Tiny Tanks

 

Exquisite detail

But the title did say tanks, so here are two of them.

The US got the jump on the panzers,

but immediately ran into trouble trying to capture the central village.

The US have pulled back from their thrust to get round the north of the village.

And on the southern approach the Tigers now have a new focus.

At this stage (Turn 9 of 16) the US conceded they weren't going to breakthrough.

Luckily it was just a test game :-)

More tiny tanks

At the club I participated in this game hosted by Simon (all his delightful terrain and kit).  Olivier and I went the British breaking out from Normandy to fight the Germans commanded by Carl.

British deployment.

Three formations.

.

German panzers appear and a long range firefight ensues.

The British armour gains the advantage,

but the infantry have been held up.

British armour now swings to support the infantry attack on the woods.

The final attack/defense of the right most objective.

British infantry now have armour support.

Not So Tiny Tanks

Having committed to a continuation of the Arnhem game in 6mm I found myself contributing some armour and taking command in an early war battle somewhere in France in 15mm.

La Ville d'Objectif peut etre

Panzer rue

My panzers have arrived.

French armour proving impervious to German shells

Hub cap to hub cap...

Tiny Arnhem Campaign Turn 1 Second Battle

The battle of the tiny trees.

This is on the north edge of the map (see earlier post for full map)

Arnhem is a few hexes from the bottom of the image. 

Simon was horrified to find he did not have enough tiny trees to fill the table.

We would have to use our imaginations.

Arnhem (and the drop zone) is off to the left of the image.

This is my command, 2nd Battalion Kampfgruppe "Von Tettau".

Mark Woods commanded the 1st Battalion.

Brad commanded the paratroops who were somewhere in the woods

Found them!

But they pull back.

We advance, attempting to work around their flanks and cut them off from the drop zone.

The full weight of Kampfgruppe "Von Tettau" now comes into force

and we have them almost surrounded. 

But it was not to be, they find a gap in our lines and beat a speedy withdraw.

However we inflicted serious damage.

The paras were reduced from 11 platoons to just 3.

German losses were light with each battalion losing just one platoon.

A very exciting game, well constructed and umpired by Simon.

The final battle in Turn 1 is for Arnhem itself.

Tiny Arnhem Campaign Turn 1 First Battle

Hot on the heels of Tiny Hans and Tiny Town we are now into Simon's Arnhem campaign using the SPI Arnhem West Wall Quad game and 6mm miniatures with the Nations at War rules.

From hoping for the quiet life as commander of the LXXXIV German Army Corps I find I am thrust in to the role of General Model, Commander Army Group B (who just happened to be hiding at, I mean visiting, my Headquarters) when the sky darkened.

Using Vassal the end of Turn 1 movement looks like this:

Adjacency generates battles and so there are three: 

• Arnhem, 
• the woods west of Arnhem and 
• just east of Nijmegen.  

Last night at the club we did the Nijmegen encounter: the 2/508 battalion of the 82nd Airborne is trapped against the Waal.  I commanded the recon battalion of the 9SS and Curtis the 1/406 battalion.  We also had support from the 10SS artillery firing from near Arnhem.  The paras were commanded by John.

The recon battalion had eight elements,

all mounted.

The enemy are hidden "over there"

Bazookas!

One unit has been sent to investigate the woods, top of the image.

It ended in disaster!

A devastating artillery strike and follow up concentrated fire 

allowed the Germans to break into the village were the American had been hiding.

The 1/406 had arrived just at the right time to complete the encirclement.

Wider shot showing the location of the other US paratroopers 

(darker green bases).

While the US battalion was effectively eliminated,

the Germans took some casualties which will hurt as the campaign continues.

Excellent to be part of a campaign as it gives so much more depth to miniature games.

Tiny Town

Another test game for the Arnhem campaign.  This time the Germans attempt to retake the Tiny Town which has been occupied by some British paratroopers.

Simon has done us proud with some promising looking terrain to fight over.

Curtis creates a diversion (top left hand corner)

while my armoured column slips round the back.

We're in!

The paras, commanded by John, inflict heavy casualties on the attackers,

but it was a diversion.

The Germans now hold the Tiny Town.

Tiny Hans

One of the challenging parts of creating blog posts is coming up with a title.  Bear with me.

Wednesday night's game at the club was a practice session for the Arnhem campaign that Simon has put together using the SPI boardgame Arnhem from their Westwall Quad Game.  The rules are based on a another boardgame, which if I recall correctly are called Nations At War, which Simon has adapted for 6mm miniatures.  However we know them as Tiny Tanks.

Some tiny Germans advance on a town that could be Arnhem.

(the white base edge is waiting to be painted black)

A second German force converges on the town 

which is infested with British paratroops.

The fighting ebbs and flows,

but the paratroops are pushed back,

or rather consolidate when they are at risk of being out flanked.

Victory to the Germans,

although the right hand group I had been commanding have taken heavy casualties.

So, back to the subject of the title.  I also make posts to the club's blog and it seemed last Wednesday whenever I took a photo, someone would stick their hand in.  You can see all the intrusions here.  So when I came to caption an image from this game I went with "Tiny Hans" QED.

Nations at War with Hexes

Simon invited me to join in another game of Nations at War and I suggested trying out my hex mat.  NaW was originally a boardgame after all.

As it was a club night and some of us are still learning this rule's system, we went simple, two formations per side, but with the added twist of hidden set up.

In the fields and houses hides the Devonshire Regiment.

German recon battalion can be seen in the distance.

The Germans are getting closer.

A lot closer

Too close.

The Devonshire's open up.

The Germans get a move on and try an outflank.

The County of London Yeomanry have finished refueling

and have arrived to put a stop to the German recon.

The Germans are backed up by a panzer battalion,

but that doesn't save their recon force receiving some concentrated fire.

However it is not all one way and the British Cromwells come under return fire.

The battle lasts a few more turns.

The recon troops withdrew and then tried their luck on the other flank.

However the British were able to make use of their interior lines to shift the focus of their fire.

The panzer battalion was smashed and the few surviving recon elements withdrew.

In the last decade I have played a few WW2 miniatures games.  Blitzkrieg Commander, to which Nations at War most resembles, gave some good if at times rather odd games.  Crossfire is always fun, but at the low end of the scale (squad).  Rommel is a better fit for me, but it is good to know that I am able to use my miniatures for different WW2 rule sets.

Nations At War

Simon put on this game using his 1/300th kit to demonstrate how what was originally a boardgame, has been adapted to give a decent miniatures game.  It reminded me a bit of Blitzkrieg commander.  It certainly was intuitive.  We got about half  the scenario done which was a German attack on some British paras holding a town somewhere in Holland.  I was the Germans.  Simon did warn me that in previous playthroughs of this scenario the Germans had a hard time of it.

British Paras are holding the town with a relief force on its way.

There is a German panzer company, recon company and reduced infantry battalion 

determined to stop them.

The German infantry engage to town's defenders,

hoping to pin them down.

The Germans are not keen to leave the cover of the woods.

The German recon company redeploys to tackle the town,

avoiding a charge across the open.

The panzers go hull down and try to hold off the British relief force.

The panzers have the edge, but not the numbers.

Top down view. 

Recon force is battling the town,

but British reinforcements have arrived.

A promising system.  Would work well with hexes (and that actually is a hex mat we are playing on, but very subtle).  Something I can try out with one of my hex mats and my 15mm gear.