Solo After Action Report - OHW Flank Attack (2) - Germans vs BEF

Here are some photos of a solo battle I played through this afternoon. I chose the One Hour Wargames Scenario 7: Flank Attack (2) to see how the WW2 rules play out and see if they needed any modifications.

The setting is Northern France, summer 1940. The Red forces holding the objective, the main hill, would be the plucky lads of the BEF. The attacking Blue forces in the scenario were my early war Germans. The Wermacht would attack from front and flank in an attempt to capture the hill and strike a blow to the British rearguard. The Brits had to hold the hill at all costs.

The German forces consisted of three infantry units, a Pak 36 anti-tank gun, and two tanks, a Panzer IV and a Czech 38t.

The British had four infantry units, a 2-Pounder anti-tank gun and a 25lb-er gun howitzer.

To summarise the action, the main German thrust was on the British left flank, whilst the German anti tank and one infantry unit demonstrated against the BEF centre. The BEF lads soon noticed the typical shabby Nazi trick and redeployed to counter it. The German infantry attack stuttered a little at first, leaving their tanks to drive deep behind the hill. However, despite the Panzers' speed and firepower they could not consolidate their gains without their accompanying infantry. When the German foot soldiers did advance, the British artillery piece was ready for them and the 25lb shells carved bloody holes in their ranks. The British 2-pounder anti-tank fire from the hill had mixed success, but with assistance from heroic neighbouring infantry, the German panzers were defeated.

Towards the end of the battle, with only a anti-tank gun for support the German infantry pushed hard up the hill, but with poor dice rolls and artillery hammering them, they were ultimately defeated. In the One Hour Wargames rules, anti-tank guns are rather redundant if the enemy has no armour on the table, so the Germans had one sixth of their force at an immediate disadvantage. In contrast, the British artillery piece did sterling work and survived the battle with only one point of health remaining. Unsurprisingly my Zvezda British medic team had lots to do! The last remaining British infantry unit, comparatively untouched on 9 points of health out of 15, had managed to stay out of trouble during the early stages and thereby formed a good "meatshield" protecting the howitzer.

Overall a tense battle, again showing that anything outside of cover and within line of sight doesn't last very long on a Second World War battlefield! It's also a good idea to attack with all of your units simultaneously, and if you lack artillery support, throw your men forward as soon as possible!

The only thing I would improve for next time is to include a bit more battlefield clutter and light cover for this wargaming period, as artillery vs infantry engagements are absolutely brutal!

The last couple of photos show the British commander raising his hand in appreciation to his men, and the knocked out Panzers behind the hill.

Team Yankee / Cold War OHW

So one of my side projects for 2018 is to generate a Team Yankee / Cold War version of One Hour Wargames, that is, a quick and simple "World War 3" game.

Looking at the WW2 One Hour Wargames rules, for force compositions I need 4 different types of military unit. On top of this I'm going to add on two extra unit types that will be inter related for the sake of balance - aircraft (including helicopters) and anti aircraft vehicles.

The 4 units that come to my mind are tanks, mechanised infantry, reconnaissance vehicles and artillery.

I'll look into each unit in detail in due course. Firstly I need to repaint some of my older 'modern' models to closer resemble Team Yankee participants. As the battles are mainly set in West Germany / Europe, this means repainting tanks that were last out of storage around 2011. All will need a thorough clean up and a bit of TLC to make them great again (agh, Trumpism!). The vehicles pictured are a Revell Warrior IFV, a Revell M60A1, a Hasegawa M1 Abrams and a Revell Challenger 1 tank.

PSC German Medium trucks

I've now finished two of the three vehicles from my box of Plastic Soldier Company German medium trucks.

I was going to give my late war Opel Blitz some camouflage but in the end I decided against it. The generic dark yellow gives it great versatility for any mid to late war battlefield in Italy, the Eastern Front or Western Europe.

The grey early war truck was loaded with German tank accessories stowage items and a barrel from Renedra (a company from whom I buy all of my wargaming bases, mostly 10cm by 5cm rectangular ones). I went a little overboard with the mud and weathering (a nasty habit) but overall I'm still happy with it. After all, my main wargaming mat in Bristol depicts a muddy field.

Almost straight after finishing the trucks I put together my third early war Panzer III Ausf G. Whilst I will be painting the tank in a standard early war grey colour scheme, I have placed a lot of stowage on the rear and turret to jazz things up a little. I'm also making use of a spare German machine gunner from a Plastic Soldier Company halftrack box on the main turret hatch, again to differentiate it from my other grey Panzers. The whole idea is to represent a Panzer III on the eve of Operation Barbarossa. A separate blog post and photos to follow.

More trees for the wood

Back in July I posted about making trees for my collection of wargaming terrain. Here's a photo of my trees to date, displayed on a 12inch by 12inch mat upon which they'll represent a forest. I've got four more trees to make from my original bag, so with those finished I should have enough to make this 'forest' look a little more populated. The trees and bases detach from one another, making them easy to stow away when not in use. The bases are also free standing so that they can be moved about when a wargaming unit travels through the forest.

ECW Royalist Artillery

Pictured below is my first unit of English Civil War Royalist artillery. The crew's red sashes and the red markings on cannon wheels denote its allegiance. I decided to edit the One Hour Wargames rules for my  English Civil War armies as artillery was at this time becoming a more common sight on the battlefield, despite of woeful mobility and a general lack of expertise in its use. I am led to believe by the second book of the Stryker Chronicles that artillery and siege specialists from mainland Europe were greatly sought after for their services. The Royalists, with their obvious connections to France would have been well connected with such experts, but let's not forget that Parliamentarian forces also used veterans of the Thirty Years War to bolster their military leadership.

In the wargaming rules themselves, artillery will be much like its American Civil War equivalent (a - 2 penalty to damage rolls) but with a range of 36",  so it cannot sweep the entirety of my gaming mat. 

My ECW artillery units are the only non-Revell figures in the collection - they are manufactured by A Call to Arms as Royalist Artillery, and you get 4 cannon and 16 crew in a box. 

Separating the wood from the trees...

These are my initial attempts at trees for my wargaming terrain. These are bare and autumnal, on muddy bases painted with GW Stirland Mud. These are done in a similar way to a few tree bases I did for my desert / South Africa wargaming forces a couple of years ago.

I used a big pack of plastic trees for railways from my local model shop. They consisted of around 4 different tree designs with bendable branches, which all slot into tree trunk bases. After a bit of bending and snipping, I used the bases blu tacked to my usual milk caps to hold my trees still for painting. The trees themselves had coats of generic black acrylic, GW Rhinox Hide, a dry brush of GW Steel Legion Drab, followed by inking with Agrax Earthshade.

The bases I used came from discarded Zvezda Samurai gaming bases. I used blu tac and liberal paint coats to seal in the tree bases to them. After Stirland Mud coats I simply pegged in the loose trees and voila, a few trees to start off some woodland. Huzzah!

One Hour Wargames - Take the High Ground

Today my girlfriend kindly offered to play a one hour wargame scenario with me using my muddy fields wargaming mat and my American Civil War armies.

We played "Take The High Ground" on a map that consisted of a marsh, road and small hill. With the limited amount of terrain I currently have this scenario was the most appropriate to use.

We each rolled for army composition and for who would be Red / Blue forces. I was the defending Red Army, fighting with Union forces, whereas my other half fielded a Blue Army of Confederates. I had three infantry units, two elite infantry units (called Zouaves in the Wargames book) and one artillery piece. Facing off against them were four Confederate infantry units, one elite infantry unit and a unit of dashing Rebel cavalry. After my test game (Marye's Heights) I allowed cavalry to charge as per Napoleonic rules, dishing out D6 damage but then retreating 6" once the sabres had been rattled!

The cavalry charging ability was put to good practice, taking a toll on the elite Union infantry guarding the hill. My artillery was also present  on the hill, enabling it to start thinning out advancing Rebels. Having the cannon at the front line also stopped Union reinforcements from blocking its line of sight. The elite units in the game were high priority targets, getting some good volleys off but attracting plenty of attention in return. Union firepower started off very well but Lady Luck eventually favoured the Confederates in the crucial final stages of the game.

To summarise the battle, isolated Union forces on the hill were crushed by a mixture of cavalry charges and elite musketry. Meanwhile Rebel infantry held Union reinforcements up on the main road long enough for their comrades to secure ownership of the hill. By taking the high ground, the Confederate forces just had to dig in and hold out against the Yankee counter attack. At one point both sides had exactly the same strength, but the dice rolls eventually favoured Johnny Reb and my brave boys in blue were seen off. My girlfriend quite enjoyed it, especially using her gallant cavalry to savage my elites. 

Overall a very close game, showing that the dice don't always go your way despite seemingly good visual odds on the battlefield. Severely wounded units can still cause a lot of pain (especially those elites with a +2 damage bonus!). I learned that artillery in the open and close to the enemy can only hold out for so long, and that at the end of the day, it's the poor bloody infantry that secure victory!

One Hour Wargames - Maryes Heights

Last weekend I played out a solo game of the American Civil War rules in One Hour Wargames using my muddy fields wargaming mat.

I wanted to see how the different units performed on the battlefield. The battle map was loosely based on the Battle of Marye's Heights, December 1862. General Burnside hurled the Army of the Potomac against Confederate defensive works around the town of Fredericksburg. After sustained and costly frontal attacks the Union offensive was repulsed and another period of relative stalemate followed in the Eastern theatre. It would not be disturbed until the Battle of Chancellorsville the following year. 

For this scenario I used a hill, trench and my hasty barricades to form the Confederate fortifications, and selected an Rebel army of three infantry and two artillery units to fend off the Yankee attack.

I then rolled a dice to decide the composition of the Union forces. The 1 rolled resulted in three infantry, two artillery and one cavalry unit to throw at the Rebel strongpoint.

To summarise the battle, the Union attackers divided to flank the Rebel position, but despite supporting artillery fire chipping away at the Confederates, the defences held out. Union volleys and cannon fire could not make a decent impression on their opponents. 

Lessons learned? Units in hard cover (behind barricades, halving incoming damage) are bloody tough, and one infantry unit in cover can take on two enemy infantry units quite effectively, especially as the rules prohibit close combat. My main mistake was to field 5 units with hard cover against just 6 attacking units who only had a small hill to screen their advance. I also learned that artillery is no battle winner - many round of shooting on both sides did absolutely nothing! So much for accurate rifled cannon!

The one main issue I have with the ACW rules in One Hour Wargames regards cavalry's inability to draw swords and put them to good use. For future games I intend to allow close combat in line with Napoleonic cavalry, as their mobility counts for little when they can't shoot a barn door at 10 paces! Infantry units in comparison do far more of the fighting - and dying - making them the most decisive participants in the field.

And now for something completely different

Please don't get me wrong. I love history, military history of most periods, and am fascinated by the many real events and the stories and people behind them. But once in a while I find myself needing a little escapism, especially in the current political climate both in this country and across the world.

Escapism in military history usually comes in the form of "What ifs", or as historians usually phrase them, "counterfactuals". For example, what if Jackson was alive and commanding his Stonewall Brigade at Gettysburg? Or if the Germans had managed to commandeer the French fleet at Mers El Kebir, and not changed strategy during the Battle of Britain? These are classic hypothetical questions that I could deliberate over for hours.

However, another part of this hobby for me is related to science fiction; earlier in this blog I posted on my Revell kit of Battlestar Galactica. I am a big fan of both Star Wars and Star Trek (probably siding with parts of the latter, if pushed to pick favourites) and love the genre's hybrids, such as the TV show Firefly (a sci-fi Western).

The other day on Netflix I watched a documentary on the Orson Welles 1938 radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds. I had read the book as a kid and loved it (despite not fully understanding the finer parts) and it got me thinking about mixing my military history models with something a little more... Fictitious.

After browsing the Internet in search of something to satisfy this craving, I stumbled across an amazing wargame that was created over in America. The game is called "All Quiet on the Martian Front" and is a wargame based on the premise of second alien invasion following the events of the HG Wells novel. Before doing so, I was considering depicting Martian tripods as 'bipods' and caving in to Games Workshop, spending lots of money on a pair, or perhaps trio of Eldar Wraithlords. The Wraithlord is one of my favourite truly alien units from the Warhammer 40k universe, and the Martian weaponry could have been represented by the Bright Lance, Missile Launchers, Star Cannons and flamers of these beastly walkers.

But All Quiet on the Martian Front offered me an alternative - unique three legged Assault Tripods - a box of three for the price of one Warhammer 'Lord. I managed to get a box off Ebay and was very pleased with its contents. The one hitch is that the game units are intended for use with 15mm scale models. However, these tripods still boast considerable height over my 1/72 armies.

I have now started my first Tripod, nicknamed Alpha. It's going to be the leader Tripod, so I've gone for two grabbing claws out of the various weapon options. The chunky plastic appears very durable, with the exception of the feeler tentacles. I'm not quite decided on a paint scheme but might go for a range of colours for the tripods to differentiate themselves on the tabletop. My long term goal is to form a small collection of Steampunk-inspired Martian Front units, either by buying the official products or converting mainstream kits to fit in. Watch this space! (Also, you'd better watch the sky for those Martian cylinders!)

Neil Thomas's One Hour Wargames - a framework for my collections

When I moved to Bristol a couple of years ago I brought quite a few unfinished projects with me spanning a number of historical periods, but I found myself a bit lost in my hobby with no clear direction regarding what I exactly wanted from my plastic hordes. In early 2015 I purchased One Hour Wargames by Neil Thomas and was pleasantly surprised to find a very basic set of rules for a number of historical periods. As a former 40k player the sheer simplicity of the rules was a welcome break from counting points and customising individual models with their own special equipment. Instead the rules have just four different categories of unit and army composition is randomly generated (by throwing a d6 and looking on a small chart).

The rules I am looking to use first are for WW2 and the Machine Age (i.e. WW1) so I can field and use my collection of Boer War, Great War, and WW2 units. It is a case of painting up and basing the appropriate number of units to have a game with. Over the past year I have only managed to finish two armies - a late 1800s Colonial British force, and a Boer army to face them, but I haven't got round to playing the Machine Age rules with them. 

I will change Thomas's rules slightly to represent the nature of Boer War fighting - mainly by replacing the "Heavy Infantry" category with Elite Infantry for the British (represented by Scottish kilted infantry) and Pom-Pom Gun Teams for the Boers (giving them some extra firepower against their oppressors). The Gun Teams will bolster Boer firepower in an area of the battlefield by having an increased range and slight damage bonus over normal Boer rifles, but they are vulnerable if not attached to another Boer unit, taking only 10 hits to kill rather than the usual 15. Comparatively the Scots will be able to take more damage than the regulars (20 hits over the usual 15 - "It takes twice as much to kill a Scotsman!") and they will fire a deadlier volley (+ 2 damage when shooting). I will have to play-test the rules and see how they work. The one thing missing in One Hour Wargames is morale and leadership. As I am used to using the Warhammer 40k Leadership tests this might be transferable to the Boer War rules, but I may simplify them further, with a morale test after 2/3 casualties, where a 5-6 enables them to stay in position, a 3-4 has them fall back 2D6" and a 1-2 has them wiped out (not regrouping). I have also made Commander bases to convey leadership bonuses, and am tempted to use these in larger games (no morale tests for units within 12" of the commander, for example).  

I want to write up my Boer War rules as soon as possible on the blog, so stay tuned!

This is the front cover of the Wargames rules: