Glan Dena - New Year 2017

Pen yr Ole Wen from the top of the Sheep Walk above Llyn Idwal

New Year meant the annual trip to the MAM hut at Glan Dena. Nice walk on New Years Eve up Cwm Tryfan and onto the SE end of the Glyders ridge and down to Capel Curig and then back along the old Military Road to the hut. Arrived in the last of the daylight. Clearish skies but no snow.

On the Sheep Walk next to the Devils Kitchen

On New Year's morning there was cloud almost down to the hut, but as it cleared we could see a sprinkling of snow on the tops. A mass walk to Llyn Idwal then split into 3 groups and I went with the supposed "just going up Devils Kitchen and back". That soon morphed into going up the "Sheep Walk" - a nice narrow path across the rock face to the right of the kitchen. As we go to the top of that and the snow is was then "well it's not far to the summit of Y Garn!"

Looking towards the Glyders from Y Garn summit

The cloud thinned as we walked and there were great views out over the whole of Snowdonia with the snow fading in nicely around 2500'.

Pen-yr-Ole-Wen on the left, and Tryfan on the right, Llyn Ogwen in the middle

All in all a great couple of days on the hill to kick-start 2017!

Battle of Brockham - ENDEX

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Played a few more turns and got to a reasonable conclusions. The German attack on the left across the golf course took a lot of casualties but managed to get as far as the bridge, but realistically without enough strength to push across - particularly as the Brits have move dup most of the Carrier Platoon and remaining tanks to cover it. In Brockham itself the Germans had cleared the brits from the buildings south of the Green, but again didn't have the strength to force a crossing of Borough Bridge. So time to call a halt. Given that the Germans had about x1.5 - x2 the strength of the Brits that validates the old adage of never attacking a prepared position at less than x3, and that extra strength would probably have been enough for the Germans to carry at least one bridge after a preparatory bombardment.

As the last post suggested in the end the rules and game played out better than I thought they would after the first few turns. I still need to decide how much info goes on the unit cards and how much on the A5 rules cards (loving that approach - trying it now for ECW and SLS).

The original plan had been to follow straight on with a 1980s scenario on the same ground, but not enough time before Christmas (particularly as I'm trying to show-horn in Edgehill!). In the new year I think I'll start with BattleGroup/Coldwar Commander and see if that is actually closer to what I want. If it isn't then I'll come back to CWO:1980 and try and refine the rules further. Certainly works well to play over terrain you know as helps to anchor the rules and game in reality.

Germans try and force the Golf Course Bridge

The Wehrmacht pushing through the S end of Brockham

Auster's eye view of the two bridges, both still in British hands

The Endex situation on the Golf Course Bridge - a very battered Pz Grenadier unit!

Battle of Brockham Continues

After a busy couple of weeks finally got back to the Battle of Brockham. Was dreading it a bit as was finding the rules quite fiddly, but this session went a lot more smoothly - although I do need to make hit percentages higher. Otherwise the German's are being suitably damaged on their way in - the 25pdr battery, Comets and 6pdrs causing havoc on the Panther and MkIV Panzer Kompanie and particularly on the SdKfz251s of the Panzer Grenadier Kompanie. The German's managed to take the Comets out (or force them back) and missed artillery has blinded the 6dpr so they are now going hell for leather across the fields and golf course (!) to get into the gap and seize the western bridge over the River Mole. Elsewhere the centre "B" Kompanie has gone firm in Strood Green, whilst "C" Kompanie is getting into Brockham round the back through the old council estate (which wouldn't have been there then) but both sides have been trading mortar rounds (the Brits spotting from the church) and are now in hand-to-hand combat. Oh and two Typhoons came in to take out the Panzers but one was lost to the 251/17 and  the other missed!

On about Turn 10, so 25 minutes in in "real time". Couple more sessions should bring to a reasonable conclusion.

Sounds a lot better as a narrative!

Contact: Wait Out - playtest in progress

Finally really got my playtest of the latest incarnation (and now named) set of mechanised warfare rules. They're still not really jelling for a whole bunch of reasons, some of which may be due to the rules but many are I think symptomatic of the period and what I would like (but keep failing) to get out of it.

1) What's the right scale/force size? I played Skirmish Sankin at squad size earlier, and Chain of Command at platoon sized. What I really want is full combined arms, and for that you probably need at least a Battalion Group, which is what I'm playing here. SS worked pretty well, but I think CoC was stuck between being a real skirmish and proper combined arms, and felt a bit too "gamey" for me. With the latest version of Contact:Wait Out I've upped it from a Coy Gp set to a Bn Gp set, and its closer but I think the sheer variety of arms in a combined arms game can rapidly make it too bitty (not complex, just bitty as every weapons system is different). Perhaps next I'll try a "simpler" set of rules, perhaps Cold War Commander which seems to get good reviews.

2) Indirect Fire. It does seem that on most battlefields for the last 60+ yrs that indirect fire rules. You come under fire , your weapons can't kill a well protected enemy, so you bring in the fire support, from 25pdrs to Apaches and A10 - not much or a wargame. You can postulate a scenario where IDF is not available, but then you really are back to the very small scale and it's all about use of cover so has to be platoon or less.

I'll play this one to completion, but then I think back to some simpler ECW and Napoleonic gaming, and then maybe try again with CWC in the New Year, or something like Western Desert tank battles!

Carneddau in (early) Winter

Nice trip up onto Pen yr Ole Wen on Sunday. We missed the glorious weather of Saturday, and the snow was softer and the cloud more prevalent, but we still got some great views once up on the ridge, and the descent was thigh deep snow in places.

SLS for ECW Playtest

Ran a playtest down at the club on Friday of the ECW version of my SLS rules. The melee mechanic is changed a bit (well really just how the troop type DMs are shown), and musketry is back in, but otherwise the same core mechanic. Appeared to play pretty well and fast - we got through an 18-19 unit game in about 2.5 hours.

I think I've also found a nice way to do the quality markers and trotter/galloper markers for the rules. In ECW-SLS they are rolled for during the game as each unit first needs them - so you're never quite sure how good units are going to be. We were using mini-post-it type labels for now, but I want something better. I'd tried using 5mm dice in dice holders but they are just too fiddly, but I've not got some square 4.8mm/5mm plastic tubing which I can cut to a slightly longer length. It also means that you could put an equal selection into a bag for each side and have them draw them out - so you know that both side would get the same average capability - will try for the next game.

Grid based Wargaming article in MW404

The first of my 2-part Grid Based Wargaming article is in this month's issue of Miniature Wargames (not longer with Battlegames!). The first issues looks at the generic issues, advantages and practicalities of playing on grids (mainly hex), whilst the second part will look at converting 4-5 standard wargame rule sets into grid play. As blog readers will know I almost exclusively play my wargames on grid.