Tag Archives: Chain of Command

Chain of Command – US Armoured Rifles vs German Paratroopers

I played a attack defend game of Chain of Command the other day against Glenn.  I took my American Armoured Rifle Platoon and he tried out his elite German Paratroopers.  This gave me a significant point boost which I used towards an armoured car and mine field.

From the points rolled for the scenario Glenn took a Pz3(N) and I took another bazooka team.

The scouting allowed me to pin Glenns infantry about half way along the table but given his elite status they were able to deploy 9″ forward of his drop off points (something I hadn’t quite appreciated at the time 🙂 ).

The initial few phases saw us bringing on our infantry and manoeuvring towards each other.  Initially my Americans were doing OK by wounding two of the section junior leaders but Glenn quickly brought his senior command up to the front line and brought his units back into the game.  My Machine gun section did some serious damage to his left flank infantry section but unfortunately failed to break any teams.

As one of my sections bit the dust and I took a hit on my force moral I got one last hurrah when I removed one of his right flank sections as they sought to outflank me.   Unfortunately it wasn’t enough to bring his force moral down far enough to impact his command dice.

The end arrived when he took out my armoured car which exploded killing one of my senior leaders near by.  With that one shot my platoons moral collapsed and glenn took the game.

It was a great game with the extra command die on Glenn’s side proving to be a very effective mechanism to reflect the different sides troop quality.  It meant that he was more likely to get follow on phases as well as increase his Chain of Command Dice which whilst not total game changers did have an interesting impact on the game.

My Americans did very well, and if a couple of the Force Moral tests had been slightly better for me against the Germans it would likely have been a very different game.

Again, another game to recommend the rules though I am still a bit reluctant to to agree that all of the force lists are balanced, or that the incremental unit points reflect real game balance.  It is this aspect which we will likely ‘tweek’ between us. (I still cannot understand the value of unmanned half tracks).

 

Some WW2 Scenario Links

I mentioned previously that I’d found some useful sources for WW2 scenarios so I thought I’d post them up.

The Miniatures Page has a whole host of scenario links over multiple pages;

http://theminiaturespage.com/boards/topics.mv?id=211

There are a useful mix on the Fire and Fury website split by theatre;

http://www.fireandfury.com/scenarios.shtml

On Sgt. Perry’s Heros blog site he has some great one page scenarios designed fro Bolt Action.

http://perrysheroes.free.fr/spip.php?rubrique167

More Chain Action Rules Fusion

Following the interesting fusion game of Chain of Command and Bolt Action Phil and I had a short chat about where to take it for the next instalment.

Orders & Initiative. We both liked using the Bolt Action dice from the bag initiative mechanism with the addition of the 2 extra End of Turn dice (must ensure that the extra 2 dice have the same size and feel as the Bolt Action dice…).  The turn would end as soon as the second non-player dice had been revealed and all dice returned to the bag to start the next turn.  This did force some prioritisation of ‘command emphasis’ since there was no longer the luxury of knowing that every unit would get a turn.

Core Combat Rules. We’ll go back to using the main Chain of Command rules for movement, shooting and combat, as well as section and force moral.  The lack of overall force moral in Bolt Action seems somewhat contrived so we’ll go back to the CoC Force Moral schedule being eroded down.  We’ll continue to use the BA dice per unit though and remove these as the units are lost.  We’re still in two minds about splitting sections into fire teams for order dice but will likely work something simple out to address this.

Lists will be driven from the CoC core platoon principal (no filing for small sectons).

Scenarios.  These will either be engagement types which will likely use the CoC scouting mechanism which seems to give a better flavour for units contacting but just use initiative dice to bring units in.  For other scenarios we’ll either use the pick ups in Bolt Action or more likely draw them from a historically based scenario – these are readily available online so with a bit of effort shouldn’t be beyond even me to work one out.  I’ll post some links up to some good resources for BA and similar scenarios.

 

Chain of Action or Bolt Command

I had a WW2 game this evening against Phil using a bit of a combination of Bolt Action and Chain of Command.  We are still looking for a set of rules which we both like but whilst Bolt Action and Chain of Command both have elements which we like they each also have aspects which we’d rather do without.

To this end we have been looking for a way of taking the bots which we liked from each set and merging them into a common set.

this time around we used most of the Bolt Action rules but based the forces upon the Chain of Command lists and scenarios.  the slight change to the Bolt Action rules was to add two extra dice to the command dice initiative bag but these were of a third colour.  Dice would be drawn as normal for commands, but once the two different coloured dice had been drawn the turn would end and all of the dice would be returned to the dice bag.  This was to introduce an element of friction to the game so players would have to prioritise what they did in each turn since they couldn’t guarantee  that every unit would get to move each turn.

We used the attack and defend scenario, with me attacking with the German Rifle platoon and Phil defending with the British Rifle platoon.  I took a Sdkfz 210, along with an MMG team and an extra officer.  Phil took an MMG team.

The battle was across a small farming hamlet with Phil set up 18 inches in from his table edge.  I had to advance in from the opposite table edge with the Germans and force the British to retire without being broken myself.

The Germans star to advance on the British positionsIMG_20150204_203659-2

The Germans and Brits face off on the left flank across a field.

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On the German right flank both sides advance into the ruins.IMG_20150204_210230-1

A view from the British position in the ruins.IMG_20150204_210300-1

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The British centre

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The Germans advance around the hamlet in the centre

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Meanwhile on the German right flank the Germans continue to keep the British section pinned and out of the fight.

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The Germans advance to catch the British in the ruins in a crossfire and quickly great the infantry hiding there.  Unfortunately the British were able to bring up support and do the same to one of the German sections…

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With the end in sight. The German section in the centre is suffering from the British under Sergeant Wilson but the remainder of the British troops are forced to retire.

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… and back onto the WW2 Americans

Now that the Germans are in hand I’ve gone back to trying to finish off my American Armoured Rifle platoon.

I need to get the MMGs finished for the Machine Gun section, as well as a few additional riflemen and BARs just in case I was to use the force as an American Rifle platoon.

The figures are all based and base coats applied, so now I need to add the detail and shading (likely to be the old faithful Wilko Dark Oak Quick Dry Acrylic Varnish).  After that I’ll just need to unify the various sections through making the base dressing more consistent. I probably ought to make it look similar to the German infantry as well since they’ll likely be used against each other.

Hopefully I’ll get these finished this week, especially since this Friday evening is a painting session.

Photos to follow

Finally Getting the Germans finished

I spent a couple of evenings during the week trying to get my WW2 Germans looking decent for the table.  I have used them over the last couple of weeks but really let the side down by not having them painted up.

I’m reasonably happy with the end result and they pass the 2 foot wargaming inspection though I may have gone slightly overboard on the tufts and scenic basing.

This should give me at least three sections for my German Rifle platoon with a few heavy weapon options.  I’ll need to finish a few more light machine gun teams to be able to consider using them for Panzer Grenadiers.

On the vehicle front I recently experimented with some old Corgi Stuka Hanomags by removing the missile boxes from the side of the vehicle to convert them back to the standard Sdkfz 251Halftrack as the infantry carrier for the infantry.  The first attempt was reasonably successful so I’ll probably continue with the remaining three to finish the platoon.

Pictures to follow.

Excellent Game of Chain of Command

I had a great game of Chain of Command against Phil over the weekend.  He had the American Rifles whilst I took the German Rifles.  We rolled for the scenario and ended up with Patrol (next time I’ll ask that we play any other scenario instead.)

I took an extra senior officer as well as a mortar team.  Phil took the larger American Mortar team.

We quickly got into the game as I’d already set up the table in anticipation and Phil chose the side.  The beauty of the CoC rules is that using the patrol phase we quickly established our front lines and got into the game.

Phil went first as he had the higher Force Moral (11 vs my 8).

The game revolved around events in the centre of the table.  On one flank we both had a section facing off ineffectually against each other, whilst on the other flank Phil had a rather ineffectual section standing around whilst I committed two of my sections to face off against his remaining section in the centre.

Despite a cock-up which resulted in a close combat between two of our sections which I lost it was inevitable that my two sections quickly ground down Phils lone section.  When that had dissolved resulting in a multitude of force moral tests he was left with only 3 command dice.  From then hi end was in sight.

I was able to bring my sections up ion the centre, though Phil was able to finally get his lethargic section moving with the help of a senior officer and my weakened section was soon suffering as well.

I was able to break his section on the other flank and the game was over.  This was all very fortunate since Phil had to dash due to an urgent appointment.

Hopefully I’ll be able to work out how to get the accompanying photos off my mobile…

Chain of Command

Had an excellent game of Chain of Command at the club last night introducing Rob to the rules.

We played the basic patrol scenario to get the hand of the rules.  The battle was a densely ‘hedged’ (is that a word?) using all of my new hedges.  I’ve now discovered that I don’t have enough hedges so will be making a batch more over the weekend to cover this shortfall.  As such I raided the clubs supply of walls to finish the table.

Rob took American Rifles and I took the German Rifle Platoon.  I took the HMG as my extra whilst Rob had a mortar team.

I’ll upload the maps shortly.

It proved to be a fairly lively game but it will be sufficient to say at this moment that Rob dominated the game on both flanks and before long I had lost my two flanking sections and my force moral had collapsed.

All in all a very enjoyable game.

More Germans

I’ve just started basing up and painting some more 28mm WW2 Germans to finish off my Chain of Command platoon.  These rules have a fairly prescriptive force structure which is actually quite refreshing as it stops a lot of the maxi-min activities which I have previously experienced in other rules sets.

So 4 ‘drop-off’ points are underway as well as the multitude of lmgs the Germans have.  No penguins though, so I’ll have to find a use for the multitude of those I have left over from the Weird War 2 experience from a few years ago.

Chain of Command – another outing

Phil and I had another go with Chain of Command.  This was only Phils second game, and whilst I’ve had probably 6 games it has been a while since I last played so mistakes were made and I found myself referencing the rules quite often.  It probably wasn’t helped by us both playing Bolt Action a few weeks ago.

The game was a simple scenario between a German Rifle platoon played by Phil and a US Armoured Rifle platoon commanded by me.  Given the ratings of each side the Germans had an additional 4 points to choose.  When the force points were rolled for the scenario the US got a further 3 points whilst the Germans were increased by 1 to a total of 5.  This meant that the force selection was fairly quick.

The game was played across hedge lined fields interspersed with rural roads and the odd wall and building.  The Germans were on the defensive and deployed their scouting markers a little over a foot into the table.  The Americans came in from the table edge and had 3 scouting moves before the Germans became active.  I quickly locked down Phils German scouting markers but through some poor forward thinking I wasn’t able to really exploit this advantage.