Cold Wars - 2017 - Part 2

Well time for the second part of the Cold Wars coverage, which is actually mainly the Friday stuff. As per normal policy I take one day to play in a tournament, and one day to pick up a couple of random games and do some shopping / hang out.

Brazen Chariots - Early War

As we have done for the past few years, we decided to get into one of Adam's games, a guy who did his own WW2 Tank game. Always some really nice terrain and models, so some good fun. This year the scenario was a What If type I guess with some Italian Tanks (Tankettes?) attacking into Tunisia I think it was and running into the French. We were on the Italian side, and had a mix of tanks, 2 platoons had been field modified with 20mm cannons, the rest had machine gunes, or heavy machine guns. I had the heavy machine gun type, also we had no radios, except on 2 motorcycle guys, so they would be needed to relay orders. The French had Panhards I think it was, they all had proper guns, but took a card to reload, and their command tanks had radios, but Morse code only!

Here are our tanks lined up ready to go.

Our attack was at the border, so there is a rather large fort, and to lines of barbed wire, with likely mines between them, along with a big wooded area. The remains of an Infantry attack on the fort from the day before are scattered around. On this side they are still active, on the other side they are all dead. Our Orders were to get in the Fort.

Doesn't look easy.

For the first bit we mainly raced forward, with these kind of guns you don't have much of a chance to kill at short range, never mind long range. On our flank we started to slow down to suppress the fort, and have a good look around to make sure there were no nasty surprises. I fired a round of bullets into the fort and got one guy, they mostly went to ground after that.

Moving to the wire, to start engaging the French. We have our not so useful MG tanks in the lead, with the cannons in the rear, so our important stuff isn't taking fire. I switched over to just suppressing the fort, and started creeping forwards.

A stray cannon shot explodes a mine, guys in the fort having a rough time I guess!

Chris plotting his advance into the courtyard, but there are now 2 units of French vehicles in there.

The big battle for the town. We didn't have much luck penetrating with the machine guns, the odds are pretty low. But it wasn't real easy for the French either with their low rates of fire, and not awesome odds either really. We lost the battle for the courtyard, but were mostly winning the long range gunnery duel across the minefield. I think both side kind of had 2 platoons gutted, but pretty low casualty rates for this game, early war third power guns and all that. The French were in the town, so they were the winners, but our suppression of the fort allowed our infantry to cross over and flank and start dismantling the mine field, so could be problematic for them in the following scenario which continue on. We could only play in one thou so not sure how it turned out after.

Sangin Platoon +:

After supper we played in a play test game for a new version of Skirmish Sangin, this one is being basically simplified so you can have platoon level and higher games. We had a bunch of Taliban, with some RPGs and MG, vs a bunch of British Soldiers, way over in the other corner. So a bit like a Force on Force game, but with much simpler rules. I thought I took more pictures, but turned out to be just 2.

We advanced, basically into the nearest cover, and started shooting. Our guys on the right here got a lucky with with an RPG that killed a few guys early and caused the Brits to fail a morale roll.

The British cept trying to advance, I am not sure why as you could comfortably shoot across the table, but this combined with their early morale failure really put them on the back foot. We were able to get secure and shooting, and they weren't able to bring effective fire back. This let us start putting units on Overwatch. It got to the point that the Brits had a pile of casualties, and we only lost 1 guy and had everyone bunkered down on Overwatch. So the game was called as a victory, and we spent some time chatting about rules and concepts. Which I was not super excited about as I game to play but it was ok.

Seemed like it could be a fun game to me, as it is allot easier, and the resolution of fire fights and reaction shots can get complicated in Force on Force, but it looses the chaos provided by the cards. So I am not sure it will take over locally. But I thought they had a pretty nice table and some cool models, and it was in a quieter part of the con so worked for me!

As before here are some shots of random games I thought were cool or interesting, but didn't get to play:

Nice Buildings, but bad poker chips

Very cool model doing a rocket attack!

Prepare to Repel Boarders!

Samurai Game, nice models, but not winning my terrain award!

Little Big Horn, much better on terrain!

Very nice Eastern European Table, this is the kind of Forest I want

Fighting Across a road, these Computer guys always have nice stuff

Not sure what this is, but I like it!

Well that's all I have for the Cold Wars 2017 coverage. Next big con is in May for us, so lots to prepare.

Thanks;
Mike