly generated reinforcements.

While section secures the bridge leading off to rural areas other US troops and a photographer move towards the ruined suburbs.

Near spawning point "3", they are ambushed by several VC units while crossing the bridge to suburbs.

Undaunted the Americans press on.

Unfortunately building the terrain and playing the first game too so big a slice of our gaming time that we had to leave the game waiting to be finished the next time. The rules needed very little explaining and flowed very well. Everyone was impressed by them.

Janne
(Played: Oct 24th. GM: Janne N. NVA/VC: Janne L, Mr H. Americans: Aksu, Eero, Mr V.)

I Ain't Been Shot Mum

2012-01-21T12:25:00.000-08:00

We decided to give the previous scenario a go with different ruleset -I Ain't Been Shot Mum which could be considered a sibling to the previous set.

Soviet tank riders surge to German defences and trash the squad there -some Jerries are even captured. Other German squad further down the ditch is still a blind.

The gameflow was like from different planet and the results, while lacking some of TWaT's chrome, were none the less believeable. It would seem that, for us there is no competition between these two systems.

Janne
(Played: Oct 10th. GM: Mr H. Soviets: Mr V. Germans: Janne.)

Troops, Weapons & Tactics 2

2012-01-21T12:24:00.000-08:00

Continuing the game from previous session.
Behind the hedgerows there was ditches that worked as trenches. Also a wooden MG position was hidden inside a thicket. The Soviets moved forward and encounter fire from point blank range which has very little effect. Finally a firefight ensues but there is hardly any visible effect even if plenty of gaming time passes.

The Soviet tank has located the German MG nest and is pounding it into oblivion. The Soviet infantry is staring to get past the wire into the German trenches.

If the test game in the shooting range flowed well the experience with actual enemy that shoots back is quite the opposite. Most often nothing much happens during the game -the game flow just seems plain bad.

Janne
(Played: Oct 3th. GM: Mr H. Soviets: Mr V. Germans: Janne.)

Troops, Weapons & Tactics 1

2012-01-21T12:17:00.000-08:00

East Prussia, spring 1945.
Soviets are rolling towards the west and Germans seem to be defeated since they are strangely absent (read: hidden).

Soviet units arrive to the table as blinds.

Side view of the table.

Some Soviets deploy and move further onward. But is that a German blind on the left?

A T-34 and a Maxim are in position to give the scouts support fire if need be.

The German must've tucked his tail and retreated all the way to Berlin...

Janne
(Played: Sep 26th. GM: Mr H. Soviets: Aksu, Mr V. Germans: Janne.)

Shooting Range -a Troops, Weapons & Tactics training session

2012-01-19T11:58:00.000-08:00

Mr H had bought Troops, Weapons & Tactics from Too Fat Lardies and wanted to give it a try. Expectations were high as the system was kinda big brother of I Ain't Been Shot Mum which we have enjoyed in the past.

Mr V decided that the proper way of learning the ropes was to game a shooting range session. So the table had two similar ranges side by side, one located in Russia and one in Germany. Both contained shooting positions and various targets. The object was, unsurprisingly, to shoot the targets.

The Soviet troops are still blinds but the Germans in the more distant shooting range are already deployed.

The game seemed to work just fine.

Janne
(Played: Sep 12th. GM: Mr H Soviets: Aksu, Janne. Germans: Janne, Mr V.)

Germany 1984, Part 3

2012-01-19T11:30:00.000-08:00

Another year, but same old sloth...
I'll probably upload some pics first and fill the texts and links to the scenarios/OOBs later on.

Germans hunker down.

The Soviet recce surveys the situation. The real threat comes from their HQ as it can call for artillery and air support. Direct fire is not THAT big a threat.

Soviet main forces start to arrive.

Overview of the table. The Soviet main forces have now reached their recce.

A German Phantom is shot down in flames.

The biggest threat in the game was artillery support. Not unrealistic though...

Janne
(Played: Aug 29th. GM: Aksu. Soviets: Janne L, Janne N, Mr V. Germans: Mr H)

Germany 1984, Part 2

2011-06-18T11:52:00.001-07:00

Continuing the game from previous session.
Blogger still giving grievance on some pics and turning them 90 degrees if it isnät made more square with extra space in the bottom...

The Germans have to deploy the forward dummy near the hill and Soviets move towards these troops to defend their positions in the hill.The forward units have encountered a minefield on the hill.
Germans manage to deploy a unit of motorized infantry from a dummy.
Germans looking at the contested hill.
The German motorized infantry make a command fumble and some get shot to pieces apparently by their won troops -a classic misunderstanding (or a clever spetsnaz ploy...?). Closer to the camera are retreating German recce and FO.
Soviet FOs are taking some hits and getting killed due to deviating German artillery strike.
Soviet commander moves forward to direct assets on enemy.
Not much movevent except some twiddling on the hill.Finally the Hind makes an appearance and rains wrath of god upon the Germans.
Not much progress during this turn. The Soviet sub-commander keps on failing in his command attempts.The Germans withdraw.
One T-72 got away and the other remaining is again getting pounded.
Same old, same old.The Germans are still in retreat. Plenty of stuff going to the other side of the river all the time too.
Motorized infantry manages to get few commands through.
Germans retreat and get into positions.Heavy concentration in the German left flank.
Last turn. The German motorized infanty manage to get into good defensive positions and their recce goes boldly deep towards the Soviets.

All in all a good game that moved in pretty quick fashion.
Not much happening though everyone seemed cautious of not getting pounded by the enemy as had happened to Soviets in the early game. Therefor the game kinda degenerated into asset calling match.

Soviet probe didn't reach its objective, which was kinda a pipe dream anyway. It did locate and rout out plenty of Germans and caputure the central hill. The main offensive shouldn't have too much problems taking it on from here.

Janne
(Played: Jun 6th. GM: Aksu. Soviets: Janne x2, Mr V. Germans: Andy, Mr H)

Germany 1984, Part 1

2011-06-18T08:47:00.001-07:00

Aksu has been planning on running a Germany 1984 scenario for many a years based on Team Yankee and he finally managed to pull it off.

The first part of scenario involves Soviet avant guard probing the German defences. Germans will be using hidden setup and dummy counters are used.

The plan of attack or the Soviet avant guard. Full speed ahead and hope the Jerries don't shoot too many units on the way...
I'm on a highway to h... Kiel!
Goofing off before we begin -a lone German militia defender encounters the Soviet spearhead.
Instead of restorting to dummy counters Soviets deploy the troops immediately. A dummy counter has a move of 10cm and the actual troops 25-30 cm...In the first Soviet turn the troops surge forwards. The 2S1s are in position in the small woods and T-72s and BTR-60s encounter a minefield.
The Soviet advance so far - not bad for the first turn.
Several tanks lost due to German shooting and artillery.
Plenty of missiles fired by German Marders and Pumas. Luckily they had rather limited fields of fire. Also the FO in the hamlet directed way too much arty on the Soviets.
The Jerries were deployed right on the Soviet path.
In the center the Soviet recces and FOs didn't encounter any Germans. Some Jerry recons and FOs in the far left flank though.
Besides shooting nothing much happened during the German turn.
When the probe meets serious resistance it will try to flank.
The Soviets move to the forested hill in the center. The T-72's are either wrecked or supressed by ATMs when they try to move so they still stay at the minefield.
The Soviets change the direction of attack.Darn blogger always wanted to turn the above pic 90 degreees clockwise so I had to make a square out of it by adding some empty space to it. Go figure.

In the last turn Soviets used counterbattery fire in massive scale and as written they were overwhelmingly devastating knocking out nearly all the German artillery units. So Aksu decided to retcon and scale it down for the sake of playability.

Janne
(Played: May 23rd. GM: Aksu. Soviets: Janne x2, Mr V. Germans: Andy, Mr H)

Cold War Commander Test Game, Part 2

2011-06-18T08:04:00.001-07:00

In the second test scenario it was the Israelites turn to attack and try to capture the Syrian held village.

The Syrian infantry is occupying the village and olive orchards on right flank. On the left flank there's some AT missles are deployed on the rough ground and tanks behind a wall further away. The Israeli's are in their attack positions in the olive orchard in the top right.
Initial positions.
The Israeli tanks move onwards and the ATMs manage to halt but not destroy one. The Israelites also do an airlanding with helicopters and the site they've chosen happens to be immediately behind the Syrian tanks. The Israeli special forces quickly dispatch the Syrian tanks and head off for the village.
Another view of the same situation.

One helicopter stand carried whopping three infantry and one command stand.
The special forces are driven away from the village with casualties. On the right flank the Israeli tanks basically ignore the feeble attempts of the infantry to stop them.
Don't worry if you didn't take the village, making short work of the tanks was already darn efficient.
The lone Syrian stand is about to be flanked and overrun.
One Syrian infantry and the command stand managed to escape from the right flank.

Another quick game in the same evening to get a grip of the rules.

Janne
(Played: May 9th. GM: Aksu. Syrians: Janne, Mr V. Israelis: Mr H)

Cold War Commander Test Game, Part 1

2011-06-18T07:35:00.000-07:00

Aksu run a series of two quick laerning experience games with Cold War Commander for the upcoming Germany 1984 scenario that he's been planning on running for years. Originally planned to be run with Modern Spearhead but since we were quite happy with Blitzkrieg Commander the system was switched to Cold War Commander instead.

The extremely one sided test games were scenarios from Israel-Syrian war.

The Syrian tanks trundle forwards towards the Israeli occupied heights.
The anti-tank ditch looms ahead. Luckily Syrians have several bridge tanks as well as some engineers to help them cross it.
Whoa! The Israelites open fire with artillery and their Chieftains.
FO and the Chieftains watch the burning wrecks.
The Syrians aren't able to counterfire as the T-55s don't have range to the enemy fortifications.
Pressing forwards with, erm, some casualties, a few Syrian tanks manage to get to range of their enemy (or were they still short?). Anyways all the equipment and troops for crossing the ditch were destroyed at this point and Syrian artillery was ineffective against the fortified positions.
Mmmm! I love the smell of burning tanks in the morning.
To add insult to injury a F-4 Phantom decided to pay a visit.
Like shooting fish in a barrel!

The Syrians were pounded back to stone age while they did manage to make 1 or 2 points of structural damage to one Israeli bunker. Not much of a "game" but the quick game did let you get reacquinted with the rules.

Janne
(Played: May 9th. GM: Aksu. Syrians: Janne, Mr V. Israelis: Mr H)

Testing a WWII Game

2011-06-18T07:09:00.000-07:00

We tried a new WWII game run by Andy.
The game was somewhat bloody affair even with plenty of terrain on the table and if terrain had been more sparse it would've been a murder.

Two Soviet sections prepare to scout the other end of the table.
The mg in the 2nd floor of the furthest building somewhat dominated the table and the advance of the other section turned into annihilation. Here the other section is pushing forward.

For the death of me I can't even recall the name of the system anymore...
It had its ups and downs but Andy seemed to be the only one that was clearly into the system.

Janne
(Played: April 25th. GM: Andy. Soviets: Janne, Mr V. Germans: Mr H)

Wave after wave aka. Deep Pockets of Minsk

2011-06-18T06:05:00.000-07:00

Continuing immediately where the previous session ended.

German tanks have retreated to new positions. A jerry mg section opened up from the fortified position in an attic and quickly received plenty of machine gun fire from a T-28 silencing the Germans for a while.
The Soviet second wave consisted of four sqauds of infantry, several trucks, two more Klims and a truck with ATG. The KV-2 immediately drove into the only German minefield and was destroyed. Mg fire from German infantry in the attic destroyed all but one of the Russian ATG crew and the last crewmember decided to take a hike. The initial KV-1 in the center was destroyed but the new one seemed imprevious. Soviet infantry was slowly moving forward and situation for the Pzkfw IIIs was getting all the more dire as grenade bundles were starting to expolde in their tracks and on top of the engine compartments.
One of the Pzkfw IIIs managed to slip out as it was facing a hole in the wall. The remaining were pestered by infantry. Soviet trucks seek to evade the field of fire of the same tanks.
As the heavily pounded but unpenetrated KV-1 decides to retreat from the table the Soviet third wave, some infantry and a pair of T-34s, arrive. As some of the much pounded T-26s also start showing signs of activity again the two German Pzkfw IIIs decide to make a break of it by overrunning Soviet infantry with guns ablazing rolling over quite a few and scattering the rest. In the long run this ends badly for both of them.
The crew of the T-28 recovers and decide to try to ram Germans as their main gun was shot to pieces. German return fire stops the tank in the middle of the field and the few infantrymen accompanying it start to have second thoughts.
Soviets have stopped the initial threats but are now milling about in confusion how to proceed.
The crew of the KV-1 rallies itself and the tank returns to battle. However this doesn't change a thing as the Soviets have run out of time to excape from the encirclement and have made little process so far without even encountering the inevitable German infantry (whose numbers they thought were much much bigger than they actually were).

Clear victory for the Germans with the only casualties being the two Pzkfw IIIs that lingered too long in their initial positions. Then again things would've most likely gone a bit differently for them had they known before the game begun that the hull machine guns couldnät be fired over the walls.

As with the previous one a bit one sided a game perhaps, and plenty of the units were concentrated in small area but none the less enjoyable (then again our games definately need not to be balanced). Hidden setup and not knowning the opposing forces certainly always helps to make such games more fun!

Janne
(Played: April 18th. GM: Mr H. Soviets: Aksu, Andy. Germans: Janne)

Out of the Minsk Pocket

2011-03-30T12:00:00.001-07:00

Son of Midtown Madness aka. The Return of Russians

This Battleground WWII scenario is continuation from the previous one. It is now the next morning (June 26th '41). Germans are expecting a breakout and the tanks have been placed in more forward positions. The few infantry units are guarding the eastern bank of the river. All he Jerries are using hidden setup which is kinda nifty as otherwise the Soviets would immediately see how few Germans are opposing them.

The Russian tanks charge into scene trying to escape to... west? The T-26s have tankriders on them.
The ambushing German tanks open up from the close range but do surprisingly little damage. Just one T-26 is ablaze and the command T-26 has had its main gun knowed out (in addition to the crew being stunned). Unfortunately the hull machine guns of PzkfwIIIs are unable to fire over the rock wall.
As the Russian infantry dismounts and hides in the fields the retreating Germans manage to knock out the main gun from both the T'28's and the other starts to put out smoke too -funnily enough from the hits it took from Pzkfw II (apparently some kind of richochets to its underbelly...).
The Germans keep on pounding the Russian tanks but to little visible effect.
While the KV-1 lumbers slowly forward the Germans retreat to new positions with the exception of the Pzkfw IIIs on the right flank.
The Pzkfw IIIs start to attract attention from the Soviet infantry some of whom are creeping towards the tanks and others are looking out for any unhappy tankers to take a peek.

Oops, it seems that no pics were taken during the final round when Soviet second wave came in...

-Janne
(Played: March 28th. GM: Mr H. Soviets: Aksu, Andy. Germans: Mr V, Janne)

More Midtwon Madness at Slonim

2011-03-30T11:47:00.000-07:00

Continued from the previous session

Soviets were bent on destroying German vehicles as they tended to fir eupon them until they ignited.
Burning engineer truck with plenty of explosives usually ends up like this sooner or later. The Germans had already moved away from it but the house next to the explosion did have Soviets in it...
Th remnants of the 2nd engineer squad were hiding in the bush badly beaten, but nevertheless they managed to stop and drive away a squad of Soviets from getting into close combat. At this point the synagogue was attracting plenty of fire from the 1st engineer squad and the command tank from the edge of the twon. The engineers and the tank infantry were also creeping forward equipped with plenty of explosives.
In light of this the Soviets decided tohightail it to the west... To the east you can also just barely see the German tank that was kept at bay by a couple Soviet ATRs.

A clear victory to the Soviets!
Then again, it was nearly impossible to get any other result as the initial ambush is always bound to be devastating! Good stuff anyways, the experimental close combat rules worked reasonably well and certainly made the game quicker. They were adopted from the Too Fat Lardies rules I ain't been Shot Mum.

-Janne
(Played: March 14th. GM: Mr H. Soviets: Aksu, Andy (!). Germans: Mr V, Janne)

Slonim – To Take and Hold

2011-03-30T11:41:00.000-07:00

Still more early Barbarossa Battleground WWII goodness.
Also tried new simplified cc rules.

Germans have encircled a large amount of Soviets around the town of Slonim and are expecting tehm to try to break out. Here we have German tanks supported by some little infantry guarding the railway bridge.
Three truck of engineers arrive to the town along with some AA halftracks. They have orders to secure the remaining bridges.
All the hell breaks loose as Soviets hidden in the town ambush the German convoy. Luckily Molotov coctails have been handed out to butterfingers and all of them explode in the hands of their users! Which doesn't really help the poor jerries shot to pieces at point blank range.
The last AA halftrack drove away from the ambush alley and started setting up in support of an engineer squad but the ambushers just dragged their Maxim to that side of the building and ripped the jerries a new one! The second trcuk halted just after the square and the Germans assaulted the building on the left (a synagogue no less) only to be thrown out.
Flaming German vehicles was the name of the game. The first truck did manage to drive away unscathed and can just barely been seen in the woods outside the town on top left. The ambushing units are placed right next to the building side they are located in since putting them inside these old Warhammer buildings is an impossibility. The last engineer squad that had parked on the other side of the square actually managed to capture the red building and kill/capture the Soviets defending it in a bloody melee.

-Janne
(Played: February 28th. GM: Mr H. Soviets: Aksu. Germans: Mr V, Janne)

Morning Milk

2011-03-30T11:25:00.000-07:00

Another Battleground WWII early Barbarossa scenario from Paul Carrell books.
More or less direct continuation of the previous game.

The area has been shelled and as the dawn breaks a Soviet platoon arrives to the scene in trucks.
The platoon wanders about.
Suddenly a machine gun opens up on one of the Soviet squads and the surviving troops scatter about to the woods.
A lone German MG34 has opened up and caused dissarray in Soviet troops.
While their broken comrades seek shelter in a shellhole more stalvart troopers start to milk the lone cow.
Soviets seek positions here and there and some additional Germans arrive to the edge of the same woods as the MG.
A hut is being contested by both sides. The Germans draw the shorter straw and lose half a squad from their two available squads (that were spending the night in the woods). But the Soviets also have to retreat. In the pic we stll have the Jerries alive but soon some grenades made short order of them.
Having scattered the Soviets from the woods left the Germans press forward. Plenty of Soviets are in no fighting condition (markers: yellow = broken, orange = light wound, pink = gun jammed, green = prone)
The Soviet platoon leader tries to put a sembalance of a line behind the fence while unluckier soldier crawls towards his fellows.
When al the Soviets in the vicinity have been broken, Hans & Jürgen, who had been getting morning milk from the cow when the Soviets arrived, finally arise from the shellhole they were hiding in. They actually were spotted by a broken Soviet soldier running to the safety of the hut (which has it's exterior removed for easier access to troops).
Aksu shows off the fare well present he got from workmates when he left UK, a pipe that has a laser pointer! Would be even nicer if you could smoke with it (even if Aksu doesn't smoke...)
Bits of Soviet resistance that were clobbered into submissing with raking fire from one MG34.
Soviet platoon leader managed to rally himself while Hans and Jurgen were sneaking behing the hut. Since all Soviet squads were broken with 50%+ casualties they weren't going to be rallied permanently and as Germans had lost a quarter of the troops trying to take the hut GM decided that the fate of the battle would quickly be resolved in a close combat extravaganza between the Soviet platoon leader and Hans & Jürgen. Hans was killed but Jürgen clobbered the platoon leader into submission and returned to the other Germans with half a platoon of Soviet prisoners.

Soviets had to endure the initial ambush salvo from the lone MG34 (other Jerries were sleeping at that time) and Janne got pretty darn good results from it. Later on he raked the Soviets into submission with the MG. The other Janne managed to lose half of his already depleted squad (Hans & Jürgen were hiding behind the Soviet lines almost the whole game) which threatened to turn the tide but the remainder of the squad promptly put the end to the Soviet advance.

But had the initial ambush salvo resolved differently the Germans would've most likely been in dire straits since there were so few of them.

-Janne
(Played: February 21st. GM: Mr H. Soviets: Aksu. Germans: Janne times two)

No war today. Prepare some fields instead

2011-02-09T10:30:00.000-08:00

We had a no-show this time with only one player and GM showing up. This was OK since after previous game Janne had started in his spare time a terran project he had been itching to do for ages. Namely fields.

While fields tend to have little effect on games ruleswise they do have an immediate visual effect -miniature gaming is a visual hobby after all. Regular fields and poughed ones were needed.
Building the fields was straightforward enough.
Note: first make a test piece to see how the process works for you after which do a big pile at one go.

For bases you need hardboard and itis cut to preferabe sized pieces. You might be able to have this done for you at the store for a small fee (recommended!), but ours were leftover pieces from our 1808 project. Making the pieces too large is sure to cause excessive warpage and smaller pieces offer more versatility so Janne had opted A4 and A5 sizes for the fields.

If you saw the hardboard to suitable size collect the sawdust. Do the same when you round the edges a bit with sandpaper.

You can make some shallow diagonal cuts with an utility knife to the bottom of the pieces in order to lessen warpage. Be advised that when you try to bend such cut pieces after warping they'll be even more prone to breaking. So always bend such pieces gently!

Ploughed fields are much easier to do than regular fields so let's start with them.
You need:
-suitably textured wallpaper
-sand
-PVA glue

Cut from the grooved wallpaper pieces that ar ethe same size as your hardboard pieces. Then remove some 5mm or so from one long and one short edge so that the wallpaper most certainly will be smaller than the hardboard it'll be glued to and there's no overlap.

Slap some somewhat thinned down PVA to the hardboard and place the wallpaper on it. After a short while you might want to check the pieces and iron out any major wrinkles with your fingers.

When the wallpaper is dry apply some ever so slightly watered PVA to one side of the field so it covers the edge of the wallpaper as well as the side of the hardboard. Dip into sand and repeat with other sides. Naturally if you prefer other scenic products to sand you should use those instead! Let dry until at least this has begun to dry.

Make a thinnish mixture of PVA, water, sand and the sawdust you collected earlier on and slop some on top of the wallpaper to give it more texture. Let dry throughly.

After this you need to paint the pieces. We started it with giving the fields a black basecoat spray after which just used interior acrylics because their obviously much cheaper than the hobby variety. One or two drybrushings with lighter shades should suffice.

With the regular fields you need slightly more stuff:
-uncolored coconut fibre doormat
-some thinnish (1 mm) cardboard
-sand
-PVA glue
-hot glue gun
-some (ready to use) filler

The biggest problem involving a field with crops is that your miniatures won't be able to trample it as would happen in real life when peole run about in fields. The figures will be standing on top of the field instead and this'll look dumb.

Some years ago there was an article about making fields probably in WGI and we lifted the idea for our fields. You need to make a hedgelike frame for the field and separate contents for it. Cutting the contents to several pieces will enable you to remove just what you need in order to place the figures on the field.
Locating suitable doormat might be difficult as most seem to be printed with bizarre designs or garish texts. In desperate situation we imagine those could be painted over but we'd assume that this would be such a bother that we haven't tried it out.

Optimal doormat would come with thin (2-3mm) rubber bottom, but we didn't find any such had natural colored fibre. Tough! Anyhow, such doormat would need little else than just cutting it up to suitable sizes. Anyone who knows where such doormats can be purchased, please DO NOT hesitate to contact us! (gemigabokATthe-ancients.com)

The most suitable doormat we located was Trampa from Ikea costing some 10 euros. On the sides of the bottom Trampa has a really thick layer of rubber or somesuch making those areas unusable, so first you need to cut them away with an utility knife.

Now use one hardboard terrain base as a guide and draw the outlines to the bottom of the doormat with a felt tip pen. Cut away with utility knife. From this piece you first need to cut the edges (~1,5 cm) away to make the frames for the field.

If using Trampa or other doormats with no separate bottom material, glue the non-framing pieces to the thin cardboard with PVA (or hot glue gun if you want to avoid warpage). This is to avoid excessive breaking of the pieces during further cutting.

When at least somewhat dry (after one day the PVA was still somewhat soft, but after two days a bit too hard) remove the excessive cardboard. Then cut the piece in two. Then cut the other of these halves in two. You might even want to cut one such quarter into two. Most probably you need to cut some excess off each piece in order to make them fit your framed field -you could do so while the piece has only the frame removed.

When dry, use filler to mask outlandisly big gaps and paint the filler/cardboard with suitable earthen colors.

During cutting collect the coconut fibre that comes off. Apply watered down PVA to the hardboard and sprinkle some of this fibre to it. After it had dried, basecoat it with black spray but no need to paint yet unless you really want to. This'll represent the trampled down crops when interior pieces are removed from the field to make room for the figures.

Using hot glue gun fasten the field's frame pieces to the sides of the hardboard leaving 1-2mm empty on the sides. If you have some big gaps use some filler to fill them.

Apply some ever so slightly watered PVA to one outer side of the field (between the frame and the edge) and dip into sand and repeat with other sides. When dry, paint the sand green. Naturally if you prefer other scenic products to sand you should use those instead! Paint interior area of the field with suitable earthen colors with one or two drybrushings.

If you make several fields it is most likely useful to mark with a felt tip pen each fieldpiece and hardboard so you'll be able to locate the right pieces for each field even if these get mixed up.

Finally our field revue starts with a platoon of 28mm Bicorne Swedes/Finns painted as Savo Infantry pressing onwards with some skirmishers up front. Trampa is definately best suited for 28mm action!

Moving on to more modern Finns, here an armoured car is speaheading the 20mm Finnish advance. (The soldiers are converted plastic Germans and Russians from various manufacturers).

And finally we have some tank supported 20mm German infantry making headway through the fields.

-Janne
("Played": January 24rd. GM: Janne. Faithful handyman: Mr H.)

Battleground WWII, Barbarossa

2011-01-23T22:39:00.000-08:00

Yet another early war Paul Carell -scenario from Mr H.

At dusk a squad of motorized Germans was left behind from their platoon due to a flat tire. Whe they had made repairs they followed others but failed to notice that these had at one point driven off road in order to make camp for the night. This one squad notices a small village and other trucks disembarking troops in it and stops thereo rest for the night. From the opposite other sides of the road the disembarking troops notice that something is terribly wrong -the troops on the other side of the road are the enemy!

Crappy Gemigabok night-o-vision is again enabled in this blog entry, this time with added tracers and such.

Initial setup.

On second turn the remaining squads of the German platoon arrive as they immediately started following the wayward squad when their truck passed them. The hapless German squad has barred itself in a hut and is getting fire from two squads of Soviets, MG from the one in open and one from the hut. The remaining Soviet squad is flanking the Germans from left.

While the Soviet MG in the open and half of the Soviets in the hut keeps the Germans in the hut pinned the two squads close up on the Jerries. Meanwhile the German reinforcements pile up fire against the Soviet hut which is also partly illuminated by the German truck. The German platoon leader is immediately wounded as is his Soviet counterpart in the hut.

German reinforcements of the leftmost squad have their leader and assistant leader become heroes (the assistant rolls from Knight's Cross!) who decide to to advance towards the Soviets. The other leaders do the same as well and the ones from the rightmost squad get close enough to lob some handgrenades, unfortunately while ying in the ground illuminated by their won truck. Meanwhile the other German squad is pinned by the Soviets that creep closer and closer.

With he truck lights switched off, the Germans assault the hut and majority of Soviets surrender and the Germans start pressing onward.

As the Soviets managed to assault and capture the one German squad furher up they decide to throw a molotow on the German truck and embark ther own trucks and disengage.

Once again good 8 turn scenario from Mr. H. The nightfighting went smoothly but we had some probs with the huts even if they have removable walls/roofs leaving a burned out walls and rubble on the base -some kind of layouts or such need to be done for interiors.

-Janne
(Played: January 17rd. GM: Mr H. Soviets: Mr V. Germans: janne)

Battleground WWII, Barbarossa

2011-01-09T14:12:00.000-08:00

Another early Barbarossa scenario!

Germans press forward and engage Soviet units they manage to locate. Here we have a couple of motorized panzergrenadier squads assisted with pzkfw II rooting a squad of Soviet infantry supoorted by an ATR.

Close by the German panzergenadier squad supported by stug III run across three T-26s (that were already trying to shoot the far away pzkfw II and twice just ever so narrowly missing!).

Pzkfw II lays some hoorendous supressing fire with its autocannon while the panzergenadiers push forward.
The Soviet squad boldly charges forward and manage to kill nearly al lthe German infantry. The driver of the halftrack panics and back the vehicle away despite the protests of the machine gunner. Even the Soviet comissar is impressed by this bold defence of motherland.

However the stug quicly blows up one T-26 and disable one (main gun destroyed and crew abandons the vehicle). As the last remaining T-26 tries to flank the stug from the other side of the forest two Pz 38s arrive and blow it up from the move!

The Soviet infantry is undaunted by this and the platoon leader orders a general charge but dies immediately after. The troops surge forward wanting to avenge their leader and rush over the open dominated by the German panzers into the other woods and make mincemeat oout of the last remaining German infantrymen there.

The Soviet squadleader and two other decide to engage the German halftrack right next to the wood but the lone machinegunner manages to heroically defend his vehicle with his hastily grabbed entrenching tool/rifle thereby killing the last remaining attacking Soviets.

The Soviets were doing reasonably well before the arrival of German reinforcements. At least the ones fightng near stug. On the other end they were receiving a beating. The one squad in the middle didn't do anything else than crawl forward in teh field and then backward when situation beccame hopeless.

Problem is that the objective of the Soviets was to get as many troops out of the board as possible... Well, the players just didn't want to withdraw without any combat and got more involved than thay should've. Great game but horrible blunder for the Soviets.

-Janne
(Played: January 3rd. GM: Mr H. Soviets: Eero, Janne. Germans: Mr V)

Battleground WWII, Barbarossa

2011-01-09T13:36:00.000-08:00

Mr. H gamed us another excellent Battleground WWII scenario which was once again taken from Paul Carell's books.

Set in the inital stages of Operation Barbarossa, the Germans are waiting for the return of their recon unit and since the return seems to be delayed they send some troops eastward looking for it even if the night has fallen. At the same time the Soviets are pushing forward...

The German search party moves eastward in an attempt to locate the missing recon unit.
On the left you can see the game as we played it and on right a modified picture trying to represent what the situation would really have looked like.

At the same time the recon unit enters the table from the east end of the table. All the advancing Soviets have been placed using hidden setup. The exception to this is the T-26's which are following the German scout cars as they believe them to be on their side. On the islet left the Soviet infantry squad has noticed that German recon units are driving by so they open up. In the woods right there is a another T-26 (with the commander of Societ forces IIRC9 who stubborny refuse to believe the Germans to be enemy units (he rolls several critically failed perception rolls) and is puzzled why the infantry are firing at their own scout cars!

The T-26s following the recces finally do recognize the Germans for what they are and promptly shoot the front one to smithereens. The unramed radio car manages to escape however.

One German squad starts to flank from right but in the darkness get charged by a Soviet squad and after shooting their way out of that mess soon get run over by another similar human wave leaving just an odd few seeking a refuge behind a flanking pzkfw III.

The tank duel drags on adn Soviets score multiple hits on one pzkfw III killing the majority of crew but the tank won't ignite and the remaining crew won't abandon the tank either. Other highlights include a German soldier rolling a critical on morale table which means he becomes a hero and the hero table gives him another critical so he becomes a Knight's Cross decorated überjerry (but doesn't really affect the game).

The game was total blast!
The conditions (ie. darkness) REALLY changed the game. With regular lights a vehicle could see 12 inches forward and with dimmed "war lights" 6 inches. Visibility in the forest without any extra illumination was whopping one inch! If another night game is played we certainly have to make paper cutouts for the lights so it'll be immediately apparent how far away the lights extend and at a glance you notice who has lights on and where another forms of illumination is used.

The game actually has strange rules for light pistols since they stay around for 3 turns diminishing every round. This sound like flares to us, not light pistols (all players used both while in the army...).

-Janne
(Played: December 20th. GM: Mr H. Soviets: Mr V. Germans: Janne)

Heeresgeschichtliches Museum, Vienna

2011-01-09T08:44:00.000-08:00

Janne went to Vienna for a weekend so visit to local army museum or Heeresgeschichtliches Museum was in order.

One thing that is prominent in Vienna prior to christmas is the christmas market. It would seem that every open space in the city centre is filled with the small huts selling all sort of christmas related things. It would seem tha a quarter of the huts sell gluchwein and punc which the locals just seem to love. Here's the view in front of the rathaus aka. city hall.

On the left is the gatehouse-esque building in front of the army museum.
On the right is the actual museum building which suprisingly has some near eastern influences.

On the left is the entry hall which has its pillars surrounded by local war heroes.
On the right is the upstairs entry hall with its high dome and paintings.

The photography permit costs around an euro and don't even dream about taking pics without it!
Sorry about the reflections from the cabins. It is more or less unavoidable.

An Austrian dragoon accompanied by infantry officer and private. Note that the infantry uniform is far from pure white, and the felt was really coarse and most certainly off white.

An Austrian grenadier.

On the left a hussar.
On the right, infantry officier, cuirassier and a hussar.

Austrian cuirassier & hussar.

Austrian landwehr.

Helmets for "Offizer der k k Infanteri und deutchen Kavallerie (M 1798)" and saddlecloth.

On left French shako & shako plates.
On right shako of Austrain 5th hussars that a cannonball went through on April 13th 1814. Note how flimsy the construction is. Just thin cardboard covered with a layer of velvet.

Some more captured French items, eagles, flags and headgear. Note how ever so thin and worn out the flag on the left is (like majority of the flags in the museum).

Some Austrian uniforms and muskets.

An Austrian flag.

On the left an Austrian flag of unusual design (for some reason the (#%¤! Blogger turns this picture 90 degrees...).
On the right A) Royal Pologne regiment (War of the Austrian Succession), B) & C)Prussian infantry- & cuirassierregiment no. 1 (both from the time of King Friedrich Wilhelms I), D) Bavarian cuirassierregiment (Törring ?) (18th c), E) French dragonregiment Orleans (War of the Austrian Succession).

On the left Sabre m1765 resting on top of drum, 1750.
And on the right guidons for 6 cuirassier regiments: Kürassierregiment Erzherzog Leopold, Kürassierregiment Josef Graf Lucchesi d'Abarra, Kürassierregiment Erzherzog Leopold, Kürassierregiment Franz III. d'Este Herzog von Modena, Kürassierregiment Karl Paul Graf Pálffy ab Erdöd and Kürassierregiment August Marchese Voghera.

The only aeroplane in the museum as well as an exquisetely ornamented revolver.

Some nazi embroidery and SS camo-uniform.

A couple of posters from the WWI & II exhibitions. "And you?" and "Today Red -Tomorrow Dead! Vote Anti-Marxists"

The museum also had plenty of material from 30 Years War as well as older arms and armor. Both local and Turkish. Unfortunately the tanks in the inner yard were not accessible as the yard is closed during winter months.

-janne
(Visited 27th November)

Christmas game: Scramble!

2011-01-09T07:06:00.000-08:00

Besides having some booze the Gemigabok Christmas games (almost every organization in Finland tends to organize pre-Christmas parties) have traditionally often involved games of several aspects of warfare, ie gemigabok in land, sea and air, but this year we decided to stick with the air theme.

After our success with the WWI campaign played with Canvas Eagles rules we've been discussin about finding a WWII aerial game that is fast and has a good feel to it. Also running a Winter War campaign has been discussed, but with a different approach than the previous campaign where players were playing either Allies of Central Powers. Perhaps every player might be able to have their own Finnish flight and if the flight wasn't active the player would then be playing the opposing Soviet planes. Also when using just Soviet bombers most likely no player would be actually needed for them...

In light of this Aksu has been pining for quite long time to give the Scramble! -rules a try. To this effect he also prepared the necessary 1/300, or 6mm, planes and two scenarios.

The first scenario was kinda themed for the event, it being a Winter War battle. It featured two flight of three Soviet SB-2s on a bombing run and two sections of Finnish Fiat G.50s trying to down them.

Here we have all the Finns concentrating on the righmost SB-2 flight.
Scratch one bomber! However the other SB-2 formation manages to slip past the Finns and bomb the target with little harrasment.
The second game had a section of Finnish Blenheims on raid escorted by two Fiats and intercepting these were three Soviet I-153 Chaikas with one of the pilots being a veteran from Spanish Civil War flying a newer model of the plane. This was supposed to be a Winter War game too, but as Aksu had erranously painted the Blenheim's with green/black camo (instead of plain green) it was decided that the battle was from Continuation War.

The Soviet veteran is harrasing the Blenheims on the end of their bombing run but is tailed by Fiat in turn. One of the Soviet wingmen is trying to get on Fiat's case too, but is still way too high. I think the remaining fighters were badly damaged and more or less withdrew from the action.

We used the random initial placement and this clearly gave the bombers a HUGE advantage, especially as the bombers used were quick and the fighters weren't. In future games rolling table will have to be used as movement distances per turn are so long.

The games went pretty well and the system is not that different from the free ruleset, Sturmovik Commander. However I'd be willing to bet that Sturmovik Commander is somewhat quicker. Both are definately good systems that we'll have to replay. Preferably immediately after one another. Perhaps we could even incorporate some of the better features from one to another?

-Janne
(Played: November 24th GM: Aksu. Also present: Eero, Janne, JaNNe, Mr H. & Mr V)

Epic Armageddon WWII test

2011-01-09T06:47:00.000-08:00

For quite some time now whenever we've played a larger scale game Mr V has occasionally said that GW's Epic system has several nice features in it and that these might work well in historical games too.

In light of this when we had a queit clubevening with low attendance we decided to give the rules a test drive to see how they would function.

We had a bunch of Russians (T-34s accompanied with infantry) attacking the defending Germans, who might, or might not, have had some anti-tank capability. Most likely not. Since we didn't have need for that large a gaming area we just decided to ue whatever we had left from the previous game. Heh, on the second pic you can actually clearly see a mine right next to the Russian infantry unit's yellow markers.

Initial setup & the rules.

Russian tank rider are about to assault Germans. The Russian infantry unit has taken quite a lot of incoming fire and is struggling to reorganize itself.

Overall the rules worked quite well even if only Mr V had had previous experience with them. Then again, we just concentrated on the bare basics. Best thing would be the speed of the game so I'm guessing that the biggest benefit with the use of the ruleset would come from the availability to play bigger battles quicker than previously. The success of the system certainly warrants additional games with the system!

-Janne
(Played: November 8th. GM & Germans: Mr V. Soviets: Janne)

Battleground WWII, Jatkosota 1944

2011-01-08T08:02:00.000-08:00

Mr H had dug up a suitable scenario that also could be played with the same terrain we used previously. The events are again from the same book.

During the Russian offensive of '44 a Finnish T-34 is sent to the front and as they approach an opean area they notice a squad of engineer mining the road ahead. The tank commander and one other crewmember walk to these to have a chat with them to find ut the situation. The tank is parked in the forest right next to the road.

"What-ho chaps! What seems to be the general situation here? We've been ordered to advance and give support to troops ahead."
"Ain't nuthin' but Ruskies ahead! If ya wanna head there it is on your own head"
"Ensign, sah! Ah though the tank Lt. just said that they arrived with one tank. Ah reckon' they just sent some extras to help 'em out..."
"Bloody hell! It is the Ruskies! Scram!"
And with the previous comment the truck drive hits the pedal to the metal and the only one making it to the truck is the engineer ensign. Together they flee the battlefield.
The remainder of engineers dart forward to the forest ahead asthe small forest behind them actually houses two PAK 40s and they don't want to be next to them when they begin to draw fire. The Tank men start rushing towards their tank.
To make matters worse a line of infantry emerges the forest east of the field and start running across! Luckily they turn out to be Finns who take the positions in the cover of the field next to the PAKs.
The combined fire of the undermanned tank and the PAKs wreak havok on the Russians. When the tank commnader reaches the T-34 he immediately rushes forward and finishes the last remaining Russian tank from point blank.

A very intense scenario with plenty of surprises for both sides. Good stuff!

-Janne
(Played: October 11th. GM: Mr H. Soviets: Mr V. Finns: Janne)

Battleground WWII, Jatkosota 1941

2011-01-08T07:09:00.000-08:00

Eero had nicked a scenario from Reino Lehväslaiho's more or less autobigraphical book, Panssarisotaa (Tank Warfare). During the late summer 1941 a platoon Finnish BT-5/7 tanks supported by platoon of jaegers (who are naturally bicycle mounted) have been given orders to ruthlessly push forward. While the term ruthlessly became almost a joke during 1941 as it was so overused in the orders, I'm sure it was far from funny to receive such orders!

First a couple of views on the initial round as the jaegers reach the open area.

The first squad is practically annihilated by the ambush Russians spring from the woods left.
As infantry advances in the ditches along the road, the tanks trundle forward and become targets theselves as an AA gun opens up from the forest on opposite side of the field. An AT gun joins up and quickly the road fills with burning tank wreckage.
A couple of jaeger squads start flanking the Russian infantry.
View from the Russian ATG. It might've even been destroyed by the last remaining finnish BT.

The Russians really gave the Finn a sound trashing. The rapid firing AA & AT guns firing from ambush do really nasty work against thinly armoured tanks like BT-5/7.

-Janne
(Played: September 28th. GM: Eero. Soviets: Mr H & Mr V(?). Finns: Janne & JaNNe)

Form Line of Battle

2011-01-08T06:49:00.000-08:00

After the summer vacations Aksu was again around and we played a napoleonic naval game with Form Line of Battle -rules. Now we could benefit from the fact that when we removated the tables we painted them blue with several layers of gloss varnish just for this purpose.

Anyhow, it was a local game set in Finnish archipelago in 1808 where combined forces of Swedish and English seapowers duked it out with Russian ships coming surprisingly from west and thus blocked the retreat route of the former.

This initial formation caused plenty of grievance in the beginning of the game as one Swedish ship ran aground right away as the rock was just a few centimetres from their point of entry.
The Russians used much more sensible initial line formation.

This battle went narrowly to the allied forces, the big British ship certainly being the decisive factor. Everyone was pretty brutally mauled but they managed to limp off the table with one captured Rusian vessel.

The system is fairly quick and starightforward even for landlubbers. Plenty of hilarity usually ensues when every player command his own ship and positions it in places where it causes problems for the movement of his compatriots.

The biggest problem is that biggesr ships tend to be night invulnerable dreadnoughts that enemy is unable to damage in any way and, IIRC; as the same stats are used for shooting, they also tend to pulverize the opposition at the same go.

-Janne
(Played: September 13th. GM: Aksu. Russians: Mr V & Eero & Andy (?). Brits: Janne. Swedes: Aksu)

Battleground WWII

2011-01-08T06:21:00.000-08:00

Long time no hear -no rest for the idle, eh?

I'm in the process of updating most of the games we played during the last 6 months, but I do believe that a game or two might've gone missing due to either pics not taken or by the meltdown of my previous camera and the subsequent dissaperance of all the pics within.

Due to plenty of time elapsed between the games and these reports I'm sure that I'll get even more details than usually wrong but that is just unfortunate.

I'm pretty sure that before this game we played one with the same terrain where my Russian infantry was putting up a desperate fight against Mr V's invading German infantry that was supported by AFVs. The turning point in that battle was the lone BA-10 in the town which drove up and, astonishingly for a Russian ADV, destroyed one of the German AFVs (halftrack?) on the move. The game also involved plenty of Russian ATG dragging in the woods, wich amounted to nothing.

In this game the Russians are still holding the same positions, but now the Jerry tanks are advancing from opposite directing having gone around the Russians. Luckily the Ruskies are also getting armoured support.

The German panzers boldly race forward and get immediate results as the lumbering T-35 ignites.
Russians hustle & bustle in the woods while they again drag their support weapons around. You can also just barely see the front corner of the BA-10 behind the rightmost building.
While part of the Germans use cover and pound the Russians into submission, the res flank the Russians.
One German is hit while flanking though.
Flambeé Russo, German style.
Comrade Aksu, the "victorious" Russian tank commander.

IIRC, a clear and decisive victory for the gitlerites, even if the Russians on the other side of the river were saved by not being able to partake in the battle.

-Janne
(Played: June 9th. GM: Mr H. Soviets: Aksu, Janne. Germans: Mr V)

BKC Bagration Campaign, Scenario 6

2010-06-08T11:44:00.000-07:00

The game moves a tad to west while the Germans retreat from previous scenario (the ruined town in east is the same as previous scenarios) while the Russians push onwards.

The big green area in the south is a depression which also contains some rather big pits (anti tank works or some such perhaps?)

The setup. The main force of the Jerries seem to be located in the depression but there are some in the big forest in the north as well.
End of the first turn. Heavy Russian artillery decimated German infantry in the depression but the Russians failed to move. The more northern Russian formation started off pretty quickly and it's assault guns even reached the safety of the smoke. Jerries in the depression decided to do a tactic withdrawal.
Two Russian battalions trundling onwards.
The Germans are retreating in orderly fashion.
The southernmost Russian formation moves it's tanks between the two formations. Although not visible, a Russian flank march is about to arrive from the north of the big forest.
The Germans in the depression retreat a bit an knock off a couple of the Russian tank platoons.
Their own smoke hampers the Russian ability to move and thus the northernmost formation stays put.
Turn three. Russian move their smoke a bit but the foremost battalion refuses to advance. The on behind doesn't and thus the two start to intermingle -we decided that it is probably wise to mark the units of the latter. The Russian flank march turned out to be a dummy, but the Jerries still decided to keep on legging it.
Russian FO gets the Germans in his sights and calls in a barrage that knocks off a couple of AA trucks and a half-track.
In the current game we decided to tweak with the visibility rules a bit and when the German players were reminded of this they showed off their frustration by turning their retreat into a counter attack, which at least started off well enough since the remainder of the Russian tanks were ablaze in no time!
Beware the fury of the enraged Tigers. Grrr!

-Janne
(Played: May 31st, Russians: Andy, Janne, Germans: Chris, Mr V)

1st Annual Ronnie James Dio Memorial Heavy Metal Challenge

2010-05-25T13:40:00.000-07:00

Before this gaming session we heard that the heavy metal legend Ronnie James Dio had passed away the previous day. Mr H decided to honour the awesome career of this great man by oganizing our 1st Annual Ronnie James Dio Memorial Heavy Metal Challenge game.

He decided to pick from his giganormous 20mm collection the heaviest tanks and organized a slugfest for the rest of us. Unfortunately only few of us could attend. Andy came in a bit late and thus was assigned, unbeknownst to Mr V to hidden Russian reserve and our club's biggest Dio fan, Eero (who just got to have been in every Dio concert in Finland since mid-eighties), didn't unfortunately make it to the game. My guess is that since we gt just automated replies from him during the whole day he must've been so devastated that he didn't make it to work.

We quickly altered the terrain from the previous BKC games and used Battleground WWII and until tanks were identified all German tanks were represented by PzKpfw IVs and Russians by T-34s. W Germans were in a town and Janne decided that even without any orders the objective of the Russians in 1945 would be to attack.

Here we have the right side of the Russian attack, two ISU-122s darting through marshy area from the cover of one forest to another.

The left flank of Russian attack consisted of IS-3 and a trio of IS-2s (still unidentified).
On the German right flank there was two Jagdtigers, the leftmost of which was still unindetified.
Mr V started shooting and kept rolling so brilliantly that he would've succeeded blowing up the Russian tanks even with the PzKpfw IVs, let alone with a duo of Jagdtigers and trio of King Tigers. Here we have some bonfires consisting of IS-3 and IS-2. The ISU-122s on the other flank fared no better. On the ridge behind you can see the two SU-100s that were using hidden setup. Andy controlled these and did some marvelous shooting with them.
Since it was noticed that the Russian armament was absolutely unable to penetrate the front armor of the German tanks Janne had no other choice than to try to drive like the wind through the open killing ground to engage the flanks of the Germans in the town.

Below we have some close quarter tank fighting between two Jadgtigers and the sole IS-2 to make it to the town. Due to the silly order of resolving things after scoring a hit Janne noticed that his shot had actually been targeting the real wheel and thus missed as it was fired on the building -particularly nice as this was more or less outside the IS-2's fire arc...
Nevermind the more numerous Russian casualties, the moral victory goes to the Ruskies as they managed to destroy Mr V's lone Maus. While Janne was directing ever more tanks to the German left flank Mr V decided to drive this monstrosity from the center closer to the threat and exposed it's flank to Andy's hidden SU-100s which promptly destroyed it even if the German propaganda tried to claim that the destruction was only due to electrical malfunction caused by simultaneous movement and turning of the turret.
After losing his only veteran crew Mr. V decided to evacuate the remaining tanks.

Casualties were:
Russian side: IS-3, IS-2, ISU-122, one immobilized IS-2 and ISU-122
German side: PzKpfw VIII

-Janne
(Played: May 17th, GM: Mr H, Russians: Andy, Janne, Germans: Mr V)

BKC Bagration Campaign, Scenario 5, Part 2

2010-05-25T13:31:00.001-07:00

Although the game was clearly going to the Russians some of us decided to play an extra session to see what would actually happen if few more turns were played.

Basically the whole game turned to be a big game of cat and mouse between the Tiger company and the Russian tank battalion moving around the village.
The few Germans on the northern side of the river broke and near the village the merry-go-around continued.

-Janne
(Played: May 10th Russians: Andy Germans: Janne & Mr V)

BKC Bagration Campaign, Scenario 5, Part 1

2010-05-05T13:55:00.000-07:00

During the night the Soviets have aggressively probed the German defences from the North and in the woods to the West of the river. A few kilometers to the North and South of the battlefield motorized formations of SS troops counterattacked the Soviet spearheads, failing to dislodge them. As the dawn approaches and a veil of mist hangs over the river, both sides prepare for another grueling day of battle.

Situation before the game begins.

A more general view.

Town from other direction and German prepared positions southwest from it.

Russian infantry crosses the river in the cover of the morning mist. The preliminary rocket and artillery bombardment was rather brutal and it was followed by heavy smoking. Plenty of German units were either destroyed or supressed, like the commander of the sporadic German defence north of the river.

Russian infantry makes it across the river in the first turn, but luckily the tank commander and their CIC both fail command rolls. However Germans are in no shape to do anything.

The Russian rockets continue to grind Germans to mincemeat.

The Russian tank commander rolls snake eyes for activation and speeds up to conter the previous turn's delay.

Luckily the German Nebelwerfers hit their (preplanned?) strike dead on among the tanks making short work of all save one platoon of tankriders. The tanks themselves are unscratched. On the north side of the river the massive Russian attack isn't really making any progress. One veteran German platoon manages to stubborny hold on basically due to russian smoke as the Russians behind it aren't able to see it and thus close assault it.

Russian Katjushas move to pound the easternmost Gemrans and does short work of all non-digged in infantry. Threat of Russian flank attack from the west has now materialized, despite of plenty of German reserve units, artillery assets and mines being loctaed just off board in that direction. The German commits Tigers to counter the Russian tank threat.

Overview of the game area after the 3rd round.

Here's the Kampfgruppe commander's final report:
07:20,
26.6.1944, Near Orsha
KG v Vuolle,
Radio report to 4th Army HQ

Strong Soviet forces crossed the river in D5-E6 area under the cover of morning mist. One reinforced battalion crossed the river at D5 with assault boats. Tank battalion with tank riders crossed at E6 using assault bridges. There is also one Soviet infantry battalion in C4 area, but so far they have done nothing.

Assault is supported by overpowering amounts of artillery. There is at least one brigade on rocket launchers and several battalions on other artillery units. Soviet artillery has caused heavy losses, especially to our command units and destroyed all communications to our supporting artillery.

Remants of the 2nd Kompanie in the north are retreating, covered by heroic rearguards. Main line in the south is under heavy pressure, but still holding.

Our prepared artillery strikes seem to have saved the line from being overrun, and destroyed the infantry supporting the Soviet tank battalion.

Tigers are counterattacking.

German losses 5 infantry and 7 vehicle platoons. Also 2 headquarters and 2 artillery observers. Russian tank rider battalion annihilated, other forces lost only 1 vehicle platoon.

-Janne
(Played: May 3rd Russians: Andy & Mr H. Germans: Chris, Janne & Mr V)

BKC Bagration Campaign, Scenario 4

2010-04-20T10:52:00.000-07:00

Wanna play this scenario?
Get the needed documents from the Gemigabok site

In order to break the encircled Kampfgruppe and other troops German Corps had assembled an ad hoc formation that was going to push towards east while the encircled troops would also simultaneously attack the encircling Russians.

This game was to be more or less twice the size than the previous games, with Germans having roughly 5000 points and Russians 3000 points worth of troops. Due to the size the game it took 2 game nights to play it through. naturally terrain building and pre-game planning took a sizeable chunk from the first session. The games took place the two previous Mondays and we had a sizeable turnout in the first.

Below's the general situation at the start of the game.
The Germans are marked blue:
A: Two companies of motorized infantry and engineers in half-tracks (Mr. V)
B: Tiger Company. Also formation A's artillery in the woods. (Mr. V)
C: Kampfgruppe's flanking detachment, a motorized infantry in half-tracks (Janne)
D: Corps Ersatzabteilung consisting of a battalion of mixed infantry (Waffen SS, railway and Luftwaffe (?) troops. (Chris)
E: A lookout detachment. (Janne)

The Russians are marked red:
F: Battalion of infantry (Mr. H)
G: Battalion of infantry (Eero)
H: Battalion of infantry supported by two assault gun platoons (Andy)
First turn. You can barely see the lookout formation (E) in the front. Formation A's artillery support is likewise barely visible in the forest further away.
First turn looking from the other direction. Nebelwerfers have smoked the village and Chris has entered the table with the first units of the Ersatzabteilung (D).
Kampfgruppe's flanking detachment (C) seems to be making good progress and the Russians seem to be somewhat in disarray due to this threat from the flank.
The situation soon changes as the flanking detachment (C) rolls poorly for commands and the Russians drive the SU-85 assault gun (part of H) to greet the Jerries. Further away you can see Chris' Ersatzabteilung (D) which made extremely slow progress due to multiple failed command rolls, command fumble as well as Russian artillery fire and fire from the SU-122 (H) in the village. Andy commanding the Russian CIC and detachment H proved to be überfumblemeister as he managed to fumble twice during the same turn -beating that achievement will take some time!
Mr. V's main force (A) grinds over the first platoons or poor Mr. H's battalion -the German attack clearly progresses.
The flanking detachment (C) and Ruskies (G) start a never ending exchange of upper hand which involves just a few destroyed units but plenty of failed command rolls and even a fumble from Janne. Here German veterans are about to start shooting at the SU-85 with Panzerfausts, but they soon were plastered themselves.
The lookout detachment E has, according to orders, moved to inspect the Russian minefield behind the bridge and it unfortunately was revealed to be a proper one.
Mr. V's juggernaut (A) trundles onward effectively making short work of Mr. H's remaining troops (F).

After 4 turns it was time to call it a day.
German losses 1 infantry and 3 vehicle platoons.
The Russian battalion in south (F) has reached its breakpoint, but didn't yet fail the first command roll.

Here's the Kampfgruppe commander's report after the battle:
25.6.1944, Near Orsha
KG v Vuolle,
Radio report to 4th Army HQ

Kampfgruppe elements have taken the E7 forest. Russian battalion in the area almost destroyed, only couple of platoons are still resisting. Tiger company is moving to the E6 bridge. KG has suffered only minor losses to the heavy Russian artillery fire.

Flanking company and Ersatzabteilung from the west are just reaching the western edges of D5/D6 forests. Their reports are confusing and there seems to have been some blunders.

KG is prepared to support the 432nd division with artillery, and other units if required. Hopefully they can hold the line as we didn't take many troops from their reserves.

As Mr. V's infantry (A) has made steady progress the Tiger Company also starts to move towards the bridge which still is guarded by the minefield as assault engineers had been busy making flambé out of Ruskies (F).
After two turns the Russian morale broke and they ran to the hills. Below are the final positions of engaged troops.

Kampfgruppe's flanking detachment (C) had started to engage with the Russians (G) for the control of the forest but neither could keep the upper hand for more than one turn -extremely enjoyable and hair-raising situation. The main advantage was that the flanking attack tied up half of the Russian armour to fight against it instead of Ersatzabteilung's PzKpfz IV's.

The flanking detachment (C) lost one platoon of infantry and halftracks. The Russians (G) lost one platoon of infantry.
Mr. V's troops (A) have now rolled over all of Mr. H's battalion (F) and is preparing to engage Andy's battalion (H) while Mr. V's engineers are beginning to clear the minefield blocking the bridge that is preventing Tigers from crossing the river. The attack had progressed almost optimally and advanced some 10 centimeters each turn.

German (A) losses were a platoon of 234/1's while Russians (F) lost a battalion of infantry.
Chris's Ersatzabteilung (D) was extremely unwilling to advance and only moved less than 5 centimeters per turn. It also lost one platoon of PzKpfz IV's to Russian SU-122 platoon (H) located in the village.

Just prior to the game ending Ersatzabteilung (D) finally got into contact with enemy infantry in the woods and field (H) and managed to destroy a few of these without own losses.

Here's the Kampfgruppe commander's final report:
25.6.1944,
Near Orsha
KG v Vuolle,
Report to 4th Army HQ

Kampfgruppe has taken the crossroads and the bridges as ordered.

Events:
As previously reported, strong Soviet force was defending the crossroad area and the northern crossing. The strength was confirmed as one regiment of infantry with strong mortar support and some assault guns. During the battle enemy minefields were verified at both crossing sites. Enemy also received heavy artillery and air support.

KG made an diversionary flank attack from north with one mechanized company group. The company managed to engage and hold a reinforced Soviet battalion north of the river, while suffering only light casualties.

KG's attack was supported from the west by Korps Ersatzabteilung. This battalion sized unit threatened to quickly rush Soviet defences west of the village. However, it seems that command confusion within the adhoc abteilung slowed down the attack significantly. When Soviets reacted with couple of infantry companies supported by assault guns, artillery and air forces, the attack was virtually stopped. Luckily the abteilung managed to avoid heavy casualties and with sheer volume of fire destroyed several Soviet infantry platoons. Unfortunately the abteilung didn't reach the forest before Soviet retreat.

KG's main attack was launched from south-east. Assault was made by Pioneers, supported by Heer infantry company and all available mortar and Infantry gun units. Almost perfectly timed Nebelwerfer strike, together with ruthless infantry assault cleared the small forests up to the first river crossing.

Just as Soviet reinforcements were reported approaching from the east, the Tiger company started to cross the river. Heavy Tigers moving across Soviet minefield without serious problems seemed to be too much for the remaining Soviet forces. The enemy forces started retreating northwards and the battle was over.

With this retreat the area was secured and Soviet reinforcements withdrew back to the east.

I want to specially mention the commander of the 4.Kompanie, who led the main assault almost flawlessly.

KG situation:
Unit has suffered minor losses and is tired, but is still ready for limited combat operations.
Losses;
HQ: platoon of 234/1's,
2K: platoon of infantry
3K: platoon of 251/1's
Ersatzabt.: platoon of Pz IV's

Enemy situation:
Infantry regiment, heavy losses. Remnants retreating northwards.

It seems, not knowing the Russian set-up or plans though, that the larger game might be working a bit better than the previous smaller ones as an occasional blunder here or there doesn't have THAT much effect on the whole game since there are quite a few commands.

Finally, I really enjoyed how the game was going with my flanking company and the Russians -the whole situation seemed so very balanced and many times just when one side seemed to grasp the upper hand he immediately lost it evening the situation again. Good stuff!

-Janne
(Played: April 12th & 19th Russians: Andy, Mr H. & Eero (only on 19th) Germans: Chris, Janne, Mr V)

BKC Bagration Campaign, Scenario 3

2010-03-30T09:50:00.000-07:00

Wanna play this scenario?
Get the needed documents from the Gemigabok site.

Kampfgruppe was retreating towards west and before meeting own troops, the recce elements encountered enemy forces occupying river crossings and it looked like the Kampfgruppe would have to smash trough the enemy lines. However, besides command stands, of the Russian troops only those that were immediately visible for Germans started the game on the table.

It seemed that the Russians had laid minefields on both bridges. In the north Germans had just a token force consisting of several platoons of Pumas as well as all the Kampfgruppe's engineers who were supposed to tie Russian forces and not seriously engage them. More to the south a mechanized and Tigers companies were planning on ruthlessly pushing over the bridge. These would be supported by the one mechanized company on the southern side of the river.Germans are pressing on. It seems that there are some Russians defending the bridge but nothing that the Kampfgruppe shouldn't be able to handle.
Russians support arms make their appearance, Heavy mortars hammer a platoon of Sdkfz 251/17 flaks and Sturmoviks boldly attack the Tiger company. This is however followed by mechanized AAA company in addition to the other AAA assets nearby and the Sturmoviks are shortly shot down in flames (was there around 32 dice worth of AAA directed against the IL2's...?)
The Russian mortars kept on pounding the paralyzed German mechanized company to smithereens. The company commander failed to get any commands through and the CIC managed to further order it twice, and only once per turn. One half-track is bravely trying to scout whether the minefield is real or a fake one, and has just made it to the edge of the minefield after which the CICs attempt for 2nd command ends in failure and the Russians promptly dispose of it.
The other mechanized company on the other side of the river has just cleared the first woods of the Russians, barring one scout. Meanwhile the first platoons from the Pumas & engineers from the north start to arrive to the vicinity of other Germans.
A Platoon of SU122 is lurking about in the village and opens up against the Tigers during the German move but fails to do damage. Instead of waiting for the German retaliation it decides to move back in on the Russian turn and the Tigers, surprising everyone, fail to destroy it.
The southernmost German mechanized company gets a command blunder and everyone decides to assault the lone scout platoon...
...which quickly proceeds to open up a XL sized can of whup-assksy killing the assaulting Germans and driving almost all the others off-table. Since units forced off-table are considered to be casualties scenario wise this brings the Germans 1 point from the break point of the Kampfgruppe.
The company commander of the badly mauled other mechanized finally manges to get not one but two commands through and quickly retreats his remaining troops off table. Other German companies do likewise ending the game in sound Russian victory.

Kampfgruppe commander's report after the battle:
25.6.1944, Near Orsha
KG v V,
Report to 4th Army HQ

Kampfgruppe has failed to recapture crossroad and bridges as ordered.

Events:
Strong Soviet force was found defending the crossroad area and the northern crossing. The strength is estimated as one regiment of infantry with strong mortar support and some assault guns. During the battle enemy minefields were spotted at both crossing sites.

Trying to surprise the enemy, KG swiftly attacked the southern bridge with one company supported by Tigers, while the other company attacked the enemy flank south of the river. During approach we were attacked by several Sturmoviks, but our effective Flak units destroyed or drive of all of them.

However, the main attack was repulsed with heavy losses from Soviet mortars and heavy machine guns at the crossing. Our own artillery was timely, but ineffective. The Flank attack progressed better until a rash attack ordered by company commander run into Soviet ambush in the woods. The whole company retreated in disorder and with heavy casualties.

With both attacks repulsed, KG disengaged.
I have relieved the commander of 2.Kompanie, due gross-incompetence during the attack.

KG situation:
Unit has suffered heavy losses, but is still ready for limited combat operations.

Losses;
1K: platoon of 250/9's,
2K: two platoons of infantry, platoon of 250/1's
3K: platoon of infantry, platoon of HMG's, two platoon's of 251/17 (only Hans Jurgen Hellmann's platoon "survived")
4K: platoon of 251/2's

Enemy situation:
Infantry regiment, few losses (about 1 company)

-Janne
(Played: March 22nd Russians: Andy, Chris, Mr H. Germans: Janne, Mr V)

BKC Bagration Campaign, Scenario 2

2010-03-10T11:41:00.000-08:00

Wanna play this scenario?
Get the needed documents from the Gemigabok site.

Some rough preliminary info from the GM regarding the overall situation:
After the previous battle both sides regrouped and reorganized their forces. Large numbers of Soviet troops moved into preliminary positions for the river crossing operation next morning. The German 432 Infantry division, with three battalion-sized regiments and eight operational StuG's dug in as well as it could, into a defence in shallow depth.

05:30 in the morning the sky opened up with the dreaded preliminary bombardment by the Soviet artillery. The Guards mortar companies were now in action, their salvos plastering the German front lines. Long range artillery fire from large caliber guns churned up suspected German supply and command positions, even individual crossroads were blasted with massive concentrations of shells.

06:00 the Red air force joined the fray. While the artillery and engineers were covering the entire riverfront with a thick smoke barrier, the air force strafed and bombed flak positions, field hospitals, artillery positions, and anything moving in the open in the German rear. All communication to the Divisional HQ was lost.

07:00 Offering fierce resistance the Germans were able to contain most of the advancing first wave of Soviets trying to cross the river, but in the north the front was thrown into total confusion. A brigade of fast T34's and at least two regiments of russian infantry are streaming into the German rear.

For the first time we gave a try for a formation specific breakpoints in addition to the army wide general breakpoint. Units getting 80% casualties that still kept on going against all odds seemed kinda odd, hence this house tule.

The start of the scenario. Russian forces (battalion of T-34/85's with a battalion of tank riders and a battalion of motorized infantry are starting from the upper left corner while German troops o the Kampfgruppe are located on the ridge with a company strength infantry occupying the village.
Russians trundle onwards covering most of their their flank with smoke, but the German FO and Tiger company open fire on the visible units. Artillery fire is not that effective due to long deviation distances (the further the target is the more the stike deviates).

Here is the view from the killing fields.
And here are the big cats doing the killing.
In the cover of smoke the Russians determinately trundle onwards bypassing the German wire from the flank. The Germans occupying the village also join the fray.
But trying their 3rd activation on the turn the Germans defending the village make a command blunder and the affected units (all dug-in infantry, infantry gun equipped Hannomag as well as mortar Hannomag further away decide to retreat a bit towards the own lines thus exposing themselves to the enemy. The Russians immediately dispose of the mortar Hannomag (totally off picture troughout this report).
Despite heavy losses tirst Russian tanks reach the river even if vast majority of tank riders have dismounted in panic because of the fire directed at the tanks. Infantry in truck tended to be less fortunate.

Tigers keep on pounding the Russians concentrating on the two tanks platoons containing the bridging equipment. Firing advancing enemy to their flank from the prepared positions in a forested ridge must be the optimum usage and the overall feeling is like shooting fish in a barrell!
The German fire pummels the Russians over their breakpoint. The only German casualty was the panic stricken platoon of 251/2's.
The Russian disaster from another angle.
Throughout the game both sides goth reports what was happening in the immediate vicinity of game table. It seemed that a Divisional sized Russian unit broke through German lines on German left and started to get to the rear of Kampfgruppe. Also the German 432. Division in front of KG also broke and started legging it towards German right.

If the Russians had managed to stay on for a turn or two more each turn they apparently would've started receiving 1-2 infantry battalions reinforcements that were breaking through 432. Division and the Germans would've been forced to make a hasty retreat instead of just starting to think that a retreat might be in order due to overall situation. But unfortunately now it wasn't much of a battle but a massacre...

Kampfgruppe commander's report after the battle:
25.6.1944, Near Orsha
KG v V,
Report to 4th Army HQ

Kampfgruppe has stopped Russian attempts to encircle southern parts of the 432nd division, and is covering its retiring elements.

Events:
Strong Soviet forces broke trough 432nd divisions defences in the morning. With this success enemy immediately committed armoured units of regimental strength in our sector, and approximately brigade-divisional strength north of our sector. The northern force is advancing very fast and threatens to dislocate all German defences in the area.

Russian tank regiment and up to two battalions of infantry tried to encircle 432nd divisions forward defences. The KG was positioned perfectly against just this kind of operation. The KG managed to quickly destroy Russian forces, mainly by effective fire of the Tiger company.

Because of Soviet success in the north, the KG has started to relocate according to the previous plans.

KG situation:
After some rest and minor resupply unit is fully combat ready.
Losses: platoon of 251/2's

Enemy situation:
Tank battalion (T-34/85's), 80%+ losses
Infantry battalion, 80%+ losses
Infantry battalion (motorized), 80%+ losses

Closing comments from the GM:
After a successful action the Aufklarungsabteilung is retreating to new positions as ordered by the Korps HQ. The first elements of the abteilung move towards grid D4, full of confidence after decimating a powerful Soviet armored thrust without losses.

As the recce elements at the fore of the German force cross the river and drive into the beautiful birch woods lining the road, all hell breaks loose around them - bundles of hand grenades are thrown into the open topped halftracks, panzerfausts scream through the air and slam into the thin sides of the recce vehicles. Soon the woods are filled with thick oily smoke and the screams of wounded Germans, punctuated by the dull thuds of hand grenades and the sharp cracks of rifle fire.

The commander of the platoon of Pumas on the bridge eyes the scene with disbelief and grabs his radio operator: "Hansen, we have a problem".

BKC Bagration Campaign, Scenario 1 (Part 2)

2010-03-07T05:53:00.000-08:00

Wanna play this scenario?
Get the needed documents from the Gemigabok site.

Two weeks ago we finished the first scenario.
After the previous game we had had a good long discussion about how the terrain should effect to line of sight. This time the game DID flow much better than the previous time!

As a side note, at work I noticed that some of the pics on the same row caused them to overlap due to smaller monitor or some such technical details. So I'm switching on to using centered pics. Don't think I'll rework the older posts though...

The Russian tank battalion lurked about in the forest on the German right flank and essentially controlled that side of the table.

In the beginning of the game the German regimental artillery commander, or some such big brass, kicked the sorry ass of the FO that was part of the demoralized unit that fled the table. Being thus re-motivated the FO returned to the table (marked by white beads in the manner of command units. Recces are marked by yellow beads).

The Russians also had visit from higher ups and the political officer convinced the battalion commanders the errors of tarrying about when they should've assaulted the enemies of the mother Russia with righteous zeal (mission objectives to capture territory are hardly fulfilled by a deadlock). This lead to the attack of the tank battalion as well as the mechanized infantry battalion. Tigers did manage to kill a couple of Shermans during their defensive fire. Please note that we don't remove the wrecks from the table, but place a some marker on top of them instead since it looks cooler.

The Russian assault battalion in the German right didn't feel like committing though and just bided their time enforcing the deadlock.

The German FO sees the chaos of the two intermingled Russian battalions and manages to call an artillery strike almost dead on to the target rich environment causing several truck and their passengers to be destroyed. The fire has little to no effect on Shemans but is quite effective on the open topped SU-76s.

The Russians press on to capture the village from the lone German infantry platoon who fights back valiantly despite of tens and tens of enemy dice as well as one slightly deviated German artillery strike. They do manage to get a toehold on the village.

The German mortar equipped Sdkfz 251/2s on the German right were also targeting the Russians and since the Russian tanks were hiding on the right side of the town from the Tigers these started pounding the mortar Hannomags silecing one immediately.

Deadlock on the German left continues but one of the Tigers is repositioned to be able to shoot better at the Russian tanks on the right. Not the optimum position, but Tigers like to hide about in the field instead of standing about in the open like doofuses.

Last turn arrived and saved the Russians from the embarassing break of morale.

One German veteran platoon that managed to hold the village until the end. These tenacious buggers were 2-3 times one hit away from destruction but managed to survive against all odds!

Final positions of the Tiger company and the supporting units.

The cautious Russian assault company biding their time in the village next to the Tigers. If there had been some more game turns left perhaps the small penal company that slowly marched towards the Germans from the other end of the table would've been able to show the assault troops how to properly make an assault...

A surprise victory for the Germans. After the first half of the game I was so totally convinced that the Russians would just overrun the Germans. Granted, the greatest effect in stopping the Russians was made by the one quite effective artillery barrage that landed on the two intermingled Russian battalions. But that was a prime target indeed. But even without it the cautious Russians would've had a hard time fulfilling their objective, capturing the bridge.

Obviously after this game we had a massive discussion about the role and effect of artillery and trucks in BKC.
Personally I like the way BKC handles artillery very much, thank you. Instead of the normal designated limited number of fire missions available to a player (which must be some kind of old baggage from some eldritch game system that doesn't want to imbalance tabletop by giving firepower to off-board units) you instead get to use artillery as many times you are able to get contact to the funs.

Often this might mean that you wouldn't be able to use even all the limited missions you'd have at your disposal in other games, but nevertheless I think the system works just fine and at least when shelling highly concentrated formations in fragile trucks you really have a feeling why Russians call artillery the God of War. Also I seem to recall that the vast majority of casualties (like 80% or more) caused by Finns in the battles of 1944 was caused by artillery.

-Janne

BKC Bagration Campaign, Scenario 1 (Part 1)

2010-02-15T09:58:00.001-08:00

Wanna play this scenario?
Get the needed documents from the Gemigabok site.

Last Monday we started the actual new recce battalion campaign.

On the evening of June 26th the Russian 16th Guards Rifle Corps keep on pressing forwards commended by Mr H and Chris and their objective is to eliminate the Hitlerites and capture the bridge. The elements consist of Tank battalion of lend-lease Shermans, Infantry battalion with some attached SU-76s and an assault battalion of SMG troops, engineers and flame thrower equipped KV-1s.

The objective of German panzer kampfgruppe, commanded by Mr V, is to evacuate the badly mauled retreating remnants of XXVII Corps, commanded by Janne, and hold the bridge. The panzergruppe has a company of Tigers as well as elements from our campaign's recon battalion -mainly different half-tracks, some infantry and some mobile flak units. The disorganized remnants of of XXVII Corps consist of an infantry battalion and a panzer IV company as well as a FO for artillery. Unfortunately, having just received a royal pummeling from the Ruskies their command values are extremely low.

Once again, Aksu provided the scenario and Andy GMed it.

Below's the initial German setup.
Main idea for the Germans was to use the CIC of the kampfgruppe to command the XXVII Corps (located in the crossroads in the middle of the table) very quickly off table by using the road bonus to command (no command distance penalty), leaving only the FO on the table. And then to inflict horrendous casualties to the advancing Russians.

Kampfgruppe depoys some units in the town sector and Tigers in the cover of the field.

However even with command value 9 the kampfgruppe's CIC unfortunately only manages to make two moves for XXVII Corps. Russian units start entering the table sporadically and from random points. The first one to arrive is the tank battalion and naturally it arrives from the optimum point of German right flank and starts blasting up the poor remnants of XXVII Corps which is quickly broken. Only the tanks, Fo and some few platoons manage to to make it to the safety.

In pincher-like maneuver the assault battalion arrives from German left flank and starts advancing in the cover of the forest.

The Russian tank battalion is deployed to the left of the forest in the German right flank and thus discourage the Tigers from committing themselves -the terrain is favourable to the Russians as it limits the visibility to 80cm denying the Tigers the range advantage. Then again the Russians also fear the Tigers and both sides are locked in a Mexican standoff. However, to break this standoff the Russian infantry battalion, spearheaded by the SU-76s, starts arriving in trucks via the road next to the tank battalion.

The assault battalion, after several totally failed command activations, takes the town next to the Tiger -occupied field causing some flank threat to the Germans. The assault battalion doesn't seem THAT eager to commit itself against the Tiger supported sporadic Germans though...

The German engineers build a pontoon bridge over the river. The attracts many more Germans as the Russian tank battalion has now advanced to the forest on the German right flank and is having a field day blowing up German half-tracks etc

The random entry worked like a charm for the Russians and the immediately managed to make mincemeat out of the retreating German infantry. The current situation is horrible for the Germans since they are outmaneuvered and out manned. To start retreating would extremely likely mean destruction and Tigers turning tail would surely cause a massive shooting fest against their rear armour and thereby at least suppression followed on by later destruction. The only hope is to stand fast and wait for reinforcements or approaching dark.

Günther, we are now earnik either iron or wooden crozzes...

-Janne

BKC2 1st try-out

2010-02-15T07:03:00.000-08:00

Wanna play this scenario?
Get the needed documents from the Gemigabok site.

Last year we tried Blitzkrieg Commander and immediately started a quick 1/300 scale campaign in Eastern Front with a German recon battalion. Great fun was had and the rules, which are a derivative of GW's Warmaster fantasy rules, worked really quite well. Compared against my expectations the performance was stellar!

Now the publisher, Specialist Military Publishing, has a 2nd edition out. Andy, who had made a pre-order for the rules, had even managed to win a free copy in the raffle! So three weeks ago there was little excuse not to try the rules out.

Our first foray to the new edition was a small test game that Aksu had brewed up and was apparently the prelude for our next recce battalion campaign where the German offensive is turning into desperate fight against the Russian counteroffensive during Operation Bagration.

On the morning of June 26th 1944 hastily scrounged elements of German XXVII Corps are trying to stop elements of Russian 16th Guards Rifle Corps that are trying tho break through the German defences.

The German defence is placed in between two forests in an area broken by some scrub and swamp. They have also managed to dig in some defences as well as erect barbed wire. Unfortunately the infantry is of low (conscript) quality and there's just two units capable of destroying Russian armor: Tiger and Puma platoons.

In addition to having better troop quality the Russians also have the numerical superiority: they have more than twice the number of infantry some of which are from a penal unit as well as three times the armoured superiority in the form of lend-lease Shermans (since we currently don't have any at the club we used T-34s as proxies). They also have pre-planned artillery.

Mr H played the Russians and his old sparring partner MR V the Germans. Andy ran the game and Janne just gawked (although he thought that he'd get to play the penal units...) and took some crappy photos.

At first the Russians advance without an incident and their first artillery salvo hammers the first German defences, but as they reach the wire the Tiger platoon opens up from the cover of forest to their front left destroying the lead Sherman. The remaining tanks hug that side's forest edge trying to get into cover from the 88's of the Tigers. Russian infantry presses on hampered by the wire. The Shermans are likewise delayed by the German trenches, which can now be seen to be empty.

Everything seems to be going relatively well for the Germans -their infantry hasn't been spotted yet and they have inflicted some casualties for the Russian tanks. Unfortunately the Germans fumble a command roll with the Tiger platoon and it decides that since one Sherman platoon is burning they, and they alone, must counterattack! Vorwärts -die Russe ist tot!

Unfortunately this is sheer folly and quickly the Russian 5:1 tank ratio has decimated the Tiger platoon into burning wrecks and they direct their attention to helping their infantry friends that are almost engaging the 2nd German fortification line that, unlike the 1st, is occupied.

Soon the Puma platoon is also burning and the Russians start to go around the German fortifications only to find the remainder of the German infantry defending the forest. The entrenched Germans are surprisingly tough to dig up but despite the several unbelievable setbacks in melee the Russians manage to kick some Jerry heinie in the forest, break the Germans and sweep after them towards victory. And towards Berlin! Uraaaa!

Below's the monument of the game's silliness -the lone burning Tiger platoon that from prepared positions decided to, due to command blunder, counterattack alone five Russian armor platoons as well as over dozen infantry platoons.

Next time, Hans du dumkopf, du empty der gas tank or dizmantle die tracks when im die prepared pozition! Ja? ;)

In previous, bigger, games such command blunders haven't caused anything but small inconveniences. Unfortunately with the extremely few German units having their best (only?) good unit go stark raving mad and do a solo version of the charge of the light brigade against advancing Russian horde was immediately enough to turn this training game into one sided massacre with little suspense or interest. Then again, the poor quality German infantry showed that how bloody tedious (and then some) it is to clean up unsuppressed units -charging into melee is bloody business and defender is definitely holding the bigger stick here. Quite believable really...

-Janne

Skirmish ending to last year's BKC Recce Campaign

2010-01-18T12:42:00.000-08:00

Last year Aksu designed the rest of us a great Eastern Front campaign where we played several interlinked scenarios using a German recon battalion and the opposing Russian forces. Since Aksu is currently our correspondent in London Andy GMed the scenarios using BKC. Actually this way we managed to get ourselves acquinted with the new rule system in a very nice way.

Even though the campaign had actually ended we still had one scenario to play and it was the actions of a Kübelwagen company behind enemy lines. Aksu decided to do it as a skirmish with Battleground WWII and Mr. H ran it for us punters.

Here's how it went:
I was once again assigned to play Germans who were returning back to own lines to the south and needed to cross the river with their three Kübelwagens (one command car with radio and two equipped with a MG. All had 4 passengers of mixed quality and one veteran had a light wound). A bridge has just been spotted and guys that walked to the edge of wood reported having seen just three Russian standing on the road where one was exchanging a tyre to motorcycle with a sidecar. Right next to them was also a gun pit equipped with a AAMG. Plenty of tank and truck wrecks were also in the vicinity. (Germans would be arriving from the small track from the left in the pic below)

Since I knew that my troops were being followed by a Russian armored car I knew that there was no chance of any subtleties -the only things that the troops had that were of use against it was 4 tank mines and some grenades if it came to the worst. So instead of pussyfooting around and trying to scout the area some more which would've cost the Germans way too much time I decided to just floor it and hope for the best. That is, after placing three of the mines in the road to take care of the armoured car.

Unfortunately when the Kübels surged into the clearing the gunpit had been occupied (the driver for the NKVD colonel just didn't feel chatty with mere regular infantry Josefs...) and the Ruskies immediately also recognized the vehicles as enemies and opened with the AAMG up to which the Germans naturally responded blazing away with what they had. Unfortunately the Russian salvo hit one Kübel dead on and killed the gunner (who else, eh?).

The remaining Germans drove rather recklessly and concentrated their fire against the gun pit wounding the gunner's assistant. The motorcycle's driver also started shooting as did a sergeant from inside the cabin. The NKVD colonel opened the cabin's door and dove behind the motorcycle and drew his Nagant. Some Ruskies also appeared from another cabin a further away from the bridge and started shooting.

Things weren't looking that good for the Germans but it sure didn't look helpful when a Russian truck appeared from the north. Closer to the bridge guns were ablaze and grenades were being thrown, but to very little effect, even if one German grenade landed right next to the motorcyle and its driver -damn those forced laborers sabotaging the war effort of the Reich!

The already damaged Kübelwagen that was also trailing a bit behind got hit by another salvo from the AAMG now killing another passenger and the driver which made the vehicle steer steeply towards left causing it to collide with a wreck of a T34.

The collision wounded the car's last survivor, a veteran Gefreiter. But immediately after clearing his head he was enthusiastically greeted by the three nearby Russian soldiers and the Gefreiter decided that surrender was the only sane option.

As the last member of the Russian roster, a member of female corps, ran from the cabin to help the wounded in the gun pit the Russian BA-10 arrived to the scene, naturally missing all three mines, as well only to see the two remaining Kübelwagens tail lights disappear in a cloud of dust on the other side of the river, having raced the gauntlet and still evading the sporadic fire from the surprised Russian bridge guards.

A nice fun scenario that is made better by giving the Jerries a threat from behind thereby forcing the to do something instead of trying to covertly pick of the bridge guards. There are few troops on both sides and even though it seems that the Russians get reinforcements it is just a truck with a driver carrying supplies to the front. Good stuff on the design, Aksu!

We noticed a problem with the rule system; when shooting at a moving soft skin vehicle with small caliber guns it doesn't really matter how quickly the vehicle is moving -so it is just as easy to hit a Kübelwagen moving recklessly at top speed as one slowly reversing :(

Firing from a moving vehicle is near impossible, for example throwing a granade needed a "3" or less on d20 to succeed, which I did but then naturally managed to fumble two rolls on A-ring (the best) on effect chart. Luckily on the Russian side Eero also threw pretty badly (as is customary to him -here's probably the ONLy guy in the world who h worse luck with the dice than I do...), although the chap is slowly learning since he did get to fire some pretty effective salvos as well. What is the world coming to when you can't rely on old constants anymore!? ;D

-Janne

Near bloodbath in Lappland

2009-12-27T06:57:00.000-08:00

At GeMiGaBoK's traditional pre-christmas party, Mr. V ran us a Battleground WWII scenario that was situated in the Lappland War in 1944, when Finns were driving the former allies, Germans, out of the country. Some rare appearances of club members were also performed by Eero and Andy, although the latter soon got a call and swiftly obeyed his mistress' voice and vacated the premisis.

This evening's scenario started with a squad of Janne's Finns operating behind enemy lines returning from their scouting mission which had kinda ended bad -on a swamp snow/ice had broken under two squad members had been soaked and needed help from other guys. The squad was led by a veteran Ensign but the remainder of the men were green conscripts. They were in a hurry to get back to own lines and thus were not using the cover of the forest even though it was broad daylight outside.

The squad trampled onward right next to a track, which they didn't use since as Germans had vast amounts of explosives in Lappland which they were unable to carry with them to Norway they used these extremely liberally to mine all tracks and roads. After a short while the side of the frozen lake revealed a small hut with few pair of skis propped along its back and smoke coming from the chimney. Soon more observant squad members could notice the smell of fish soup as well as the sound of German music coming from the hut. More curiously, someone was singing on top the music, in Russian...

Ensign however decided to nick the skis, even though it was found that one pair hand broken bindings. The soaked men were put to the skis and started off along a ski track that started off from the cabin. On the other side of the hut a lone Eero's Russian came out of the door and found himself staring at the Ensign's Suomi SMG as well as a rifle of one trooper. Luckily the Ensign knew some Russian and could deduct that the man was a war prisoner of Germans who were somewhere in the forest.

Almost immediately the first skier ran (skied?) across a mine which stopped him cold. At the same time a voice boomed from the forest and said that he was Oberleutenant something and the Finns should surrender and audible cocking of a machine gun was also heard. The moving Finns kept on marching onward and the Ensign and his assistant trooper decided to call the German bluff by trying to flank the German voices, which tuned out to be no bluff at all as the wooded ridge held a squad of Mr. H's Germans armed with a captured Russian MMG as well as rifles all of which were pointed at them at point blank range.

The Ensign saw little chance of winning and decided to surrender. This totally changed the tone of the Germans who wished Merry X-mas, apologized for wounding the one trooper with the mine and offered a medic to tend to his wounds. Everybody was invited to the hut and got a helping of the fish soup as well as generous helping of schnapps. Not to mention dry clothing to those that needed some. After the hearty supper, being an enthusiast, he suggested a little game of Fußball -the loser would have to leave the hut and head up toward their own lines.

Which lead to us playing a follow-up game of Soccer!! on the frozen lake with the same figures and make shift goals (the two pairs of skis). The oberleutenant decided that it would be unsportsmanlike if he as a keen player would participate and thus let his underlings play while the Finnish Ensign who in his youth had dabbled football a bit didn't have any such qualms. During the exciting match's first inning Ensign managed to score twice and almost did so once again in the second inning but the actions of the alert German goalie hampered this. On the final moments of the 2nd inning the Germans managed to score their first goal but the Finns still won 2-1.

Mr V had been inspired by the German-English Christmas truce of 1914 and he based the scenario on the events of First World War. Everyone was quite impressed how well the Soccer!! rules worked even if we used more or less a quarter size field and half sized teams -you clearly couldn't rely just on brawn to get yourself through the opposing team. Perhaps when the quality of players is more varied and there are more of the better quality team members around the game plays a bit differently (now both sides had one +2 player and the remainder were +1s). I certainly wouldn't mind trying the game with regular field and teams even if I've played soccer the last time some 25+ years ago...

Merry Yuletide & Happy New Year to each and everybody!
-Janne

Finished the Battleground WWII bridge scenario

2009-12-10T11:52:00.000-08:00

This Monday we finished the second scenario from the last time. Flow was very good and both players seemed to be streched for resources and struggling to fulfill their objectives, although I guess that for the Russian player this is quite a stationary a scenario...

Cleaning up the last of the dazed Ruskies form the German side took few turns. Funnily enough, from his own trench a German NCO started cleaning the nearby trench by throwing grenades, only to fumble and have one bounce back and explode in his own feet. This, however, was a German ploy as the effect was a morale check that resulted in making the Jerry an elite hero!

As planned previously, the Germans put the captured MGs into use and peppered the Russian MG pit with continuous suppressing fire from two LMGs, and on the other side of the bridge the fire to the trench and the AA gunpit came from a LMG and MMG.

Luckily, after the initial pile of casualties it managed to cause, the MGs finally were able to keep the AA gun crew suppressed, but if there had been just one gun doing it this wouldn't have been possible. This effectively settled the game and gave the Jerries a fighting chance by keeping he Russians mainly prone and causing an occasional wound.

This didn't leave that many Jerries on the bridge to continue the assault to the Russian side. The fact that the house directly looking towards the bridge also housed some Ruskies didn't actually help. The Jerries set up their last LMG on the bridge and proceeded to give the Ruskies lead in abundance. However the stubborn Russian resistance soon resulted in continuous flow of German casualties and the last MG was almost immediately operating with partially wounded crew which meant that it could't lay suppressing fire.

The Jerries still stubborny threw whatever guys they could towards the Russian side and despite the heroic and effective efforts of the MG pit's squad leader as well as the Russian officer against the charging Jerries (the officer shot at least one German with his pistol even though he was wounded) these managed to gain a foothold on the trench.

This trench was effectively cleaned by one furious Jerry whom we named Sven. Yeah, most of the Russians were kept prone by the suppressing fire from the MGs, but nevertheless this one rifle armed guy finished off the whole trench with the use of grenades, close combat (against multiple opponents) and rifle shots! At one point Ruskies managed score a solid hit against him with a grenade but the effect was just a morale check which made him a minor hero just like the NCO during the start of this session. Lesson learned: don't use grenades on Germans -they'll just shrug of the shrapnel, sprout some hair to their chest and become heroes which is kinda bad for you... !

When the turns ran out, Germans had managed to get a noticeable foothold on the Russian side of the river, and the few remaining Russians in the gunpits or trench were either wounder and prone, dead, or running away wounded (their officer). The house did have few guys in OK confition. Then again the Germans had like 4-6 guys in good order on the bridge or the Russian side, the remainder were either wounded or dead. The suppressing fire from the MGs was wery effective (and lucky as during 6 or so turns only one jammed) but it did tie up a dozen Jerries and I did think that I'd run out of soldier before I could gain foothold on the Russian side... Luckily I just barely didn't.

A thoroughly enjoyable game!

-Janne

Another set of two Battleground WWII scenarios from Mr H

2009-11-29T05:25:00.000-08:00

This Monday we gamed yet another two Battleground WWII scenarios.
Actually the first was a leftover from the last session which we then didn't have time to play. Mr H just wrote another new scenario so we'd have enough gaming to go around for the whole evening. Actually we didn't finnish the latter scenario since some time had to be used to dismantle the Lapua 1808 gaming board from the gaming table -the previous gaming evening Janne had played Lapua with a quest from Canada, Ross.

Back to the BGWWII, the first scenario involved a German recce unit (a command section, 8 wheeler, a PAK36 and two squads in Hannomags) getting a rude awakening in the rear lines as suddenly two KV-1's and a KV-II burst in. Trying to stop these behemoths that are trundling forward in a breakthrough with the 37mm and 20mm guns is, well, more or less an impossible task. Making close assaults with satchel charge/grenade equipped infantry against these moving tanks isn't any easier.

Mr V who played the Russians used the KV-II as fire support and after few shots managed first to kill some of the ATG crew and later of blow the gun to smithereens. Some infantry managed to creep close and do some damage to it but the only effect was slowing it down a bit. Close assaults in a wheatfield against the two forward wheeling KV-1's were, hardly surprisingly, not succesful and both managed to trundle off board granting Mr. V game win.

It was a fun game partly because it most certainly wasn't balanced or fair. Until the Russians managed to see Germans the Jerries were kept hidden. The only grievance I have with the game is the ridiculous numbers of the crew served support weapons -in real life MG and gun crews tended to be as big as regular infantry squads so that possible losses wouldn't cripple the weapon usage. But for some reason vast majority of the miniature rules have crews of like one third the size of regular infantry squads. I see a house rule coming up for this...

The second scenario was inspired by a book, for the death of me can't recall the name of it right now. Germans are supposed to take a bridge intact from the Russians that are guarding it and, as they fear that the Russians will blow it up, they have to use subterfuge. Thus they use captured GAZ trucks and drivers dressed in Russian uniforms to infiltrate Russian lines. To similate this the Russian player uses the trucks as his own troops for the first three turns (without knowing the fact that the trucks are jam packed with Jerry elites) and the German player has the option to take control of the trucks at any time he deems fit and reveal the truth.

We managed to game a few turns and the initial German assault of the German side to of the bridge was extremely successful. Having SMG armed troops dismount first from the last two trucks and lay supressing fire against the Russians worked extremely well, especially as in some instances the Germas were able to negate the cover from the trenches since they were essentially raking them. Also grenade usage was very efficient. After two turns, out of the 15 or so Russians one wounded sergeant was alive and fleeing in the reeds, some three soldiers surrendered and the remainder lay dead. Germans lost like two soldiers.

However the first truck had it really bad as it was trying to negotiate the remainder of the bridge -it was gunned down by HMG and 37mm AA gun fire, crashed against the bridge railings and burst into flame. The driver managed to become a hero but perished in the HMG fire as did the commander of the German troops who was the first to dismount.

We'll see how the game finishes in the next game evening.

If the Russians have managed to place explosives on the bridge then the Jerries don't have a chance of capturing the bridge intact. If not, the Germans have a chance -I guess that using the three of their own MGs as well as the captured HMG and LMG to lay supressing fire should prove pretty effective even against Ruskies in dug in positions. Luckily the Russian HMG also jammed on its last action, although I kinda recall that one of the German MGs did likewise.

All in all this scenario seems to be a winner!
The action started immediately in close quarters and there's plenty of dilemmas for both sides. The beginning works also great (having the Russian discover that his extra troops aren't actualy Russians at all!) but this time the surprise effect wasn't as big as Mr V, who played the Ruskies, had read the same book the GM (Mr H) had used for the background of the scenario. Nevertheless Mr V played like a true gentleman and didn't start doing anything silly with "his" troops...

-Janne

Mr H tries for three -gets two

2009-10-20T13:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Mr H tried to run three Battleground WWII recce scenarios for Mr V and Janne, but we managed only to complete two of them.

As we haven't used the system for quite a while the first scenario was an easy rumble where two similar forces of a light tank supported infantry squad run across each other in a terrain dominated by very high grass and some light woods.

It immediately became clear that Mr V seemed actually retain the best grasp for rules while Janne just fumbled onward getting his PzKpfw II shot by Mr V's T-26 in the 1st round. After this Janne's Jerry squad ran into the forest to get some cover from the tank but got so close to Mr V's Ruskies that they became a target for selected charges of superior numbers. However Janne was able to kill at least one of the attackers from each combat and after geting his next turn he started of shooting the remaining Russians. One poor fellow got wounded and tried to crawl away, but the bloodthirsty Jerry squad leader and mg assistant followed him with their Lugers ablaze. Mr V's T-26 entered the wods but Janne spread his troops and made close assaults using grenades and soon the tank was a burning wreck. Jerries 1, Ruskies 0.

The next scenario started with Jerry recon force (sdkfz 232, a squad in sdkfz 251 led by a command section in a Kubelwagen) entering quite similar looking terrain and seeing a burning wreck of a Kubelwagen burning in the turn of the road. The Jerries advance carefully looking for Ruskies hiding in the forest but find none. Circling the unclimable steep cliff the Jerries encounter a KV-1! Immediately this monster squirts flame (it is a flamethrower model) against the 8-rad which is disabled fortunately with just one casualty. Meanwhile the Hannomag squad decides to dismount and hide in the tall grass while the halftrack presses on -and gets two dozes of flamethrower after the tank turns in its place to face these attackers from the rear. Again the Jerry crew manages to flee the burning wreck.

The remainder of the game the Jerries slowly crawl or dash towards the tank (that has its left track disabled and thus it can only pivot in place) with their satchel charges and grenade bundles while its crew tries to blindshoot them with the flamethrower, coaxial machine gun and with the occasional burst from the commander's submachine gun -the last actually having visibility. Finally three Jerries manage to climb on top of the tank and its turret after the tank commander got shot. As the turret hatch was left open from the dead tank commander they rake the insides with a MP40 and a rifle fire and finish the job by throwing a grenade bundle in. Jerries 2, Ruskies 0.

Otherwise quick fun games but I REALLY hate the way how attacks against tanks are performed by infantry in the game. Even with an immobilized (large) tank you need to roll around 10 or perhaps even less if you try to place the satchel charge on top of the engine compartment when you are standing adjacent to the bloody thing (and after misplacing it the thing somehow drops into the lap of the placer or his buddy standing on the other side o the engine compartment)! I mean the engine compartment of a KV-1 isn't THAT high after all and when you're behind the tank it is rather accessible. Heck, you are able t climb on top of the engien compartment by rolling under your morale. I more or less am able to swallow that you need to score 2 or less when throwing something from a distance especially if the tank is moving, but placement of explosives kinda blows.

Also the range of the flamethrower was, erm, rather incredible! Mr H used some unofficial rules for this and the extreme range for the weapon was 52 inches or something. Rather incredible if you consider that, for example, the range for a submachinegun is parhaps 26 inches and I'm willing to bet that a SMG can shoot longer than a flamethrower. Normally flamethrowers just use a template template of 7-8 inches which is more in scale with the other distances of the game...

-Janne

Gemigabok blog started

2009-10-20T13:35:00.000-07:00

This is the blog for GeMiGaBoK -the Gentlemen Miniature Gamers and Brass Band of Kaisaniemi.

See also our site http://www.the-ancients.com/gemigabok/index.php

The main purpose of the blog is to enable the club members easily write reports of our semi-weekly gaming dates etc.