Inner City Development

Chris has upped the development rate and work on his city fighting with NQM project. We have had issues with finding troops in the buildings (well I did) and also some problems with overloading hexes with markers and then mixing them up between the two sides.

Since the last game Chris has been at his buildings with a fret saw and modified the different storeys of the multi-level ones. Hex capacity is now 4SPs for single storey hexes, and 7SPs for the two level type. He has produced more of the explosion hit markers he uses and split them between brown and green bases, with a set for each side. They also now have mini beads on the bases representing one, two and three hits in green, white & red respectively. He has done similar with the permanent casualty markers. Finally he has rebased. Again. This time to put a magnetic strip on the back to hold the markers.

Phil & I were defending. Chris had asked Phil to bring some of his PBI Germans (which did, I think, make a mockery of Chris' rebasing). Phil, typically, had pulled out as many heavy weapons as he could for his force. I, using those provided by Chris, had only light weaponry and the big gun in the centre of the table baseline didn't fire. At least not at ground troops.

To add to the fun the game was being played at Corps level, which means 1 - 3 km per hex. Hexes with no buildings or with rubber road strips count as light, open terrain. The buildings are all medium. I got a bit confused at times as this was either a tactical game masquerading as an operational game or the other way round. Any how, I sat in my corner and let Tim attack me.

The locations on the board were named after places in Northampton. The attackers were tasked with capturing Greyfriars Bus Station, which was on our base line, on Phil's side. Here the Harkonnen ground troops in power armour, supported by Churchills were attacking the Rushton and District Fusiliers, who I think were guarding the Guildhall. Or possibly the St James Bus Depot.

Tim's infantry burst through the lightly held outer defences.

I had set up strong points, such as I could, a little way back, to try to force Tim to attack me from open ground, whilst I sheltered in cover. Tim's armour offset this slightly as it increases cover ot medium for infantry in thesame hex. However I had Med and Log to hand, so I could reorganise and fight longer (hopefully) whilst the attacking Med/Log was occupied elsewhere. I seem to have a cyclist battalion defending a roof top.

I lost track of what was happening at the other end of the table. There was some "when is a mortar not a mortar" discussion, amidst confusion over exactly what Phil's figures represented.

I was grimly clinging on and I had Tim just short of an overload point on the Churchill unit. However, he got a Med ubase there just in time to reorg, so I missed the opportunity.

He was able to force his way into the building complex. However, a brilliant counter attack was to repulse him immediately...

...which is to say I threw three sixes out of four dice.

This stabilised my position just in time for a tea and coffee break.

Chris has done a lot of work on this. Regrettably from my point of view the new "pips" on the hit/casualty markers are a bit hard for me to see, and the multi-level building are a trifle fiddly as my fingers aren't as nimble as they once were.

The challenge is that there's an awful lot going on in the hexes as well as a lot of stuff going into the hexes too. Phil's answer was to increase the size of the hexes (not gonna happen). I don't know what my answer is. For the recent WW1 games which involves fighting in a village I was forced to go to 6" squares to make it work, but that won't suit Chris. For example the playing area for this game, which was about 4' x 2' 6", expands to 6' x 4' once you go to 6" squares. That's fine for SHQ, but not for Chris' conservatory.

My feeling is also that given the level of detail in here - which includes rubble markers when shelling takes place - the game is more suited to a Regimental Level game, with hexes representing 100 - 300 yards at most. That seems to provide more granularity for street fighting. However for the game Chris wants to play - this is Kharkov in 1941, I think - he needs to be fighting over an area of 30km x 10km. Hence the higher level orbat.

I did think that Phil's figures on 30mm square bases work better in the 100mm hexes than Chris' wider bases with the magnetic "tab" on  the back. I can see why Chris wants to enable hit markers to be attached, but when the biggest offender in not remembering to move his casualties with his units* is using his own troops where this isn't happening, the problem it is intended to solve isn't being addressed.

Work in progress, but well worth keeping up with.

* This has always been the case, even before Phil's stroke. It is not a deliberate attempt to gain an advantage. He moves his troops, then does a "clean up" action to put the casualties on troops that have moved. If he gets distracted by someone talking to him or such like part way through then he doesn't always go back and finish off the tidy up. Those of us who know this do not interrupt him until he has finished.