12 mil is slowly and gradually gaining traction as a viable scale for WW2 and Cold War gaming at my club. So I approached the next game in this scale carefully. I wanted to deliver a 'big' small game, with lots of toys on the table, but still able to determine a result within an evening. The key to this seems to be a time limited mission for one hapless set of victims side or the other...
Stuart (left) and Daniel (right) formed the British team trying to beat the clock. Ed (centre) and I were the Germans attempting to build a coherent defence to seal off the southern edge of the table...
The British were present from the start in overwhelming strength - but would have to really shift!
The German team deployed the limited assets of the on-table Aufklärung Kompanie to be as awkward as possible - no dash movement is permitted within 8 inches of the enemy!
Wargamers are rightfully criticised for using Pumas as main battle tanks, but in this instance there was no choice!
At first it seemed the central road route was going to be left to the recce group from the 8th King's Royal Irish Hussars...
Too easy!
But the British were developing their fiendish plans...
And their reinforcements arrived all too quickly, rapidly beefing up the central thrust to match their main effort out on their left flank!
With our limited resources we decided to abandon La Poste...
and have our Panzer Grenadiers make their stand in the next village down the road - La Truelle...
That's not to say the Aufklärung's lads didn't make an effort to contest La Poste. From the flanks they badly shot up the 1/5th Queen's AT platoon.
The Pz-Grenadiers efforts down the road notwithstanding, 7th Armoured were making progress down both avenues of advance, despite a distinct lack of presence from the RAF...(even with two air strike dice to roll!)
Quite alarming progress I thought - had I made the scenario too easy for the British side?
Time to deploy our own AT platoon from ambush!
The British team, accepting that the RAF were lingering over a long lunch, refocussed their efforts on their left flank...
Where the combat was intense, but the British were making gains...
Finally, having finished the brandy and cigars, the Brylcream Boys showed up and brewed a StuG - back to the airstrip for tea and medals!
Despite taking heavy losses from the Hussars, Queensmen and Tankies, the Panzer Grenadiers were holding on at La Truelle, stopping the British from using dash movement and holding up the entire centre column.
Whilst the British had made good and hard fought progress against both tough opposition and unforgiving terrain, by the end of Turn 5 it was clear they were not going to achieve their victory conditions.
At the game post mortem we agreed it had been an interesting and enjoyable game, but that the scenario needed some tweaking if we were to revisit. The streams needed to present less of an obstacle, and the British needed at least an extra turn. That said, as ever we are at the mercy of the reinforcement and air strike die rolls!
Your armies are really coming on. Good to see the ‘gang’ warming to the scale.
ReplyDeleteThanks Norm - yes its great how planning a game also acts as a spur to painting. And grateful to now have a couple of converts!
DeleteActually I should clarify that half the British vehicles and infantry were by Stuart, which he prints himself.
DeleteLovely scenario there and a wonderful looking table, even if you do need some more buildings as you point out, something that affects us all I'm sure! Nice to see other members slowly coming round to the benefits of this 'scale'. I know when I moved from 15mm to 10mm, the latter just looked so much better on the average table.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much Steve yes I agree that things look so much better at this scale. This is the first time I've been able to pretty much copy a section of map directly to the table. And the ranges seem so much more realistic.
Delete