Where Have the Italians Gone? : Disposable Heroes After Action Report

Not far from Beja Tunisia, thing have gone quite.  The small town of El Kabab is a critical outpost manned by elements of the Italian Superga Division.  But no-one has heard from them.  What has gone wrong?  Have the Americans captured the town?  Where have the Italians gone?  Maybe their omission from Point Blank was the last straw?  A small recon platoon is dispatched from 21st Panzer Division.  Their commander (me) is a cunning man and very popular with the ladies.  The platoon dismounts from their trucks and advances on the town.  Meanwhile, the American US II Corps advance.  Their commander chews his bubble gum and surveys the town ahead (this did happen and took about five minutes of my life away that I will never get back).  Something is not right.  It's too quite.  He sends in a platoon of the men he hates the most- the Disposable Heroes.
 

German advance.

 The Americans advance.

The American use their elevated positions and start spotting.  An Afrika Korps squad is revealed on the right flank.

 The American reach the town.

Americans take cover in the warehouse. 

 Hand to hand fighting in a house,

 The Germans are driven back, the last three fighting men.

Heroes of the game.  This squad did all the hard fighting and won.

We played this game as a meeting engagement.  Both platoons advancing on an unoccupied town.  We used blinds to hide our troops.  Two blinds per squad.  One blind hiding the unit, the other a dummy.  A simple rule burrowed from I Aint Been Shot Mum from the Too Fat Lardies.  A very quick summary of the game :

Youngy advanced his units on a broad even front.  I tried to be sneaky faking an attack up the centre of the board whilst most of my platoon was on the right flank.  I kept my dummy blinds advancing behind cover whilst the real units advance in the open.  The Ruse worked.  Youngy started concentrating his weapon teams in the middle of the board and spent activations attempting to spot them.  We both reached the town together and auto spotting within 12 inches revealed our forces.   Then it was a mad dash for the cover of the houses.  Youngy pinned and routed my HMG team early in the game.  The riflemen of both sides shot it out. The dice gods deserted me and favoured Youngy.  He began to pin me down.  Soon four German teams could not return fire and the Americans charged in with bayonets.  Vicious house to house fighting resulted in complete victory to the Americans.  My brave men were wiped out or surrendered.  Final result Germans : 25 Dead,  2 Surrendered, 1 Ran Away.  Americans : 4 Dead.  Germans driven from the village and complete victory to Youngy.  Great game.  Good fun.  Best rules in the world.  And where did the Italians go?  Better send emails to Iron Ivan Keith and Chal.  They might know.  Thanks for reading and goodnight.         

FIrst Game of Combat Commander Pacific

Played my first game of Combat Commander Pacific last night.  Operation Cherry Blossom - USMC landing on Bougainville Island on the 1st of November, 1943.  My opponent was Jason, an experience Combat Commander Europe player but his first go at the Pacific.

Basically, after an initial naval bombardment, the USMC arrive in two waves and have to get off the beach and take the scenario objectives or wipe out the Japanese defenders.  The Japs are in bunkers and trenches and have no surrender and will fight to the end.  The Marines will surrender if they loose 16 squads.  The game feels a lot like the original Squad Leader.  However all movement and firing are controlled by cards.  Each player has a huge deck of cards.  You each have a card hand that you replenish each turn.  The cards have orders such as fire, move, charge etc.  You might really want to assault a trench but unless you have an advance card in your hand you can't.  Random events pop up that put your plans in array.  Your card hand management is very important.

The USMC won the game (me).  The game played very well once I worked out the eb and flow of the card system.  The game took 2.5 hours.  The scenario was really well designed giving both players equal chance of winning.  All in all, a very positive experience for me.  Many thanks to Jason for teaching me how to play.

Disposable Heroes: Point Blank

Everyone who knows me and follows my blog knows I am an Iron Ivan Fanboy.  Disposable Heroes is my favourite wargame of all time.  If Iron Ivan jazzed up the rulebook into full colour it would be HUGE.

The latest rule book from the lads is Point Blank.  A squad level skirmish game.  Average of 10 figures per side.  The rules use the same mechanics as Disposable Heroes so I am keen to try them out.  Best thing is I already have the figures.  As soon as these rules arrive I will be posting battle reports. 

From their website : 
Point Blank is a brand new squad level skirmish system for 1:1 modern tactical firearm combat. Players are in charge of a squad or several fire teams and control the individual actions of their soldiers, weapon teams, vehicles or support weapons. The rules are focused on the tactical concepts of fire and maneuver, command and control, and morale as well as training and experience. Any period of modern firearms combat can be simulated, from The Great War all the way to today and beyond.


The Point Blank book contains everything you need to run games with infantry, artillery, and vehicles as well as rules for spotting and hiding, as well as night, weather, smoke, and fog. There are three major periods represented for the army lists in the book: WWII (which includes Germany, U.S., Soviet, British, French, and Polish. Vietnam (which includes U.S., ARVN, Australian, NVA, and VC. As well as modern forces for the Global War on Terror or any other modern hot spot (which includes U.S., British, Mujaheddin, and Insurgent). Rounding out the book are three scenarios, each one concentrating on one of the periods covered in the book and focusing on a tactical concept. The missions include Combat Patrol, Ambush, and a VIP Snatch. There is lots more besides in this 94 page rulebook to keep players busy and gaming.

Australian Infantry

1200 Point Australian Infantry Battlegroup for Blitzkrieg Commander.  Figures are 15mm Battlefront.

Bark Endeavor

Took the rug rat down to Fremantle today to watch Her Majesty's Bark Endeavor return home after 12 years.  The replica was built here but now lives in Sydney.  The Endeavor was the ship that claimed Australia for the British Empire.  After her voyage to Australia she was used to transport British troops to the American colonies during the American War of Independence.  She was scuttled at the entrance of Newport Harbour in the US in an effort to deny access to the port by a fleet of French ships arriving with French troops.

A Fire Fighting boat leads the way.

 Endeavor enters the port.

 Man, sailing ships are sure slow.

And away she goes past us.

Union Regiment Painted

I promised I would paint something.  A standard Union Civil War Regiment with Black Powder rules in mind.  Figures are 15mm Peter Pig.

Combat Commander

Apologies for the lack of posts this month.  I have been ultra slack at painting (done none).  Playing too much Call of Duty live on the Xbox.  But I have also been playing a lot of tabletop games, averaging one a week.  That's been a mixture of Dystopian Wars, Blitzkrieg Commander and Victory at Sea.

My latest shinny thing is Combat Commander Pacific and the New Guinea expansion pack from GMT Games.  .Combat Commander Pacific is ranked number 3 on Boardgame Geeks best wargames of all time list.  It's a Squad Leader style game with squad counters and squad weapons such as LMG's, HMG's and mortars.  You control platoons of units fighting historical scenarios.  All your moves are card driven which is a great game mechanic because you can't really pre-plan anything.  You need to think on the spot with this game.  Combat Commander Pacific has Australian units and battles so that's why I got it.  And I can convert a lot of the scenarios to miniature wargaming.  Anyway, my friend Jason is going to walk me through a game shortly.  He is a veteran gamer of Combat Commander Europe.  I will let you know how I go.

And I will paint something soon - I promise.  And if anyone want's to link up on Xbox live.  Let me know.

Afrika Korps v Australians : Blitzkrieg Commander Battle Report

Welcome to another Blitzkrieg Commander Battle Report.  This time we return to the desert in 1943 and pit the Deutschland Afrika Korps against the Australian Imperial Force.  Godders commands the Germans, I command the AIF.   At stake is the small town of El Godfrey, a place where weary goat herders can rest after a long day of goat herding.  (Does anyone know where I can buy some 15mm goats?)  Rommel needs this town as a staging point for his thrust to Cairo.  The Australian plan is simple and it worked at Tobruk.  Let Rommels tanks pass the outer defensive perimeter and draw them onto hidden guns.  Ambush the following infantry.  And cut off the panzers retreat. 
 

 The Panzers advance towards El Godfrey in two powerful formations.

"It's a trap!"  The Australian anti-tank guns sited in the town open fire on the Germans.  British armoured support hits the Panzers in the flanks.  The German commander is not worried.  His following infantry will deal with the guns while he turns to deal with the flank tank attack.  "Where are the infantry?"  

"It's another trap!"  The Australians rise out of their caves and ambush the panzer grenadiers on the left & right flanks.  This was a blood bath.  All the bonus flank shots decimated the Germans.  After the first round of shooting only a few Germans remained. (Apologies for unpainted figures - that's a carton).  

 The Panzers take a terrible beating from the Anti-Tank guns.

 But the Australians don't get it all their own way.

 The Germans turn to secure their flanks.

The British are out gunned and out armoured.  Very soon the British tanks are all burning wrecks.  However enough damage has been done to the German Battlegroup and they reach breaking point.  A roll of the dice seals their fate and they are forced to retreat.

El Godfrey has been held.

This game was set up in scenario format ignoring army points.  It was going to be a hard ask for the Germans to win.  The idea was to have a fun game.  All it takes are a few failed CV rolls on the Australians part and the Germans would have a good chance of winning.  We tried to simulate the circumstances of the first battle of Tobruk, using a later time period to suit our models.  It seemed to work.  A good interesting game that lasted 2 hours.  We have seen what German do to cows, thankfully the goats where saved.