WW2 US Armored Force

One easy way to avoid the question of what dunkelgelb really looks like is to paint US forces instead. We were in and out of the house doing various things over the long holiday weekend, but in moments of down time I was able to make great progress on my small pile of "in process" and "not started yet" US tanks and other vehicles. You can never have too many Shermans, and none of my jeeps and trucks were finished yet...

All of the vehicles shown below had either been assembled and primed olive drab, or were still in their packaging as of Friday. Step 1 was to get everything primed and ready to go so I could paint them in assembly line fashion as much as possible. My intent was to do basic paint jobs, quickly, without lavishing too much attention on them; just get them done to a decent gaming quality.

All of the models are Battlefront Flames of War, and really are exceptional little pieces. Because they are such nice models, I ended up spending more time on them than I had anticipated, but they were well worth the extra effort. The models have a lot of character, with a number of different variants of molded-on stowage, and stowage bits that could be glued on to make each vehicle different. After I got all the basic painting done and began picking out the detail, I began to realize just how much detail there was on these tiny guys. [As an aside, all of these are either cast resin, or resin with some plastic components; none are the newer all-plastic models that they are coming out with now - I also assembled newer FoW kits this weekend with 5 German tanks and 4 German halftracks in all plastic, and they are amazing...]. In addition to the 10 tanks, 6 jeeps, and 8 trucks shown below, I also painted 5 anti-tank guns, but I will photograph them later (when they have crews). 29 vehicles and guns over a 4-day weekend is prodigious painting output for me.

A US armored task force with motorized infantry support and recon elements begins moving out from their rendezvous point in a Norman field:

Armored onslaught

Jeeps for recon and command elements.

Six Jeeps

Light trucks for towing anti-tank guns in towed tank destroyer units, or for miscellaneous transport duties.

Four Dodge 3/4 ton trucks

Heavy trucks for motorized infantry, or for supply hauling duties.

Four 2.5 ton trucks

Early model M4A1 cast hull Shermans with short barreled 75mm guns. These early model Shermans continued to see use until destroyed or rendered mechanically unfit for duty. Many pictures show these old workhorses in action in Germany right up until the end of the war.

Five M4A1 75mm Shermans

Later model M4A3 welded hull Shermans up-gunned with 76mm guns in larger turrets. Much better for facing enemy armor...

Five M4A3 76mm Shermans

The weekend's worth of painting. Lots more vehicle options for Fireball Forward! games now...

The assembled troops

I haven't finished the bases on the jeeps and trucks yet because I haven't decided exactly how I want to do them. Other than that, all these need is a clear coat to protect them.

Next...I'm not sure. Although I do have 5 assembled Panzer IV H's and 4 251/1 halftracks to deal with.

Fireball Forward! - Ukraine 1941

Relatively spur of the moment, Leo and Ryan and I were able to get together for a game of Fireball Forward! last night. Ryan has been dying to play WW2, I loved FF! when Leo and I played it a couple of times last summer, and it had just been generally way too long since we had an actual game of any sort.

Leo had a scenario that he had created, which was adapted from one of the Skirmish books, and he would umpire while Ryan and I played. The scenario was a Russian counterattack against a German defense at a small village and stream crossing. Playing with an umpire is great because everything starts off the table out of sight and is only revealed when spotted (generally when it shoots). The Germans had a couple of infantry platoons, some company weapons assets, a 75mm infantry gun and a pair of 37mm AT guns. I (the Russians) had 4 infantry platoons (in two companies, each with a few company assets), a Kommissar (who proved to be a worthless fraud), and 7 tanks in 3 groups; a T28 (?) in a group by itself, and two groups of 3 BT7's each.

The battlefield ( a nice compact 3' by 4', which is typical for FF games - lots of great action in a small space...), looking at the first picture from the Russian edge, had a cluster of buildings on either side of a stream in the distance. A road went up the middle, with a plowed beet field on the left and a swampy area on the right. The wheat colored rectangle at middle left is a field of high crops which would prove to be the hinge point of the game.

Turn 1 - Russians can opt to bring their infantry on in trucks, which I chose not to do. That would mean an open ground ride right up the middle, and I envisioned a lot of burning trucks and dead guys. I elected for a broad front advance, mostly avoiding the swampy area on my right flank. I should have been more aggressive with my one good tank, which cautiously inched onto the board (and ended up bringing up the rear of my turn 1 advance). The crappy little BT7's advance bravely. And died bravely. The first one got lit up by a flank shot from a 37mm ATG in the swamp. The second one went to face the ATG and died soon after. The second came on and fared little better, with one getting knocked out and another immediately panicking and fleeing the field. I needed to occupy buildings to win, which tanks cannot do, but I had hoped that they would be a little more...less dead less quickly.

Mostly through Turn 1

Turn 2 - As can be seen in the mid-turn picture below, the Russian infantry are advancing through the beet field (bottom of pic) while all the BT7's are either dead of have fled (4 dead, 2 panicked and gone). German infantry (machine guns) have exposed themselves by shooting out of the wheat field, tying up my infantry in the center. 5 out of my 6 infantry units are either on the road or left of it. The one remaining infantry platoon near the swamp will try to take out the 37mm ATG.

During Turn 2

Turn 3 - The last Russian tank (the good one) dies, my armored force having done nothing of consequence, other than to hold the attention of the 3 German guns. The Russian platoon in the swamp got into melee with the ATG and a supporting German infantry platoon, and that series of combats lasted the rest of the game, with the heroic gun crew beating back wave after wave of Russians. As it turns out though, the German infantry would have been better served moving to support the buildings in the center once the tanks were gone. The ATGs had served their purpose and could be left to die.

During Turn 3

Turns 3 and 4 saw a concerted effort by Russian infantry to advance in force through the wheat field, around its flank, and up the road if possible. I was able to run the gauntlet with one squad into the center building near the road, and worked my way around the one behind the flank of the wheat field. I was taking some casualties, but was also inflicting some and slowly clearing out the wheat field itself and chipping away at their supporting units.

During Turn 4

Turn 4 - The Germans were thinned out enough that I was able to use numbers to tie up the remaining Germans while a squad ran across the stream and into the building on the other side (2 victory points). At that point, I had the 4 victory points I would need to win the game after 5 turns (2 VPs for a building on the far side of the stream, and 1 each for two buildings on the near side). A last ditch German counterattack near the end of turn 4 to try to oust me from a building failed, and it was agreed that there was no way the few remaining Germans near the buildings I occupied would be able to push me out.

After Turn 4 (game effectively over)

It was a great game, and a good learning exercise for Ryan and I. We both made some mistakes, and both did some good things. We have a lot to learn about the rules, but that's the fun part. Our dice rolling seemed very particular on both sides. Ryan didn't shoot very well, except when shooting at tanks (which was great), and his morale rolls seemed good when testing under fire, but atrocious when trying to get his troops to enter a melee. On the other side, my firing was pretty good, my morale to enter combats was good, my rallying was OK, but I couldn't pass a morale check when fired on to save my life. It seemed like any time Ryan succeeded in hitting me with a shot, I broke. When in melees themselves, no matter how advantageous the combat for me, I would roll whatever I needed to remain locked in melee until the next turn. Among other things, it is these dice rolling patterns that develop during a game that makes games fun (what?! again?! really?!).

A few observations:

• I love this game system and can't wait to play more. It is fantastic with a referee.
• This is the first time we had a game of this with vehicles, and it showed. Ryan on the other hand had never played the system at all but did fine.
• Russians are frustrating in their rigidity. Units activate by random card draws. Unlike the Germans (and the Americans when we played them) who get to choose which unit to activate when one of their cards comes up, the Russians have to splay the specific unit noted on the card. Getting things to occur in the sequence you would hope they would is almost impossible. But the Russians had notorious command issues early on in the war especially, so this felt right.

While the excitement of last night's game is fresh in my mind, I suspect that Paint Table Saturday today will revolve around taking stock of my modest WW2 collection, identifying needs, maybe a little painting and almost certainly some basing of existing infantry, which I am partway through. And maybe a side trip to a shop nearby that stocks the Flames of War miniatures range to pick up a few things...

Fireball Forward! - Pouppeville

Having had so much fun with Fireball Forward! last weekend, Leo and I wanted to get together again as soon as we could to have another go at it. We were able to find a couple hours last night to play the second scenario in the programmed instruction sequence, Pouppeville.

The scenario has two full sized but poor quality German platoons along with a company leader and a sniper defending a bunch of buildings (10 total elements/stands). US paratroops consisting of two heavy platoons and some battalion HQ assets are the attackers (9 total elements), and need to accumulate victory points for buildings captured. Most buildings are worth 1 VP at game end, but two buildings centered near the northern edge of the board are worth 5 and 2, and are thus very important. The game is four turns long, but the American random force addition die roll gave them an extra turn, thus a five turn game in this playing. My random roll got me a company leader morale improvement (which would matter later).

We flipped a coin for sides, and I got the Germans. I set up scattered in the buildings primarily in the center and east of the board, with only a sniper on the western side. I hoped that a central setup would allow me to respond to attacks from whatever direction Leo chose, or to fall back on the big VP buildings as needed. In the interests of trying to capture some fog of war without having a referee, we did use hidden unit markers including a number of dummies on each side. In a friendly game, this worked fine.

As it turned out, Leo advanced entirely up the eastern side of the road, both toward the first building along the road and then far to the east up and into the orchard. Not having placed any squads far to the west worked out well for me, but my sniper was badly out of position to do anything useful.

US early advance and hidden Germans - looking E/SE

Fire on both sides in the first turn was desultory, slowing his advance in a few places but not doing much in the way of casualties.

US advance on the east - looking South

In the middle few turns, German fire improved, killing an American squad in the orchard and another in the open. My sniper was killed trying to move to his other prepared position in the center of the board. A successful American assault on the first building along the east side of the road cost me a squad.

Fighting for the buildings - looking Northeast

As losses mounted for the Americans, it became obvious that the only way the Americans were going to win would be a successful assault on the high VP buildings in the last two turns. As it worked out, the paratroops were not able to take the next building up the road, which would have put them diagonally across the street from the 5 VP building. Further east, after killing a German squad in the building protecting the hedgerow enclosure in the northeast corner of the board, a final American squad and its platoon leader made an end run for the north edge of the board in hopes of taking the 2 VP building.

Final US push - looking Southeast

The American squad was gunned down crossing the open ground to assault the building, leaving the leader alone behind the hedgerow. The buildings were safe and Germans won the game. Final American losses were 3 out of their 4 heavy squads. Germans losses were two squads and the sniper.

All told, things went well for me. My fire early on wasn't great, but my morale rolls were better than Leo's in general, causing him to lose some of his good squads while my bad ones hung around bravely. In one case, the only reason I passed an important morale check in the mid-game, saving an important building and delaying Leo's advance, was that the company commander had rolled that improved morale random option. Another fun game of Fireball Forward!, and I already have the next two scenarios set up on the table: Tank Attack at La Fiere and Choctaw Warrior. Now I just need to learn the vehicle rules.

Fireball Forward! - Brecourt Manor

After a long period of inactivity, and to christen the newly revamped gaming area with an actual game, Leo came over last night to push some figs around and teach me Fireball Forward!. It was just the two of us, but having seen some games of FbF at conventions recently and liking the look of it, I was anxious to try it out. Leo has played it a number of times and has recommended it highly. So the purpose of the evening was to just work through the rules for my benefit.

"Day of Days" - Brecourt Manor

FbF has its roots in the old Avalon Hill Squad Leader board game from days of yore. Being one of the earliest games I remember playing (and loving), this gave points for sentimentality going in. The rules are written in the same "programmed instruction" manner as SL. Read the basic rules and play scenario #1 (Brecourt Manor). Add a few more pages of rules on terrain and snipers and play scenario #2 (Pouppeville). Add rules on tanks and play scenario #3 (Tank Attack at La Fiere). And so on...

Last night's exercise was to play Brecourt Manor so that I could get the basics down. The scenario (for which I had built a custom terrain board of trenches and gun emplacements...just because...) is the historical event that was the main battle scene in episode 2 of Band of Brothers ("Day of Days"). Elements of Easy company paratroopers attack a fortified German artillery battery that was shelling the American troops on Utah Beach on D-Day. The picture shows the German set up with the guns in their emplacements, firing on the beaches to the north (right of photo). The paratroops enter from the west (top of photo) and need to silence the guns as quickly as possible.

I won't go into detail on the two games of this we played, but as the Americans I failed both times to capture the guns quickly enough to prevent the Germans from accumulating enough victory points to claim a win. But the important thing is that I feel like I have a decent grasp of the basic rules and have begun to see some of the nuances of this particular rules system.

In general, I have a very favorable impression of the rules and am anxious to play again, getting further into the rules as we go (at the top of the photo you can see the edge of the scenario 2 battlefield which is set up and waiting). The basic game mechanics are similar to Squad Leader in the sense that a unit which fails one morale check breaks. A broken unit that fails a morale check dies. Events can cause multiple morale checks, therefore killing a unit if more than one morale failure is rolled. The card driven random activation keeps things interesting from a sequencing perspective, and will make the scenarios play differently based on the luck of the draw. The basic mechanics are simple enough, but there are plenty of decisions to be made as units and individual elements activate, keeping the suspense level high. The one aspect of the game that we were not able to take advantage of is that the game is ideally suited to having a referee. There are spotting and hidden unit considerations that are impossible to do optimally with two players and no ref. That being said, some basic common sense and good sportsmanship get around those limitations fairly easily. For our next game, we will be using hidden unit markers and dummies to attempt to add some of the fog of war back into the game in the absence of a referee. I'm sure it will work fine.

It's nice to be playing WW2 again...