Category: <span>Chain of Command</span>

A new beginning…

Maidstone Wargames Society held their first meeting of the year on Saturday. This meeting includes our AGM so often has a good turnout.

Around 24 members were in attendance for the meeting. The AGM was, as usual, short, only around 30 minutes. Also, as usual, the existing committee was re-elected without opposition. Despite the chairman’s pleas to be released!

There was also a very good turnout of games, covering a variety of scales, periods of genres, here’s a short photo round up.

John L brought out his 1:1200 Baltic Galleys for some Naval action.

Another naval game, but a few centuries later and under the water rather than on it, Peter M staged a 1:100th Stingray game, “Anything can happen in the next half hour“.

Paul and Colin brought out some 3mm Ancients for some FoG games.

Tony G and Stephen both fielded Anglo-Saxon warbands for some 28mm SAGA games.

Some more recent conflict now, some late WW2 Chain of Command action staged by chairman Mark J with 28mm vehicles and figures.

And last, but by no means least, Tony F and Phil staged a battle from the Lord of the Rings, again in 28mm.

That’s it for the round up of the first meeting of the year.

MWS meet on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays of the month (except the 4th Saturday in December) from 10:00 to 17:00 at Linton Village Hall, south of Maidstone on the A299.

Information about the Society, including directions, can be found here.

The diary of planned games can be found here, this is updated throughout the year so please have a look from time to time.

Work in Progress Wednesday

Jeremey is on holiday this week, so he’s left Tony the keys to the WIP Wednesday post…

We’ll start off with Chairman Mark’s fine collection of 28mm Shermans that he’s been working on for a while, building up towards a big Nijmegen game later this year. There’s been a bit of rivalry at the club over who has the biggest Sherman collection – we suspect Phil is still ahead, with Dave also a strong contender, but Mark’s catching up…

He’s also added a British half-track (likely an M5) and Daimler armoured car, a German bunker and some anti-tank guns (type unspecified, but some internet research points at them being 50mm Pak 38s).

Eric has been turning yet more Matchbox cars into wasteland warriors for a Gaslands game with all manner of add-ons and accessories. The one on the right with exposed wheels looks especially cool.

Stephen has made some 15mm objective markers for Vietnam games, which should also serve for WW2. I suspect a few of us will be hunting for those in an upcoming game of Charlie Don’t Surf.

And finally, I quickly turned out some individually based figures to act as Big Men (NCOs and officers) for a game of TFL’s Quadrant 13. They’re only 6mm, so really they should be Little Men. Or Little Big Men ?

Jeremey will be back next week, you’ll doubtless be pleased to hear !

France 1940 – The Bridges – Battle Report

Alan takes us through a big game of Chain of Command set in France 1940.

The purchase of a Cigar Box Battle river mat on eBay sparked thoughts about the interesting challenges of a game with one side having to make a strategic withdrawal across a river and the other trying to seize the crossings.

This led to the purchase of not just one, but two bridges from Sarissa Precision, a road and a rail bridge. The latter then led to building the track to go with it and then a station. To make the game work it needed to be big both physically (a 12 foot by 6 foot table) but also from a Chain of Command perspective; this meant at least a company a side. This was the result.

It saw a rag-tag French outfit as the defender facing a determined German company supported by a platoon of tanks. The French were made up of a platoon of Foreign Legion and a platoon of Tirailleurs Sénégalais on one side of the river, needing to withdraw across the bridges and a Motorcycle platoon holding those bridges. The French also had some support in the form of an anti-tank gun and some engineers in a truck – the latter to demolish the bridges before the Germans could capture them intact. Along with two Bouteilles Incendiaires, two roadblocks and a couple of full Chain of Command dice for the withdrawing troops, this was the defending force. The Germans, in addition to their infantry company and tank platoon, had an Adjutant, a Pioneer team in a Kubelwagen, a SdKfz 222 armoured car, an infantry gun and a truck with four rubber boats. It wouldn’t have been an early war game without a Shabby Nazi Trick – the German players selected a fifth column sniper (Jean-Claude). We played through the patrol phase which saw some interesting jockeying for positions around the buildings on the German side of the board. With jump off points then positioned we were ready for the meat of the game.

The Foreign Legion were covering the French left flank and the Tirailleurs Sénégalais on the right. The Germans began their advance with the platoon on their right flank making serious progress until they encountered the Legion. The other German platoons soon found that the Tirailleurs weren’t going to be easily dislodged and put them under heavy concentrated fire. The roadblock constrained the easiest route for their Panzers and so the main armoured advance was through the farmland to the right of the road.

Repeated exchanges of fire were telling on the French forces as they tried to hold the Germans long enough for their engineers to deploy and mine the bridges.

Eventually they began to fall back but not before taking serious casualties. Meanwhile Jean-Claude who had been placed in the church tower (it’s traditional!) was causing the French some unexpected problems.

With the French C-in-C desperate to blow the now mined bridges he ordered a full withdrawal but this was easier said than done with the Germans covering most of the routes to the bridges.

The Tirailleurs were aiming for the road bridge but when they got there the C-in-C ordered them to switch to the distant rail bridge so he could blow the former.

Meanwhile the German pioneers were making heavy weather of destroying the roadblock and the motorised elements of the German force were still held up as a result.

In the end only a single Legion section got to safety before the second bridge was blown and with neither side having been able to meet their victory conditions we declared the game a draw.

Society Meeting August 13th 2022

A short photo round up of the society’s last meeting.

Our opening salvo (above) is from Alan’s 15mm War of Spanish Succession game using Maurice rules.

Now on to World War Two, John ran an introductory game of Chain of Command, Germans vs US.

Our next game(s) are naval actions using the Galleys and Galleons rules, run by the other John and Colin.

The first of these games was set in the Mediterranean sea, and uses 3D printed ships.

Their second game was set in the South China Seas, using John’s scratch built ships.

Chinese treasure fleet intercepted by pirate rowing boats

And finally, off to Middle Earth with Tony & Andy playing a couple of Dragon Rampant games, both set in the Shire.

In the first game Tony’s Hobbit militia, with some help from Aragorn and some Dúnedain Rangers defended Hobbiton from Andy’s Goblins and Warg Riders.

Aragorn flees after an encounter with some Goblin Light Foot

Tony successfully defended Hobbiton in the first game.

In the second game Tony turned to the dark side (sorry for mixing film tropes) and fielded Saruman and his Orcs, while Andy fielded a Dwarf contingent. Somehow we only got one picture of the victorious Dwarves.

Honours were even on the day, one game each (although the “Good” side won both games)

AGM 2020

The first meeting of the year is when we hold our AGM – we try to keep it brief, and no more formal than is absolutely necessary. It’s generally a good meeting since we get more attendees than normal and this more games are put on. So rather than dwell on the thrills of the treasurer’s report on the club’s finances (healthy, by the way), here’s a gallery of the gaming highlights of the day.

Photos by Tony F and Andy

During the AGM, John Le collected the trophy for last year’s Field of Glory tournament from Paul L, the 2018 winner.

Alan K hosted a large 1940 Chain of Command game.

Tony F and Jeremey put on a Celtos game (but didn’t play in it themselves…)

Instead, they both took part in some aerial combat over the Sinai desert in 1956

As always, there was a Field of Glory game going on – the first of the 2020 tournament

And Jon R and John La took to the seas in some ancient galleys

Chain of Command – and no Chain of Command

We had two games running at our last meeting.

The first was 15mm refight of the opening clash of the American Civil War, the First Battle of Bull Run. The second was a 25mm action using Chain of Command.

In the first game Andy and Jon led the Federal Army against Steve and Mark with the combined Confederate Armies of Beauregard and Johnston.

This used Steve’s 15mm figures and was a third playtest for his home grown, Brigade level rules. One of the features of this action was the fairly chaotic command arrangements of the newly raised, largely volunteer armies, which arrived over the course of the action. This means that units from the same command were set up to appear at different points on the battlefield, meaning that many brigades were hard to co-ordinate as they were out of their command radius.

We managed to reverse history with this one with the Federals seizing the high ground and seeing off all of the Confederate attempts to get it back. Steve’s rules make for an enjoyable and fast paced game and after a few tweaks to fine tune things are ready for another outing!

In our second game fast forward to 1944 and Dave and Pete led their American paratroopers (with some help from an attached Sherman tank)against a position defended by German paratroopers under Alan and John. Figures and terrain from Alan’s 25mm collection. Alas the Sherman support was to no avail – picked off in an ambush by a Panzer killer team armed with Panzerschreck and Panzerfaust anti-tank weapons. These rules can be the source of some nasty surprise if your opponents save up command points to deploy ambushes!