A Game of Blitzkrieg Commander

 This past Friday night I had an opportunity to play in a Blitzkrieg Commander game at our club game night.  One of our club mates, John, has made some great simplifications of the rules and has really brought out the foundations that make it a great game. I like playing in John’s BKC games because it gives me great inspirations for my Cold War Commander games. 

We played a medium large game set during Operation Bagration in mid-1944 Germans defending against a small section of the huge Russian Offensive. There were four Russian commands against three German commands. 

The Germans had an infantry battalion with a couple of Panzer MkIV’s and an artillery FOO. They also had a Panzergrenadier battalion with Sdkfz 251 PG infantry and three Panthers. The final unit was three Tigers and command stand.  These troops were veterans and combined with the heavy armor of the Tigers, they were a real challenge for the Russians. 

The Russians had two units of T-34’s with Tank desant riders, a foot infantry battalion and two special units - an ISU-152 unit of four vehicles and a JS-2  unit of three tanks. These heavy armor vehicles are really intimidating when they show up on the table. 

The Russians entered from the left attacking to secure tactical points on the hill and in the town upper center of the photo.  My Tigers held the German left flank at the bottom of the photo.

My opponent, Dick, had never played these rules before but by turn three he was driving his infantry forward and used the small hamlet to screen his T-34’s from the long range fire of my Tigers. Dick played a great game and if we had played a few more turns, those Russian infantry units would have been a big problem for me. 

Gamemaster, John (r), contemplates the PzGr unit and Panthers with the other three Russian players (l-r) Kevin, Greg and Rob.  No one could solve the puzzle and the Panthers stopped the Russian left flank cold. 

AJ, the Panther and PzGr commander, sits innocently as his dice wipe out the Russian left flank.

My Tigers have taken some hits, but they don’t have to worry about flank shots so they maneuver to get fire lanes on the T-34’s. 

This sort of sums up the game. A Tiger sitting on one of the tactical objectives without a Russian in sight!

The Russians suffered losses from the long-range fire from the Tigers and Panthers and the center German player, John, called in some devastating artillery fire. Ultimately, the Russians did secure one of the tactical goals and killed several German stands.  We agreed at the end of the night that it was a German victory although probably only a marginal one. 

All-in-all it was a great game and I learned a lot of lessons that I am sure will help me improve my CWC games in the future. Many thanks to John for a great evening.  

New Units for Chocolate Box Wars

 My painting table has definitely been slanted towards CBW armies lately, especially focused on American Civil War (ACW) Union and Confederates. Here are some photos of my recent figure painting.

In CBW a command stand option in the army build is called a “Chief of Staff”.  Here is my Confederate Chief of staff. A Perry Miniatures artillery officer. I painted this myself. 

For the Union I added a dismounted cavalry unit that I can use as my Light Infantry selection or even a Rapid Fire unit given their carbines.

The other stand of Union dismounted cavalry. 

Staying on the Union cavalry theme, here is my “Uhlans” option for the Union Army. These are the 6th Pennsylvania Volunteers- also known as “Rush’s Lancers”. I have always been fascinated by this unit and CBW is the perfect chance to do them up and get them on the table!

I hope you like these units. I now have three complete armies for CBW - Union, Confederate and British N. American Interventionists. I am rounding out some additional units so I can fill all of the available army building options so stay tuned for more photos in the (hopefully) near future. 

Hungarian (Or was that Romanian?) Goulash!

 Two Saturdays in a row - two CBW era games!  It has been quite a couple of game days at Ed’s house playing a new skirmish scenario from Ed M. of Ed’s Wargame Meandering’s .  We have really taken a shine to One Hour Skirmish Wargames by John Lambshead.  

This is a set of simple rules based on card draws to establish movement and “action” parameters for each figure in your force as well as combat resolution.  You can find an excellent description of the game here at Dale’s Wargames.  Ed has done his usual great job of summarizing the game into an easy to follow Quick Reference Sheet (QRS) and we have made some slight modifications to the rules as this is the Age of Rifles so weapons and troop types have a bigger impact on warfare than the author envisioned in his original rules.  While being slightly more detailed, the modifications we made do not make gameplay that much more complex.  

Over the past couple of weekends Ed and I had the first play-through of his modifications and then we added in our friend AJ of AJ’s Wargaming Blog to help with the play testing. We had a great time playing through Ed’s scenario to see if we could “break” it. We found a few places that it needed to be tweaked, but overall the game is a real challenge from either side. Even when the dice gods…. I mean the card gods go against you there is still a chance that you can pull out a win from either side. I think this is a really good indication of a solid game system. Both players should always feel like they have a chance of winning. Of course that that is also a function of good scenario design and Ed has come up with a good one in this case. 

Set on the Romanian/Hungarian border in the mid to later 1800’s, this game features a mix of light troops coming to blows over a frontier telegraph office. Ed has done a marvelous write up of one of our games with links to his play sheets and explanations and photos. 

Here are a couple of photos I took when Ed and I ran through our play test games:

I start to move forward. My forces are on the right with the telegraph building in the center left side of the photo. Ed has already dropped one of my Romanians in the forest area center of the photo. Unfortunately for Ed, he killed one of my Dourabanti Militia. His fellow militiaman would not take kindly to this.

The other militia man begins an odyssey of death and destruction which will be written about through the annuals of Romanian military history!  In this phot he is hidden under the tree by the hill where he has just despatched a Hungarian Chasseur. 

Here is the aftermath of the Dourabanti’s continued rampage. He has charged towards the telegraph office the red markers showing the gory trail of his fury. Now he is in the telegraph office with another victim and the Hungarians have one chance to evict him. 

The end of the game.  The Hungarians were unable to defeat the Dourabanti militiaman and he ended up smashing the transmission equipment and chocking up a “W” for the Romanians. 

I do not have any photos from the day AJ and I played our games. To me this is a good indicator of a fun game - we were having such a good time we forgot the photos!  Another point - the game is truly a fast play system as AJ and I were able to get in two games in one afternoon!  This system has some real potential for many different eras and scenarios. I am really looking forward to more games in the near future. Don’t forget to check out Ed’s blog and AJ’s blog - it is well worth the time. 

Operation Torch - Angels 20/Bandits High Game Night

 I recently ran a game at our club game night. The scenario pits American Wildcats escorting Dauntlesses dive bombers flying in to support the upcoming American invasion by attacking Vichy gun positions and an airfield. Here at game night we had three Americans facing off against two French players. The French divided the forces into a squadron of three MS406’s and another of two D520’s. The American players divided their forces into a group of one Wildcat and two groups of a Wildcats and a Dauntless. The game proceeded well.  There were two new players and three veterans. We have great gamers in our club and within two turns the players had the rules down and were running the game themselves. 

The Wildcats are a really tough aircraft in this rules set and I tried to balance the forces by giving the French some positive pilot skills. The American players did a good job for the most part of holding the Vichy fighters off the Dauntlesses, but as one of the American players lined up a gun position for a bomb run and a Vichy D520 forced him to abort with a hit. The other Dauntless managed to hit and destroy the other gun position.

The Wildcats eventually shot down both D520’s and one of the MS406’s. One of the Wildcats ended the games crippled. This was definitely an American victory.  We did learn a lot by playing through the scenario. I’m preparing another D520 and will go with a French force of Three D520’s and two MS406’s in the next game. With the pilot skills, this should be a much more balanced force. 

Here are some photos of the game:

The furball forms as squadrons come together. 

A Wildcat takes on an MS406 at close range. 

I like the game mat. It is really for the Pacific, but works for my fictional scenario off the coast of N. Africa.

A crippled D520 tries to engage a Dauntless.

A Wildcat destroys a D520 with a vital hit roll.

My thanks to Gordon and Phil (Vichy players) and Kevin, Ralph and Michael (American players). This was a great game and I look forward to the next one at the Mayhem gaming convention in April. 

Game Stuff This Week

This week has been pretty busy on the hobby front. I got some painted figures delivered in the mail. These are for my expanding Chocolate Box Wars (CBW) collection. I also got to go to my friend Ed’s house on Friday evening for a game night. 

First, the painted figures:  These are some really nice Confederate figures that I got on EBay. I will use these figures including infantry, both regulars and zouaves, a commander figure and an artillery piece and crew. Here are some photos:

Maryland Guard Zouaves. Perry plastics. 

McClellan’s Zouaves S. Carolina. Perry plastics ACW Infantry. 

Louisiana Tiger Zouaves. Perry plastics. 

Artillery battery. Early Perry plastics. These are smaller than more current models. 

Regular infantry. Perry plastics ACW. 

These entire order of regular infantry. 

These are some really well painted figures. I find that sometimes you get lucky on EBay and this is definitely the case this time for me. With the 36 regulars and 18 Zouaves, I have 9 infantry units and the required artillery battery for my CBW force. Combined with the Confederate Cavalry regiment and commanders that I have, the force will be ready for use. Exciting to have my third CBW army ready to play!

I also got to help Ed prepare his Baroque Wars scenario for this week’s club game night. This is a homegrown set of rules for 6mm grid-based game system. The scenario is a re-creation of the Battle of Rocroi 1643 in the later stages of the Thirty Years War. Ed developed the game system and you can find his blog page about the rules at this link: https://edmwargamemeanderings.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_28.html

I didn’t take any photos during the game. I was separated from my phone and I was having too much fun to step away from the table. Take my word for it. The figures, although small by today’s standards, are superbly painted.  Ed has uploaded some photos at his link above but the figures are much better in person. 

2025 Hobby Goals

 A freezing day here in the northeast US.  A really good day (and weekend) to huddle at the hobby desk and get some painting done. I hopefully will have some pictures to share in the next few days. 

I have been looking at my outstanding pile of shame and trying to set some hobby goals for the coming year. I think I have settled on three game systems and their related painting and modeling opportunities. Here they are in no particular order:

Cold War Commander - I have a really good start on this project with diverse units already painted for both NATO and WARPAC forces. I still have a lot of unpainted stuff including FRG, Americans and round-out both French and Czechs. We have been working on rules revisions/modifications of the base Cold War Commanders v2 rules.  Our club definitely has an approach to simplify the extraneous parts of the rules to make them more playable within our usual three to four hour gaming timeframe. Our club has never really had a set of rules for anything more ‘modern’ than WWII so I’m hoping that these CWCv2 rules will give us the opportunity to expand our wargaming experience. 

Chocolate Box Wars - As you can see from my recent posts, I’m currently working very hard on getting my first two CBW armies completed. I have the base forces done and now I’m adding some extras to have the ability to field four-player games and use different upgrades within my forces. I’m also looking at adding two other armies (ACW Confederates and Maximilian French in Mexico) during the year. I really enjoy playing these simple, yet challenging rules and I want to bring other members of the club into this gaming experience. 

One-Hour Skirmish Rules - This is a pretty simple, card-driven rules set that can be used for many different eras. My Friend AJ and I are working on specific rule changes for WWII era gaming. We have made a few tweaks and are now just waiting for schedules to work out for a test four-player game. Stay tuned for a battle report(s) later this month. Ed M. also has made some modifications to play the rules in his Age of Rifles timeframe (1850’s to 1880’s).  We have all agreed that the rules can be played as written for everything Ancients to Napoleonics. So, there will be a wide range of gaming opportunities with these rules. I have several additions that I can make to my WWII collection including Afrika Korps and 8th Army, early-war German and British and a couple of late-war German units.  I also have some Pony Wars US cavalry which I can use for the AoR era. Setting up some scenarios will give me an excuse to get these forces painted and on the table.

So there you have it, my gaming goals for 2025. Let’s see how things go.