Great War 1918 - Chain of Command Battle - 28mm

This is not so much a battle report but a brief overview of a game I had at the weekend using the WW2 Chain of Command rules produced by Too Fat Lardies.  The interesting thing here was using the rules for WW1 and seeing how they played for that period.

I have only played a few games of Chain of Command, almost all of these were solo.  I have never really been a fan of skirmish games, but the great things I heard about this rule set made me curious to try to them.  I must say that I have not been disappointed.  

I played several games solo last week just to remind myself of the rules.  Even playing solo, it really does give a great game. Throwing the command dice gives a whole range of decisions to make every game turn.  Nothing is guaranteed. Friction abounds and plans become unstuck. Unit's won't move and the enemy may yet interrupt your turn if they have built up enough Chain of Command points to seize the initiative.  Great fun!

I played the British this time and set up on the long right side of the 8ft x4 ft board.  Ian played the Germans and was on the long left side.

The terrain had plentiful areas of cover. Wooded copses and hedgerows covered the board as well as some fields and stone enclosures.  A river meandered across the table with a bridge allowing a road to cross it...there were some sheep nearby too!

I really wanted to get all of my recently painted troops on the board.  I had slowly built up the troop types and weaponry as I play tested until I felt happy using snipers, tanks, anti-tank guns and a flamethrower.  Points and support lists were not even considered. This was a game with lots of interest added!  I wanted it all on the table!

Forces:

British:  

1 x Rifle Section

1 x Bomber Section

1 x LMG Section (2 x Lewis guns)

1 x Rifle Grenade Section

1 x Vickers MMG

Reinforcements:

1 x MkIV male Tank

1 x Whippet Tank

Forces:

German:

3 x Rifle Sections

1 x LMG Section

1 x Maxim 08/15 MMG

1 x Guard Pioneer Flamethrower

1 x Sniper

1 x Granatenwerfer

1 x 3.7cm Anti-Tank Gun

1 x Mauser Gerwehr-T Anti Tank Rifle

Scenario Overview:

It's August 1918 the German front lines have broken around Amiens and the Germans are in retreat.

The Allies need to maintain the pressure and take key geographic points to enable the advance to continue.

The 5th Royal Berkshire Regiment have been tasked to despatch a platoon to hold a key bridge.  1 Platoon must take and hold the bridge to allow tanks at a future time.  1 Platoon must hold the bridge until nightfall when an Australian unit will relieve them.

The Germans have realised the importance of the bridge almost too late and have hastily sent a platoon of 246th Reserve Regiment to prepare its defence.  The first section of barbed wire has been set up as the first British Troops come into view.

Objectives:

British must take and hold the bridge at nightfall (last turn) or break the enemy.

Germans must keep the bridge at the last turn of the game or break the enemy.

If neither side hold the bridge by nightfall (the last turn) or it is still contested and possession is in doubt then the side with the highest force morale will win.

Terrain:

All woods provide cover. Hedges provide light cover. Stone walls are minor obstacles but hard cover.

River can be forded by infantry, treating it as a medium obstacle.

Tanks cannot cross the river.

Barbed wire can be cut by troops using the rules in the book.

Special Rules:

Germans use 'Handgranaten!' special rule which allows the grenadiers in a section to unleash a storm of grenades prior to making a close assault.

Ambush Troops:  Sniper and Anti Tank rifle are permitted to use Jump off Points to perform ambushes.

The British MkIV tank arrives on Turn 2.

The British Whippet can arrive from Turn 4 on an escalating dice throw

Most of the rules were modified with the amendments in the Too Fat Lardies Christmas Special 2014 which has a brilliant piece on converting the main Chain of Command rules for WW1.  There is an excellent section on tactics in the late war period in the 'Mud and Blood' rules by the Lardies.  Additional supplements for WW1 small scale actions have also been produced by them.

There are some great little tweaks to the main rules which make it more suitable for WW1.  One example being that by throwing 4 x 5's on the Command Roll D6 dice, a random gas shell will land on the battlefield affecting the whole area for a complete turn and causing effects on shooting and movement due to poor visibility.

The game started out well enough for both sides early on.  We were both keen to deploy most of our forces and put our focus on this rather than move up too rapidly.  

Ian placed his sniper in the trees to his right side near his deployment zone.  There are no silly short distances in this game.  Most weapons will fire off the board and a long way on from there too!  The full size of the board probably only reflects about 400 yards maximum.  So a well placed sniper can cover a lot of the field.

This is where I started making mistakes.  I placed two sections including my very strong Lewis gun section on' Overwatch' in woods to try to get his sniper.  Unfortunately this effectively hobbled my army as my advance slowed to nothing.  Ian in the meantime kept pushing his troops forward to try to get around a flank.

Above we see nasty lane where a vicious close quarter battle wiped out my bomber section and the Junior leader.  I was suddenly 4 x Force Morale points down.  The Lewis gun team have been redeployed too late to stop the German team from then attacking my Rifle Grenadiers in the flank.  However we can see their shock points adding up and their numbers thinning out.

Ian organised his men well and took up good fire positions and ensured he outflanked any determined moves on my part.

I can honestly say that on no part of the battlefield did I gain the upper hand.  Instead my mistakes were punished badly and Ian's good plans meant that he gained his objective of the bridge very effectively and with little loss.

The flamethrower didn't play a big part in this particular game.

I did manage to get my MkIV tank on to the board but Ian's anti-tank gun made short work of it, and knocked it out with his first shot on target!

In the end my Force Morale Points crumbled away to nothing while Ian still had 10 Force Morale points remaining.  This gave Ian a decisive and well deserved win.

Despite my massive defeat, I thought the game was excellent.  Interesting my two previous solo playtests saw the Germans heavily defeated instead so I cannot blame it on the scenario!

My plan now is to use the rules for other skirmish games including WW2. I am still continuing to slowly build my WW1 units and now have extra incentive after playing this.  With these superb Great War Miniatures troops inspiration comes very easily!

The Great War - British Infantry 28mm - Officers, Bomber and Rifle Sections

Here we have something a little different to the bright colourful uniforms that I usually like to paint.  I have long been fascinated by the appearance of the British Tommy of World War One.  The outline and silhouette of the uniform is unmistakable and even when portrayed as a shadow on memorials the appearance is, by now, iconic.

I had no intention of really buying 28mm figures. I had some Airfix 1/72 scale plastic figures in the attic and indeed still have them.  It was at a wargaming show at Donnington in around 2015 that I saw the Great War Miniatures for the first time.  I was bowled over by what I saw. The detail and poses were just how I would want them to be.  So I bought some....

...and then the research began.  How do I organise the units? which rules do I use? Surely it's just trenches and artillery fire and maybe some breakthroughs.? Well I soon learned about the history and the more I learned, the more interest I gained. 

My knowledge is much greater now than when I started.  I really had no idea just how developed the infantry tactics became by 1918. The improvements in low level infantry operations where incredibly rapid and by the time of the great allied offensive, these tactics can appear very modern indeed.

I bought the 'Amiens 1918' campaign book from Osprey and read much further.  I decided that this was likely to be the period I would aim to paint for, so it didn't have to be all mud on the bases.  I could also use the figures for the German Kaiserschlacht offensive and again play a war of movement (albeit in the opposite direction!).

I don't tend to play skirmish games but I do like the Chain of Command rules from Too Fat Lardies.  I had initially bought their 'Through the Mud and the Blood' rules but struggled with the card concept.  I discovered that the Lardies had written a modification for Chain of Command in one of their published 'Specials'.

So it became army painting time.  I got so far with it then stopped as other interests came my way. This always happens and I have learned to just go with the enthusiasm in which ever way it takes me.  I always tend to come back to a project....and so I have.  I have now finally finished a British Platoon.

The platoon consists of four parts.  The Rifle Section, The Bomber Section, The Rifle-Bomber Section and the Lewis Gun section ('Through the Mud and the Blood' was immensely helpful in explaining this clearly).  I have also painted a company commander (Major), and Adjutant (Captain), the Platoon Commander (Lieutenant) and Platoon Sergeant.  These four figures all play an important part in the Chain of Command rules.

As readers of my (infrequent) blog might recall, I do like rules which feature Command and Control as a major part of the key components of the game.

I also painted up a Vickers Machine Gun team as a support element.  My plan is to continue and paint up a Tank or three - maybe a 'Whippet' as well as the classic MkIV male and females and an 18pdr.  I'm not sure about a Stokes mortar as that appears to have been a trench weapon rather than used to support attacks in the open.  That would be a job for rifle-bombers, though some references of the Stokes mortar being used in such a way would be very welcome.

I was surprised at how much work has to be done to paint a unit in khaki well.  I always appear to fall in to the trap of thinking that it will be a quick task, but the shading necessary to make things work and fit in with the many examples of clothing and equipment which we see (or own) means that one really works hard to obtain the right look.  In addition I think that there might have been a subconscious element at play in trying to make a good effort to represent the uniforms that my relatives would have worn back in those days (Ox & Bucks Light Infantry and Machine Gun Corps being the two units that I know they served in for certain).

The research element also took a long time.  I wanted to paint up the unit as a British unit at Amiens, who were preferably a conventional county line infantry Battalion.  I had to read up on the multitude of divisional and brigade symbols and how, where and when they were worn.

I decided to paint the unit as being a platoon from 5 Royal Berkshires.  This then has a relatively local connection and were part of the 36th Brigade, 12th Division, British 4th Army.

I also liked the simplicity of the Divisional badge of the Ace of Spades. These were painted on to the rear of the helmets and also stitched on to the back of tunics beneath the collar.  More than once I wished I was using decals for these, instead of hand-painting them on!  It was harder than I thought!

The figures were a joy to paint (despite the aforementioned tricky bits), and they all exude bags of character. 

I used a mixture of different paints and started with a black undercoat.  Thankfully I have a folder where I keep one piece of paper for each unit type that I paint.  Listed by numbers are the steps I take and the paints used.  So when I did go back to them I could continue to paint the men and they all maintained a similar uniformed appearance.

I mostly used Vallejo and Foundry paints though I did use Flames of War's 'British Battledress' for the main uniform khaki.  I have something like 36 steps to painting a unit like this.  On the rear of the base is a simple colour indicator to show which section the men are in.

This is rather photo-heavy and I would probably have been better off publishing pics by section. When I paint the Germans that is probably what I will do!  I'll just let you scroll through the last pics until the bottom.

Next photos will be the Rifle-Bombers, Lewis teams and Vickers Machine gun.  It has been really nice to get a whole platoon finished. It has been one of those years where projects have been started and not quite completed. 

I have also been very slow taking photos of units and then taking up table space with new projects before I have taken snaps.  I have painted a lot more in 2019 including; Late Romans in 28mm, Zulus and Natal Native Contingent, 10mm Romans, 15mm American Civil War Generals, 28mm English Civil War dragoons, 28mm Ancient Greeks and Jacobite Wars British Infantry in 10mm.  I will endeavour to get photos of these all up in due course! 

Best wishes for 2020!