Normandy Action - A Chain of Command AAR

First demonstration game of Chain of Command post-release, involving a seasoned playtester, three rookies and myself as umpire. I went for a simple recon probe mission providing the OOB lists to the contenders and therefore not using the list options of the rules.

The game saw a mixed regular infantry+paratroopers US platoon supported by a Sherman and an AT-gun, fighting against a German regular infantry platoon supported by a HMG team and two Pz IV tanks in a typical Normandy bocage environment.

German and Allied players in Patrol Phase

 

Chain of Command: Poland 1939 List

Just a quick warning  post to let you all know that  Chain of Command's first army list  is available now at the TFL official blog: Poland 1939
 
The post includes a very interesting link to download the official training manual of the Polish Army in English

Enjoy!

Resume Normal Programming

End of the summer hiatus and back to normal (or at least trying to!).

On balance a very relaxing holiday with an unexpected nice 1-day tour to the medieval walled city of Avila, lots of reading (mainly Spanish Civil War related), some interesting gastronomic findings (of which more at a later post) and some good progress in my painting plans:

• 4 x '42-43 Hanomags, 
• 1 x 250 command vehicle, 
• 1 late-war Skfz 234 (all 1/72 scale) for IABSM 
• And a Vietnamese HMG team in 28mm for Vietnam.
• All this in addition to some more tracks (curves and crossings) for my road project.

No photos?  Unfortunately not, as I left the camera at the holidays place but plans to pick it up this weekend.

Other wargaming related news: I received my tablet version of Chain of Command on Thursday last week and the full bundle (hardcopy book + resin jump-off points + game tokens) were waiting for me at home yesterday on my arrival.

If the tablet version was excellent, I must say that the hardcopy version broke all my expectations! The edition is wonderful with very high quality paper, excellent photos along the book and a mnost elegant layout. I've already booked a first introductory game in my club for tomorrow afternoon, so expect an AAR over the next days. 

Future projects? More Chain of Command and IABSM playing and painting short term and working my way through some lists to adapt CoC to play the Spanish Civil War. The secondary sources that I've been reading these days and some history books provided very useful information to play scenarios about the first few months of the conflict  known as the "war of the columns". Again, stay tunned for future posts on this issue.
  

On Holidays

Invictus' Towers will remain closed for a short 10-day break starting today, well deserved in my opinion given the hectic year undertaken by this family so far. Nonetheless, I'll be  looking for a good wifi conection next Wednesday 21st August to download my tablet version of the Chain of Command rules!!. If you have not pre-order CoC. put that date in your calendars to buy the electronic version of the rules

I'll not be totally idle, however, as I'm planning to do some research work and possibly visit a Spanish Civil War battlefield site next to my holiday place; I also expect to mantain some CoC reading and painting activity these days... but without any stress!!

Road Works (continued)

As a follow-up to the previous post, I continued working on the roads during the past week-end and you can see the final result in the photo above. I painted the road strips with acrylics in buff colour, washed with chocolate brown and given some lights with a dry bush of buff+white, and finally glued some grass along the edges and the center of each piece.

Overall quite satisfied with the results of the pilot project... so now moving to industrial scale!!

Road Works Ahead

Last weekend I spent a day at my mother's summer house. I wasn't really expecting to do nothing except going for a walk in the mountains and read some Chain of Command related stuff in preparation for the September game season. However... I felt the sudden need to do something wargaming related. So I entered the house garage and decided to experiment with the materials available there.

I found some old cork tiles and thought it could be a good base to do some buildings... no wait, some roads, even better!!. You always need lots of roads, don't you?.. and in my club we have not a lot of good scenery for roads. So there I did go with an initial test before scaling to up "industrial" production 

1. Cork, metal ruler and cutter

Tactical Notes for Chain of Command

TooFatLadies official blog Lard Island published today a very interesting piece on historical formations and tactics in II WW intended to support those playing Chain of Command, although it can be equally  useful for anyone with an interest in skirmish II WW games. The article is illustrated with examples of the different tactical use when playing with a British Motor Rifle Platoon, a US Armoured Rifle Platoon and a Panzer Grenadier Platoon, due to differences in weaponry, manforce and support weapons.

A good remainder also that in the case of TFL wargames sets you can really maximize your playing experience if you bother undertaking some research about the historical conditions of the period simulated. As you know: "Playing the period not the rules"!.

From personal experience, I came only to understand Charlie Don't Surf (Vietnam) or Mud & Blood (I WW) game design in full after getting acquainted with the tactical performance of the units involved in both periods. And so far, from what I know about Chain of Command due to my involvement in the pay testing phase, this is not going to be different.

If you are interested in II WW tactics (and summer time is an excellent period for reading), I strongly suggest taking a look to Stephen Bull's Second World War Infantry Tactics  or some of the field manuals published by the British and the American Armies through the conflict and available for free in Internet (here through Mike Whitaker's blog)
          

Happy 50th birthday...

...NOT to me (I joined the 50's club last year) but to fellow blogger and Lardie follower Mike Whitaker.

And why am I bringing this to your attention?
Because he's a jollygod fella and is celebrating by offering a most generous prize draw, consisting in a GBP25 voucher to acquire the incoming II WW skirmish rules Chain of Command. You can read the conditions to participate  in the draw here.... but also because I get bonus points by posting it here :-)

Now seriourly, if you are not a follower of Mike's blog yet, do not hesitate to do it NOW. His blog offers a good combination of warganming tips, AAR's, wargaming philosophy comments and overall a very cheerful approach to life nad it is always a delight to read.

Happy birthday Mike, and I wish you many-many more to come   

They Shall Not Pass - The British at the Jarama Valley 1937

I have just finished this little but otherwise excellent work about the British Battalion involvement in the Jarama Battle during the winter of 1937, part of the XV International Brigade. Trailing the style and structure of Ambrose's Band of Brothers, the writer has identified the main characters, providing their background, key aspects during the battle and the aftermath using primary and secondary sources.

The description of the climatic points of this short (12 to 15 February 1937) but bloody battle to save Madrid from being surrounded by the Nationalists troops is dramatic and well structured, supported by ample notes and the best thing of all, detailed map illustrations that makes the narrative really easy to follow.

New Wet Palette

Many of those of you who read the post about the painting workshop last week were very excited about the wet palette discovery. Today I have made another step forward and have built a more solid model, abandoning the previous one

You only need this two pieces:

Little Wars- Where All Started

If we have to trace back the roots of our hobby, the 19th century Prussian High Staff Kriegspiel manual is probably the starting point, but it was the famous English science fiction writer HG Wells who can rightly claim to be the father of modern miniature wargaming.

This nice little article  published in the BBC website retells the story of Little Wars, the first wargaming rules set compedium created and edited by the great writer himself.... and the most shocking of all is that for the first time in a long time, wargaming is put in good light in public media!!!

In any case, you can get the text for free at tne Project Gutemberg website but I recommend the very lovely edited  Kindle version together with its companion book Floor Games the latter also for free at Amazon. Despite being already a century old (it was published in 1913) readers will be surprised to see how much wisdom was put in this book and will easily recognise some key features of many modern wargames sets.

Breaking Records

July has been a month of records for my blog beating historical marks in several fronts:

• Number of monthly posts at 12 vs 11 previously 
• Number of followers now at 203
• 9,102 page views tally vs the previous 8500+ peak reached in December 2012

Probably the large number of articles about Chain of Command has been a key driver in the higher activity recorded, but it is also a sign that readers are interested in the content, so thank you very much for your continous support,  very encouraging for keeping Gaming with TooFatLardies alive and kicking .

Live Chain of Command Game at Lard Island

A late warning notice but still interesting: a live CoC demo game took place yesterday al Lard Island, and the AAR is now at the officil blogsite of TooFatLardies. Really worth reading ahead of the rules release next 21st August (now in pre-ordering period with important discounts), while enjoying the excellent photos illustrating the event.