Lost Wargamer in HK: 2011

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

AAR - Alamo in Sicily (New pictures)

Just receive new pictures from the club.

British bunker - The HMG is already disorganized

Frasier and Aufklarer

Werewolves

British roster

The Mecha is immobilized before action

Team of the battle : The Mortar

The British are waiting the assault

German ambushing

Diminished HQ

End of 3rd turn

Pioneer taking down the British Steel

A nice HQ vehicle, destroyed right at the first British shot

The Aufklarer and their best position

Monday, December 19, 2011

AAR - Alamo in Sicily

June 1949, Alamo HQ, Sicily.

The situation is critical in Sicily and the Allied lost a lot of ground. Still, reinforcement on their way and the German navy losing a key convoy, the front stalled.

In Palermo suburds, the British HQ had a special device to communicate orders between units that the Germans were not able to decipher. The High Command replaced Von Kleith the Vampire by Hermann Goret, the Head of Airborne forces (to be coming)

German surprise airborne attack

Once arrived, Hermann decided to take the HQ with a surprise attack and seize the device. In a surprise night drop, a full force was about to take in the early morning the HQ bunker. The British, set a last ditch defense while reinforcement was on their way....

======

German ready to assault

We used the "Ancient Shrine scenario" with the following modification.
The landscape was changed from woods to city, and the board was 4x4 instead of a 6x4 therefore we played 4 turns only.

The first turn went bloody for the Germans, with 1 werewolf slained, the HQ Skdfz 250 destroyed by 1 lucky mortar shot. The British HMG fleed back to the trench, while German moved to take position in the buildings. The remaining British units dug in.

The HQ vehicle before being destroyed

The second turn, Allied reinforcement did not arrive, the British steel took out the Mech out of action, while British Temple unit is gunned down to a single standing man by Aufklarer in the building. in the mean time, mortar disorganized half of the pioneer.

The British are dug in

On the third turn reinforcement finally arrived, but only 1 engineer team, with still 1 full rifle squad, 1 engineer and 2 snipers still on their way. The engineers took out the last Werewolf but the German retaliated by dropping grenades killing 2 and disorganizing the unit. The Third turn was a grenade turn, with the German killing 4 (!) British steel with grenades. The mortar fired another shot killing 4 grenadiers too close to the trench.

The fourth turn was the last one. The Germans were too far from the trenches to really take the device in time and too pride in killing as many British as possible. While the British were seeing their number getting lower and more disorganized units. The trench were filled with grenades from the building but the British hold it with the remaining Temple being the only fighting unit at the end of turn 4 still in the trenches, true to their oath.

====== SUMMARY ======
While German were still very strong, they had lost key units and were too far from the HQ to effectively claim victory, while British reinforcement were getting closer.


The HQ "Alamo" at the end of the game

Schnell, schnell!

last full British unit

missing reinforcement

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Secret - New Terrain

Terrain in SOTR is really tough. As there is a need for very dense terrain, I am busy in cutting, gluing and finalizing terrain.

Living in HK bring also a special difficulty which is space optimization.

So I am completing my terrain for the next game that will be featured in city. The last 2 buildings have been completed and I just purchased 5 new pdf from Dave Graffam productions and that will be gorgeous.

Ruined Wall

Bombed House

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Battle Rep - British against German - Recovery mission

The battle for Sicily is getting tougher.

The first battles (no battle reports) saw the first fights between Germans and an ad-hoc force of British para for small towns. the Germans got the upper hands in 1 of the battle and a draw in the second.

Last Satursday, Von Kleith, the Commander of the Kleith Kampfgruppe invading Sicily sent a platoon to recover materials buried during the first invasion by the Allies.

Mr Smith (Sicily covent) was informed and sent a unit of British para in the village.

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The battle field.

For the setup, we experience a new way to build the terrain. We roll 2 dice to know how many element of terrain we will have, set the terrain without knowing where we will start. After, we placed the 4 crates and finally roll again 2 dice. The higher score decided if he has the 1st turn initiative or if he select the side he will deploy.

50RP on each side, German took special units such as Werewolves, Wolf runners and zombies, while the British took Mr Smith, Temple squad and British Steel.

The center was occupied by remnant of the town destroyed during the 1943 Allied invasion, a small wood was occupying one flank, and a former flak bunker the other side.
The German chose their deployment, the British attacked.

(note : We found out there was not enough terrain to have exciting deployment, I'll need to do more paper craft with the Dave Graffam buildings)

Turn 1
The British concentrated most the fire to the zombies who were the mst visible unit at the beginning while the Germans position the werevolves and wolf runners in the wood to recover the crate. The German HMG and LMG repositioned. The Para Squad moved to the house and toward the bunker crate.
few casualties in each side.

Turn 2
the German start to fire HMG and LMG to the house, suppressing the 2 teams in the ground floor, while the "wolves" start their camping in the woods. The mortar kept on being not fully efficient but more zombies are gunned down. The para squad and the mech grenadier fire at each other with 50% of each team gone (not much wounded, many instant goners).
The British Steel try to flame the wolves in the wood but if the flame reach the wood, it failed to be close enough. Mr Smith is killed by heavy fire.

Turn 3
The werewolves move out of the woods and the Temple face them to death. In the mean time German kept on suppressing the ground floor team and British focus on the bunker crate with success. The Aufklarer take a big load of fine and are reduced in number while German HQ take hits too.

Turn 4
The British steel fell against the Werewolves while German are loosing their backbone unit, Mech Grenadier and Auflklarer gone, the HQ unit badly shaken. The only bright side for them is the suppresion of the central british para and the decimated british flank opened to their werewolves.

Turn 5 and 6 are cancelled due to real life duty.

Aufklarer firing at the house

Mech grenadiers hidding behind a wall

Summary :
The fight was tight and nobody could say who would win it. The objective was the recovery of the crates and what was inside. What we did is that evevy turn, we would draw a discovery card (see Get me that Mad Scientist discovery cards) and cumulate the points. The Germans had 0.5 points, the British 1.5 after turn 4. The British then won a minor victory in respect to their loss.