Chain of command AAR

Today we played another Chain of Command game at the club, practice for  my putting on a CoC game at a local convention (Havoc) coming up in a little over a week; I need all the practice I can get.

We played an attack/defend scenario out of the book with an American armored rifle platoon attacking a regular German platoon. The Americans had 9 points of support and the Germans, 8. With Force morale levels of 8 for the Germans and 9 for the Americans. Below are several shots of the "battlefield".

The Americans have the initiative and rolling double 6s on thier first roll, deploy squads and move up to the hedgerow line.

The Germans start by deploying 2 squads in the house and immediatly firing on the advancing Americans inflicting a causalty and a couple points of shock

The Americans respond by deploying their machine gun squad and the 60mm mortar. Both  fire on the German machine gun in the upstairs loft inflicting some shock and killing a crew member. The  next phase the Germans pulled the machine gun from the window realizing they were out gunned by the Americans firing from the hedge line.

The Americans respond by deploying their foward observer and putting a squad on overwatch. The next phase brings a couple of chain of command points for the Germans who pass the phase as they wait for the Americans to make their move. The next few American phases were spent calling in ranging shots until finally landing after the 3rd try, inflicting a few casulties and shock on the German teams in the buildings. The Germans deploy their Stug III  in position to fire at the American machine gun squad camping on overwatch along the hedge line to the German Right.

Under the coverage of the barrage the Americans make their first move on the German left flank. The next phase the Germans rolled three 5s, gaining a chain of command point, ending the turn, lifting the barrage and firing at the American squad in the open inflicting a couple casulties and 4 points of shock. 

The Americans throw a smoke grenade  to get them some concealment and removing shock.  On the next phase, the Germans shifted their attention to the American squads along the hedgerow with minimal results. This allowed the American squad to dash behind a fence to give them light cover.

The Germans again shifted their attention back to that American squad firing at them, killing 2 and inflicting a enough shock to  pin the Americans behind the fence. 

The next phase the Americans brought their fire power to bear on the German machine gun team poking back into the window on the right flank trying to take out a senior leader moving up and down the American line. The Americans rolled a whopping 20 dice inflicting 12 hits on the house wiping out the rest of the German machine gun team, killing a couple rifle men and inflicting a  bunch of shock -  pinning and eventually routing the  Germans  from the house.

Even with all this damage, the  Germans were able  to sustain their morale. It only dropped by one point. 

Both sides exchanged fire for the  next couple of phases until the American squad along the fence broke due to shock, with an American force moral  drop of 2 points . The Stug III was becoming too much for the Americans who spent their Chain of Command die on an ambush with their bazooka team. The bazooka round beat the Stug's armor by 2 killing the driver and inflicting 2 points of shock, crippling it for 2 phases until they could replace the driver. 

After a double 6 roll by the Germans the Stug was back in action and changed it's attention to the American squad along the hedgerow once again inflicting, more casulties and pinning the American squad. 

The Americans again decided enough was enough, they had to do something about the tank. They deployed their bazooka team along the hedge line and missed a shot. At the same time they made a move on the German right flank, sending one of their machine gun squads foward toward the building after realizing that the building was empty (The Germans had routed out the back). The Stug  rotated and fired at the advancing Americans killing 2 out of 3 and inflicting a point of shock pinning the last guy in place. 

At the same time the Americans were sending an engineering team  to capture the unprotected foward German jump off point.

Getting within 4 inches and shutting down the use of the jump off point they spent their Chain of Command die ending the turn and capturing the jump off point. In turn the German spent their  Chain of Command die  to avoid the roll on the force morale. 

The Americans then inched closer toward the building causing the Germans to place their last available squad in the bulilding along with their senior leader and the panzershreck team along the fence to the rear of the building. The panzershreck team fired from the fence and the machine gun team from the first story window but caused no casualties.  The American player with another lucky bazooka roll at the low profile ,obscured view and 2 range bands away Stug and needing a 11 or 12 hit the Stugg again causing the crew to bail and the Germans to make more rolls on the force morale chart. With that the Germans were down to 3 and were holding on by the skin of  their teeth. The Americans were not doing much better with their morale level at 5. The next few phases were very unlucky for the Germans with nothing going in their favor. The Americans with the same stroke of incredible luck shot 4 rifle shots into the German left flank building causing 1 casuality which was the German junior  leader. The roll on Force Morale brought it down to 1! The Germans decide to pull back and give the Americans the field. 

It was a hard fought American victory! All an all it was a great game and a great time and a smooth game with us getting better and better with the rules each time we play ! 

Fences

A quick way to make some great looking fences !

First grab a popsical stick and some coffesturrers (I used this old shade I had a around the house wich I think is a little thicker) but coffesturrers should get the job done nicely. Also you'll need bass wood. 

You can cut the bass wood into small pieces and glue them to the popsical sticks or you could cut them and take a long coffesturrer and glue one piece of bass would on each end and the middle wait for it to dry and then glue that whole piece to the popsical stick.

Next start cutting up smaller pieces of your coffesturrers and glue them to your long piece. These will be your pickets on your fence. (Cut them irregular) gives then a worn look

After those are all dry you cut the round ends to make them square (you should really do this before you start I didn't and decides to cut them after) next take some grout and texture the bases and then add sand. 

Next spray paint your primer I used black.

Paint white I used Vallejo white . It's going to take 3 or 4 coats to stop the black from bleeding through. Paint the dirt I used Vallejo flat brown (dry brushed)

Then a dry brush of Vallejo beige brown and a light dry brush or Vallejo tan earth. 

 Then to dirty the white and ware it down dry brush some flat brown beige brown and the main dry brush of chocolate brown all over the fence. Add flock and tufts and some woodland senic clumped foliage . Here's the finished product 

A great piece of terrain to add to the table that can be made for any scale.

Another great blog that gave me the inspiration on making fences is mgluteus.blogspot.com 

New terrain piece (hedge field)

I've been making some new terrain for my CoC game I'm putting on at a convention coming up (havoc).

I started by just cutting a piece of MDF board to the size I was looking for and taking some corrugated card and cutting a piece smaller than the MDF so it would fit evenly in the middle. Glue that and put something on top of it to keep some pressure on it wile it drys . Next take some grout and texture the whole thing around the card to blend it into the base then add your sand for further texture. After that's dryed paint the dirt. I used a dry brush of flat brown then beige brown and tan earth .paint the corrugated card. I painted mine in flat earth then a brown wash. Let the wash dry completely and then dry brush in flat earth again. Next dry brush some kaki and then Iraqi sand to high light the top.

I then cut some green furnace filter and shaped it to hedges cutting all right angles and play with it until you think it looks right. I would have liked to use some rubberized horse hair but I'm currently in the searching process for that now.  After you shape them you want to spray paint them flat brown and then a tan color along the tops to give them some contrast.

Flock around the edges and then attach your hedges.

I used Tac glue which seems to hold them tight into place. Let them dry for a wile and then tape the middle and the path ways and your ready to flock the hedges.

Take some water and PVA glue in a spray bottle and spray down the hedges and add flock and let dry over night. Take your tape off and you have your piece! Make sure you kinda play with the hedges to fluff them back up all the glue and flock can clump up and weigh them down. Remove all the clumped up flock by just flicking the hedges and gently pulling up on them and whiping all the excess. Now your ready to go! Here's the finish product ! 

If you have any questions feel free to email me .. Happy gaming !!