Battle for Werth - Germany September 1944 (An IABSM AAR)

After a relatively long wargaming break, the Hell's Highway article in the last TFL Summer Special worked  miracles, waking my appetite to play this campaign with IABSM, the WWII company-sized rules of the TooFatLardies factory. An email exchange with my pal Alex at Club Dragón on Thursday and we were set to do some warming exercises with a small encounter scenario, taking place in Germany in September 1944, before attacking the campaign.

Location: Germany 1944
US forces have broken the Sigfried Line and penetrated West Prussia in the Eschweiler-Weisweiler area; all German available forces are sent to try stopping the gap. The German commander Werth and mission is to maintain control of two small villages (Werth and Scherpeensel) with a   hastily collected group of infantry forces supported by some armour and AT guns operating in the area.  

TooFatLardies Special is Out

An early-bird issue this time, TooFatLadies released yesterday its biannual publication Special. I can agree on the "special" but hardly on the "summer" in the title, as the bloody winter has decided to stay for much more longer than usual in Spain (still below 20ºC!!).

And what do you get? Well for 6 bucks (less than a breakfast at Starbucks in the UK) a total 130 pages of really good and high-quality content (see below) for your games with the TFL rule sets,

Two articles that I read last night were outstanding: a campaign with the British XXX Corps in the race to Arnhem (suitable for IABSM)  and a wonderful analysis of the British tactics in the last year of the Great War (for Mud & Blood).

The detailed index is as follows:

Spanish Civil War Armour

If you fancy some good and rare photographs of armour in the Spanish Civil War, I highly recommend a blog that I've been following for several months now, called Vehículos Blindados de la Guerra Civil, owned by Juan Pepín (a very misterious guy BTW with no details in his profile). 

Don't be put out because it is in Spanish; in fact he writes very little text in each post but the photo collection is really impressive, not many that you'll find in any illustrated publication about the Spanish Civil War.

Hope you like it!

Where on earth is spring????

Is this May 19th in Madrid? Seriously? The weather is appalling!!! Freezing actually, with temperatures not breaking 10º C at midday, falling to 3º- 4º C at night and snowing AGAIN in the mountains. Sorry for the ramble, but I'm totally depressed, it seems that this year's winter has no end.

Gaming wise I've been playing consistently Chain of Command over the past few weeks but no painting and little precious time to write the blog. Too busy with an Executives course at a Business School here and the launching of a new company (...cross fingers), as I could not find a new job after resigning from my previous company.   

Books for my Birthday

Saturday it was my birthday but I'm entering into an age that I feel no real excitment to celebrate. In any case I decided to treat myself with some special reading and considering my recent foray into Normandy with Chain of Command I went for these two books after reading some good comments in the TFL Yahoo Group and in fellow blogger and Lardite fan Mike Whitaker's blog Trouble At T'Mill respectively.

Eagles and Bulldogs tells the story of the 29th US Infantry Division and the 3rd Bitish Infantry Division from Omaha and Sword beaches to their objectives at Saint Malo and Caen in June 1944. Witten by Major General Michael Reynolds, author of some other works about the German forces in Normandy,  it achieved an average 4,5 stars  from readers in the Amazon website.


 


Battle was written by famous author Kennteh Macksey and as far as I know is well known classic work in the anglo-saxon countries but unlike many of his other books, was never trnaslated into Spanish. The books tells in detail the fighting in the bocage country, in which KM participated; although fictional, it is actually based on real facts and the experiences of the author at that time. It got 5 stars from readers in the Amazon website.

The focus on small combat actions makes an excellent source of scenario inspiration to play Chain of Command.


I acquired these two interesting reading pieces for as low as 6€ each, bought in the Amazon marketplace as "used" but in  avery pristine state. The courier service was excellent, hitting my mailbox today only a week after ordering. Who could ask for more? My only problem now is to choose one to start. I have a return trip to Barcelona tomorrow by train and will spend around 5 hours in total... and I don't know yet which of the two to take with me  

Lard and Bloggers of the World... Unite!

Extended looong weekened in Madrid thanks to the Labour Day holiday (Wednesday) and the Madrid region's festive day today; but littlewargaming activity for me on the wargaming front as I've been busy with some presentations to a client on Monday and studying for my MBA classes.

However, I got an email a few weeks ago from Steve Dix, fellow British Lardite fan and blogger (if you are not a follower of his Norseygamer blog, now it's your chance!). He is on a 10 day tour visiting Spain, Portugal and southern France visiting the most relevant battlefields of the Napoleonic Peninsular Campaign and yesterday he was stopping at Madrid at night on his way to Talavera and (I think) Badajoz.

Unfortunately the hotel was not exactly in central Madrid and I could not offer him a good tapas reception, but nonetheless I drove to his lodging yesterday evening and could share with him some beers and "Tempranillo" wine. Although we only met briefly at Salute last year, it was as we have been friends for a long time; we spent a very good evening talking about the hobby, history and many Lard-related topics before returning home.

Two Lardites and Bloggers in Madrid

It's really amazing to see the union of  Lardites across (literally!) the world in this unexpected brotherhood. . By sharing a common interest on anything Lard-related in the Yahoo TFL Group, and the help of Richard Clarke, very strong bonds beyond  the pure hobby-related dimension are being created, among people that have not met before but which we have been in communication for several years now.

 I'm more that sure that when traveling abroad I'd be able to sit and share some drinks and friendly conversation (or even a game if enough time available!) the same way that Steve and I did yesterday.

          

Chain of Command: A Diary # 2

Welcome to the second entry of my Chain of Command Diary, a series of ocasional posts describing my impressions while testing the incoming II WW skirmish rules to be published by TooFatLardies in the summer of 2013.

Topic of today: patrolling and deployment... and no, this is not teletransporting! 

If I mention the word “blinds”, those familiar with the TFL rule-sets will immediately grab the meaning. Physically, blinds are some large markers used in almost all of the TFL games to undertake the initial deployment and moves of the units in a game. By using blinds, you deny the opposing player knowledge about the size and composition of the forces approaching his lines. Troops in blinds enjoy several benefits like usually moving at a faster rate and avoiding being fired by the enemy until “spotted”.

Blinds in a Vietnam Game

Blinds reflect “enemy activity” in an area of the table and helps mitigating the “bird-eye” advantage of the most traditional games. Furthermore, using the so called “dummy blinds” patrols can be simulated: small detachment of forces whose only role is to find the enemy and return as quick as possible to inform its own force leaders. These can move and spot, but never engage in a firefight.  Blinds as a game mechanism creates uncertainty and enhances “friction” in the battlefield.

In Chain of Command blinds have been ditched and replaced by a new pre-game mechanism called the “Patrol Phase”.  Well, I may be too aggressive in my wording; let’s just say that blinds has suffered an evolution and transformed into a new mechanism to simulate the initial steps of a force before engaging with the enemy.