Return to the West Country Q1 2023 (part 1)

After a gap of about 15 months our quarterly meet up with Richard L from the West Country took place in his luxurious wargaming room.

The last time we were there we did some "Chain of Command". Phil was ill and in hospital, so only Chris and I went. Richard wanted to revisit the rules, and run through one of the 1940s campaign. To that end he asked for volunteers beforehand (I took the French defenders) and sent us the briefings. I sent back detailed deployments only to be reminded when we got there that this isn't how CoC works. So I'd forgotten that. And also my QRS which I took last time. 

What I hadn't forgotten was that Richard has some really nice 28mm terrain.

So the thing is you put out these scouting disc thingies and move them until they get within 12" of your opponents' discs, then they are "locked". When all of them are locked you can determine your deployment zones and so on. It's an abstract system that is a game within a game, and on reflection it might be clever, but it is a lot of faff and has little to do with the real world. It's just another excuse to extend the game and delay putting toys on the table to my mind.

Phil & Chris are the Germans. Phil has got a stand for his tablet so he can use it to take pictures onehanded.

The Germans are attacking, and get 5 or 6 free moves. Chris brings on a section in the wheat field on my right.

On my left Phil is sneaking a section up alongside the railway through the trees.

I get my first groups on (CoC has one of those infernal dice to activate/deploy systems) and set up a V-B Rifle Grenade/ Mortar firebase.

I need spotters for my V-Bs and mortar, and I'm able to put half a section in the roof of a damaged farm house.

The expected German armour turns up. It's a Panzer III. I have some armour in my army, but it's a Renault 35, which I guess everyone would regard as inferior as it has a crappy gun. I'm hoping its arrival will cause the Germans to pause.

The Germans spot my OP in the farmhouse, and hose it with LMG and small arms fire. I should be fine. They're in hard cover, and they need sixes to hit...ah. Ten dice. Seven sixes. In my saving roll (or whatever it is called) I hardly save anything, and most of the OP is wiped out. But not all, so I still have viable spotters.

Chris sets up his LMG to cover, and rushes my defensive hedge line, where I have two deployment points. If I lose them, things could get messy for me. I should point out here that Chris made this move, having talked Phil out of using the activation to fire his tank at the building with the OP in it. The green dice is a record of "Shock". This was caused by me hitting them with the V-B unit. The V-Bs aren't as devastating as I'd hoped.

I pop up a section from behind the hedge, just as Chris brings on another section to support his attack.

Concentrated fire kills half of the advancing troops. Richard really needs some dead markers IMHO. 

Phil is infiltrating up the railway line. I get my third section out behind a hedge, bottom left, where the white dice is.

I open fire on Phil's chaps, and kill their section leader. I think this was a lucky strike by my 60mm mortar. That was potentially more ineffective than the V-Bs. I'd say here that there are similarities with how PBI works and plays. Except for mortars. They are way more effective in PBI.

Here's a better shot of the section covering Phil's advance.

At last! My R35 arrives. It has a tiny gun, but thick armour. The exact opposite in terms of values, of the PzIII.

The two tanks can just about see each other. I open fire, and acquire the target but cause no damage.

As Phil missed the first game we had of this, Richard takes sometime out to explain the rules to him. Like I can remember anything anyway.

More small arms and mortar fire causes more Shock and casualties on Phil's troops.

I then get to shoot at Chris' men in the cornfield again. 9 hits (looking for 4+) out of 12 dice, means they break and run.

This is me pointing at where Chris' men were. As I said, Richard really needs casualty markers.

What with one thing and another - you can see that the other unit in the cornfield has taken a lot of damage - including a couple of "bad things happen" rolls when I hit officers, Richard decrees that the Germans have been beaten off, and it's a French victory.

Apparently the campaign system means the Germans will be back with more kit and so on, until the French are overrun, their main aim being to hold the Nazi hordes up as long as possible. Richard reckons the campaign system provided is the real joy of the game.

Modern tactical games aren't my forte. My knowledge of WW2 battle drills isn't that good, but from what I know I don't see how the CoC system facilitates fire and movement with separate fire teams and so on. The need to keep units close together for activation, and the restrictions imposed by the activation dice throw grit into what should be a straight forward thing. Having said that there are those who play the period a lot who think it is a good model, so who am I to say? 

The fire combat system is fairly typical, with dice rolled to hit and then save or similar, so it isn't anything that is startingly original, but it does work efficiently enough. You can argue about the relative effectiveness of weaponry, but I went through that in the early days of PBI and I don't know that it really makes a lot of difference. As usual the German LMG is better than everyone else's, with no compensating factors either way. My main surprise was the ineffectiveness of the mortar, but I may be wrong about that as well. The activation system I can take or leave. If you look at my last report on a Chain of Command game here you'll see that this game didn't throw up as much needless irritation as the last time (Richard allocated my the Mr Grumpy mug for tea breaks in honour of my reaction last time we played the rules). And this time round we were spared the irritating "Shabby Nazi Tricks".

Richard is leaving the board set up, and ill play the rest of the campaign whenever he has someone round for a game, so that may well include us in six months' time. 

Which is okay by me.