Littoral Commander - First Impressions

Littoral Commander is a modern to futuristic (more on this later) era wargame, focused on a potential conflict between US Marine (USMC) and Chinese People Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) forces in the Indo-Pacific region (Taiwan, Malaca Straits, South China Seas...) The game is published by The Dietz Foundation a non-for-profit organization in the field of education.

Although in appearance LC may look like a traditional, mainstream hex and counter wargame, this is far from real. To understand what's behind the game, you should first know Sebastian Bae, the lead designer, and read his CV. He is a former US Marine Sergeant with one tour of duty in Iraq. However, most of his professional career (in the Army and outside) was in researching, designing, and teaching educational wargames. He is currently teaching at Georgetown University on wargames design.

Littoral Commander is a byproduct (with a commercial focus) of Fleet Marine Force, a professional training tool designed by Sebastian Bae to train junior Marine officers and NCOs. This explains some quite singular game features and mechanics, unusual for many traditional wargamers.  

Returning to the game, players will lead one or more combined-arms task forces of the USMC and the PLAN. At the beginning of the post, I mentioned the game covers a modern to futuristic era, meaning that to comply with the different mission objectives, players have a wide array of weapons systems and capabilities to choose from, many of which are just based on emerging technologies (like cyberwarfare, drones,  etc) not yet fully implemented in the actual military tactics. 

This enables players not just to think in terms of actual tactics, but also to consider the changes in behavior driven by the introduction of future weapons and capabilities based on these current emerging technologies. Furthermore, you may design and test your own technological scenarios by creating new cards describing the capacities brought on the battlefield.    

The game design combines traditional hex-counter mechanics and cards (called Joint Capability Cards or JCC)  representing "the support of available from higher command and adjacent forces" as described in the rulebook.

Examples of Joint Capability Cards (JCC)

The sequence of play is simple, comprising three phases: action, initiative check, and victory check. However, in the first turn of the game, there are two additional phases called planning and deployment, in which each side:

• Will formulate the strategy;
• Will decide the composition of the respective task forces (selecting the JCCs aligned with the strategy decided and the scenario's victory conditions);
• And will deploy the units on the map. 

Note that many scenarios may also include special planning phases intersected in some specific turns, in which players can acquire additional cards, allowing corrections based on the actual battlefield conditions after a few turns.  

I have played three games so far, but it's clear now that planning and deployment are the two most important phases when playing Littoral Commander. Each side (USMC and PLAN) has over 100 cards available to build their hand, costing between 1 and 5 points each. A typical initial points allocation is 15 points, plus receiving 8 points in subsequent turns (twice per game at most). 

The cards have color codes representing different capabilities:

• Red for fire enhancements
• Green to improve the maneuvering capabilities of units
• Purple relates to interception capabilities
• Blue focused on information initiatives 
• Yellow related to Command, Control, Communications, Cyber, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Recon ("C5ISR")

A warning: there are never enough points to cover all possible tactical options with cards; you must decide your strategy and then consider the best combination of cards to achieve your objectives. That takes a lot of time: my suggestion is agreeing on the scenario with your opponent a few days in advance, studying your options at home, and then starting the actual game.   

At the start of a game, the side with the initiative is set by the scenario's special rules. The side with the initiative activates one task force to conduct actions, then passes the action to the enemy side (who will activate one task force in turn), passes to the other player, and so on until all task forces have been activated.

In each activation, players usually have three action points (in some scenarios maybe 4 or 5) to conduct "core actions" with an activated task force: move/combat; move/conceal; move/resupply; or play a JCC.  Some JCCs can be attached to the combat units and will play together with that unit's activation: for example, you can have a drone attached to a unit; in its activation that unit may use the drone to reveal an enemy unit and then move to initiate combat (or make a long-range shot) 

LC's taxonomy of units includes infantry and lightly armored platoons; long-range strike (artillery/missiles) platoons; units with missile interception capabilities; supply/logistic units; and naval units. When attached, the JCCs are useful to enhance some of the intrinsic capabilities of these units (for example, providing additional fire/interception range or special ammo); and to add assets to the unit (armored vehicles, drones, artillery, etc).

Example of unit cards: the black squares represent the number of hits

while the red, purple, blue and green represent the total amount of supply for each type of ammo

Three important aspects of the game are worth commenting: 

• You can only attack what you see: units are concealed at the start, and you should plan your actions to reveal the units and strike. But you should also be aware that by firing, you also reveal your unit and therefore would be subject to retribution by the opposing player in the subsequent activation. During the planning phase, players will have the option to choose JCCs that enhance the recon capabilities of the task forces (unmanned vehicles, special forces inserted behind the enemy lines, air recon assets, etc)
• Ammunition supply is limited ... and the temptation to saturate with fire a hex when an enemy unit is revealed is high. This constraint forces players to decide when is the right moment to strike a decisive blow, by expending a substantial portion of the ammo stock. In this game, logistic platoons (and some JCCS) play a key role in resupplying units but are also extremely vulnerable, becoming a primary target to get first identified and then destroyed.  
• Cyberwarfare is a critical modern battlefield's fourth dimension at the tactical level: jamming and interfering with the enemy's digital networks can significantly degrade its fighting and defensive capabilities, providing a tactical edge to your own forces. This is well covered through a wide array of JCCs, ranging from intel scoops gained in social media to massive, well-organized, and sophisticated cyber-attacks.    

In a nutshell, this is the game. The rules for conducting actions (move, fire, etc) are pretty simple, which does not mean the game is simple. Littoral Commander's beauty lies in the complexity of deciding your task force and its capabilities. Replayability is almost infinite in this sense, as you can try many different ways to overcome the challenges posed by each scenario.

Littoral Commander has a very active community of players on social media and is extremely friendly with newcomers (as I personally have experienced). Sebastian Bae is personally involved in supporting players through Twitter, BGG, and a dedicated Discord-based group of the Georgetown University Wargaming Society.

Map screenshot from Vassal. Hex colors indicate move points and combat modifiers  

Littoral Commander boasts a highly active community of players on social media and is exceptionally welcoming to newcomers, as I have personally experienced. Sebastian Bae is actively involved in supporting players through Twitter, BGG, and a dedicated Discord group managed by the Georgetown University Wargaming Society.

Finally, it is worth noting a new game is already in the testing phase, this time set in the freezing waters of the Baltic Sea (Littoral Commander Baltic). This will not be an add-on module but a fully complete game. The release is expected in late 2024 or early 2025. 

 

   

 

Board Games vs Miniature Wargames: There and Back Again

Wargame boardgamers and miniature gamers are usually seen as sitting in opposing fields. The former are apparently driven by their interest in realistic simulations while the latter by the visual pleasure of deploying their creations on a table.

My first wargame dates back to 1980, Avalon Hill's Panzerblitz, a Christmas gift from my father. Soon after, I met a group of local wargamers in Madrid and in 1983 we launched Club Dragón. Over 40 years has passed, and I continue heavily interested in our hobby.

However I have gone through different phases, shifting my focus of interest each time: 

 

• Only boardgames initially; 
• Fantasy miniatures (Warhammer Fantasy) and RPG (Dungeons & Dragons, LOTR or Cthulhu) in the late 80s;
• Entering the 90s, I turned to historical miniature gaming  mostly, with Warhammer Ancients Battles, Command Decision, Fire & Fury Napoleonic, Volley & Bayonet, Crossfire and Blitzkrieg Commander); 
• Lately (2010s) abandoned most the previous sets and got immersed in many of the Too Fat Lardies sets (Through the Mud & the Blood, Charlie don't Surf, Troops Weapons and Tactics, Chain of Command, O'Group, Infamy!Infamy!, Sharp practice);
• And very recently (2022) I added Saga to my list of most played games.

As you see boardgaming went out of scope in the 90s mainly.... until COVID and the mandatory lockdowns in 2020. First I discovered VASSAL and then I joined a group in my club that net daily to play ASL online after work. 

This represented my return to boardgaming. I have expanded my interest from ASL to the Simonitchs' "194x" series, GBOH (SPQR, Caesar, Cataphract...) and a few other selected names (Pacific War, Vietnam or Almoravid) since March 2020.

Back to in-person gaming at the club in early 2021, I have being combining both board and miniature games. These are not at all incompatible, but probably unconsciously I was approaching each type of game in a different way.     

 Board wargames 

These are an excellent and efficient means to recreate large battles, campaigns, and generally speaking major operations or extended conflicts. Logistics, forward planning, coordination of resources in the right place and time, the consideration of social and political events, high to medium level strategy... all are key drivers in these games. Board games are great to simulate, study or consider alternative approaches to these high level operations.

Miniature games 

On the other hand, miniatures are great to play low-level and skirmish-type actions (and visually are unrivalled). The focus of these games are on formations, tactics, mostly junior commanders abilities, training, short range weapons and supports (mortars, small caliber guns) capabilities, use of terrain, etc. Logistics or strategy are less of an issue at this level, although can be inserted as part of a game context (specially in campaign formats).

Summarising, I'm not one of those wargamers to pitch board versus miniatures. Each type of game offers advantages and over time I've found boardgames more interesting for large scale operations and miniature games for low-scale actions.

Do you play exclusively board or miniatures games, or you play both? What motivates you to play one or the other? Interested in your views.

Back to Blogging and Thoughts About Social Media

 

Arguably blogging activity has been in general decay for more than 5 years now, replaced by other social media tools enabling quick /rapid consumption and massive attention/reactions from the community. This has been my case too: I started in Twitter in 2013 initially as a way to promote my blog, but I increasingly turned my attention and effort there, and finally abandoned blogging entirely.

However, the recent Musk-related turmoil in Twitter had made me rethink my presence (or not!) in social media and whether it made some sense to come back to blogging. As many other people I'm utterly fed up of the contaminated atmosphere of Twitter and what real value brings reading lots of short 250 characters snipets throught the day. I have tried Mastodon but don't see any advantage to Twitter and have never being attracted by Facebook.

Blogging is totally the opposite to Twitter et alt. Here you need to put your mind and concentration in what you want to convey to readers. Each post is much more ellaborated and thought. Blogging can be easily isolated from politics, and while the target audience is significantly narrower, trolls can be kept at bay while achieving engagement from truly interested readers. In summary a muche superior overall experience for me and for the interested reader (I hope).

My plan therefore is to resurect this blog afteer to neglecting years. I won't committ (at least for now) to a specific publication schedule, let's keep expectations right. Topics will not be too different of those in past: wargaming, military history and related items.

I remain a devoted fan of Toofatlardies, that's not changing and expect to see lots of related posts. But my wargaming interests have evolved over the past two years and now I devote much time to boardgaming too. In truth this is going back to my gaming origins in 1980, when Panzerblitz (my baptism of firre) literally throwed me into this hobby. I'm also now involved in Saga the ancient/dark age period rules,  participating in a campaign with other 6 members of my local club.

In the very short term  expect to see posts from the Saga campaign and also from my participation in Curt Campbell's Annual Painting Challenge in its 13th edition this winter (you can see my mobile painting office in the photo heading this post).

As usual, feel freee to leave comments. Will get in contact again soon .

 

Lard Magazine 2020 is out!

 

 

As usual just before Christmas, TooFatLardies has just released today its Annual Lard Magazine. This is HUGE 180 tome of scnearios, special rules, army lists, etc, covering a broad range of rules sets from this publisher, as well as some other very useful wargaming-related materials. 

 

 

At an unbeatable price of GPB5.5 (equivalent to 1 pint of beer in the UK and around three beers if you live in Spain), you cannot miss it.

 

 

Board Wargaming Projects for 2021

 

As COVID 19 will unlikely go away so easily (or anytime soon), my gaming group and I will continue meeting by VASSAL over the weekends and almost daily during the Christmas break. In fact,  some new boardgaming projects are being planned already during the early part of 2021.

One game to be extensively played next year is GMT's Empire of The Sun. This is a game to become very popular in the Spanish-speaking world, following the recent publication in our native tongue by the nice people of Devir Iberia.

The game was released almost coinciding with the Pearl Harbour Anniversary last week. The Spanish version can be considered a deluxe variant of the English original, with mounted boards, high quality cards and some extras like the mini-scenario publsihed in the C3i magazine issue 30. I ordered my copy the release day last week and it is now on its way home. It will have a distinctive place under the Christmas tree on the 25th.

For those of you not familiar with the game, Empire of the Sun (EotS) was designed by Mark Herman, also the father of the monstergame The Pacific War. Unsurprsingly considering who is the designer, EotS is a very robust game despite being card-driven, profitting from Herman's deep reserarch and knowledge of the Pacific Theare of Operations. 

The game takes an strategic view of the conflict, in which the Japanese player is doomed over time when confronting the industrial, demographic and economic power of the United States. Japan's only hope is eroding the social and political support of the American public, enough to force a negotiated truce before becoming too weak to resist the almighty US military force.

I'm fairly familiar with the game, as I had the opportunity to play three long campaign games during the summer via VASL and to attend as an observer a a few other played by my gaming group. This past summer I also read two tomes of the Pacific Crucible trilogy by Ian W. Toll. These are books that I cannot recommend more if you are interested in the topic, covering not just the military aspects but also the political and economic; the content is also well balanced, describing the internal situation at both sides (Japan and the Allies) with good level of depth.

The second major boardgaming project for next year is the Battles from the Age Reason (BAR)system, published by Clash of Arms.  This is a battalion level wargame covering most of the XVIII century period, from the Wars of Spanish Succession to the American War of Independence.

The system currently covers 10 battles, of which 3 is in the period of the Austrian Succession War (Fontenoy, Mollwitz, Chotusitz), 3 from the AWI (Monmoth, Brandywine and Germantown)  and 4 related to the SYW period ( Kolin, Lobositz, Prague and Zorndorf).

I have always been attracted by the period to play with miniatures, but I have been scared about the complexity of painting the uniforms of that age. The boardgame will hopefully allow me to recreate the period reallistically withouth having to make a major investment (and painting effort).  

One important dimension for me in the hobby is to study the history of the period. I have been doiung some research and bought a few interesting books, including a "classical" tome The Armies of Frederick the Great by the well known military historian Christopher Duffy. This is an out of print work but you can find second hand copies at very reasonable prices in eBay among other sites. Nonetheless, to get a high level and quick view of the period, I decided to buy the conrresponding Osprey book  about the conflict.

BAR is no a light set of rules. The system is very detailed in many aspects (from movement, to fire and close combat, to changes in formations) and takes into consideration the very different tactical features of each nation in conflict, as awell as specific factors affecting each battle within the system.

Some people argue that the level of complexity equals that of Advanced Squad Leader. It is no an easy system but it's far less complex than the ASL system. I am just getting myself introduced into the system through some videos in the YouTube channel of the Spanish wargamer celebrity Agustí Barrio, and reading the rules and the primer manual (available in pdf from the Wargames Vault site). 

Last but not least: Caesar- Rome vs Gaul. This is a recently released title by GMT Games by one of my favourite designers Mark Simonitch. The system is very similar to Hannibal Rome vs Carthage  This is

a pure card driven boardgame (very different to Empire of the Sun in all aspects), based on a system designed to be fairly asymmetrical at the beginning and the end of the game.

Caesar's campaigns in Gaul are very dear to me and no doubt I was going to be hooked by the game as soon as it was announced; a plus in my interest is of course the designer. For some reason copies of the game have not yet arrived to our local stores in Spain (or they arrived in limited numbers and flew away in just a few days) so I'm in a waiting list with my usual supplier of games.

As you can see an exciting wargaming year ahead. In addition to these three new sets, I plan to continue with my regular weekend ASL games on VASSAL. And if the pandemic allows it, I plan to return to my miniature games specially with Infamy!Infamy! and Chain of Command. It's a shame that I heavily playtested the former and when the book was finally released, the club was shutdown I haven't had the opportunity to display my minis yet!!!  

Tell me about your plans in 2021 in the comments section of this blog.

 

    

 

 

 

 

Clock's ticking to the 10th Painting Challenge

Madrid Puerta del Sol Tower Clock

I can hardly believe that 8 months have passed, and the new edition of the Painting Challenge is looming now sooooo close in time (it will start as usual on Dec 21^st and hopefully it will be announced over the next days).

This year I entered into the planning phase at a very early stage (late September) and by now I have most of my core project for this Challenge almost ready (assembling, basing and priming).

As many of you may know, my strategy is to concentrate my efforts in one single project or army (Fallschirmjagers, Napoleonic Austrians or British Red Devils as in 2018/19…) and then complement with some leftovers from other projects.

This year I decided to focus my effort in building an early II World War German Army for the Blitzkrieg period. The reason for this is twofold: on the one hand, TooFatLardies released this year the first major supplement for Chain of Command centred around the France 40 campaign. The follow up videos uploaded to its YouTube official channel with Richard Clarke and Nick Skinner playing a few of the campaign games only light my desire.

Back to the Future or 2019 The Year I Returned to Tabletop Wargaming

It’s late October and I thought the right time to provide an update and y whereabouts. I just realised my last post is from May this year, some of you may wonder if I’m still life (which I am, as you can see). The truth is that I followed my own advice from late last year of “doing it as and when” and not getting worried of setting targets or goals to publish in the blog.

So what I’ve been up to? Well, I can say that it’s been of a back to the future of sorts year: very little playing with minis and a lot with tabletop wargames.

Fist a ittle bit of context and history Unlike many of the anglo-saxon wargamers, my first steps in the hobby were not with little toy soldiers or the Donald Featherson’s book (totally unknown in Spain the 70s) but with boxed wargames in the very early 80s.

Given my interest for history and particularly 2^nd World War history, my late father found like the perfect Xmas gift for me in December 1980 in the form of wargame: Panzerblitz (followd soon after by the sister game Panzerleader). It was like a revelation from heaven and the start of my long standing interest in the hobby. I played with my brother and collected close to 30 Avalon Hill and Victory Games products.

In the mid 80s I was cofounder of Club Dragón in Madrid and my interests started to widen towards the games with minis, initially fantasy games (WFB) and very soon historical games in the Ancient and 2^nd World War period.

Gradually I abandoned tabletop wargamers and haven’t literally again played a single game since AH went through the financial drain in the late 90s and was sold to Hasbro.

This has completely reversed this year. I coincided with a very active small group of wargamers that gather every Friday afternoon. Coincidentally, we have moved the office of my company from the suburbs to new premises centrally located and 10 minutes walking from the club in late January… so all stars aligned.

Kriegspiel AD 2018

Over the last months I have had the opportunity to participate in a wargaming experiment sponsored and led by Nick Skinner, the co-founder with Richard Clarke of TooFatLardies. His idea was to recreate a Kriegsspiel-type of game but using the tools and technology of the digital age.

Nick contacted a small number of wargamers in late October (if I’m not wrong, we were 7 or 8) and set up a channel in the popular chat app Discord, where we all could be in contact.

He then uploaded a copy of a military map 1:25,000 scale, provided to each team a set of forces, a narrative of the situation (to put us in context) and a mission to win the game. This was done on a Friday; over the weekend each team discussed the best strategy to achieve the objectives laid out in the mission, divided the forces in battle groups, appointing commands and providing orders for each of the battle groups.

The players were then called to play on Monday at 7.30PM GMT (+1 in Spain).

The game was umpired by Nick and for each battle group a subchannel was created, where we get information from the umpire and provide orders in reaction to events happening every game bound (15 minutes of game time). All information was then conveyed in the team’s common channel where the C-in-C was present; this was a way of simulating the radio net of our forces.

First I must say that this has been one of the most interesting wargame experiences I had in years… and all thanks to the technology but specially to the way Nick managed the game. Think for a moment: no table, no models, no rules… just a map, a tablet or telephone screen, a pencil and a pad to take notes … and some common sense to give orders to your forces as the game developed = great wargame experience.

In the first game, our forces had been recently defeated in major offensive by the enemy. We have regrouped in town by a major river and our mission was to destroy the two main bridges to buy time to our army to build a new defensive line using the river as the frontline.

I took a platoon of engineers with some infantry and light armour support north of the main position to destroy the bridge, then pull out south and blow out the second bridge. Easy said than done. Unexpected events could hamper you moving along the road, putting the explosive charges takes time and the enemy is not idle in the meantime.

Map of the first game. My forces to the rightm north (red, pink and purple kampfgruppe)

MIA but not KIA - Searching for a sense for this blog

If you follow my Twitter account (@AnibalInvic) you may have followed a recent thread I posted with some considerations about the role of blogs in a rapidly changing social media landscape. I feel that Podcasts, Youtube, FaceBook and Twitter or Instagram is increasingly calling the shots specially among the younger generations, whose attention spam is brief to say the least or prefer easier audio or video consumption products.

Blogs are difficult to manage, posts require a lot of effort and time, and frankly speaking, much longer attention spam from the reader than what actually I think he/she is likely to put. So what is the point of maintaining the blog alive, specially with a shrinking audience?

To my surprise, my Twitter message received quick and,  if not massive, a decent amount of responses from lot of people, some of them well-known gamers, podcasters and rules designers whose opinion I respect a lot. 

The comment that really pulled a cord in me is that Twitter et alt is ephemeral, while the blog is here to stay and have a long shelf-value. What one posts is not for immediate consumption and then to the bin, but a reference that you can use in the future. It could be a nice battlefield walk around, a scenario report, a review of a book or some wargames rules or even the guide or the inspiration (using your photos of the painted models) for someone considering undertaking a project that one may have taken sometime ago.

This already persuaded me that it made no sense to shut down the blog and to lose 8 years of dedicated work and effort.

Now, but how to maintain a regular flow of posts? How to regain the mojo lost?   Richard Clarke of ToofatLardies came to inspire:

Do it "as and when". That's what I do.

Of course, silly me, why the pressure? I'm doing this basically for pleasure, not for business! If I have something worth of communicating, I'll do; but shouldn’t be worried about keeping a timetables or posting regularly

Well, this is it for the moment.  I got lost but thanks to the Twitter-sphere I have found a new way home.

As for next in the pipeline, we have Curt's Annual Painting Challenge that should begin by 21st December. I have already chosen my project for this edition (the ninth): a 2WW British Airborne platoon and supports for Chain of Command. Looking forward to receive Curt's news pretty soon.

And on the personal front, I have been diagnosed with an herniated disc after suffering a (stupid) accident doing some gardening late last summer. Apparently there is no other solution but to undertake a surgery (late in November). Not sure how long it will take me to recover from this, but it will interfere with my work and hobbies until Christmas at least.

Hope to see you all around here more often in the near future.

What a Tanker!

Our friends at TooFatLardies has just put in pre-order its new set of rules "What a Tanker!" which as the name implies is a 2WW skirmish armour battle book.  There is a very attractive offer for the hard copy, the markers and the pdf version bundle at GBP 24.0 representing a 40% discount on the headline prices. Release is scheduled on April 9th, just after Easter.

If you like to read a little bit more about the rules before jumping, take a look at this post released in the official Lard Island blog today. They seem easy to learn and fun to play, and surely if you are (like me) a 2WW aficionado at any scale, you'll have plenty of models ready to use.

General d'Armee - A player review

As many of you know, General d’Armee (GdA) is a new set of Napoleonic rules published just before summer by Reisswitz Press, the sister company to TooFat ardies. The author, Dave Brown, is a well-known and experienced wargame rules writer so I was expecting a good quality set, as it’s been the case.

Although I bought the book the release day and read thoroughly in my summer holiday break, I decided to refrain from commenting in the blog until after I had tested on a gaming table and could consider myself enough familiar with the system.

For that purpose, I gathered a small group of players in my local club and have been extensively playing since late September. GdA is not simple, on the contrary, the learning curve is fairly steep at the beginning; but now I feel finally fairly confident and familiar with the rules.

What is General d’Armee?

In GdA players seat in the saddle of a commander of an army or division (in Napoleonic terminology): 5 to 8 brigades, each composed of several regiments. The rules however can be stretched and extended to play with a full Army Corps. So at least on paper, GdA is suited to play medium to large battles.

However the basic manoeuvre unit is an infantry battalion (300 to 1000+ men), cavalry squadrons and artillery batteries, representing the building blocks of the regiments; and this is as we’ll see later one of my main objections to the game.

General d’Armee is an old-school wargaming set; the 100 pages manual is basically all rules, with some photos and a good number of examples to illustrate or clarify the different topics. It is not designed for a light reading; it’s full of details and as I said before, it requires a fair investment of time in reading, annotating and playing with the book on the side for consultation. 

DMZ Vietnam # 3 - Winning Hearts and Souls (or at least trying)

Third game of CoC DMZ, the Vietnam supplement for Chain of Command. After two games, we are now more confident on controlling the new mechanics and decided to add some complexity, introducing a political dimension to the game loosely based on Charlie Don't Surf, the Platoon-sized rules written by TooFatLardies (full details at the end of the post).

Using this time one of the scenarios included a Surf's Up, the US player was briefed about its mission: he must take control of remote village of uncertain name suspected to be the depot area of NVA units infesting the region. In Chain of Command terms, this is a "Scenario 6 Attack on an Objective" of the main rulebook, in principle winning the US if capturing the jumpoff point located in the center of the village.

But it wasn't to be so easy. As the NVA had important food and weapons supplies hidden in the village, those should be discovered and destroyed. If the enemy could exit its tactical edge with the supplies, the NVA player was victorious even if the US take control of the village. The village was inhabited and any civilian potentially a casualty in a fire exchange would count againts the US (or the NVA!) "Political Score".

Peaceful local peasents (or not?) on their way to tendering the fields

Setting the scene let's see how the table looked opposed the US entry side.

Chain of Command Vietnam - Enter the ACAV

Second test game today with Chain of Command DMZ, the unofficial supplement to play the Vietnam conflict with Chain of Command. In this game we introduced for the first time a vehicle, my "Peace Maker" ACAV model,  parked in my garage for sometime now.

 
We chose this time to play the "Attack on an Objective" Scenario Six of the main rule book. The table had a major jungle (type 2 area) crossed by a dirt road leading to a village which according to the intelligence cources was a major NVA depot area.

The battlefield form the US edge

Storming the Citadel - New Chain of Command Campaign

TooFatLardies just announced a new campaign book for Chain of Command in their "pint-sized" campaign series (Pint = priced as a pint of beer in Richard Clarke's local pub). Storming the Citadel is the first  time that TFL moves East, to the time of Kursk/Citadelle, following the trails of the GrossDeutshcland Division.

As usual, the campaign is self-contained with all the army lists, scenarios and special rules, supported by a nice display of maps and historical information. Another one not to miss!

Up Country - Testing Vietnam Chain Of Command Variant (take 1)

Don't panic, despite a long period without posts I'm still here...

As announced early this month, I recruited some of my gaming pals to test the Vietnam War variant for Chain of Command developed by Jason Sendjirdjian in his blog Wargaming DMZ  and finally today we could put some minis on a table to see how it works. If you are interested in the period, I stronlgly recommend your browse that blog, lots of wargaming good food for thought and many interesting resources. Note this is NOT an official or TooFatLardies-endorsed supplement.

First things first, if you don't know Chain of Command this is a set of rules published by TooFatLardies to play skirmish battles in the Second World War, typically at platoon level but can accomodate up to a company-size game using the Big CoC supplement. 

The rules are mainly focused on infantry units complemented with other weapon supports and  1 or 2 tanks. If you like to dwell in the detail of the rules, I published here a set of posts titled "The Chain of Command Diaries  # 1-6" commenting the most innovative aspects at the time of the playtesting.

Whats new in Chain of Command DMZ? 
The Vietnam variant basically leaves untouched the core rule mechanics and adds a few bits and pieces needed to simulate the tactics of the conflcit. These changes refer to the terrain, weapons, unit organisations and national characteristics.

Back to Vietnam War?

A short post with a twofold intention:

First, to show that I'm still alive and kicking. However due to a health problem in the family (my wife was diagnosed breast cancer on 23rd December...), my hobby time has shrinked substantially and I decided to invest whatever time available in painting for Curt's Painting Challenge and playing some games from time to time (lately with Command and Colors Napoleonics).

The good news is that the health problem seems now contained and the doctor is rather optimist on overcoming it, although we'll still have to fight whatever remains of the SOB inside my wife´s body and the treatment will last 8 months to a year.

Second and the main reason of the post, the possibility of returning to play the Vietnam period, albeit not with Charlie Don't Surf but with a new set based on the popular Chain of Command World War II rules.

This is fact NOT an official supplement, but the lone effort put up by blogger Jason Sendjirdjian, who has been extensively reporting the progress on the rules and the lists in his blog Wargaming DMZ for most of 2016. This chap very generously has compiled and nicely edited a 41-pages pdf document (here) with all stuff needed to play the game.

This is a period that gained traction in my group when Charlie Don't Surf was first released a few years ago. It was (actually IS) a very good set of rules and an excellent simulation of the tactics and atmosphere of this grim theater of operations. Truth is that after a lot of playing my gaming group attention moved to II World War with Chain of Command, and Vietnam fell into oblivion.

With the limitations emerging from obligations with my wife treatment, I'll try to lead a Vietnam reinassance within my gaming group... time now to undust my Grunts, Charlies, NVAs and M 113s!

The good news are that we already have all we need in terms of gaming material and in 28mm, so no need to invest (much) money in a new project. I hope the rules work good, I haven´t even read the pdf yet (will do tonight) but considering the hard work already put by Jason and his demonstrated knowledge of the conflict, I'm honestly optimistic.

I strongly recommend visiting Wargaming DMZ and if you fancy show your gratitude for the generosity shown by the author sharing all this wrok by leaving a comment in the last post.



 

Old Hickory Campaign Games 4 and 5 (conclusion)

This weekend we played turns 4 and 5 (conclusion) of the Old Hickory campaign for Chain of Command. If you remember when we stopped in early December, the Germans had already won two games through the "orange route" and were now arriving to the final US defensive line at Le Neufbourg.

The US players called all reinforcements scattered in the different approaching routes to concentrate now into the village and to put a strong opposition despite overwhelming odds. The US side also played their last air support card in the 4th turn, resulting in the dispersion of the German attacking columns, winning the game and gaining some breathing space.

After this, the German deployed a new platoon form the general reserve (the one used in game 3) and then we moved to game number five, which as you will see resulted in a new straight German victory and also de conclusion of the campaign.    

Old Hickory Campaign Game 3

The third game of the Hickory Campaign concluded with a decisive German victory, causing a bloody havoc on the US units that had to pull out into Le Neufbourg, the objective of the offensive. Frankly, the position of the US players is in serious risk as the game today eliminated some critical scarce assets like ATGs and men.

The game was played in the Orange 2 map of the campaign booklet and corresponded to a Scenario 6 "Attack-Defend" in terms of the Chain of Command terminology. The German was of course the attacker and the victory conditions called for them either to wipe the resisitance in the table or force a withdrawing due to Force Moral erosion.

Old Hickory Campaign Game 2

The second game of the Old Hickory campaign finished with a German victory. A very funny game in which for the first time in life I saw a F1 race between three German Hanomags, competing to reach first the US table tactical edge.

Following the initial setback  of the campaign when the Allied airforce dispersed the concentration of German units at its jumpoff area, the German HQ activated the second company (2 platoons) and ordered an attack through the same Orange route of the first attempt.

Old Hickory Campaign Game 1

German HQ (H-1 hour)

News that the heads of the assault columns are now in the jump-off positions and ready to take on the arguably unprepared US troops near the railroad line (area code name Orange 1) are received with satisfaction at the Das Reich regiment HQ. 

Suddenly the deafening noise of aircraft engines flying at low level fill the air and the dreaded black and white stripes of the Allied air force the German officers eyes ... luckily the planes pass away leaving the HQ unmolested, but almost immediately machine gun and bomb explosions are heard towards the jumpoff area followed by black smoke columns .

A devastating air attack has dispersed the German forces, with the units running in panic pursued by the Allied Typhoons and the Mustangs. After what looks like an eternity, the planes finally leave and it's time now to take stock of the damages and regroup the surviving forces. The attack is cancelled and will be postponed at least for the following day.

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And this is how the first turn of the Hickory campaign ended... played without placing a single model on a wargame table and actually resolved by Whatsapp! Let me explain what just happened.

As commented in the previous post, there are three attacking routes and the Germans must select one; the Allied had an air interdiction asset that had to be allocated to one of the routes before the Germans announce their attack. If they select the same route, the Germans suffer a devastating air attack and their units are dispersed and unable to take the offensive, losing the game.

Incredibly, both decided to choose the Orange route, which they communicated to me this same afternoon. Must reckon that I had a big laugh and the poor German players were in total shock for this unexpected (and unknown to them) option in the Allied hands.

All this was settled communicating with the two groups of players through Whatsapp!

This is one of the advantages of playing campaigns and using independent umpires: incresed for of war and uncertainty; and of course more fun (specially the umpire). More surprises in store for both sides... and only I know.. Wa-ha-ha-ha!!