After a bit of a break - 2nd Alamain was over 12 months ago - it was time for another of Chris K's epic NQM WW2 refights.
Never one to shirk a challenge, Chris went for the German invasion of Crete. After all it's only got an air assault, an attempted beach landing and heavy land fighting as well. And Greek partisans. This game has been long in the planning. Chris said it was intended to be run last Spring or Summer.
We set up the table on Wednesday evening, rather than waste time on the day, which was a decidedly good move, as it took an hour and a half to sort out. That'd have been irritating to the other players if we'd done it on Saturday morning. We were lucky we had a nearly full MNG turnout, with Tim, me & Will playing the Allies, with Phil, Richard and Steve as the Germans.
Crete is at this end of the table. Maleme airfield is on the left; Herakleon is on the right. That's the Greek coast line in the distance.
Players gather, and umpire Chris starts to give the briefing. Apparently we were all supposed to have read his blog postings for the previous week. Whoops.
The Royal Navy deploys, along with fighter cover. The air cover looks a bit thin. The German players have been given boxes of aircraft. They are starting to put their planes out, whilst the invasion fleet gathers top left.
The first paratroop wave takes to the air.
The RN gets amongst the invasion vessels, and causes a fair amount of damage...
...but the second flotilla has no defence against heavy bombers.
The first wave of parachutists falls on the central airfield. Defences there are a bit thin, - well all our defences are thin. These are even thinner.
The Australian defenders are assaulted on all sides. Luckily the Greeks in the hills are able to hold up some of the Germans, and I am able to attack them from the rear with my Matilda.
Bombing run over Souda harbour.
Second air wave, this time heading for Maleme. Prior to this we saw off another sea assault.
A success for the RAF, as a transport plane goes down.
The green mini-planes are the German air drop locations.Tim's scattered Kiwis need to hunt them down and destroy them before they have a chance to get organised.
As more planes take to the skies, and the naval battle intensifies, the British HQ and reserves rush towards the central airfield, which is under heavy pressure.
The third wave comes in, heading for Herakleon airfield. Defences there are quite weak too. Luckily some parachutists drop in the sea. Steve needs to work on his plane drop technique.
Tim's defence of Maleme has been a stunning success. After mopping up he sends spare forces over to help hold the central airfield, which is on the point of falling. Defensive casualties are high. We have little ammunition, and each base only has one strength point, pretty much, compared to three for the Germans.
The struggle at Herakleon has been epic. Will has thrown everything at the Germans, and he's down to his last couple of Greek units. The German ground forces are signalling that the landing field is safe to bring in reinforcements.
Tim and I have held the other two airfields, and are sending forces up the coast road. A lucky bombing run takes out the Matilda unit. I must admit, as British C-in-C, that I had made an error in not transferring troops earlier, but I wanted to make sure the other fields were secure, and I was worried that the RN couldn't hold off yet another seaborne assault, so I needed forces to hold Souda, should that happen.
We got there, but not in time. The Germans took terrible losses in both men and planes landing on the airfield whilst there was still fighting going on, but those extra troops meant we were beat. We had a couple of strength points left on the other two airfields, but the RN was done for and we had nothing left in the locker. Time to evacuate Crete with what we had left.
We came very close to holding the island, but in the end we ran out of units and paid the price for me not getting the men we had in the right place near the end. A German win, but at massive cost to them. As Will remarked, Operation Barbarossa was really going to miss the planes we shot down.
A classic game, and one of the best Chris has run. There were a lot of moving parts, and not everything went smoothly. There are lots of suggestions that could be made, - there were issues with the Naval game - but that shouldn't detract from the whole which went incredibly well, and kept 6 players fully occupied for 5 -6 hours. It was tense, and both sides thought they were going to lose heavily. I wouldn't change anything, because correcting what we might have seen as faults might have put something else out of balance.
Great game to have played in. It might be best to just stop there, as it probably can't get any better.
Never one to shirk a challenge, Chris went for the German invasion of Crete. After all it's only got an air assault, an attempted beach landing and heavy land fighting as well. And Greek partisans. This game has been long in the planning. Chris said it was intended to be run last Spring or Summer.
We set up the table on Wednesday evening, rather than waste time on the day, which was a decidedly good move, as it took an hour and a half to sort out. That'd have been irritating to the other players if we'd done it on Saturday morning. We were lucky we had a nearly full MNG turnout, with Tim, me & Will playing the Allies, with Phil, Richard and Steve as the Germans.
Crete is at this end of the table. Maleme airfield is on the left; Herakleon is on the right. That's the Greek coast line in the distance.
Players gather, and umpire Chris starts to give the briefing. Apparently we were all supposed to have read his blog postings for the previous week. Whoops.
The Royal Navy deploys, along with fighter cover. The air cover looks a bit thin. The German players have been given boxes of aircraft. They are starting to put their planes out, whilst the invasion fleet gathers top left.
The first paratroop wave takes to the air.
The RN gets amongst the invasion vessels, and causes a fair amount of damage...
...but the second flotilla has no defence against heavy bombers.
The first wave of parachutists falls on the central airfield. Defences there are a bit thin, - well all our defences are thin. These are even thinner.
The Australian defenders are assaulted on all sides. Luckily the Greeks in the hills are able to hold up some of the Germans, and I am able to attack them from the rear with my Matilda.
Bombing run over Souda harbour.
Second air wave, this time heading for Maleme. Prior to this we saw off another sea assault.
A success for the RAF, as a transport plane goes down.
The green mini-planes are the German air drop locations.Tim's scattered Kiwis need to hunt them down and destroy them before they have a chance to get organised.
As more planes take to the skies, and the naval battle intensifies, the British HQ and reserves rush towards the central airfield, which is under heavy pressure.
The third wave comes in, heading for Herakleon airfield. Defences there are quite weak too. Luckily some parachutists drop in the sea. Steve needs to work on his plane drop technique.
Tim's defence of Maleme has been a stunning success. After mopping up he sends spare forces over to help hold the central airfield, which is on the point of falling. Defensive casualties are high. We have little ammunition, and each base only has one strength point, pretty much, compared to three for the Germans.
The struggle at Herakleon has been epic. Will has thrown everything at the Germans, and he's down to his last couple of Greek units. The German ground forces are signalling that the landing field is safe to bring in reinforcements.
Tim and I have held the other two airfields, and are sending forces up the coast road. A lucky bombing run takes out the Matilda unit. I must admit, as British C-in-C, that I had made an error in not transferring troops earlier, but I wanted to make sure the other fields were secure, and I was worried that the RN couldn't hold off yet another seaborne assault, so I needed forces to hold Souda, should that happen.
We got there, but not in time. The Germans took terrible losses in both men and planes landing on the airfield whilst there was still fighting going on, but those extra troops meant we were beat. We had a couple of strength points left on the other two airfields, but the RN was done for and we had nothing left in the locker. Time to evacuate Crete with what we had left.
We came very close to holding the island, but in the end we ran out of units and paid the price for me not getting the men we had in the right place near the end. A German win, but at massive cost to them. As Will remarked, Operation Barbarossa was really going to miss the planes we shot down.
A classic game, and one of the best Chris has run. There were a lot of moving parts, and not everything went smoothly. There are lots of suggestions that could be made, - there were issues with the Naval game - but that shouldn't detract from the whole which went incredibly well, and kept 6 players fully occupied for 5 -6 hours. It was tense, and both sides thought they were going to lose heavily. I wouldn't change anything, because correcting what we might have seen as faults might have put something else out of balance.
Great game to have played in. It might be best to just stop there, as it probably can't get any better.
Sounds fantastic!
ReplyDeleteSome of it was in the realm of fantasy, I would agree.
DeleteFabulous conception!
ReplyDeleteYes, but alas I can claim no credit for it.
DeleteSounds as though, in the overall scheme of things, the thing went with history: Allied successful defence everywhere except one place, where it only just failed. But that failure was decisive for the campaign as a whole.
ReplyDeleteI'm impressed at just how compact the game was, about 150-odd kilometres of Cretan coastline. Quite an operation!
The umpire, Chris K, kept nudging us in the right direction, as you will see if you go over and look at his "Not Quite Mechanised" Wordpress blog. The thing with NQM is that Chris will alter the level of resolution to get the game to fit on the table.
DeleteBrilliant looking game and a very historical outcome!
ReplyDeleteYes, all historical except for they ended up at the wrong airfield.
DeleteVery hard battle to game so I'm impressed with the scale of it and how you guys did it all in one big session. Enjoyable AAR too.
ReplyDeleteI do follow Chris' blog too so I've been keeping up with all his work to get this one ready.
Chris has been running little gamettes over the last six months or so to get the sizing and mechanisms right. Impressive piece of planning and organisation.
DeleteThanks for the kind words, Graham and others. This was indeed the hardest game that I have had to balance, to date. It is to the credit of the players that it went so smoothly. I missed this post when it came out,for some reason, hence the late comment.
ReplyDeleteRegards, Chris