The Battle For Bialystock & Bloom Farm

This game has been in the making for over a month now, but as intimated in my last post, life had put various obstacles in the way of my getting it onto the table to play. The inspiration was once again from Featherstone's  'War Games' and was based upon the 'Tank and Infantry Action on the St James Road' scenario. Initially I had planned to set this in Normandy '44, as per the original, but whilst pondering things during the enforced delay, I thought of switching it to somewhere in Russia during Operation Barbarossa.

With a new setting I began to flesh out some basic OOB, but in the end due to real life incursions, I kept things pretty basic and went with a Russian Conscript Battalion supported by some tanks in defence, with a German Tank & Infantry Battalion for the attack. As it was a solo outing and a sort of trial run for some more Russia '41 games, I wasn't too worried about points, balance etc.

The original map upon which the scenario is based.

The Game

I tried to keep things as close as possible to the map, but one change I did make was Fir Tree Hill was no longer a hill, just a wood. A few points to note:

• Turn 1 would be Dawn and so visibility was only 50cm and a -1 to the CV of all units.
• The Russians counted as Conscripts, with a CV 7 for HQs and CV8 for the CO.
• The Germans had a CV9 for HQs and CV10 for the CO.
• All sides had Company Commanders as I find this makes for a more fluid and involved game.
• The Germans had one Scheduled Air Strike to arrive on Turn 2 to attack Copse Hill.

As normal, I'll try to give an idea of how the game playerd out using the captioned photos (apolgies for the poor quality of the pics. I need to replace the light bulb to make things brighter which will hopefully reduce camera shake somewhat). So without further ado...

An overview of the table, which was 6' x 4'. The Germans enter from the right hand edge.

The German Kampfgruppe Liebkind deployed along the railway embankment ready for the attack.

A Russian Company is dug-in on the reverse slope of Copse Hill. Another Company is dug-in in Fir Tree Wood.

The final Company is defending the Bialystock & Bloom Collective Farm. A T-28 and T-35 are in reserve (top left).

The view from the Farm.

The end of Turn 1. The Germans got off to a patchy and slow start, with about half the units failing to move, leaving the Panzers leading the attack. Oh for some SdKfz 251's to help keep the infantry in support! The Russian heavy tanks moved slowly forward and a Russian ATG suppressed a PzIV near to The Plantation.

The Panzers out on their own. The Russians can only just see them in the Dawn light.

The 45mm ATG suppresses the PzIV.

The Big Beasties move forward slowly to avoid breaking down.

At the start of Turn 2 the Stukas arrive...

... and Suppress all the Russian infantry on Copse Hill.

The end of turn 2. The Germans make up for lost time, with the infantry moving swiftly up in support and some Pz I's push forward on the left flank by Copse Hill. The Pz IV's move back to await infantry support to avoid falling victim to the 45mm ATG.

For the Russians little happened due to their infantry being Suppressed on Copse Hill along with some failed command rolls, but once again the Big Beasties continued their steady move towards the Germans.

A lone T-26 halts the Pz I's in their tracks. MG's versus a 45mm gun: what could possibly go wrong?

The Germans push towards Copse Hill.

The Panzers move back as the infantry move up in support.

The Big Beasties move forward but are just out of range to be able to engage the German tanks.

The end of Turn 3. The German FAC failed to call in another Stuka strike, but a combined arms attack cleared Copse Hill of the enemy. Elsewhere the Pz's move forward with the infantry trying to keep up for support.

Another Turn of limited options for the Russians, but the Big Beasties with the 45mm ATG get a morale boost by KO'ing a Pz IV.

Pz II's move forward to support the Pz I's, who manage to Suppress the T-26 with MG fire.

Pz III's (37mm gun) engage the Big Beasties, but to no effect, as the infantry move up in support.

The Pz IV brews up as the infantry move up in support.

Turn 4 and the FAC calls in the Stuka on Fir Tree Wood...

... Suppressing many units.

Not to be outdone an I-16 'Rata' makes a welcome appearance for the Russians...

... catching a German Company in the open and Suppressing most of the units.

The end of Turn 4. There was little movement as both sides engaged each other. The Germans KO's the T-28, but the T-26 KO'd two Pz I's and suppressed another.

The advantage of a 45mm gun is plain to see.

The Germans move into and around The Plantation as the T-28 burns (top left).

Turn 5 and once again the Stukas arrive and Suppress all bar one of the Russian units in Fir Tree Wood. 

The end of Turn 5. The German attack really got going, as another combined arms attack saw all bar one unit KO's in Fir Tree Wood. The Pz II's managed with some difficulty to KO the T-26 and the Pz III's KO'd the T-35. With so many units gone and all the armour, the Russians had no hope of stopping the Germans and so began to withdraw from the Farm.

The Pz II's get their revenge.

The German view from Copse Hill as they attack Fir Tree Wood.

The Pz III's finally KO the T-35.

The Germans hold their position by The Plantation.

Isolated at the farm, the Russian troops withdraw to prevent being out flanked.

Post Game Thoughts

After the months delay it was great to finally get this game played and as always, I really enjoyed using BKCII, with some BKCIV add-ons. In the end not a surprising result, but one that felt right and historically accurate, given the qualtiy and quantity of the troops and AFV's involved. So, given what happened, some thoughts on the game etc in no fixed order:

• The difference in the CV's really did make a big difference in the game, but this did feel right and reflected quite well the initial German superiority at the start of Operation Barbarossa.
• The German AFV's, even though more numerous, certainly felt quite weak compared to the T-26 as well as the Big Beasties of the T-28 and T-35. You can see why the Germans suddenly had to up gun their Panzers, ditch their Leichte Panzers and what a shock it must have been to encounter the T-34 and the KV2.
• Even though the Russian armour wasn't too bad in comparison, the Penny Packet approach and poor mechanical reliability meant that they could be out manouevred by the German Panzers.
• The Russian Conscripts worked well and reflected the rushed nature of their Reserve units and their general lack of equipment, training etc, in comparison to the German Heer troops.
• The Stuka support really gave the Germans a marked edge in the game, from the first scheduled attack and on. The Dice Gods were certainly on their side and provided that mobile artillery support that you read about on this and the earlier French and Polish Campaigns.
• The I-16 Rata making a brief appearance was good and I simply allowed it to arrive at the start of the Russian Turn on a '6' on a D6 roll.
• Having very open terrain was a nice change from Bocage style Normandy games and certainly gave a very different flavour to the play. The Early War tanks and their general lack of range and 'Big Guns' added to this too, giving much more movement that I would normally see.
• The Unreliable rule for the T-28 and T-35 tanks was good, meaning that they could only half-move each Turn without risking the chance of breaking down. Also the Pz I's being able to Suppress the T-26, as per BKCI, was good to see and a welcome return.
• Playing on a 6' x 4' table brought its own challenges on several fronts. Firstly it is a tight squeeze to fit it into my normal gaming area of the dining room. This means I have to move some stuff around to be able to access all table edges comfortably. Secondly with quite a few units on the table and many commands, keeping track of things was a bit tricky for solo play. I certainly wouldn't want anything bigger as it would become too unwieldy IMHO.

So there we have it. For a trial game it worked a treat and now I'm keen to paint up some more German units and AFV's as well as some Russians, to play a linked campaign based around Operation Barbarossa. The Germans will have to manage their resources so that they don't 'victor themselves to death' early on, as they will have limited replacements and reserves. for the Russians even though they have seemingly limitless infantry to call upon, the armour will be hard to come by, certainly in the initial stages. 

As always I have plenty of ideas to mull over and hopefully firm up over the Xmas period. With luck I'll even get some painting in. Unless of course I get distracted by another shiny project that lures me away!

So until next time stay safe and keep healthy.

All Quiet On The Gaming Front

Well it's not entirely true that it's been all quiet on the gaming front of late, but it has been rather sporadic and somewhat disjointed, for the usual real life reasons of being a parent carer that I won't bore you with! So without further ado what has been happening chez moi:

Ancient & Medieval Wargaming

My regular followers will know that over the years I have tried to get into ancients and medieval gaming, but to no avail. Something has never quit clicked, whether it be the rules, figures, periods etc. But a few weeks ago a post on The Wargames Website mentioned Matakashi's Tea House , a site that I had not looked at for years. Whilst browsing and I highly recommend you do if you have some time, I stumbled across the following post.

Well this immediately struck a chord with my interest in the Warhammer Empire milieu that I used to enjoy way back in the day. The whole look of the Army I just loved and fitted in with some units I had already based up a few years ago and then as is my want, nothing happened with them. 

So with the visual look sorted as it were, my mind turned to what rules I could use for some decent battle on a 4' x 4' table or smaller? It's fair to say that I have bought quite a few over the years for ancient and medieval games, but none really grabbed me as mentioned at the start. Lion Rampant is a favourite though so I tried out some simple games, but for me although they worked really well for skirmish games (no surprise there then as that's what they're designed for) they didn't scale up well. Neil Thomas's Ancients & Medieval rules i've used before and although not a bad set of rules, the lack of C&C was and has always been a big issue with me.

Then I saw that Warlord Games were releasing Hail Caesar II, which piqued my interest. These days commonality of rules is really important to me as well as the ability to play fun and challenging solo games. I feel like an old dog that is too old to learn new rules, so HCII really appealed to me. After some mulling things over for a week or so in the end I decided to pre-order them, given that they have now extended the period to include the Hundred Years War as well as The War of the Roses, both of which fit in nicely with the above Religious Fanatics inspiration that kicked this all off. 

Now I just have to await the release of the rules and then hope that the Royal Mail deign to deliver them to me! 

Terrain

As you know, I still love making terrain, more so than in fact painting toy soldiers. I don't always have the time nor the motivation for the latter, but can often find time to fit in some of the former. This was the case recently when I finally completed some Russian buildings from Battlescale Wargames Buildings. These had been primed for ages and then the Muse was upon to finished them, which I grealty enjoyed. The detail on these 6mm buildings is superb and they come highly recommended.

Painting

As alluded to above, the painting mojo has been somewhat lacking of late. However with a forth coming game planned, I finally got around to finishing off some WWII German AFV's that had sat basecoated for an embarassinly long time! My skay arm made painting these more difficult that I first thought, but they look fine when on the games table. In the future I will not make the camo scheme so dense to make it easier to paint for me.

Just a comparison shot to show how big the Russian T-35 take was, as when you see a Tiger II at Bovington, that really is a Big Beast. As you can see the T-35 is bigger (or well onger to be more precise!).

BKCII Battle

I had planned on getting more games in in November, but that fell by the wayside due to the aforementioned real life issues. Still plenty of ideas were being mulled over and in the end I settled upon a BKCII game based upon a classic Featherstone scenario. This was finally played a few days ago and the AAR will follow in due course.

Reveille Wargames Show

The last Sunday in November has traditionally been when our local wargames show, Reveille, is held at in Bristol. Covid had meant that it hat been held for 3 years so it was nice to be able to attend once again. Even though it is mainly a 28mm show and with traders around that 'scale', I still try and support it as it would be a shame to see it disappear. 

The show was busy, even though a few of the usual traders were not there, a sign of the times of them cutting back on the shows that they attend. Still it was very well attended, to the point that it was too crowded to take any photos due to the small spaces between the table and traders. There were some nice games on show, even some that were not 28mm!, with the recently released 'Never Mind The Billhooks' game being particularly popular. 

For once there was nothing there that piqued my interest on the purchases front, but the fickle nature of wargaming meant that I could have bought a brand new copy of 'Rules of Engagement' from Great Escape Games for just £3.00! 10 years ago or maybe a bit more these rules were really, really popular. I imagine they, like many rulesets, were replaced by the latest shiny new offerings, namely Chain of Command and Bolt Action. A topic for another post maybe?

Xenos Rampant

I knew that Dan Mersey had planned upon releasing a Sci-Fin version of his 'Rampant' ruleset, but was unaware that anything had happened until I saw a few posts on various Blogs about Xenos Rampant. Whilst Sci-Fi is not really my thing, I do like the idea of some HG Wells type action set in the late 19thC. In fact many moons ago I did collect some plastic kits for this very purpose, but nothing ever progressed after they were assembled. However I did ponder whether to buy these rules to re-visit these ideas, but decided against it for the present, given that I have more than enough projects on the go as it is.

With Xmas suddenly upon us I'm not sure how much more I'll get done in the next few weeks, but maybe the odd game and some painting would be nice. First up though I need to compile the AAR of my recent game. So until then, stay safe and keep healthy!