Cutting Out Action at Djouadd

It's been a while since I had anything to post about here but yesterday we gathered virtually for a game of Sharp Practice that deserves to be recorded.

The setting was the Woebetide Islands, specifically the Coastal Arab town of Aj Djouadd, where a French merchant ship had been seized. Achmed Ibn Faad, the local caid, in pursuance of his lawful duties (or if you prefer, the notorious pirate Achmed Ibn Faad in an attempt to extort money out of the French East India Company) had taken the Marie-Hélène Charretier and she now lay at anchor with a skeleton crew of sepoys guarding her.

The French, under Lieutenant de vaisseau Hollande (Phil Gray) were to launch a night-time cutting out mission to recover the ship and her crew. Richard Phillips ran the Arab forces assisted by Diego Correa who joined us from Santiago de Chile.  

I wanted to simulate the disruption to the Arabs' command and control caused by this being a surprise night attack but still give Richard some command decisions in the early stages.  I did this by asking him to rate his sub-commanders from most to least reliable and competent. Richard chose to put his best men in charge of the guard-crew on the merchantman and in the watchtower while the artillery crew and the patrolling dhow were led by less reliable followers.

I had Richard roll four dice (without telling him why) and used the scores to determine an Activation Value (AV) for each of his sub-commanders. The values were allocated in the order determined by Richard's ratings. Richard rolled 1, 1, 2, 5. The 5 was allocated to the crew of the patrolling dhow who now needed to roll 5+ on 1D6 before they could successfully activate. These rolls were needed until each group successfully activated. The sepoys in the watchtower could activate automatically (having an AV of 1+). The sepoys guarding the merchantman would have had an AV of 1+ except that I'd decided in advance that I would add +2 to their AV (up to a maximum of 6) as they had discovered the French skipper's secret stash of brandy on board!

I gave Phil the option of entering the table at any point along a "sea edge" of the table. 

He elected to bring on his boats right next to the watchtower. Lt Panais with a group of marines would land to the left the tower with two longboats carrying ship's guns landing to its right. Meanwhile another longboat would carry a group of sailors directly to the Marie-Hélène Charretier.

Immediately the marines rushed up the beach and the silence was shattered by a warning shot fired by one of two guards outside the barracoon. There was a brief flash of moonlight on bayonet and both guards lay dead. 

Six Arabs in the the watchtower had been alerted however and the marines came under fire from within, losing a couple of figures in the first few turns of the game.

The barracoon proved to hold the crew of the Marie-Hélène Charretier and they were shown to the marines' boat and told to join the attempt to recapture their vessel.

By now the crew of the Arab gun on the large hill to the east had awoken to the danger and roundshot began to rain down on the French boats.

Even the crew of the patrolling dhow managed to get their act together and they closed in on the attacking French boats. A blast at short range from their swivel gun put enough Shock on the recently freed crew they should have fallen back away from the enemy. We translated this to their boat sheering off to try and put the hull of the Marie-Hélène between them and the dhow.

In the picture below the grey boat containing the rescue merchant crew can be seen next to the two white longboats, who have just run up the beach. 

Meanwhile, Hollande's sailors had swarmed up the side of the Marie-Hélène Charretier. With pistols, cutlasses and boarding pikes they made relatively short work of the Arab guards and were soon starting to cut the anchor cables and sheet home a foresail to give them steerage way.

In the meantime, Achmed ibn Faad had gathered the men of the village and now led them in a wild charge to try and capture the beached longboats. despite a last minute blast of grape from the right-hand boat, the Arabs swarmed aboard and butchered the crew to a man (though it would later emerge that the leader of the guns, Enseigne Houllier, was alive but knocked insensible at the tiller). 

Success for the Arabs was brief, however. The other longboat had previously pulled back slightly from the beach and was able to swing around and blast the villagers in the other boat at point blank range. Grapeshot ripped through their ranks leaving the survivors demoralised and Achmed ibn Faad lying wounded.

We called it a day at 1700 GMT (1400 in Chile) with the Marie-Hélène Charretier in French hands but under fire from the dhow and from the cannon on the hill.

An honourable and enjoyable draw was declared but I think if we'd had another hour, the French would probably have been victorious.

Many thanks to Phil, Richard and Diego for taking part. We struggled a little with comms. We started using Discord but switched to Skype after a bit to see if it would be more reliable. It wasn't.

One final point; those few of you in the intersection of the sets "wargamer" and "folky" may like to note that Marie-Hélène Charretier is a French translation of "Mary Ellen Carter" - a little tribute to the late Stan Rogers.  

There's a little yellow idol...

One of the buildings I knew I needed for the Woebetideus campaign was the Hindoo temple at Pandigore. It's an important landmark and, who knows, it might become relevant as the plot develops.

Last weekend I completed construction and painting:

The base is PVC board. The low retaining wall around the pond, the walkway, and the plinth on which the temple sits are cut as a single piece from a sheet of foam-core. Brick-work added with Green Stuff, stones from thin card.

The walls are also foam-core with stippled paintwork.  The roof is made from thin card.

Inide the temple you can just glimpse the golden statue of Ganesh, purchased at Penkridge last year.  The wall paintings were found on the internet, printed to size, and stuck on with Pritt!

Rommel versus de Gaulle

Our Christmas Wargame this year revisited an idea I'd first explored about twenty years ago. What might have happened if Rommel's 7th Panzer Division had encountered Charles de Gaulle's 4th Division Cuirassée de Reserve in France in May 1940?

As we couldn't gather in person, I decided that we'd have a try at gaming by Discord. I set up a server with separate spaces for the French and German commanders and recruited four players; Andy Sangar (de Gaulle), Phil Gray (Rommel), Rob Connolly (Rothenberg - commander of 25th Panzer Regiment), and Richard Phillips (LtCol Sudre - commander of 6e Demi-brigade de Chars de Combat). In addition, Jamie very kindly assisted with moving the models on our table using the TacWW2 rules.

I knew we'd be playing out an encounter battle; something I generally try to avoid because they can be rather one dimensional. So often they degenerate into a race to occupy key terrain at the centre of the table. I thought we could get round that to some extent, though, by careful design of the terrain and by starting some elements of both forces on the table quite close to the enemy.

I set up terrain that used models I already possessed and then converted the table layout into a map (created using Paintbrush on my Mac):

The locations are fictional - justified by the fact that the two formations were never in a position to encounter one another in real life. The Germans entered from the east (top of the map) and the French from the west (bottom). The long axis of the table represents about 7.2km.

The French force consisted of:

• 10e Cuirassiers - recon battalion (one company of Panhard 178 armoured cars and one of motorcycle infantry)
• 4e Chasseurs Portées - a battalion of motorised infantry in civilian buses!
• 6e DBCC - two tank battalions (19e with Chars D2 and 46e with Char B1 bis)
• 8e DBCC - three tank battalions (2e, 24e and 44e) with Renault R-35s.
• Plus half a dozen 75mm artillery batteries.

Of these, 10e Cuirassiers could start on the table anywhere up to the line railway-works-Ferme-de-Mesnil.

The German force represented only a portion of the assets available to 7th Panzer. I omitted three motorised infantry battalions, partly because I didn't have enough models and partly because their presence would have slowed the game down. The full force totalled:

• 7th Motorcycle Battalion
• 37th Reconnaissance Battalion 
• 25th Panzer Regiment (mostly Pz38(t) but also some PzII and Pz IV)
• I battalion 6th Schützen Regiment
• Divisional assists in the form of six 105mm artillery batteries and two platoons each of 37mm AA guns, 88mm AA guns and 37mm AT guns.

Historically, 7th and 37th battalions were used by 7th Panzer as a forward detachment so I allowed these two to be deployed anywhere as far west as the Chateau St Juste.

I had intended that at the end of each game turn we would use die rolls (Tac rolls) to determine which companies had managed to communicate to their battalions. A second set of die rolls would then determine which battalions managed to send reports to the player commanders. Reports would be sent to the Regimental or Divisional commander depending on who the battalion in question reported to.

In the end we decided on the fly (a) to drop the company level reports and (b) to send all reports to both players of the appropriate side.  The requirement for a Tac roll provided for considerable friction. 10e Cuirassiers, for example, failed to get any communications off to 4DCR HQ for a good half of the action. 

Because the recon units started on the table, Jamie and I were very quickly in action. The French had decided that the 10e Cuirassiers would immediately attempt to occupy Sery l'Etang and their armoured car and motorcyclists quickly did so. The Germans on the other hand decided to advance on both flanks to screen their main force attacks.

Stukas attack Sery l'Etang (a Hungarian 
Air Force model standing in for my damaged
Luftwaffe Ju-87)

Both main forces were a little slow in getting forward. The most aggressive French advance was on their right flank where 6e DBCC pushed forward through Ferme du Mesnil and drove towards Sery. The Char D2 battalion would go on to engage the German 37th battalion's armoured cars.

19e BCC's Char D2s approach Sery.
4e Chasseurs' buses can be seen on the road.

46e BCC's Char B1s pass Ferme du Mesnil

Another early on-the-fly adjustment to our approach was to use 3"x5" index cards to represent the locations of as-yet-undeployed battalions. We also used business cards to represent independent companies - the one in the picture below represents de Gaulle's command elements.

Sery l'Etang rapidly became crowded with
French units.

7. Kradschützen Bataillon passes the 
Chateau St Juste

The Sery l'Etang traffic jam developing

Part of 37. Aufklärungs Abteilung moves
to pass Sery to the south

Unknown to their Division commander, the men of 10e Cuirassiers were staunchly defending Sery L'Etang. The German recon troops got to within pistol shot and one Cuirassier platoon was overrun and surrendered. However, at that moment the order came through for the German recon troops to turn left and move around Sery to the south. The town would remain in French hands throughout.

44e (nearest camera) and 2e BCC R-35s
(near the green die) approach the works

A view of the table circa Turn 5

A word about air support. I gave the Germans 6 Stuka and 9 Me-109 sorties to call off as they wished. The French would get random air support if a 10 was rolled on a D10 at the start of any turn. This never happened. Shame as I'd rather have liked to get my Fairey Battles onto the table at last!

4e BCP enters Sery

In the foreground the Char D2s of 19e BCC
clash with armoured cars of the 37.AA

I/6. Schützen Regt backed up by the
Panzer Is of 66. Panzer Bataillon

Here come the Panzers!

Towards the end of the game, the 25th Panzer regiment was passing north of Sery. Their two battalions were up against two Renault R-35 battalions of 8e DBCC (near the rectangular walled field on the left in the picture below).

The final positions seen from the west end of the table
over de Gaulle's HQ

The German battalions were considerably stronger than their French counterparts and the quality of the tanks was superior too. A German victory in the north was very likely.

Success to the south would depend on whether the Luftwaffe 88mm FlaK guns supporting I/6. Schützen Regiment could be got into action.

We got to 1730 real-life-time and about 0900 game-time and decided that we'd better stop and have something to eat. A debrief using Discord's voice channel revealed that the players had found the experience "equal parts boredom, frustration and annoyance" but none-the-worse for that. I get the impression that they thought the experience was probably very like the real thing (albeit without the ever present risk of personal injury or death)!

We all concluded that the Discord and remote commanders approach worked well. Jamie's now considering if it could be adapted to ancient warfare.

 

Discord game tomorrow

 I'd normally be hosting a couple of games in person over the Christmas period but that's obviously not going to happen this year. 

So in lieu I decided to have a go at running a game by Discord. Rather than playing a conventional game with the players able to see the events on-table via webcam, I having another go at the remote-commanders-giving-orders-based-on-a-map-and-reports-from-subordinates approach. I don't think I've done one of those in about twenty years!

We're exploring what might have happened if Rommel's 7th Panzer Division had encountered de Gaulle's 4th Armoured Division in 1940.

We'll be using the Tac:WW2 rules but these will be pretty much invisible to the players with just Jamie and I needing them to work out what happens.

I'll report later on how things go.

 

Priecīgus Ziemassvētkus everybody!

That's "Merry Christmas" in Latvian, for no particular reason. I hope everybody's had a suitably indulgent day?  

Traditional display of wargames-related presents received:

I'm really pleased with all of this. The L-shaped ruler is something I've seen terrain-builders using online and thought "Oh that'd really help with marking out walls for scratch-built houses". 

The Copplestone Future Wars miniatures are to form a new gang for Rogue Stars. It'll be fun to paint them up and then stat them for the rules.

Finally, the small ziplock bag is African native accessories from Foundry - baskets, jars, statues, bunches of bananas, and skulls on poles among other items. Great for detailing Woebetideus villages. Some of them may also see use in the Pavis project. 

Sun Domers vs Wolf Pirates

Diego and I played another game of inter-continental Hordes of the Things on Saturday.  He again chose the Sun Dome Templars whilst I decided to go back to using my favourite Gloranthan army - the Wolf Pirates.

I'm afraid I didn't get a full set of pictures to document the battle but here are the few I did take.

The Wolf Pirates were defending. Their Stronghold, the beached ship, can be seen above. Diagonally, between the two areas of Bad Going, you can see Argrath (Hero) and a Warband unit positioned to hold off an attempt by some Zebra Riders to threaten the Stronghold.

As with the previous battle, Diego seemed determined to avoid Bad Going. This probably wasn't unreasonable as his force of mostly Spears and Hordes is far better suited to the flat plains of Sun County.

He put his Spears, Hero and Paladin in the centre whilst his Shooters, Riders and Hordes formed a right wing that would advance to threaten my left.

The battle was bloody one. Both Paladins (Vega Goldbreath for the Sun Domers and Gunda the Guilty for the Wolf Pirates) were killed early in the action. Harrek the Berserk(Hero General) killed the Champion of Garhound (Hero) to give the Wolf Pirates what I thought would be a game-winning lead but then a 6:1 roll saw me lose two Warbands.

I thought the battle was won when Harrek managed to kill the Sun Domer General Solanthos Ironpike thanks to having turned the flank of the Spear unit immediately behind him and then forced him to recoil.  

But I'd forgotten that Diego needed to have lost both is General and more Army Points than me to lose the game. We fought on for one more turn before another 6:1 put paid to the one more Spear unit needed to break the Sun Domers' morale. 

That was a really enjoyable and hard-fought game. I think it was a mistake on Diego's part to strand his Hordes out on the right flank where they were always going to struggle to get into the action. 

I took a calculated risk and threw the Wolf Pirates forward hoping for a quick victory before he could threaten my Stronghold. I should have committed fully to that approach and gone with the full two-Heroes-and-a-Paladin front rank but at the last moment I decided to keep Argrath in reserve to keep the Zebra Riders away from my ship. As a result the big fight in the centre went on longer and was more bloody on my side than maybe it should have been.

Quote of the Day come from Diego: "Strongholds are pretty tough, otherwise they'd call them Weakholds".  

    

Crisis Point 2021

Covid-19 population dynamics allowing, Crisis Point 2021 will take place on the 17th and 18th April 2021.

It was a great disappointment to have to cancel this year’s event. Obviously picking a date this coming Spring is something of a hostage to fortune but I’m hoping the availability of a vaccine will have started to lessen the need for isolation.

Crisis Point 2021 sees us return to a single, large game with everyone involved together. We’ll be exploring the “history” of the fictional Woebetide Islands in the Indian Ocean in the early 1700s. There will be the chance to play  fierce pirates and privateers, cunning captains of the English and French East India Companies, dastardly Arab slavers, and fierce native chieftains.

If you take Pirates of the Caribbean, filter out the supernatural elements, lard heavily with The Last of the Mohicans, swirl in the grandfathers of Richard Sharpe and Horatio Hornblower, add a dash of Carry On Up the Khyber, and serve it all with suitably outrageous French, Arab and Indian accents, you’ve probably got a feel for where we’re heading.

As usual you don’t have to bring your own armies, though we’re very grateful to those who do, and knowledge of the rules (Sharp Practice by Too Fat Lardies) is helpful but not necessary.      

The usual structure of the weekend is planned:

Friday 16th, afternoon - take possession of the hall and begin setting up tables and terrain

Saturday 17th - start about 10am and play through to about 5pm (please bring your own packed lunch)

Saturday 17th, evening - for those staying locally a trip to the Royal Hotel for pies and pints will take place

Sunday 17th - again starting about 10am, breaking for lunch at the Royal and wrapping up about 3pm to allow time for packing away and getting off to our respective homes.

If you plan to attend this time, please let me know as soon as possible so I can allocate you a role.  Likewise if you can’t make it, please do let me know early as this will really help with the organising.