The craziness of the season and work has prevented me from updating the page as much as I'd like, but I'm going to try to catch up.
When last we left my Fall In! AAR, my friend Chris and I had just finished a game of Chain of Command. We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the vendor area and the exhibition halls before we grabbed dinner and headed off for our second game of the day: a playtest of the World War II company level rules, Hail of Fire. I had seen this game being run at the last couple conventions and was curious to try it (at some point I'd like to get into a non-Flames of War company-level WWII game) and so I convinced Chris to give it a whirl.
The rules themselves are only a few pages, so it was a nice, quick pick-up game after a long day of wandering around the show. The German side was commanded players experienced with the rules, while the Allied commanders were all green, so it might have been helpful to have a little more explanation of the rules before we dove into the game. That said, once we got the hang of it, it ran fairly smoothly, though there were a few times were we were missing stats or some rules didn't quite make sense, but having run playtests at shows myself, I think the GM (Brandon) did a commendable job of running a fun game!
As for the engagement itself, Chris and I found ourselves commanding two wings of attack made up of a company of US paratroopers and a squadron's worth of mixed British tanks (primarily Shermans and Cromwells) and a few other support units (including an American recon troop and off-board artillery). We were facing off against a German panzergrenadier platoon supported by a mixture of anti-tank guns and armored vehicles.
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| The battlefield from our right |
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| The field from our left |
The battlefield presented to very different tactical challenges. Our right flank was densely packed with hedgerows and a small village, while the left was largely open with a smattering of thin tree lines. Our objectives were two of the farmhouses on the left, the triangular, hedgerow-enclosed field, and one of the buildings in the village. We decided that our best way to approach the hidden enemy was to launch a pincer assault/double envelopment. I would lead a platoon of paras, the recon platoon, a squadron of tanks forward in the center to discover the whereabouts of some of the heavier German assets and put pressure on the central objective, while the two flanking wings (commanded by Chris and another player) would mount swift flank attacks with their armored squadron.
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| My paras and recon teams inching forward to sniff out the Germans |
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| The recon platoon and Para .30 cal setting up shop |
I advanced a few of my para teams through a wheatfield just outside the village while my recon platoon and .30 cals took up position in a grove of trees atop a small hill overlooking the triangular field. There were joined by a friendly FOO from the right wing units, and together the began laying down some fire on German units that popped up in the center. They had some initial success, but return fire began to decimate the recon teams and killed the FOO, ending the barrage. Meanwhile, a multitude of German teams opened up a galling fire from the cover of the village and started ripping my paras apart. As the recon teams began to fall back, the surviving German infantry got rather ambitious and surged across the road and charged the paratroopers, getting the upperhand in short order.
While the fortunes of war were stacking against me, the Germans were unaware that they were sealing their fate. The game gives each side a finite number of activations per turn, which can also be used to react to enemy actions. In this case, since the German players were burning their activations left and right to respond to my platoons' actions, this left them with few actions of their own, and very little chance to react to our flanking forces. This meant that the para platoons and support tanks in the wings had a much easier going toward the objectives. The right wing advance almost unopposed into the village, while Chris's men on the left found themselves engaged in a duel with some dug-in anti-tank guns but not much more. While I was fretting that my line was going to collapse...our forces were launching assaults on two of the objective houses.
The Germans in the village began launching counterassaults against the flanking intruders, but could not overpower the hordes of Shermans. Chris's skillful maneuvering soon had his infantry in strong positions and had what was left of his tanks were threatening to hit the immobile Pak guns from the front and flank simultaneously. I decided to lend a hand at this point, and brought up my platoon of Cromwells to overwhelm the two gun platoons.
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| My tanks getting the first batch of AT guns in their sights |
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| Going in for the kill against the second gun platoon |
When bad things happen in the game (platoons break, objectives are taken, turns pass without retaking lost objectives, etc) each side pulls cards called "crits" which have random numbers assigned to them. These are kept secret, and when a certain number is reached (in this case, 18), the game ends. With the defeat of the AT guns on the German right, Chris was able to take our third objectives and the Germans were drowning in crits (we later found out that they had 17 points to our 1) and so we called it. Brandon, our gamemaster, was greatly impressed and told us in all the previous playtests the Allies had never taken a single objective, let alone three! All told, a fun evening.
As for Saturday, I had initially planned to meet up with my father who was planning on coming to the show for the day, but he had to bail at the last minute, so I wound up wandering around on my own. Besides exploring the vendor and game halls and flea market, I also helped staff the tables for the store where I work part-time by showcasing the line of
paper wargaming soldiers from Helion Publications (expertly illustrated by the talented Peter Dennis) - for more info see my previous post.
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| Keith Stine runs a demo of his Disposable Heroes 2 rules |
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| A beautiful game of 1870 |
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| A close up of the latter |
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Met set-up of a (brief) demo I played of the "By Fire and Sword" Eastern Renaissance rules -
don't my Ottomans look pretty? |
Since I had off that Sunday, I made a rare third trip to the show, which involved some more poking about and selling some old gaming stuff to make way for new toys.
Overall, my haul included some modeling supplies, storage boxes for figures I'm expecting soon from Kickstarter, and a stash of the old North Star Muskets & Tomahawks minis. Overall, not a bad show!
See you at Cold Wars!
