Chain of Command 2 - Flanking Action Sicily 1943

This afternoon, Craig and I had another play through of Chain of Command v2, this time using my Operation Husky 1st Canadian Division and Fallschirm-Panzer-Division 1. Hermann Göring.  We played the Flank Attack scenario, and allocated the maximum number of support points in order to make things interesting.  It was very, um, educational, for me.

Here is the table. Germans get to deploy in the upper right corner.

Another view of the table.  Interpretation of the circular olive groves turned out to be important and will change how I set up terrain for the next game.  Flank Attack lets the attacker have two groups of patrol markers, compared to only 3 for the defenders.  This is a deceptive advantage, as having fewer markers lets the defender lock their patrol markers quickly, before the attacker can move their markers very far onto the table.  It's a reminder of the importance of the patrol phase and how best to get a good position on the table.

The two tetrahedral anti-tank obstacles represent the two scenario objectives.  

The Canadian jump-off points (JOP), including the mule and driver, and,

a pile of supplies with a nice little hand-painted map of Sicily!

And a somewhat more generic German JOP inside the small house.

Early in the game, the Canadians deployed their Sherman.  The Germans dropped an AT gun on the hill opposite, and started shooting.  The Germans needed several shots to take out the Sherman.  Their first shot stunned the Sherman TC, and kept it from moving out of the way of subsequent shots.  In all, the Germans hit the Sherman three times before finally killing it, starting the gradual destruction of the Canadian force morale, as well as consuming 7 of the 18 support points.  Sorry no photos of this duel!  

Here the Canadian sniper and a section deploy.  In some of our previous CoC2 games, the snipers were a significant nuisance.  In this game, not so much!  The sniper only activates on a '1', and even when I activated him, his shot missed more often than it hit.  Luck of the dice!

The Canadian section beside the road intersection have dashed forward, in order to force the Germans to deploy to defend the objective.  

The Germans deployed the MMG and caught the Canadian section in the open.  Bad news for the Canucks.  A major error on my part, as I would not have left the section there if I realised that the MMG could deploy on this side of the road.  Another error was not spending the command points for the section to hit the dirt for two phases, which meant multiple phases of fire in the open.  

I took advantage of a double phase to move this section into this house, as it held a German JOP.  

Back near the crossroads, the first section was continuing to be hammered.

Destruction of the first section ended up pushing the Canadian force morale over the edge.  I stopped taking photos as I was trying to figure out how to get my guys out of trouble.

Here's a photo from earlier in the game that shows where definition of the terrain matters!  Each of the olive grove disks was a minor obstruction, as were the line of trees alongside the road, and also the low wall that the Canadian section is hiding behind.  In CoC2, this means three minor obstructions, so Germans firing from the farmyard have line of sight which allows them to fire on the Canadians with the only limitation being at effective range (>18").  Otherwise their chance to hit was no different than if they Canadians had been in the open.  This vulnerability was not intuitive for me, so I'll be more careful with how exposed my troops are next time.  In a future game, I'll emphasize that the olive grove is area terrain covering the full area in the space between, as with the orchard just visible on the right.  If I do that, then 6" of olive grove will block LoS.

There were a few more aspects of CoC that we didn't use, both existing rules as well as new rules introduced in V2 that we didn't use, including suppressing fire and smoke.  In V1, I would liberally drop smoke everywhere - in this game, I used my '1's to activate the sniper instead of dropping smoke.  Smoke could have protected that exposed section and provided cover for it to advance.  I was slow to use my CoC points to get the section to 'hit the dirt' after the MMG opened up on them.  

Ultimately, a good lesson for me in watching for hazards, and considering things that my opponent can do!  Thanks to Craig, a real gentleman to play with.  I'm looking forward to our next game!
  

Dogsled

 The main mode of transportation in the arctic in winter prior to the invention of skidoos and construction of winter roads was the dogsled.  So naturally any gold rush or other arctic gaming will need some dogsleds, and here is the first one in my collection.  This is from Copplestone Castings via North Star Figures.  In addition to the dogsled there are a couple of huskies, one from Copplestone and one from Pulp Figures.

Whenever I build something like a cart or other transport pulled by animals I hem and haw over whether to include the traces and/or reins.  I almost left traces off this time but finally decided to include them.  In this case the traces are made from thread soaked in CA glue. The traces are not accurate, the dogs should be attached in pairs rather than each individually as I've done here.  If a real dog musher connected their dogs this way there would be instant chaos as the dogs would immediately tangle their traces!

I'm happy with this dogsled but will be interested if anyone can recommend other dogsleds in 28mm size.

Arctic adventures

 Arthur and I had a visit to the Vancouver Maritime Museum this afternoon.  The key exhibit at the VMM is the RCMP St Roch, which served communities in the Canadian arctic from 1928 to 1954, including traversing the Northwest Passage multiple times, and was the first ship to circumnavigate North America.  

In addition to the St Roch, the VMM has some great displays about Arctic exploration among its other great displays.  Thus it's a great intro to today's post.  After Arthur and I returned from the EAAE, we hosted a game based on the hunt for the mad trapper of Rat River.  While we picked a bunch of proxy figures from our current collection, few of them were actually fitted to the real event.  This inaccuracy could not be allowed to stand, so i placed an order with North Star Military Figures for some Copplestone Castings polar explorers and Inuit hunters.  Now we will be ready for a replay of the Rat River action!

The four Inuit hunters can be hunters, and can also support the RCMP as special constables.

They are wearing animal skin (sealskin, most likely) for their parkas, mukluks and trousers. The parkas should be whiter shade seen on the two figures on the left but I suppose the other pair could be wearing caribou skin.  I don't know the reason for the tails on the belts of the two on the left, so I just painted them grey.

The four white guys are can be explorers, Mounties, hunters or any other folks depending on the scenario requirements.  Based on my research, they should all be in khaki or beige but that would be far too boring so I added colour where I could.

Finally, a group photo!

And finally, Arthur and I watched 'Death Hunt' last night.  This was a 1981 movie starring Charles Bronson and Lee Marvin, loosely based on the mad trapper hunt.  We had great fun picking out where the movie made mistakes, but also the details it got right.  It was clear from some of the details that the writers had done their research, but then decided to change aspects of the real story.  Arthur generally thought that the real story was plenty dramatic, and the deviations introduced by the filmmakers did not improve the story.

It's a fun movie but not to be taken seriously.

EAAE - Prince Rupert. the Inside Passage and then home

 Arthur and I woke up from our last night in a tent at the Water's Edge Campground at Dease Lake, packed our tent and then headed south to Terrace.  It was an easy drive, then we connected with Aileen, unloaded the truck and returned it to the rental company.  Back at Aileen's, we did our laundry, and prepared for our next step.  We packed an overnight bag for our trip to Prince Rupert, and loaded everything else into bins for shipping home to Burnaby.  Aileen's friend Rolf arranged for our gear to be shipped home, and Aileen took us to Prince Rupert.

Prince Rupert is close to Terrace, just over an hour along Highway 16.  We had a little explore of the city, where there are loads and loads of totem poles!

We had fish and chips at Bob's on the Rock, and then early to bed.

Next morning we were up early as we needed to be at the ferry terminal at 6 am to board the BC Ferry to Port Hardy, at the north end of Vancouver Island.  It's a full day, traversing the sheltered inside passage.

Boarding the ferry.

Arthur was a bit bored, but I absolutely loved sitting back and relaxing, and letting someone else do the driving!  The scenery is very beautiful.  And I had time to read a bit, including Jack London's Call of the Wild, White Fang and To Build A Fire.  Scenery included the usual rocks and trees (and water!), as well as lighthouses, abandoned communities, and even whales and ships.

I loved seeing whales, but of course it was not easy to take decent photos!

View from the ferry.

Lighthouse.

Sailboat.

We arrived very late into Port Hardy, not reaching our hotel until 1 am.  We had a lovely breakfast, then a nice bus ride into Nanaimo, another ferry to Horseshoe Bay, and finally Skytrain home to Burnaby.  And so ended our Epic Arctic Adventure of Epicness!

Gold Rush Town - MDF Madness!

 For my Old West skirmish gaming, I've had a general preference to set the games in a more of a Northern climate, rather than the dusty, spaghetti-western inspired setting where the games more often end up.  Inspired by our Epic Arctic Adventure Epicness, I have decided to make sure that I can set up a northern table for gaming. One of the key elements will be to be able to set up a gold rush town.  A feature of gold rush towns is that they are built very quickly, so there will tend to be many tents, and many improvised or quickly built shelters.  So I placed an order with Sarissa Precision for their 'Tent Town', a set of 5 buildings.  I combined these with the saloon that was already in our collection, and a Sarissa Precision cabin that we picked up at Imperial Hobbies' recent customer appreciation sale. Here is the start to the gold rush town, new buildings up front and some older items of the collection (Renedra tents and cabins from 4Ground and Pegasus Hobbies) in the rear.

An image of front street.

Compare to a historic photo!  Check out more photos at this website:  https://westernmininghistory.com/gallery/538460/historical/towns/

Two MDF cabins, which are not completely dissimilar from the Robert Service and Jack London cabins we saw in Dawson.

Jack London cabin.

Robert Service cabin.  I'll have to source some 28mm moose antlers!

The roof of the cabin is currently corrugated iron, but I've seen older photos showing a verdant, green sod roof.  I chose to do neither!

All of the buildings have removable roofs to allow figures to be placed inside.

Here are the two smaller tent buildings - they are not actually small, compared to the rest of the buildings!  These have optional signposts to put in front of the tents but I left them off thinking that they could be homes, but I've reconsidered and I'll recast them as businesses.  The only difference between the two is the extra window space for the tent on the left.

This one is similar to the two above but with a leanto at the rear.  Signage is from a free PDF provided by Sarissa.

Rear view of the general store lean-to.

I added signage from the Sarissa old west signs PDF.

These are slightly larger tents, with an internal wall to break up the internal space.

Another find from the Imperial Hobbies sale was this set of walls from Xolk.  Xolk has sadly and suddenly stopped trading, which is a pity as I rather like their product!  

These walls fit in quite well with other walls in my collection, like the walls from 4Ground MDF and Italeri/Warlord Games.