1944 - Henri’s Farm

This is a quick throw down scenario on a 4’ x 3½’ table with 10 / 12mm figures, intending to test my own rules, in particular the indirect fire rules.

We again have a setting around Henri’s Farm, with its stables and workshop (these are my newly acquired Battlescale resin buildings, just rotated off the painting table yesterday) defended by a German platoon (3 rifle sections) and a medium machine gun.

To their rear in the small woods they have an 80mm mortar and to the right, a platoon of 3 panthers have just entered the scene, intending to move to the ploughed fields to dominate the open views their front!

Viewed from the British side.

This was coinciding with a British attack against the farm. Two infantry platoons from C Company have orders to infiltrate the woods and then assault the farm. They have a MMG for immediate support, plus a platoon of 4 Shermans (75mm) moving up the left flank for direct heavy fire support.

Both sides have one off-board artillery fire mission.

Henri’s Farm, stables are on the left. The MMG is in
the workshop on the right.

1100 hours - the assault goes in. The Panther crews can see a couple of the Sherman tanks, they fire and unbelievably both miss (rolling 10’s is an auto miss). The Shermans scurry to put the farm buildings between themselves and the Panthers and start to pump shells into the stables.

1120 hours (3 turns later) - the British infantry have got to the wood edge and their volume of fire, with Sherman support, causes 3 of the 4 German bases in the farm to become pinned.

The Panthers probe forwards threatening the
British infantry in front of the farm.

1128 hours - the German mortar takes out the British MMG.

1140 hours - an event is rolled and the British get an air strike, which they use against the Panthers, without success. They bring down an accurate off - table artillery strike onto the stables, which is very successful, removing one infantry section and pinning another. To add to the defender woes, the Sherman’s relentless fire on the stables removes the remaining pinned German infantry section in that building from play.

A rifle section and MMG are in the workshop and their fire takes another British section, both sides now have their morale levels sitting at just 2.

With the stables clear, 1st infantry platoon race forwards
to enter the farm and the Shermans move around the farm,
trying to engage the Panther tanks.

1146 hours - with the stables clear, the Shermans cautiously skirt the farm to get flanking positions on the Panthers, but the Shermans go momentarily out of command (bad roll) and it gives enough time for the Panthers to respond and hit 2 Shermans. One brews, the other is stunned!

The Shermans are roughly handled by
fire from the Panthers.

Subsequent fire from the Panthers destroy the remaining 2 Shermans and the British morale level plummets below zero, causing remaining units to test for retreat.

Enough bases fail and fall back, that the attack loses its entire momentum and at 1156 hours, the game is called.

The Germans remain in control of Henri’s farm and the British suffer a costly repulse.

Conclusion

Quite a fun and quick game, but I am left feeling that my ‘fix’ with the rules of having units activate by ‘group’ and the targeting of ‘groups’ by indirect fire, remains a little awkward to implement …. back to the drawing board!

Resource Section.

My sister webspace ‘COMMANDERS’ is being re-configured to showcase various figure and boardgame systems that I am enjoying and gives a flavour of where current ongoing projects are up to. Link.

https://commanders.simdif.com

Into Battle - WWII Tactical

 

The Tigers at Minsk rules began life as a boardgame called Into Battle, which used a series of small scenario maps marked out with squares. 

In summer 2014, the design morphed into a hex and figure based game and as the final couple of scenarios were put into the rule set, the name changed to TaM, sharing the title of one of the newer scenarios.

The rules will remain in their hex format, plus I am working on a sister version for the open table, however the name is reverting back to its original title of Into Battle - WWII Tactical, better reflecting the general aim of the rules, which is to more widely cover the '39 to '45 land conflict.

Over the next few weeks, I will make efforts to change various documents and links to make it all a bit more cohesive. So in reality, nothing is changing, just the name and the August 2019 version remains current.

Shermans on the Pinboard

The recently painted N.W Europe 10mm U.S. Battlepack units from Pendraken have been yearning to make it to the table and get into action and so here they are.

It is late August 1944 and an American force is attacking small farm based hamlet held by a platoon of Volksgrenadiers with A/T gun support. This is a small action that I am using to look at converting my Into Battle - WWII Tactical rules from hexes to an open board. 

The game is confined to a large pinboard (34" x 22"), converting hexes to 10 centimetres per hex.

Please use the ‘read more’ tab for the rest of this post. 

Counter-Attack, The Power Station

The last post (link below in the Resource Section) showed a set-up for a city fight on the east front 1943, a game that unfortunately had to be set aside for a few days, but has now been played out and the flow of play recorded here.

A simple 8 x 6 grid

If you recall, Soviet assault troops were in position to counter-attack the Power Station complex that had fallen the previous day.

The rest of this post covers some of the highlights from the city fight, which includes sewer movement and the perils for armour operating in the confines of a city.

Please use the ‘read more’ table for the rest of this post.

City fighting in 10mm on hexes - Into Battle - WWII Tactical

It has been a while since the ‘pinboard’ city terrain made an appearance here. I have been looking at my ASL ‘Factories’ maps and thought it was about time that the 10mm troops and hexes hit the table.

Click to enlarge

This is just an 8 x 6 hex grid (Kallistra Hexon tiles), sitting inside a large pinboard, so it can easily be moved off the table if necessary. The last time I used a similar set up, I had tried to do a ‘big’ game with too many squads and in this ‘small’ space with my Into Battle - WWII Tactical rules, the system simply allowed too much firepower and within a couple of turns, each side had dropped to their morale break points, making for a bit of an unsatisfactory game.

I don’t think I need to change the game, but rather better appreciate the working parameters of Order-of-Battle size and strength v the size of the grid being used for used for any particular given scenario. A more constrained order-of-battle for the 6 x 8 works fine (based around my experiences with the multiple battles that fell from my Yartzevo Defiant campaign - see Resource Section) and frankly, probably fits in better anyway with most gamers collections.

The rest of this post gives way to a few photographs of the ‘at start’ positions, so is a lot less ‘wordy’ than usual articles here :-), but the intention in any case is to bring focus onto how much you can put into a small space and to highlight the old cityscape post (see Resource Section for the build).

please use the ‘read more’ tab for the rest of this post.

Tank duel at Prokhorovka (an Into Battle scenario)

13th July 1943 - The Kursk campaign, an exhausted German army has fought its way through several deep defensive belts and is at a point of breaking through towards Prokhorovka. Alarmed at this threat, Soviet armoured reserves are released to block the German advance. The scene was set to become the largest tank battle in history, as swirling armoured engagements left burning hulks scattered over the landscape. This scenario just takes a small slice of typical action.

The battle has been played on a hex grid using my Into Battle - WWII Tactical rules. The terrain is randomly set up and some units may be subject to random displacement immediately after they have set up and before play starts (see below).

Please use the ‘read more’ tab for the rest of this post, which describes the scenario and gives some highlights of the action.

Discussion on the Into Battle Rules

Over at Board Game Geek, a fellow gamer has opened a discussion topic on my hex based Into Battle rules. 

Chuck generally likes the rules and is thinking about how the rules can better work on a larger table and is revisiting some concepts such as how Out of Command units might remove their Opportunity Fire marker.

I think the post could bring some interesting points out and I know some gamers reading this blog came here because of these rules. So if anyone fancies popping over to BGG and just looking or commenting, here is the link.

 https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/2068897/discussion-around-tam

Into Battle - WWII Tactical (The West '44 to '45) Module Download

Into Battle - WWII Tactical (The West '44 to '45)

This post introduces a new supplement for the hex based Into Battle tactical rules.

It covers the 1944 - ‘45 period on the western front and adds a few additional rules, equipment lists for Commonwealth, U.S. and German forces, some additional terrain types and a scenario based upon a German counter-attack against a Canadian held village.

The supplement, like the main rules, are provided as a free download for personal use only.

The rest of this post will discuss some of the design perspectives of the module / system and list the few amendments that have been made to the main TaM rules. The resource section will give links to the download files for Into Battle - WWII Tactical (The West '44 to '45).  

Please use the 'read more' tab for the rest of this post.

Attack on Buron - 1944

Counter-Attack at Buron - an Into Battle Scenario

Into Battle - WWII Tactical (The West '44 to '45) is the proposed west front 1944 - ‘45 expansion for my Into Battle - WWII Tactical hex based rules.

This small expansion includes a scenario covering the Canadian defence against a German counter-attack at the village of Buron. Todays post is going to follow an AAR of this action as an introduction to the module, which will soon be released as a free (for personal use) download.

please use the ‘read more’ tab for the rest of this post

6x6 small grid game WWII

Another ‘wargaming in small spaces’ scenario for our 6x6 grid games. It is July 1944 and we are playing out a Soviet attack on a small hamlet with a reinforced company. 

With the position under pressure, the German commander releases a reserve platoon with armour support, to ensure that the position is not lost.

Please use the 'read more' tab for the rest of this post

Into Battle - WWII Tactical - Version May 2016

Into Battle - WWII Tactical are my rules for gaming WWII tactical with hexes on small tables. The rules have been around in their current form for over 18 months and have withstood the testing of many games, so seem quite stable for a range of situations.

Artwork that I did for a boardgame version

The last time they were updated, it was simply to reduce the front armour of the StuG III by 1 point, so amendments have been minor and in keeping with that, I have just given them a further tweak to add in a few nuances, such as special traits for Hetzers and some minor changes to the Line of Sight rules.
A brief discussion follows concerning the tweaks.
Please press the 'read more' button for the rest of this post.

Free game - sample from Into Battle - Tactical WWII

Followers of the blog will be aware that I have developed a set of WWII tactical rules for using 10mm figures on hexed terrain. The rules have always been available as a free download.

Accepting that not everyone who is initially interested in the rules will have either the forces or the hex terrain to try the rules out, I have put together a few files that can be printed off to give everything the player needs to play scenario 3 from the rules.

There are five documents in the resource section below, they are;
1/ The rules to the game - Into Battle - WWII Tactical, a 44 page download (only 21 pages are rules, they are well spaced out and an easy read) which includes the Scenario 3 information.
2/ An intro sheet - which explains about printing the files and shows the game values represented on the game counters.
3/ Combat unit counters - sufficient for scenario 3
4/ Game admin counters - sufficient for any game
5/ A map - reflecting the terrain and hex grid used for scenario 3
All the files are held in my Dropbox (thank you Dropbox). When you try to download, you will probably get an invitation window to register with Dropbox. If you don't want to do that just close down the invitation panel and the download button will be revealed anyway.
In addition, I have included a link to an AAR from one of the other scenarios in the rule book.

RESOURCES.
Into battle - WWII Tactical Rules - link
Combat units - link
Game Counters - link
Information sheet - links
Map - link
An AAR from one of the other scenarios in the rulebook - link

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Yartzevo campaign update

At the end of last year I completed the second playtesting of Yartzevo Defiant, a 1943 east front campaign module for the Into Battle - WWII Tactical rules (miniature rules for tactical games on hexes).

The playtest went well and resulted in a number of design tweaks, which although individually small, their collective influence needed to see another play through.

Sorry to those who had hoped it would be ready by now, but other projects have distracted me. Anyway, the campaign is up and running again and I have started both solitaire and face to face campaigns. All things being equal the campaign module should be available shortly - though a play of two campaign games running side by side is likely to generate something like 25 engagements.

My opening game for the solitaire campaign kicked off to an exciting start. The first battle is based upon the initial Soviet probe on 6th August 1943 and has relatively light forces fighting in an open environment, with the defenders having some entrenchments.

Orchards divide the battlefield

However, the terrain generator threw up an interesting battlefield with quite a bit of cover. A total of four orchard hexes were obtained and laid in a way that divided the battlefield and gave the attackers a corridor of cover that they could use to drive to the enemy baseline .... provided they could reach the orchard!

The Soviet player's heartbeat skipped a beat when German artillery directed at infantry in the open was inaccurate and instead fell onto the Russian SU 76 - their only heavy weapon support - destroying it and leaving it burning (so no chance of recovery).

The Soviet SU 76 burns following an artillery strike

It was a dangerous moment for the Soviet player, especially as their smoke cover quickly dispersed, but the German HMG in the entrenchment on the small hill (right of the orchard) did not really get much effective opportunity fire and soon the German position was overwhelmed, with the German morale crashing to zero and four Soviet squads moving onto their baseline.

So quite an unexpectedly exciting game (against the background of a gentle opening scenario that is simply meant to just get things started), but things were about to become even more interesting. In the inter-game admin phase when reinforcements are determined, the Germans got an understrength StuG III platoon, some infantry and two artillery missions, while the Soviets just got more infantry, no armour and just one artillery mission to add to their order of battle.

The next scenario is the River attack, which is tough for the attacker anyway, but now with the imbalance of armour and the bridge producing a choking point, I can well see the outcome being that the Soviets will lose the next battle, which will allow the Germans to go over onto the attack. Depending what reinforcements are received after the next battle, things look to get very tight, with both sides having everything to fight for, as failure for the Soviets to break away from their start-up positions could bring the campaign to an early end! This is an exciting start and I am pleased the way the play test is shaping up.

It will be interesting to see how the face to face campaign opens up (this Friday).

In the meantime, here is a link to an extensive overview giving both a play and design perspective of how the second playtest last year progressed and it gives a good idea of the flow of play. It is a 14 page PDF download, so best wait for a coffee moment!

Also a 90 second video trailer that was made just as a bit of fun to try out some software, which has been shown here before, but is repeated below.

Finally, I run a website called Commanders, which is more 'snippet' based than here, so will often show things that will not make it to this blog. I will likely put some AAR updates there.

Link to Second playtest extensive notes.

Link to video trailer (this is just for fun)

Link  - Keep up to date at my Commanders web page.

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Blow the bridge!

In the recent Issue (no 76) of the rather excellent Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy magazine, Guy Bowers (Editor) produced an article in the 'bitesize battles' series called Blow the Bridge!

The scenario is generic, suited to several periods, though in his article, Horse & Musket forces are used, together with the Black Powder rule set (modified to use half movement).

This post covers my attempts at replicating the game as outlined by Guy, but converting it to play on Kallistra hexes with my 10mm Pendraken WWII forces, using the Into Battle - WWII Tactical rules.

please click on 'read more' for the rest of this post.

Design notes and campaign AAR

This is a full replay (2nd playtest) of the Yartzevo Defiant mini-campaign module for the Into Battle - WWII Tactical rules. It shows the flow of the game, briefly describes the campaign engine and perhaps more interestingly, highlights the various rules changes that playtesting brought about.

I am putting the module through another full replay before making it available. Below is the opening blurb to the replay. please note this is a 14 page document, so make some coffee and enjoy.

To download (8.5 MB in my Dropbox) the playtest account and notes, please press HERE.

Thank you Dropbox.

Files also available via my new Commanders web site - link http://commanders.simdif.com

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Playtesting a WWII campaign

I am presently working on a campaign module to compliment my Into Battle - WWII Tactical rules. The module is going through a second playtest and the 7th battle in the campaign is being played out today.

This post covers the AAR of this battle and discusses some design aspects behind the mini-campaign module. Please press 'read more' for the rest of this post.

Stalingrad Scenarios for 10mm on hexes

This post introduces two new scenarios for the Into Battle - WWII Tactical system (figures on hexes). Both occur during the Stalingrad campaign in 1942 and both are designed to play in an area the size of a large pinboard (2' x 3').

The first is based upon the repeated German attacks against the building that would become known as Pavlov's House.

The second is inspired by Scenario 1 from basic Squad Leader (published by Avalon Hill) - 'The Guards Counterattack', a scenario that must surely be classed as one of the most nostaligic play experiences of a generation of board wargamers.

The rest of the post will concern itself with the design aspect of the two scenarios and conclude with some links to resources of interest, including the downloadable file for the scenarios themselves.

Please click on the 'Read More' tab for the rest of this post.

Free WWII hex based Rules

At last I am ready to round out those recent posts covering WWII tactical games on a pinboard sized gaming area using hexes and my own home brew rules. After much reworking, the rules are in good shape for sharing. They included quick play sheets and examples of play. The current army lists are based around east front 1943 - 44 and six scenarios are included.

The rules have been posted to my Dropbox account (thank you Dropbox).
This post presents my design notes, lifted from the rules, plus of course a link to the rules themselves. Please click 'read more' to get the rest of this post.

Escaping Bobruisk - June 1944

Since my last AAR using the 'Into Battle' rules for WWII hex based games, the rules have had some further tweaks, refinements and streamlining and are now pretty tight and ready for sharing.

Indeed this posting session was intended to support their release, but something begged to be added. I recently picked up twelve 10mm Vehicles from Pendraken to round out my initial Rusian and German forces for circa 1943. Amongst them was the Sd Kfz 243/2 Puma armoured car, which was a last minute addition made to the order.
After painting it up, I just wanted to get it into a scenario. It reminded me of the Matchbox 1/72 Puma model that I built as a teenager, which came with its own diorama (street scene) that made it rather unusual at the time and so I made a bit of an extra effort putting it together. Anyway, no doubt with that nostalgic aspect in mind, I wanted to build a scenario around this vehicle - making a total of 6 scenarios to go into in the rule book, which seems a nice round number.
The following post looks at how the scenario took life and how it plays out in an AAR (plus news on the release of the rules). Please click on 'Read More' for the rest of this post.

10mm WWII rules - Into Battle

The fine tuning of my WWII tactical rules for hexes continues. Tonight I put out Scenario 3 - (Kampfgruppe Sivers) to test for balance and played it a couple of times. There are still rule amendments coming out of these replays.

Please click on the 'read more' tag for the rest of this post.