Once more into the barrage

I missed Tuesday's game this week as we had one of our daughters plus husband and grandchild to stay for Easter. As I said at the end of the blog a couple of weeks ago I had further thoughts on tidying up the WW1 game, so I updated the playsheet and gave Chrus K a call to see if he could come over and do another playtest today.

So on the warmest day of the year so far we retreated to Shedquarters to push little lead men about.

Troops that have been caught in the barrage now are given a PINNED marker. This prevents movement and firing until the Reorg phase of the turn, which happens last after movement and combat. That means that if a unit hugs the barrage - i.e. is at the front of the square immediately behind the barrage - it can move on to Pinned defenders and close assault them without any response. Effectiveness is also increased as the defenders are caught in position.

I also understood better the use of Vickers Guns in the attack, which didn't accompany the advancing troops, but were positioned by the first wave to cover the flanks of the subsequent units as the barrage moved and daylight arrived. As the attack started in the dark with fog and rain I also restricteed ranges to one square until turn five.

The first three or four turns cover the appraich, and there's no fighting, just checking for "drop shorts" and random defensive artillery fire from guns that escaped the counter battery fire. On a side note I need more d8s in different colours to make this work better.

The Royal West Kints made it into the village by keeping up with the barrage and had mixed fortunes in their fighting, being held up by one of the strongpoints.

In fact the narrowness of the advance had caused other problems too. As the barrage passed, "Pinned" markers came off, and MG positions were manned.

The defensive artillery fire also caught some of the Bedfords (white tags) in the open.

Fighting in the village was becoming tough, so the arrival of the armour was timely. Progress was good, but there were still a number of well held positions in the village.

In fact the village hadn't been cleared by the time the attacking barrage switched to allow the 6th Northants and the 11th RF to attack the northern German defence lines.

My reading of the action had also indicated that the Germans were holding the northern edge of the wood. I didn't put the toys out for the defenders until the British ran onto the positions. The 6th Northants were in position in time for the advance (just) but the 11th RFwere a tad behind.

Some of the Germans in the wood put up a stiff resistance, and the Northants lost the barrage. It was now daylight, so there was risk from German MG nests.

Having cleared the wood the Northants were further held up by the MGs in "Quid Post". Armour support did not prove decisive, but an act of selfless bravery by L/Cpl Lewis took the position.

Some of the 11th RF got caught up in the mopping up operations in the village.

However Chris was able to clear the finaal resistance in amongst the buildings and overran the German HQ in the trench line. 

As you can see from the last picture taken from behind the British lines the German positions were completely overrun, making it a substantial victory. Casualties weren't that high due to poor performance by German MGs. 

The game looks to me that it works. There are a few places where the British can come unstuck if luck runs against them, so I think that is good enough.

Just need to work out how to pack it down and put it up in less than an hour.