Angus  Konstam's Edinburgh Wargames

Edinburgh Wargames Journal

Issue 22  - May & June 2008

Periods featured  in this Issue  :   Second World War (20mm), Colonial (28mm),

& First World War in the Air (1/144 scale)

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The Western Desert, April 1941  (Battlegroup Panzer Grenadier) 20mm

This week my pal Chris Henry brought in his 20mm Western Desert toys, and staged a game for us which involved a British probe against a well-defended Italian strongpoint, somewhere to the south-west of Tobruk. The British didn't expect much opposition, and so their orders (capture the Italian senior officer) were a little over-ambitious. The advance began well enough, with a platoon of Rolls Royce armoured cars leading the drive down the main road while the infantry disembarked from their trucks and carriers. Then the Allied commander (er, me) rolled three "1's" in a row for initiative, which meant the advance ground to a crawl. Then the armoured cars were brewed by Italian field guns. Wanting to make the most of our "initiative points", we decided to bring up our mixed bag of armoured support - a pair of cruiser tanks, and a couple of Matildas.

The Italians did the same, launching a two-pronged counter-attack using L33 tankettes and a pair of M13-40's. The tankette attack was stopped by fire from the cruisers, but the Italian tanks proved a little tougher to deal with, especially when a couple of German Pz. III's moved up to support them. Although the Axis armour couldn't penetrate the armour of the Matildas (unless the Axis player threw a very lucky double "6"), they did manage to suppress the British infantry tanks, which prevented them from firing.

By this time the British die rolling luck returned, and the advance resumed. Ignoring infantry and machine gun fire from their left flank, the British infantry moved forward to seize the first of the Italian artillery positions, while the cruiser tanks raced around the back of the Italian position. However, they were both halted by suppressing fire from the remaining Italian gun, and from the German panzers.

By this time it was getting close to packing up time... and the pub was calling. It was clear that the British were in trouble - all their tanks were suppressed, which meant that while they weren't actually knocked out, they couldn't do much to hurt the enemy. The British infantry were doing a little better, and in a few more turns would have cleared the Italian askaris from the village. However, without aggressive tank support their position would have been untenable, as there were still an awful lot of Italian infantry in the area - grouped on the ridge to the south of the main road. Common sense demanded that the British pull back, conceding victory to the Italians.

All in all it was a well-balanced game, and as an umpire Chris managed to keep it moving along nicely, despite the presence of hard-drinking and hard arguing British sub-commanders, and an Italian player distracted by a parental custody battle being played out via text messaging during the game! We resolved to have another desert outing  soon, and in the meantime we'll work on the terrain, which is still little more basic than we'd all like. Still, the bigger than normal table (an 8x6 foot one) captured something of the scope of the desert,  and although you can't see it in the photos, the idea of sticking the hills underneath a desert-coloured cloth worked pretty well at making the battlefield as undulating and full of dead ground as much of the desert really was. 

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The Indian Mutiny,  c.1857  (In the Heart of India) 28mm

This was a period we hadn't played for a long time,  so Colin Jack and I decided to run an Indian Mutiny game. For some reason we didn't have a suitably dusty table covering, so we made do with a game set in the monsoon season instead! The idea was that two British columns were trying to cut their way through to an Mutineer-held town. My troops never even managed to cross the river, as they met a whole horse of "Pandies" appearing through the groves, and were soon fighting for their lives against a large force of mutineers. Casualties were high, but eventually British puck won the day - helped of course by rifled muskets and good morale!

On the southern flank the British force crossed the river, only to run into a cross-fire of Mutineer artillery and small-arms fire. However, this time the British were able to keep their distance, and their superior rifles did the rest, mowing down successive waves of mutineers as they tried to reach the British line.

By the time the game ended the British had clearly won, as they'd caused a lot more casualties and broken the Indian force, but the British (particularly in my column) took unacceptably heavy casualties while winning this pyrrhic victory. The rules were In the Heart of India, a home-grown adaptation we use of Chris Peers' In the Heart of Africa rules. Like all Chris peers' style rules they're quick, bloody, and usually give an enjoyable game. This was no exception, and both sides seemed to enjoy themselves, particularly when the dice were rolling the right way! Another advantage is their simplicity. The "pandies" facing me were commanded by a guy who usually plays fantasy games, and this was one of his first historical outings. This poor deluded chap managed to pick everything up within minutes, helped by a playsheet with all the basics on it. the game has actually inspired me to paint up my Mutiny-era British, who've been languishing in the lead pile for a year or more - ever since I ran out of steam after painting the Mutineers! 

You can download an In the Heart of India playsheet from the Colonial section of the site.

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Somewhere over Northern France, 1917  (Wings of War) 1/144 scale

While I wouldn't call this "proper" wargaming, it was great fun. A new craze in the club is First World War air combat, prompted by Jules of Figures in Comfort coming in and selling everyone planes and rules. I was suckered into it too, and not only bought half a dozen Albatrosses, but a shiny carrying case to hold them in. This was their first outing. Being a wargaming geek I repainted them in the garish colours of Jasta 5, so every pilot had his own identifiable plane. This was a straight dogfight agaisnt 6 allied planes - a lone Belgian and American aircraft (both Spads I think), and four Sopwith camels from - of course - Biggles' 266 Squadron.

I was a little wary of the game -called Wings of War -  as it seemed a little strange - each plan has a base, marked with its arc of fire, and arrows. You choose three movement cards, and play them one after the other - the choosing of them in groups is designed to prevent players reacting too quickly to things. Each plane type has its own set of movement cards, and you'll soon find that the Spads and Camels are more nippy and manoeuvrable than the Albatrosses. If you're within range you draw the appropriate cards from the damage deck, one card if at long range and two cards if up close. Each plane type has a deck which reflects its armament, so in theory planes fitted with twin Maxims will be more effective than those armed with a single Vickers. The damage cards contain a number (0, 1, 2 or more), and when they reach the damage limit for your plane it gets shot down. My Albatrosses could take 15 damage points, which made them fairly tough. It's all pretty simple - and it works well.

Six of us played the game, and everyone took command of two planes. When the dogfight began the British players were crowing that they'd managed to enter the scrap in two waves, so their rear pair could fire on the Germans as they shot past the Camels in front. That was the last example of tactics I saw all evening, as the game soon degenerated into an almighty dogfight, with everyone whirling and shooting as fast as they could! the BElgian was the first to go, shot down by my own Jasta leader Richard Flashar. His own plane was badly damaged, and after piling into the fray against the Camels he too was shot down. After a few turns the casualties came thick and fast, as three Camels, two Albatrosses and the American Spad were lost in quick succession. One German player flew his damaged planes from the table, leaving just my own remaining pilot and a sole Camel (Biggles' himself apparently) to fight it out. At that point I turned "gamey", and flew off the board, thereby guaranteeing a German victory. The final score was five Allied planes lost for three Germans. Given the fact that we were up against the formidable Camels I think the kammeraden of Jasta 5 did fairly well in their first outing, despite the three empty places in the mess that evening!

This was a highly enjoyable game - something completely different - and it looked very pretty. The planes (supplied by the Wings of War people) looked great, but the real crowd-pleaser was the dogfighting mat - a 4x4 foot terrain mat from terrainmat.com , covered in an aerial view of a section of the Western Front. It was a real pleasure to fly over it.

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Carronade 2008 Show, Falkirk

I visited this excellent wargames show, and whiled away a few hours chatting with friends, buying lead I don't really need, and looking at some very attractive demonstration and participation games. Here are some of my favourites - a colourful Thirty Years War game, and interesting refight of Leuthen (1757) in 15mm, a chopped down version of the Ligny game I played a few months ago (those drab Prussians again), and an interesting Bonaparte in Egypt game (the photos of that one didn't come out). My favourite was probably the 28mm Rorke's Drift game, which really looked superb.

My own club ran a small but wonderfully quirky participation game - "El Dorado" - which involved conquistadors floating down the Amazon on a raft, being shot at from Amazonian Indians lining the banks! The picture was taken by Mike Scott.

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Counter-attack at Mtsensk, Russia, 1941 (Battlegroup Panzer Grenadier) 20mm

This is a scenario published in the back of the Battlegroup Panzer Grenadier rules, and again (slightly modified) in the East Front scenario book. We've been meaning to play it for ages, and the arrival of a new grass mat gave us the excuse - and a nice 8'x6' battlefield. The premise is that the Germans have just established a small  bridgehead over the River Lisiza, just in time to meet a rare Soviet counter-attack, spearheaded by the newly-formed 4th Tank Brigade. Both sides had the same objective - to hold the bridge at the end of the game.

The German players (Kevan & Nikolas) opted to deploy their guns on the south bank of the river (which technically wasn't allowed in the scenario), leaving a powerful infantry screen supported by tanks in the bridgehead itself. The Soviet players (Derek, Dougie and myself) decided to launch the KV-1's directly towards the bridge, while the T-34's became the sacrificial lambs, drawing fire from the German artillery and the sole 88mm gun. 

   Of course the plan fell apart in the first turn. A couple of lousy initiative rolls meant that we were hit badly before we got the counter-attack underway - losing all out KV-1's in the first two turns. However, the T-34's fired as they advanced, and a couple of lucky shots brewed up a Pz. III, knocked out a 105mm howitzer and suppressed the 88mm! This brief flurry of success was followed by a remorseless pounding from the Germans, who picked off the rest of our tanks one by one with a combination of artillery fire and a plucky anti-tank rifle team.

Fortunately the scenario allowed for that, and when our first wave of tanks were smoking in the north side of the river we were allowed to unleash our reinforcements - another six tanks - all T-34's and KV-1's again. This time we had a little more luck, and while our infantry pinned the last pockets of Germans north of the river, our tanks destroyed or damaged their German counterparts, then drove into the village and captured the bridge on the final turn of the game! URRAH! We celebrated in true Russian style (a round of large chilled, neat vodkas all round), which with hindsight was probably not such a good idea!  

As usual Battlegroup Panzer Grenadier worked a treat, and regardless of which side they were an, all the five players had a great time, in what turned out to be a well-balanced and hard-fought game, which could easily have gone either way.

The German artillery was highly effective, as was the 88mm, but the German tanks weren't a match for the Russians. Historically this was the first time the Nazis encountered massed T-34's and KV-1's, and it must have come as a bit of a shock to them! We were probably a little generous allowing the Germans to deploy their artillery on the far side of an impassable river, which meant that we couldn't overrun their gun line. However, that also meant that the German force north of the bridgehead was a little weaker than it should have been, giving us more of a chance to break through. We'll certainly play the scenario again some time soon, although it remains to be seen if we'll actually learn from our mistakes!

Above all the game just looked good, and although these photos don't do it justice, the 8'x6' certainly gave the impression of the openness and scale of the Eastern Front.

The German artillery was highly effective, as was the 88mm, but the German tanks weren't a match for the Russians. Historically this was the first time the Nazis encountered massed T-34's and KV-1's, and it must have come as a bit of a shock to them!

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