If Its Not Historical I'm Not Playing It: October 2018

Monday 29 October 2018

Thursday night - Fighting Sail!

A couple of poor shots from Thursday nights game. Only Jon, Frank and myself were able to make it so offered to run out the Osprey naval game for a second outing - and it was great fun again!

We had one game with Frank and Jon in charge of a single 3rd rate each. A ding dong battle in which Jon eventually prevailed and I got to grips with the rules.

Our first fleet action. Jon has lost his lead 4th rate and his remaining 4th and two further 3rd rates slug it out with Frank's 2nd and two 3rd rates

In the second game, Frank and Jon took a small fleet each as we tried out the squadron command rules. Jon opted for a more nimble 2x 4ths and 2x 3rd rates whilst Frank had a heavier 1x 2nd and 2x 3rd rates.

Jons's greater numbers were able to slug it out quite effectively with Frank until he managed to steer his command into irons and accumulated damage on top of his anchors.

Frank in the foreground has lost a 3rd rater but he has the weather gauge and is able to manoeuvre his fleet out of Jon's arc of fire and pound him into submission. Jon, his fleet held in irons, struggles to reply.

Frank eventually triumphed after a very well contested long range duel. But once he was able to bring his remaining ships into medium range and out of Jon's arc, the squadron rules allowed him to combine fire from his remaining ships and destroy three out of four of Jon's men o'war. Jon's remaining ship, unable to flee in it's becalmed state, struck it's colours.

The squadron rules work very well as a simple command and control. The fleet morale rules were very effective. And, I learnt that a ship does not accrue anchors but only ever has one!

Jon and Frank reckon they could handle twice as many ships very easily, so with all of us present, we could probably put on a large battle. Very effective set of rules, quick to pick up but feels right for the period.

Thanks Jon and Frank for a good game.

Sunday 28 October 2018

Arnhem Operational Battle AAR

Gents

Links to the first 3 reports here.

First

Second

Third

Fourth one should be up later today

Sunday 21 October 2018

Operational CinC's

We need this many players!

Our last operational outing with the Arnhem scenario was a great game. Every table had troops move across it and there was combat on 8 out of 10 of them. Paratroops spearheaded an armoured thrust whilst a ragtag German force attempted to stem the onslaught with green volksgrenadiers reinforced by armoured units from a panzer division. Once more, the operational format gave us a wide range of units, with plenty of manoeuvre, played to a conclusion in under 6 hours - great!

However, we are still missing a key component of the original operational concept - the CinC! As we presently play it, the games remind me of football played by seven year olds - everyone running around chasing the ball in a big scrum until the ball is suddenly ejected into one sides net or the other.

Without a CinC we, naturally, tend to get absorbed in the action on the table in which we command troops and trust that this is where the game will be decided. Reserves are committed to where-ever things seem desperate and air assets played reactively instead of to a plan.

We have played some games when we did have dedicated CinC's. The 1941 Barbarossa game felt almost like a battle of wills between Ozzie and Frank (despite the fact that neither of them had played an operational game before), as well as a battle of wills with some subordinate commanders.

The main problem has been lack of players as ideally we need 3 players aside and an umpire; whilst I think our Arnhem game could have done with 4 players on each side! And yet, I think this is also our default excuse - we see the benefit of the Thursday night pre-operational planning conference but we are too easy going for anyone to step up and want to take charge. It may also be that we don't want to miss out on the fun of actually fighting on the tables and that stepping back and taking responsibility for implementing Thursday's plan is a thankless task - if you win everyone slaps themselves on the back on a group plan well played, if you lose the CinC is a ready made scapegoat!

I know I may be overplaying the stresses but it is easier to play a game with everyone mucking in at the tactical level - but it's those seven year olds again! So, what I am thinking of is creating some Thursday night scenarios where we fight over one table but in which we experiment with the benefits of one player on each side taking on the role of off table CinC and taking charge of reserve commitments, air assets, artillery and orders.

Hopefully, we will discover the benefits of a dedicated CinC, understand that the CinC is not the boss but one of the team with a more specific role and find a new facet of operational gaming that we may all want to have a crack at - or do those seven year olds look like they're having fun?