Early War Germans

Four GHQ packs, all German AFVs which are very typical of the early years - Blitzkrieg in France and in the East. The Panzer 35(t) and 38(t) were Czech tanks, appropriated by the Germans when they occupied Czechoslovakia in 1938, and they were an important part of the Panzer armies. The Panzer 1b was hardly worthy of the title "tank" - with thin armour and just a pair of MGs as its armament, it was already obsolete in 1939, but there were still a lot of them around in the early campaigns. Finally the Sdkfz 222 armoured car was another familiar vehicle, along with the 223 radio car.

Dusty Tanks

A little bit of fun in a slightly larger scale. I bought the Lifecolor "Dust" set - three different pigments for dust from Eastern, Northern and Southern Europe, each pigment also having a matching acrylic paint. So you can paint on dust patches to your models then brush on the pigment, or you can mix pigment and colour then spread the paste on your model for a thicker effect - that's probably more appropriate for the similar "Mud" set. Anyway I tried this out on a couple of 15mm tank, and it looks pretty good. The photos don't quite do it justice - the dust stands out more in the pictures than in real life, and it is whiter, too.

More Italians

A couple of packs of Italian armour, both from GHQ of course. One is IT-2, the Autoblinda AB41 armoured car. Many years ago, probably in the seventies, I scratch-built one of these in 1/72 from a plan in some magazine. Quite a challenge to someone whose only modelling experience was putting together Airfix kits; it was fun but too slow for my wargaming needs. I have no idea where the model wound up, but these little ones brought the memories back. The other pack is IT-3, the Semovente 75mm self-propelled gun. Quite a successful vehicle for the Italians, with its low profile. The pack includes one Carro Commando command vehicle, with no main gun, just a single HMG. As always they are based on 1" steel squares with a bit of desert terrain added.

More Vickers

Continuing to build my UK Western Desert forces, I bought a GHQ pack, UK-71, Individual Heavy Weapons. Unlike the plain vanilla UK pack, this one has a dozen Vickers machine guns, which is good. However there are no loaders supplied; the same is also true of the 3" mortars, where there are 18 models, each with one crew. There are a few officers pointing, and men prone with binoculars, who can be used to add a few figure to the bases, but they still look bare. These weapons should have 2-3 man crews. You also get plenty of Bren gunners and ATRs, which are fine - I am keeping these to add variety to the infantry bases.

Vickers HMG

2" Mortars

3" Mortars

Vickers

One small gripe I have with GHQ is that their packs of UK Infantry Heavy Weapons are missing the Vickers HMG that is so characteristic of British infantry forces. The other Infantry Heavy Weapons packs - Desert, Sikh, Paras, Aussies - all feature plenty of them - eight I think. But if you want plain vanilla British HMGs, there is only the "Heavy Weapons" pack. This is one of the old style packs, with the whole crew moulded as a lump on the weapon, and in addition you only get four HMGs, along with four mortars and two ATRs. This is poor value, and in addition I don't like the style of those old packs (they were apparently created for Avalon Hill to fit with ASL).

So I have gone to Adler for a pack of HMGs (and a pack of 3" mortars as well). Adler are nice figures, the equal of GHQ in most cases, though a few of them have rather large heads. Good value too - the HMG pack had 12 guns in action, with three crews each, plus another 12 4-man crews advancing carrying the guns and ammo.

Blitzkrieg Commander II

A couple of YouTube videos piqued my interest, and I had another look at these rules. I bought the first edition about ten years ago, maybe more, and now I have purchased the second edition as a pdf. These rules are derived from a fantasy set called Warhammer (from Games Workshop), and the defining feature is the command system. Fighting units are activated to move or fire by command units rolling 2D6 to beat their "command value" - usually between 6 and 10. A commander can activate the same group of units several times - each subsequent command roll has a penalty, so it gets harder, but it is still possible to activate units several times in a turn. Famously in Warmaster a chariot unit could fight its way from one side of the board to the other in a single move. On the other hand if the command unit rolls high on its first try that is it. Sometimes the GHQ can intervene, but usually it means the units don't move at all that turn.
While it is good that commanders cannot plan everything without risk, this system seems to me to have a bit too much friction in it, too much variability, and while we can all point to cases where units spent an entire battle failing to move, this puts this rule set on the "gamey" end of the spectrum for me. However it is well written and flows smoothly, and the support is good, particularly the on-line force generator, which makes it very easy to create a force to any points value, and then print out the necessary information to play the battle.
I set up a battle, an assault by British troops (3000 points) on 2000 points of Germans in October 1944 (the force generator allows you to specify the date and limits the unit choices accordingly). Two infantry units supported by Cromwells advanced frontally, while another group of infantry and Churchills executed a flank attack. Both sides had off-board artillery, but this is rather ineffective in these rules - unless the observer is very close to the target there is a substantial drift which means that your shells are quite unlikely to hit their target. Plus, artillery can only fire once per turn. Much more effective is direct fire, especially as units can fire several times if the command rolls are good. German anti-tank and infantry guns dominated this game, knocking out three Cromwells out of four, plus a Challenger, and several infantry units - the central thrust by the British was almost completely stopped. The flank attack was more successful, getting in among the Germans, and killing a Hetzer and a couple of infantry units. However they were under constant fire from the PAK and iG guns on the hills, and this was too much to overcome. In BKC each force has a breakpoint (roughly half its unit count) and when this is reached it has to start taking a command test at the start of each turn. The British reached their limit of 13 units long before the Germans were close to theirs (7) and after a couple of turns the British failed a roll, and the game was over.
My feeling about these rules, as I have said, is that they make a good game. The mechanisms are very simple and consistent, with a single process for attacks of all kinds. There is very little need to refer to the rules during the game, and the printed unit sheets give all the numbers needed - a good set for a fun battle in a club, for example. But I didn't get much of a feel for the scale or nature of the battle. The game has two scales, units can represent platoons or squads, without any changes at all, and I think this indicates my point - they feel like game counters, rather than representing any specific historic unit. So I will use these rules for a fun game, but probably not for campaigns or to re-fight historic battles - they don't feel right for that.

From behind the German lines. The British flank attack can be seen arriving top left

The British flank force is advancing, but the rest of their units are in trouble further back

The British main force. The Cromwell unit is reduced to one tank hiding in the centre wood

Flank attack. The Hetzer in the field is suppressed.

Near the end. The flank force has lost a Churchill and several infantry units

Final positions from behind the British flank force entry point

Proper Shootouts

As I hinted in the previous post, I decided that playing a battle against 28 Apaches was not what I wanted from my Wild West game, whatever the dice suggested. So it turned out that Mandingo was sick when that patrol set off to the isolated blockhouse in the Wyoming desert, and Spring 1876 instead found him in the tiny frontier town of Sick Dog's Paw.
The first encounter was a Gunfight type 1 (G-1) which means a one-on-one shootout in the classic High Noon fashion. Rolling my opponent and the location I found that Mandingo had been challenged by an Outlaw in the Saloon. The outlaw had taken more redeye bourbon than was good for him, I assume. Rolling on the NPC table I found that the outlaw had a rep of 4, one less than Mandingo.
The shootout starts with a Draw test - each side rolls a number of D6 equal to their Rep, trying to get 1,2,3 as successes. As a Gunfighter Mandingo gets an extra die, so he rolled 6, Jake (the outlaw) rolled 4. Jake rolled just one success, while Mandingo got 4 - so he had three more successes. This means that the victor has "Got the Drop", and normally that gives the slower party a roll to see if he surrenders, or tries to carry on with the draw at a disadvantage. However Gunfighters (and outlaws) are different - if they get the drop they don't mess around with anything as chivalrous as letting the other fellow surrender, they just shoot. Furthermore, if any of their dice have rolled 3, as was the case here, then the opponent is Obviously Dead (which means what it says). So Mandingo emptied his gun into the upstart (and now late) Jake, and returned to his drink.

Later, we had another gunfight, and again we rolled a G-1. This time it was outside in the street, and the opponent was another Gunfighter. Indeed this would be a tougher test - rolling for the NPC we found that Mandingo faced an opponent with the same Rep (5) and Toughness (4) and a higher Sand (5).
So both sides rolled six dice in the Draw Test (Rep of 5 plus one for being a Gunfighter), and both scored two successes. This meant that they had both drawn and fired with no effect, and the game now proceeds to "normal" turns. In addition anyone who rolled a 1 on any of their dice would have emptied their gun - and this applied to Mandingo.
In the first turn they rolled for initiative, and both scored 4. A tie means that neither side can fire or move, but they can reload. This of course was exactly what Mandingo needed, and he duly did so.
Now on even terms, they rolled again for initiative. Mandingo scored 6, his opponent (Clint) scored 2. So Mandingo had the initiative, but it was not as simple as that. The winner can only take actions with characters whose Rep is at least as high as the initiative roll. In this case, with a roll of 6 and Mandingo's Rep of 5, that meant he could not take action, and it passed to Clint.
Clint now fired, two shots with his pistol. Adding his Rep to a single D6 he needed to score at least 8 for a hit, but two 2's meant two misses. Mandingo now needed to take a "Been Shot At" test, and being a Star (i.e. a main character) he was allowed to choose his reaction - so he chose to fire back.
As before there were two shots, adding Mandingo's Rep of 5 to a single die roll - and in this case adding another one because Mandingo has the Crackshot ability. He rolled a 6, and the total of 11+ meant that he could choose the hit location. He picked the head, but Clint had a "Been Hit" test with two rolls against his Toughness and passed them both, so it was just a graze. Mandingo rolled again, and again scored 11+. This time he picked the gut as the hit location, and Clint only passed one of his two rolls. That meant that he was out of action, and Mandingo had won.
After the fight Mandingo rolled for possible stat advancement and by scoring a 6 hs added one to his Sand score (Sand is effectively Nerve, or Coolness - a combination of courage and quick decision making).
My verdict on these fights? - "now this is more like it". Both of these engagements felt as they should, as simulations of the somewhat cinematic scenarios. In the first a foolish outlaw challenged the gunslinger and it was all over in a second - one roll of the dice, literally. In the second fight it was closer, two evenly matched opponents exchanged rapid fire until someone found the killing shot. All quick and clean - this is the sweet spot for these rules.