Cityfight2024

 

At VCOW this year I ran Cityfight2024, a massively simplified (and updated) version of the 1979 SPI classic Cityfight. It's a platoon level hex-and-counter game but designed to be played double-blind, so ideal for remote play. I set up each board  on its own Google Slides document, and the players all had voice comms via Zoom. It's a bit like Battleships, except the "ships" can move every turn!

You can find out more about the game on my PhD Wiki.

My control set-up, one screen per side

Red's view of the battle

Blue's view of the battle

Jaws of the Dragon

 

Jaws of the Dragon was a megagame held in London by an academic colleague looking at a potential Chinese of Taiwan. The game postulated that the initial landings had gone well, but now a week or so later the Chinese are starting to get bogged down and the US and other nations are mobilising to come to Taiwan's aid.

Being a megagame the main part was the hall of teams playing each nation and having political discussions and issuing orders to their armed forces. I was in the LOCON team, playing the Chinese Army on Taiwan, and other tables were managing the air and sea battles. A high level set of hex-and-counter type rules were meant to control the combat but in the end we freestyled quite a bit, guided by the rules.

In terms of how the game went, we almost managed to break-through the main Taiwanese defence but the US Marines arrived just in time in order to hold the line. Our biggest issue though was that the US subs had effectively blockaded Taiwan from China, so there was no way we were going to get resupplied or reinforcements. Apparently there was not a surface ship form either side left on the high seas. The US did a strategic air strike against Chinese industrial centres - particularly chip fabs, and the Chinese responded with small nukes against a US base in Japan. The US thought about it, sacked their President, and decided not to respond (or the other way around!). The real winner was probably the Philippines which had now become the dominant Naval power in the region and was wielding a high degree of influence!

My first experience of this type of game and great fun!

The Hall of Nations!

Chinese High Command

The Sea/Subsea table

Our Land table

The Air Table

Close-up of the fighting

The sentiment meter was a key part of the game

City & CEMA at COW

Not sure if I'm going to get as far as a review post on COW (and I've put a load of photos up anyway and written the WD page on it at https://wargamedevelopments.org/conferences/cows/cow-2023/), but here some of the pics from my big game at COW - City and CEMA, which was also billed as The Battle of Redditch 2027.

The game is a reasonably serious attempt at a modern Brigade-level urban wargame, with all the UAV, Cyber, EW and other whistles. You can read more about it on my PhD wiki at: http://taunoyen.com/wiki/doku.php?id=cityandcema:cityandcema

And here's one shot from my smaller solo card-based game, Rubble Town, being played head-to-head with two decks. Again more info on the wiki at http://taunoyen.com/wiki/doku.php?id=rubbletown:rubbletown.

Prepping Vertical Dropzone Commander

 For Wargame Development's VCOW virtual conference at the start of February I'm planning to do a "vertical" wargame, where players (Pl Comds) get a table-level web-cam view of what is going on as they try and fight through the city. Played through DZC a few times and done some 1985 stats for it. And here's a couple of images from the technical testing. Will test with some remote players next week.

Chieftain on the prowl - pity I haven't got the Berlin Brigade urban cam

The two platoon cams, plus an overview cam

Onside report after the event.

Battle of Ramadi AAR

 

Don't really want to have to double post my PhD game reviews so here's the link to the review on my PhD wiki, and a near end game screenshot.

http://taunoyen.com/wiki/lib/exe/fetch.php?media=wargaming:phd:aar:wargame_first_review_-_battle_for_ramadi_-_tinybattle.pdf

Bottom line - pretty good solo game and great value for about £7 print-and-play.

Donestk: Battle for the Airport

 

Donestk: Battle for the Airport is a small folio game by Tiny Battle Publishing (also published in Flying Pig Games's Yaah! magasine, so annoyingly I bought it twice!). It represents the multiple fights over Donestk Airport by the Ukrainian Army and Dontesk Separatists in 2014/2015. Not my usual fare but the reasoning will hopefully become clear in a few weeks!

Presentation

PDF for $17 ($28 printed). 14 pages, including 4 scenarios, game notes and a 1 page QRS. All nicely laid out. One counter sheet (double sided) and an A3 size colour map. Didn't take long to get it all printed out. Didn't bother to mount on card stock or anything.

Set-Up

I played the first, introductory scenario, where about a company of Separatists had sized the terminal buildings, and a company (-) of Ukrainians, with close air support was sent to oust them. Separatists set up anywhere (but in the terminal is the sensible place), and Ukrainians start on the board edge.

How It Played

I decided to hold the Coy Comd back on the board edge to bring down the close air support and then put a platoon in on each flank. The air support wasn't devastating given the solidity of the buildings and only 50% effective on lower floors but was enough to soften the Separatists to the point where one platoon could (at the second attempt) storm the building. As they started to clear rooms the second platoon which was attacking over more open ground in the East got repeatedly pinned by the Separatist team atop the Old Terminal and survived several airstrikes. The Pl Comd got hit and pulled back into the Metro while his BTR's gradually weakened the Separatists in the Multi-Storey. On Turn 6 the Separatist hit their hesitation level, and so on Turn 7 the Ukrainian just had to choose their positions to surround the Separatists and it was all over. 

Game Impression

Pretty good game. Interesting that the rules were a differential CRT rather than the more "traditional" ratio CRT I'm used too. A few gaps/unclear points but otherwise the core mechanics worked well and certainly gave you some sense of the battle. I'll try and play one of the more complex scenarios next week.

Battle of Konigslutter am Elm - 5 Jul 1984 - Setup and Rules Considerations

 

Whilst my Combat Wait Out rules are developing OKish for games with Bn and smaller forces I've always wanted a more "operational" set for playing Bde and maybe even Div level engagements (shades of SPI NATO Division Commander). Brigade has always hard a particular interest for me having spent 2 years at 24 Airmob Bde HQ, and in the last few months I've actually also been wargaming with our current 3 Div brigades. That plus holiday reading the other week of Russell Phillip's The Bear's Claws and Harvey Black's The Red/Black Effect meant I was keener than ever to get something on the table.

The rules I developed for my BAOR game earlier in the year (on the SPI map but rules developed from FreeHexBlitz) seemed to work pretty well, so I've refined them for play at Bde rather than Corps level - but the aim is to have the same core rules deal with Bde to Corps.

What I want on the table is something that is not a million miles from an SPI style game with figures. I've got a nice 4cm hex cloth, and all my 1/300th are mounted on 4cm hex bases, so half way there! As ever getting building scales is hard, proper 1/300th is too big, Brigade Models 1/1000th too small! Actually some old 1980s Heroics and Ros cardboard buildings were not too far off! In future I might try with 2mm models and then the 1/000th might work well.

At this scale each hex is 500m. Units are represented 2 down, so for a Bde game the manoeuvre unit is the Company.

I don't like the SPI CRT ratio approach, and "my" BAOR/FreeHexBlitz  rules gave each unit:

• A size, based on number of constituent units (eg Pl for a Coy), so typically 3 or 4
• An attack strength, starts at 5, but then modded for type of kit, training etc, emphasis on tanks/IFVs, typically ending at 6-8
• A defence strength, again starts at 5 and modded, but an emphasis on Inf/GW, typically ending 6-8
• An AA strength and range, based on type of kit, 0 (rifles) to 4+ for Rapier etc

In combat a unit rolls the number of D10 equal to current size, with a TN of the Attack or Defence value as appropriate, looking to roll under, with TMs, and scoring hits (size reductions) for wins.

A Company RGJ dug in at Warberg

The BIG change from the BAOR game is the introduction of logistics. I think I've found a neat way of playing this, and in fact combining with activation - but we'll see how it plays. The idea is that each Unit (ie Bn) gets 12 log tokens, although held at Bde. On a turn to activate a Unit you need to spend 1 Log to move it and/or 1 Log to fire it, and/or 1 Log to go into close assault. You can also spend upto 1 more Log for a +1 in fire. The idea is that the initial allocation represents F echelon on vehicle/man stocks for 6 turns. You then drop into A1 Echelcon for the next 6 turns where you "might" get 2 Log per unit per turn, but interdiction and foul-ups might stop that. Then form turn 12 onwards your into A2 and a full log load becomes unlikely. We'll see how it works!

Here's the table set up showing the valley between the Elm and Lappwald hills from Konigslutter to Helmstedt.

Need to find an easy way to show roads! Note also that the hex grid just disappears at any reasonable distance.

And here are the two opposing forces 1 RGJ Battlegroup and 62 Guards Tank Regiment lined up on the parade squares ready to deploy.

RGJ Battlegroup with Sqn from 3RTR

62 Guards Tank Regiment with integral BMP Bn

Will report back once I've played a few turns. Working title for the rules in FRAGO!

PS. Would also like to try out the WDG megablitz rules, and just as I started writing this the latest TooFatLardies video was previewing Dave Browns new 'O' Group rules for "Battalion and up" - but they look more Rapid Fire style but potentially with some nice mechanics.

Platoon Rules MegaPlaytest - The Plan

Following on from 2018's Skirmish Rules MegaPlaytest I'm finally making a start on a Platoon level mega play test (at this rate expect Company-level in 2022 and Bn in 2024!). I realise there is some overlap from both Skirmish to Platoon, and Platoon to Company, and so some rules may be tested more than once in different contexts.

I've decided to base the test on a WW2 engagement, but I'm not limiting myself to WW2 rules as to me the principle is about Mechanised Warfare, and so I'd expect similar results from playing WW2/Cold War/Modern/"rational" SF rules. The rules I plan to play are:

• Chain of Command
• Bolt Action
• KR16 (SF)
• Fireteam: Modern
• UltraCombat: Modern
• Iron Cross/7Days to the Rhine
• Force on Force (modern)
• No End In Sight (modern)
• Contact Wait Out (my own)

If I'm making good progress I may add in:

• I Ain't Been Shot Mum (really Coy/Bn)
• Blitzkrieg Command (really Coy/Bn)
• Victory Decision: Future Combat
• Stargrunt2

Sets that will definitely have to wait for the Coy playtest include:

• Panzer Grenadier Deluxe
• Crossfire
• Poor Bloody Infantry 
• TeamYankee

For the scenario rather than play the same one for all rules (as I did with the Skirmish playtest) I'm going to use TooFatLardies Op Martlet pint-sized campaign as a basis, and with 6 scenarios play each one about twice. Figures will be 10mm Magister Militum.

Let battle(s) commence....

My Skirmish Rules Initial Playtest

Following on from last year's skirmish mega-test I finally got my own rules on the table - and promptly found they weren't as finished as I thought they were! Anyway its served to test out some of the basic mechanics as the plucky Brits try and clear a couple of block of insurgents. Key points so far:

• Figure activation is in an order decided before each turn - far more realistic than random. Initiative determines who moves first, then alternate, but there are some actions that will change card order.
• Each figure has typically 3AP to use, shooting can be concurrent with that (you can run and fire!)
• Spotting is similar to my larger scale Contact Wait Out rules, TN and TMs
• Direct fire ditto
• Have got separate rules for suppression and auto fire, but may combine
• Once hit location of damage is rolled first, as then protection (structures and personal) can be taken into account
• Stress markers cover a whole gamut of things like exhaustion, suppression, light wounds
• 3 light wounds and you're out, or one serious wound
• Scenario rules define reactions to friendly casualties for more realistic play

Some bit working well, others less so. Will finish this play through tonight (4 insurgents down for one Brit so far, body armour plus UGL the big plusses) and then try and get the rules finished before I play again.

Section Commander moves forward to the next block

Fire Team B provides cover from one roof top, dead/wounded insurgents L and R

BAOR Game Revisited

One of the things on my to-do list is an operational set of mechanised rules for use in WW2 (Desert especially) and "modern" - in particular BAOR of around 1987 when I was there. The aim is to not only have them as a game in themselves but to use then to generate tabletop scenarios. ConnectionsUK got me back into thinking about the rules and the BAOR game in particular, especially how over complex (and expensive) Next War: Poland seemed to be.

I dug out my existing "modern SPI" collection, the original SPI Next War monster, Modern Warfare's take on WW3 and one of their recent Putin games), but these were all with Corps/Bde manoeuvre units, and I wanted Bn. The original SPI BAOR is very close to what I want and I've now assembled the hi-rez map, counter sheets and rules electronically, but a few things have stopped me from just printing it all out and playing that:

• The Orbat is more like 1984, when BAOR was going through the Field Force phases, and 24 Inf Bde was not yet airmobile
• The map has been turned 90 degrees!
• I don't know/trust the provenance of the Attack-Defend scores
• The CRT looks like a fore-runner of the Poland one!
• I'd rather wait til I find a paper copy!

So it's definitely going to be roll-my-own. I started off a while ago with a set called FreeHexBlitz, and I think I've already completely rewritten them to get something which is a hybrid of the board gaming and table top gaming approach. I've also decided to play it all out on Roll20 (using the BAOR map but my own pieces) at first til I know it all works ( I keep redo'ing activation cards, don't want to have to do the same with 1/2" counters!).

Will report back as it develops.

Royal Marines showing off near-future kit

Couple of interesting recent posts on the Royal Marines showing off new trial kit on exercise.

First (above) demonstrating Iron Man jet packs - interesting that here they are shown actually coming in from an LCT, the last Marine post on them a few months ago just showed them showing the quick way to go around an assault course, so I guess confidence is increasing!

https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-latest-activity/news/2019/may/03/03052019-1agrm-innovation

Then a UGV with what looks like a 0.5” HMG and two Javelin ATGWs.

https://www.royalnavy.mod.uk/news-and-latest-activity/news/2019/april/25/190425-commando-warrior

Need to start factoring this stuff into my Modern Rules!

Sabresquadron Playtest

As mentioned in the last of the CWO posts I decided to use the second half of the scenario to test Sabresquadron which I picked up at Salute, and which has been on my list for a while.

In the scenario there was a Brit platoon and supporting Chieftain in each of the central village and the southern wood. The village was attacked first by the T64s which took out the Chieftain for no loss, and then assaulted by the BMP platoon, the troops dismounting about 300m out. One section got wiped out on the way in, and the Brits kept the second one suppressed. But with no real A/T it reached the stage where the Soviets could just stand-off and blast the village with HE from the BMPs, or call in the 2S1s.

Against the wood it was a similar story. BMP Saggers took out the FV438 Swingfire team in an outlying farm, but then a BMP copped it from the Chieftain. Several misses on both sides til a T64 spared from the assault on the village drove across and took the Chieftain out. Remaining BMP sections deployed and went into the attack, and after a couple of rounds the facing Brit section was toast and I called game over.

It's odd, originally from what I'd seen I thought that Sabresquadron was going to be too complex (those huge data lists at the back?), but the core rules are very simple - possibly too simple for me. Now there are lots of rules for lots of special cases, special weapons, special scenarios and situations and so on, but it does strike me that the core rule set is missing some real essentials - decent spotting (a unit is visible as long as within a range and/or dependent on basic cover and if moved/fired, no roll), any form of suppression, and some impact of cover on to-hit (cover only comes in as a DM on whether a soft target is KO'd). The ranges seem over long for smaller weapons (e.g. SMG 4" vs SLR 12", x3 difference whereas its more like 25/50m vs 300m to my recollection), but movement distances seem huge (and complicated with the inches-per-step and steps-per-move calculation) . Add to that it's strict IGO-UGO (not even any overwatch) so you can motor your troops across the ground and fire before any enemy gets the chance to respond.

Oh, and not sure about the rules for tactical nukes as pretty much game over if they start to fly, quite apart from the ethical/moral side of including WMDs.

All-in-all then not a ruleset for me. There might be some nice colour bits lurking in there (drones and EW covered, but not sure well, and didn't try the pathfinder bit) but will have a better read in slow time.

Anyway only one quick play, but back to CWO for me.

Combat Wait Out: Development Playtest #2

The CWO playtest is progressing well. Shots were exchanged between the Chieftains and T64s, the T64 ERA saving at least one shot. With one Chieftain lost for no T64s (but lots of suppression/button-down) the Troop decided to pull back to their #2 positions. The recce Scimitar did manage to take out one of advancing BMPs although its troops escaped.

One the left Russian flank the 3rd BMP Platoon pushed well forward, flanking and eventually killing the second Scimitar, and then pushed on and caught the MFC unawares and took him out, the FOO wisely deciding to withdraw. Pushing further forward the Platoon came under Carl Gustav fire from the British #1 Platoon, but the fast moving BMP was hard to hit. The BMP replied with 75mm rounds into the wood which caused 2 damage points (section can take 5). The Milan team also now had a theoretical sight-line to the BMP, but cover and dips meant it couldn't get a good lock. With #1 Platoon engaged to its flank the Soviet 2nd BMP Platoon broke cover from the forward villages and pushed on towards their front.

The game now gives a good opportunity to test out the infantry and ATGW rules.

3rd BMP Platoon passes the burning MFC Spartan. Suppressed 1st UK Platoon in the distance.

2nd BMP  Platoon breaks cover in front of 1st UK Platoon

The T64s reach the tree-line recently vacated by the Chieftain Troop

Combat Wait Out: Development Playtest #1

A lone T64 dashes forward

The development playtest of Combat Wait Out (CWO) finally got underway - see my design notes for background.

The setting was a bit ad-hoc, a British Combat Team (Company Gp) holding out against the early elements of a Soviet MRR deploying from the march. The terrain was started by just throwing my new 4cm green hex cloth over the Adwalton Moor terrain, and then adding villages and features based on typical (by Google Earth) Estonian terrain (more fun than NGP, and if I move to 10mm then I'm going to base it around a 2020/2025 Baltic conflict).

The Brits all started on blinds. The Soviet m/c crew headed up the central road to the hamlet of Adenstedt where a first burst from the Scimitar MG missed them, but the second got them. The BRDMs scurried for cover in Shelem and awaited the CRP. The Scimitar engaged and took out the lead BMP emerging from Sehlem, and the rest of the CRP also took cover back in Sehlem. The FSE (rest of the BMP company plus arty, mortars and a platoon of T64s) then crept on. In fact I decided they crept too slowly so I upped the "dash" speed (which is itself varied by N  x Fate Dice).

BMP burns on the highway, platoon mates disordered, and the Gunners drop short!

The Scimitar and Chieftain lining Almstedt Wood started to engage the T64s and BMPs at long range, but to no avail. The FOO then called in an SP70 strike on Sehlem which dropped short (Gunners living up to their name), and failed to get a second Fire Mission in when Sunray got on the net. The Soviets responded in kind, their FOO having got up onto the hill S of Harbarnsen and called in the 2S1s against Almstedt Wood, slightly off target but enough coverage to take out the Scimitar. The Chieftain finally took out the lead T64 despite it having dashed forwards twice to close the range (taking on a camouflaged Chieftain in a wood at 1400m whilst moving at speed cross country was never going to be too easy). The Brit FOO got another Fire Mission, this time was more or less on target and took out one BMP and Neutralised one of the T64s which was close to the town and in the beaten zone. That's it so far.

British (near) and Soviet (far) stonks reduce visibility

I've been tweaking and rewriting the rules each day, and I must admit I think they are playing pretty well now. One big change was I started with die roll then DMs as having + = good and roll-high always seems sensible, but I noticed that the way I prefer to play is to have a target number, apply TMs to that ( so _ = good), and then roll, so I've rewritten everything accordingly. D10 is giving about the right range of numbers, and all the results so far seem narratively correct. If anything spots/hits seem slightly too hard, but with the design I can just change the TN by one to adjust. The DM/TM selection (whilst more than many would like) also seems right to me. The whole indirect fire bit with requests, target deviation (fate dice) and direction (D6 on hex!), beaten zone (basic 7 hex cluster), smoke for 1 turn each in each, and central hex turned to mush) also working well, and have finally simplified the IDF "to hit" table which still showed touches of WRG 1st Edition (and still does).

The fight for Almstedt Wood, Chieftain and T64 firing but not yet hitting.

One other enhancement was to turn the activation cards into reference cards for their units - so the Platoon card shows the firing stats for the Sections under its command, plus HQ, and any orbat notes. This gets away from the "hunting for cards" issue I mentioned previously, looks nice, and there is still a reference sheet to look up the target's armour!

Example Activation and Information Cards

Will update after some more playing, particularly with GWs and suppression, and maybe air.