"Up the Blue! WWII" Revisited & OHW #14 Static Defence

"Ciao! We are preparing to see off those pesky 'Limeys'...

...and then have a very fine dinner!"

Did a couple of playtests with the 2020 draft of these rules... the last time I seriously worked on them! I blame the CHI-FLU years entirely, as lots of things just got forgotten about, including all my WWII figures, projects and rule sets. 

D--n CHICOMs...!

Anyway, here we are today, with two playtest using One-Hour Wargames #14 "Static Defence" under the belt, and some work streamlining, simplifiying, clarifying all going well.  I can't really complain that I haven't had enough time to look at the rules with a fresh eye! The scenario has equal attacking and defending forces of six Units each. However, the Red defender has to keep two units on each objective, the town and the hill.  There are two Units that are free to move around. The attacking Blue player has the option to attack either objective. The main difference between the two objectives is that the Town acts as Cover for a defending Unit within it, while the hill is only helpful if the defender is a Tank Unit, as it can go Hull Down. In both cases the casualties are halved in the original rules.

Below, the British force. I'm almost ashamed to display them, but time is limited and I'm forced to use my partially painted Crusaders, aka "Cruds" and two units of Blackshirt Italians as the Motor Infantry. There's three platoons of regular old Cruds and one of Close Support Cruds, that function in the game as a Tank platoon in all respects except that it Fires as a Mortar.

Below, the Italian force, for which I should express some modest embarrassment at having to use gun platoons from my continental Italian company, as I still haven't finished the Bersaglieri gun platoons. But anyway, two tank platoons, two Infantry platoons, an ATG platoon and a Mortar platoon. A nice balanced force able to meet multiple threats.

I then did a first playtest and had a bunch of ideas for improvements, mostly subtle but still important. I didn't take any pics of that fight.

Below, the end of the second playtest, using a somewhat re-drafted 2020 set of rules. This was a debacle for the Italian defenders, largely due to bad die rolling and a couple of bad decisions. The British got a tank platoon on the hill for a win, AND contested the town with a platoon of Motor Infantry. 

The Italians contested it with a platoon of Tanks. Still, both Units had 6 Hits and the supporting Cruds 5 Hits, so anything may have happened on the next player turn with the town. Most likely, both Units would have been eliminated and the Cruds would have occupied the town and gotten their first bath in a few weeks!

A number of small but complicating mechanics were removed. I made the hard choices instead of splicing hairs, mostly by using one modifier with several single conditions, i.e. if you're firing on the move OR firing at long range, you are penalized once, instead of adding the two together. Also, I found easier ways to incorporate things that I feel *really* matter, and most of all I obeyed Neil Thomas' design goal to only stress the big things - most of the little things are adjusted by soldiers and largely cancel out based upon the relative Quality of the opponents.

I was very pleased with the changes, which after aggressive decisions and clean re-writes not only kept the basic rules at 5 pages, but I was able to go from 11 to 12-font Ariel, since I had cleared out a few things!

Finally it was time to unveil the rules in a full post. 

Below, the end of Turn 1.  

Italians have Mortars behind the crest of the hill with the command team spotting at the crest [can't be spotted themselves]. In front, an Infantry platoon is Dug-in, and also Ready [on overwatch]. Some ATGs are in the center rear, facing the likely avenue of approach to the left. below them are a Tank platoon with another behind the town; in the town the other Infantry platoon.

The British had an interesting deployment: altho halve of each force is on either side of center, most of their force on the right is already engaged - two Tank platoons and an Infantry platoon. The CS Cruds are center-left with Line of Sight [LoS] to both objectives, a powerful asset in either case. One Infantry platoon is racing forward to the heavy brush dead ahead, with the final Tank platoon moving rapidly up the left to prevent reinforcements from shifting towards the town. Altho they are fighting to the right, the British can still shift to the left quite quickly if needed, as they have trucks and tanks.  The Italians are playing the same game with their ATGs, which can Fire into the open spaces on either side of the center brush [it acts like a wood, basically].

Turn 1 ended with some solid hits on the right-most Italian and British Tanks, and the Italian Mortars thrashing the British Infantry by Ranging-in and dumping a well-placed barrage on the British moving in the open desert.

Above: the white 100m x 50m card is the sheaf for the Mortar barrage.

Turn 2 ended with the Italian Tanks behind the town almost being wiped out at 6 / 7 Hits, while the British Infantry on the right were forced to Rally as their fellows dashed up the middle to gain a fire position in the heavy brush at center.

The Italian Mortars only got a hit and the British rallied it off. The left Crusader platoon used a Tactical Move to approach the Dug-in Bersaglieri at the hill.

At the objective, the Bersaglieri are in good shape, while their Tank support has moved behind the town to Rally in future turns sheltered by the other Tank platoon and the ATG's. Those will prevent the British from dashing up the open space near the town, as there'd be some serious damage, most likely.

Turn 3 was a "Respite" as there was a net tie on the Initiative roll. Everyone benefited from having a chance to rally, and all the dust was removed.

Some good Rallying by the British has them ready for action again!

Turn 4, the Italians seized the Initiative and chose to keep it. 

Turn 4 saw the left Crusader platoon engage the Bersaglieri at the hill objective. They *just* managed to stay out of LoS of the ATGs, and they outrange the infantry a bit, altho the Fire isn't decisive as they are Dug-in.  At the town objective, the British advance everyone and put a lot of Fire on the Infantry in the town and the center Tank unit. 

For the Italians, their center Tanks fought back, along with the Infantry, and the Mortars provided some more Hits on the advancing British Infantry. The other Tank platoon rallied quite well and was almost in perfect shape after their near-brush with death early in the fight!

Below, the British Infantry are almost done with 5 / 7 Hits, while the Cruds next to them are at 4 / 7 Hits.  Fortunately, for Turn 5, the British seize the Initiative!

On the left, the Cruds advanced to attack the rear of the Italian Tanks, and scored three Hits on the move! They were met with weak Fire from the ATGs on overwatch.

The Bersaglieri missed, and the British continued to Fire upon the defenders to some effect while moving forward one Crud platoon.

Then, the second Crud platoon advanced and knocked out the Tanks huddled behind the heavy brush, eliminating that platoon! The British Infantry were able to advance out of the Mortar barrage, which failed to Range-in on their new position farther forwards. 

Thanks to the Mortars, the Tanks and the weakened Infantry, they were able to push the Bersaglieri in the town to 7 Hits, and they withdrew from the field in good order, leaving the Tanks to hold the town.

"Give'em hot lead Lads!" shouts the grizzled sergeant leading the Rifles. And they do, and the town is now empty!  But can they exploit this opportunity?

Turn 6, and the forward advance of the Motor Infantry is halted for them to Rally and reorganize a bit, and they are again Hit with Mortar Fire.  

The end of Turn 6 sees the British mostly in a cautious advance, while the Italian Tanks occupy the town, driving carefully down the road. While they are able to see the Brit Infantry and vice-versa, none of the Brit tanks can see them, not having a good view down the road. They will need to re-position and support the Infantry's drive into the town.

Turn 7 is another Respite. This mostly helps the British, who have a few Units with Hits, while the remaining Italians are in good shape altho outnumbered 6-4.

Turns 8-9 see the British dashing after the objective!  They speed Tank and Infantry platoons forwards [altho the Infantry roll a '1' and only advance a few inches]. 

The British keep the pressure up but tank some Hits along the way, and both the lead Crud and Motor platoons are nearly spent at 5 /7 and 6 / 7 Hits - can they seize the objective before they are destroyed? 

Turn 9, on the left, the Cruds put the pressure on the Bersaglieri by the hill, with the help of the CS Cruds - getting them to 5 / 7 Hits. If they can destroy that platoon, there is still time for the hill to be seized if the Town objective doesn't work out.

Turn 9, at the town, the Brit Motor Platoon finds it's speed and rolls a '6' to dash into the town!  They are now in Close Range of the Italian Tanks. This is a big help as the other two platoons failed their Quality Tests and had to Rally.

Turn 10, the Italians seize Initiative from the Brits!  They choose to retain it, as they will, overall, be able to give a better fight for the town.

On the left, the ATGs and the Bersaglieri manage to knock out the Crud platoon, mostly thanks to the ATGs rolling for perfect Hits and the Bersaglieri getting that last 7th Hit before the Cruds could rally in their Turn. Avanti Savoia!

In and around the town, a furious close fight ensues, with Mortars landing, tanks firing at Close Range, the infantry fighting from the buildings [not pictured].

British Turn 10, the Motor Platoon dashes forwards, passing their Quality Test to assault the Tanks. Both the other platoons have to Rally, so they're on their own!

End of British Turn 10, and the town is still up for grabs, with a single Italian Tank platoon holding off four British platoons, two of which are close to spent.

A series of Close Combats leave the Italian Tanks 1 Hit from departing the field, while the surrounding British are all battered.

The Mortars wipe out one Motor Platoon! But the Tanks are forced to Rally - not entirely a bad thing, as they were at 6 / 7 Hits, and are now at 4.

In the Close Combat Phase, the British go first [as the Reacting Side], and get no less than 4 for 4 Hits, wiping out the Tanks entirely [with a Hit to spare]!

The cheering Riflemen loot the Italian tanks for food and souvenirs, and catch a breather.  The supporting British platoons see the shattered remnants of the Italian carri platoon drive off in a cloud of dust.

Well, that was a dramatic finish!

My combat system, like that in OHW, does allow one to completely miss and has a similar attrition mechanic scaled down to 7 Hits from 15, using 3 dice per Unit [which can decrease to 2 or 1 depending on serious losses].  So altho it works differently, it has about the same elements of predictability with the math.  Occasionally, you get a spectacular miss or hit, but normally Units are inflicting 1-2 Hits, and it takes a few turns [or a lot of firepower] to destroy a Unit quickly.

In this case, the added danger of Close Combat that was initiated by the British Motor Rifles allowed them to up the intensity of the fight and drive the Italian Tanks from the town with just a little help from the nearby Cruds.

This playtest went very well, and I am very pleased with where the rules are. They are a lot more nuanced than the One-Hour Wargames rules that inspired them, but I have managed to stay focused on history, likely outcomes, and make the player's decisions in the scenario the most important factors.

Here, the British chose the closer town as the main objective, and used one Crud platoon very well to keep three platoons busy by posing a genuine threat to the hill objective. This effort was greatly aided by the Close Support Cruds, thanks to their long reach and real danger to ATGs and Infantry [Tanks...not so much].

With no armor to try and take the town back, the Italians faced a slow movement across the open ground North of the heavy brush with the Infantry, and the ATGs would almost certainly have been knocked out by the CS Cruds. The British would be able to sit in place and Rally off a few Hits, preparing for the Bersaglieri counter-attack, and it would not have gone well.  Ergo, the Italians had to concede.

One thing I might have done is put the Italian ATGs closer to the town, ready to fire down the open space between it and the brush. This would have put additional pressure on the advancing Brits, but may have resulted in the Bersaglieri at the hill objective being forced from the field.  Hard to say.

Next, some more blind playtesting is in the works.  LMK if you want to participate in the comments below, giving me an email to contact you.

Until then, I'll be looking for you, "Up the Blue!"! 

Desert Rats Progress: P.2 Scots Guards, Motor Infantry, more

Try to look under me kilt, will ya??
Scary thing is - looks like winter. Just this image probably caused Operation Sea Lion to be cancelled.   https://www.pinterest.com/pin/177610779034951020/

This British force for WWII N. Africa has sat around with no progress for 1.5 years. My excuses aren't TOO lame...NTC rotation, back problem, other projects, and the baby. Some couldn't be helped  [NTC, baby] but the "other projects" is just lack of focus! The back problem was particularly discouraging [it's exacerbated by sitting in chairs for lengthy periods of time] but hoping it'll be OK with proper PT plan.

This is directly related to working on my WWII rules, also. Just reading the draft for the first time in a while got me excited to play them again - these are really good rules, IMHO! I did another clean-up and made a couple of mechanics decisions thanks to a bunch of GDW Team Yankee playtests [CLICK]. These mainly oriented in the interaction of Move / Fire / Ready actions.

Thanks to the Ponyri campaign in progress over at Sound Officer's Call [CLICK], there'll hopefully be a few more playtesters jumping in which I'm sure will improve the rules. Altho I'd love to go to the Russian Front, I own no 15mm Russkies and will get none given the backlog of 15mm WWII I already have. As this was declared "15mm Fall" in my 2019 Fall Focus post [CLICK] it's time to move on this Motor Company.

First up, I had to get some replacement paints, including basic Black, and a gunmetal color, along with shiny gold [not as useful for WWII, but a good highlight for brass buckles, gold filigree and badges on hats, medals, etc]. Then I had to DUST OFF the figures...really!

Some examining and remembering confirmed I was ready to do the lengthy black paint job for all the weapons. I then hit the water bottles, weapon straps, and host of other niggling bits of gear. Also had to play around with the color of the web gear, eventually making my own light grey / khaki mix as there's plenty more Desert Rat infantry to come.

Officer stands up front followed by support weapons, hero, tea drinkers.
Sticks 2-4 are Old Glory Command Decision 15mm - nice figs. First stick is BF, as are the rest behind.

Poor Bloody Infantry in the back. Includes some Corporals and Sergeants w' SMGs.

Same from the rear. The buckles don't pop as much as I'd like them to. They also have some strange machete-like scabbard on their left side, may be a grossly large bayonet scabbard, hard to tell with Battlefront sculpts sometimes.

There's 63 figures altogether. They will be worth half points, or 63 points of 15mm figures, for the Ides of March Painting Challenge posted recently here [CLICK].

As far as what they can do on the table, it's going to take some figgering. The 2" mortar, three Boys ATR and PIAT stands are small 2-fig stands, so:
- 10 figs, 5 stands [53 figs left].
Moving right along:
- 4 FO figs, 2 stands [49 left]
- Hero 2 figs, 1 stand [48 left]
- Tea Drinkers, 3 figs, 1 stand [45 left]
- Leaders / officer, 12 figs, 4 stands [33 left]
- Infantry bases @ 4, 8 stands [0 left]
Altogether, 21 stands of figs for 7 Units of Up the Blue! Infantry - in this case Motor Infantry. This is using my 3-base system of former Flames of War bases, which I quite like the look of. Could easily stretch an 8th Unit out of it using an OP carrier, truck, staff car, etc. So enough for two full infantry companies in the OHW Scenarios, which require 3-4 Infantry Units each. 

Still to come, primed I have:
- four 25 pdrs for 2 Units [on table, these fill either a Mortar or an ATG slot, they were used as both].
- two CS Crusaders w' 3" Howitzer for 1 Unit [Mortars]
- off-table Artillery, there's as many as desired!
Not even primed, I've 
- four 2pdr ATGs for 2 Units [ATGs, obviously].
- four Bofers AA for 2 Units [these will fill an ATG slot].
So altogether 7 Units of on-table gun support.

Tanks will be Crusaders for now; there's a 6 Units of those cardboard boxes nearly completed [5 Units with 2pdr gun, 1 w 6pdr gun, so post Operation Crusader]. This puts me at 20 Units and only needing 18 Units for three full sides! In this case I'll have two Motor Infantry companies and one Crusader Squadron.

This total doesn't get into all the additional British desert stuff I have! I will need to double-check and make sure I have three full sides of Italians ready, but I'm almost sure I do.

Another thing I like about these platoon-level rules, is that it doesn't matter as much what stands the Unit is composed of like in FoW, where you fight by stands. This leaves a lot of flexibility as to what Units are and how they are represented and doesn't compromise on the history.

Going with one-base 3x3" sabots with two stands each on them, I would have about 30 Units, enough for FIVE sides of Brits - lots of mega-game potential here!

With plenty of stands available, I am tempted to make the Brits drinking Tea a staff meeting objective similar to my Italian ones here [CLICK].

As you can see, there's been great progress. As I get closer to finishing up the paint job, I have to decide what the motor infantry are going to be: Rifle types [Rifle Brigade or Kings Royal Rifle Corps] or 2nd Battalion Scots Guards. But I'll leave that for another post.

Desert Rats Progress: P.1 Scots Guards, RHA, more

It's seems like we've been waiting YEARS to get this operation moving!

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ce/The_British_Army_in_North_Africa_1941_E6804.jpg
yes, well, that's because it HAS been years...

So this project has been brewing for a while - well, years, actually. And now I'm committed to making it happen; as written up here [click] it is one of my top three [3] projects. 

It only makes _complete_ sense, as I've a pretty big, mostly finished, nicely painted Italian desert army that I've been using for years. And that has some more platoons I'd like to finish for it, also. Well, truth be told...LOTS of platoons! And I always paint more enthusiastically when I know I'm going to be using the figures soon.

This project is a Beda Fomm matchup, Italians v. 22nd Armoured Brigade at Beda Fomm during Operation Crusader, late 1941. Ever since reading "Brazen Chariots" 35 years ago I've been interested in this campaign, so it's a long time coming to game it in greater detail. It'll be great, as it allows me to field both sides with up to 4 players, easily, so I can do more demo games and host people with eye-catching stuff.

The Crusaders are mostly done, but need all the last touches. Still, they are "enough" to use on the table for now. But there's no British Infantry at all, and I've been substituting Italians for a few years now, which is definitely wrong. So progressing is happening daily...

Altogether there's about 60 Infantry, 28 Artillerists, 4 25pdr guns + limbers, 13 bailed-out tank crews. This will come to about 8 Artillery stands [4 guns/limbers, 1 staff and 1 command and 2 FO teams] 6 bailed tank crew stands, 20 Infantry stands [4 Bren LMK, 3 ATR, 1 PIAT, 1 x 2" mortar, 11 SMLE rifle stands]. In the "Up the Blue!" rules, these 34 stands are about 11-12 Units, when pushed to the limit. My normal choice would be:

• 2 x 25pdr Dual-purpose Gun batteries,
• 6 x Infantry platoons
• several status markers

But it is great to be using rules where 3 stands / vehicles is the only essential guideline, and everything else can be history, character and flavor! In a pinch, I can field two full Motor Platoon companies of three platoons each, plus a battery of 25pdrs, and toss in two tank troops, and I've two 6-unit forces on the table. I can also switch them to Crusader Armoured Squadrons, just by swapping in more Tank platoons for the Infantry platoons.

I've lots more [lots and lots more...] including Bofers AA, AA and ATG Portees, 2pdr ATGs, Armoured Cars, etc. Very shortly I'll also be able to field some nice Jock Column Forces. 

Getting Ready. I cleaned and arranged by painting table - first time in a year at least. I then gathered all the tones I might need to not only paint them "as written" but to paint them in lighter tones that also contrasted with surrounding colors so as to be noticeable on the fig from a couple feet away - if it's not noticeable, why paint it??

Gear. I also went through all the brushes - the ones above are the best of the lot. The others are pretty beat up, but will be useful for stippling, camo schemes, etc, so I'm not tossing them...yet. Water and a small paint palette above, a bit of broken plastic just above the "Army Painter" logo to bottom right - I use this to dampen the brush and keep it wet but with the same color as I paint one aspect of all 63 figs in one sit-down session.

Mounted on popsicle sticks - same figures on the same stick. I then go down the file of soldiers painting something that adds variety down the file, e.g. a flesh tone, so that all the poses are not painted identically to each other. This builds variety among the batch of figs, and give opportunities to mix'n match since the row of figs are all the same, or almost the same. This combo of working either across the stick or down the sticks is  easy for me to track who gets what paint and what type of fig they are. I've NEVER been able to do the Battlefront thing where you mount the figs on stands and then paint them like that!



Handling the sticks while painting the khaki backpacks is easy, makes the brush strokes repetitive and fast, and the groups of same figs together speeds up comprehension of the sculpt, e.g. what am I looking at with this little bump, line, etc here on the fig??


FLESH: Mixing the tones up a bit...Vallejo Light Brown [70.929], Sand Yellow [?] and Off White [70.820] - haven't used it this batch, but 70.981 Orange Brown also looks like it would mix into the pallet well. I put a drop or two next to each other, and as I feel inspired, I mix them and draw from the pools of color to hit up the flesh tones of these guys - I like variety since everyone doesn't tan the same way [some just burn] and others are exposed less, etc. Very happy with how these look on the figs! They have some variety but it's not distracting.

The only downside to this is remembering the color combos, but posting them will help!

Going down the line with the black boots.



you can see some of the color experiments I've been making here and there.

Organizing by gear also helps. Below, the groups are [top-bottom] Rifles, support weapons, officers with pistols, SMGs, walking sticks and tea cups [yes, really], and radio FO teams. It's MUCH easier to paint all the Bren LMGs at once, all the Boys ATRs at once, etc.


So altho these figs are taking longer than I originally thought, getting into the groove if it is helping a lot, and I think future painting projects will go much easier and faster. After not being in the painting chair much for a long time, it was hard to get started again, I have to say. But now that progress is being made, it's much easier - I'd say I'm over the hump!

As always, comments and suggestions welcome, especially ideas for things to paint on these guys!

6d6 WWII p.2: Big Battle Totensonntag Game!

OK, so this wasn't the best-planned report, ever. The main problem being that I completely forgot to take any pics at all, which often happens when I run a game - just too focused on it.

In any event, will try for a post here that shows some of the challenges of running a big game and is related to the last post. Thanks to Steve over at Sound Officer's Call for his pics and write-up, which really helped during a busy pre-Christmas season!

Managed to show up just a few minutes after a few of the other guys who were bringing figs. We got into our greetings right away - it was great to see the guys after such a long time! Some of them have been busy with good tasks - work, caring for elderly parents, doing charity work as a storm trooper [pew-pew-pew!] or with the fire department - and it's a reminder that we are always getting away from something to exercise our minds and our little lead men when we show up to game!

We then hit the task of organizing forces and setting up the table, which went quite quickly. In not too long, this:


became this:

The table is pretty amazing...it's just wood [you can see the wood grain, but it looks a bit like wind-swept stand] but the paint and texture looks astonishingly desert-like. Each end of the game was trimmed 6" as it is an 8x4 table, not a 3x9' table. The extra foot in depth wasn't necessarily a major problem, but it does change how quick units get into the game. I kept the center scenario the correct width of 3' as I didn't think it would make much difference on the two flank scenarios. 

According to 1HW, this meant that the Scen #4 attacker started 6" closer, while the reinforcements for the defender were 6" farther away. This distorts the arrival times by not quite a turn. The Scen #16 didn't matter as it was a meeting engagement and both had a bit farther to go. should've used the extra foot of space as set-up space, and then marked the table edge at 3 feet deep so Units entered exactly as per the scenarios used. I then should've taken the full foot off Scenario #16 as it didn't really matter - they didn't need the width. So the scenario spaces would've been 3x3, 3x3, and 2x3.

Lesson 1: be careful with table dimensions that may distort important aspects of the scenario like the turn attacks or reinforcements get going.

The Reading of the Rules. I toyed with the idea of a QRS. However, the rules are only 3 pages anyway, and it didn't seem worth the effort. It took about 20 minutes or so, and of course wasn't 100% absorbed. However, I did note as the game progressed that players did in fact seem to remember parts of what was said and were able to find their way around with the rules themselves, or even help each other. Below, me as "talking [shiny] head".

Above, Scenario #16 up close, with #15 then #4 in the distance. Brits left, Germans right.

I placed Steve and Dave against people who'd never played so their previous experience with the rules would help, and on opposing sides. Scenario #4 had neither player with any experience with these rules, so I figured I'd be needed there most, but they actually did quite well for themselves. 

One problem was that I had left some of my reminders in the scenario special rules, but they didn't apply for this game. This confused some of the players even though the correct special rules were repeated for thier specific Units below.

Lesson 2: make a very clean copy of the scenario special rules, and do it well in advance!

Scenario #16: Advance Guard. This ended up as 4 crud platoons, 1 Mortar Platoon [25pdrs], 1 Crud CS [Close Support]. But I'm uncertain that the CS tanks were differentiated in all the hubbub. 
Lesson 3: Double-check that your friends set up the forces correctly and the players know what they have.

This was played twice, once by Brian and Butch, and once by me and Butch. The first game was won by the British. The Italian advance got onto the hill but in the ensuing firepower contest the British won.

Game #1, Brit view. British spread out 4 Crud platoons, with AC's on the road and 25pdrs to rear. Italian ACs are on the hill [they were shot off it]. 


Game #1, Italian view.Two Carri platoons to left backed by Infantry, Mortars and ATGs. One problem was that the Italians didn't dig in soon enough, I think. It makes them a tough nut to crack for the Brits who are penalized for lack of HE rounds on the tanks.


The second game, I played the British and confidently dashed up the hill, getting my armored cars on it to spot the enemy and follow up by deploying my entire force off the road a turn ahead of the Italians. I then fought them as they stood, concentrating firepower at every opportunity. Towards the end - I had two Crud platoons left and held the hill, game over! But, I decided to go for 100%. I advanced to wipe out the last Italian Unit, their 75/27 Howitzers, Mortars. In the end, it came down to just a couple of die rolls but I managed to lose my final Crud! So 1-1 on this end, and the scenario seems quite balanced. Lots of opportunities to try different tactics here, definitely deserves some more play in the future.

On the British left, the remains of 7th Armoured Brigade dashed forward in Scenario #4: Take the High Ground. Below, a nice shot of the 4 Honey platoons advancing and facing off against the German reinforcements and their objective. Steve does a nice recap of their play, which included no less than THREE games! I wasn't able to follow it all closely, but they seemed to have done pretty well with figuring out the rules and having fun.


The center was Scenario #15: Fortified Defense, a really great scenario that I will definitely play again and again. It is definitely a game that goes to the 15-turn limit, as the attacker gets to "refit" his force by removing what's left of it at any time and then re-entering the entire force in new shape! In effect, a complete second wave. The Defender has two solid "fortifications" which are Towns in terms of game mechanics. 

I misunderstood the "Additional Weaponry" special rule, which gave both towns some extra fighting ability. In the scenario it says they get a d6 of shooting and - in the early periods of rules [Pike and Shot and earlier] - melee as well. I interpreted this to mean two full Units, which became 25pdrs backing the "garrisons" of an Infantry Unit each. HOWEVER, this also gave the 25pdrs 7 Hits that had to be shot away before they were removed while the scenario rule says that the additional weaponry are destroyed once the garrison Units are eliminated. Below, Infantry Unit garrison backed by second Mortar Unit - 25pdrs.

So in effect the "additional weaponry" adds a d6 of shooting to a unit in the WWII rules, but is destroyed with the garrison Unit, and the entire force has only the 15 Hits of one Unit in the original rules [but I gave it 30, in effect]. So for WWII it functions as a sort of "double dice shooting ability" but no extra hits and no extra range. 

Obviously, the 25pdrs made the defense a bit tougher as it was a 12-8 battle, in stead of a 12-6 battle [albeit two defenders have double-dice in shooting]. This was a bit balanced by the fact that the "towns" were not full fortifications. I played them as "encampments" that gave Dug-in to any unit within them, which is allowed in my version of the rules, anyway - it just takes one turn.

Lesson 4: Make sure you read the scenario rules carefully - preferably, play it out a couple times ahead of the main day!

Below, the result of the extra firepower: attacking Germans taking lots of Hits from the defense. It should be noted that my version gives ATGs and Tanks a Long Range of 24".

This was compounded by the deployment of the Germans, which was very spread out, so it was harder to concentrate firepower. And this was compounded by the South Africans rolling a bunch of crazy rolls, including needing all 6's to hit and getting 3 in one roll!

Below. The German second wave. It has more infantry who are supposed to be mopping up what the Panzers have left. South Africans have only lost 2/8 Units, however!

The center game went for the duration. Between the additional Units and the second-wave re-entry, Scenario 15 is going to go 14-15 in turns most of the time, I think.

Overall, 6 games were played in three hours, an average of two a player, which meets the OHW goal of being able to play twice, typically. The victories were a pretty even split, altho I'm not sure about the result of the third Scenario #4 battle.

The players all seemed to have a good time. I was especially pleased to get both a good turnout and lots of Units on the table, as we hadn't played in a long time - a few years, at least! This reminds me of some great comments made at the Gen. Pettygree Blog [LINK] about big games. Sometimes a big battle is just the thing to get creative juices flowing, and provide a creative high point. It reminds me I need to do more painting, altho I've been doing a lot of designing, playing, and basing [especially of medievals]. But the lead mountain has not been dented much lately, and I do enjoy the creativity of painting.

Lesson 5: Sometimes, bigger is better, and a game is "too big to fail" for FUN even if it isn't run perfectly!

"Tanks for the memories" all who came out and played, I hope we get some games in sooner rather than later!