Sacramento Miniature Wargaming Society August meeting

 There were two games at the August SMWS meeting.   DBA and a modern armor game I ran using Lightning War - Red Storm.

LWRS is a free set of rules covering WW2 to present day and is available by joining   https://groups.io/g/LWRS

Each element in LWRS represents about 15 vehicles or 150 men.  About a company or a battalion of artillery.  Units are multi-company battalions.  Battalion units are grouped into brigade/regiment formations under a commander.   With several brigades forming a division under a higher level commander.   A player can handle a division.   

Units are rated for five levels of quality, and four to five levels of equipment technology.   Rated from a low of 1 to a high of 5.   Formation and division commanders are also rated from 1 to 5 and can have a different rating from the units they command.  With this rating system an early war PZIV would count as a class 4 heavy tank, but by the end of the war it might be only a class 2.

Instead of IGOYGO the game has an interactive activation sequence.   Players roll a die for each formation.  Priority is assigned from the highest score to the lowest.   Starting with the highest score each player can choose to move immediately or pass and wait until later in the turn with the ability to interrupt the sequence at any point.   If all the higher scores pass the lowest scoring formation is forced to move and the sequence is repeated until all formations have moved.   Combat is then resolved with air strikes, followed by artillery, then direct fire and finally close assaults.  Each phase is simultaneous and units can become disordered due to damage in any and all phases.   Morale checks are made for losses or situations and units can become fatigued and whole formations become exhausted ending their offensive capabilities.

For this game the opposing sides were two fictional Latin American countries.   The Peoples' Democratic Republic of La Cucaracha led by El Supremo Jefe Patronis and The Federal Union of Buena Vista ruled by President for Life, Elvis Narcisco.   The PDRC uses Russian equipment and the FUBV uses German equipment.

As a side note, on YouTube there are several videos of Chiles annual military parade.   Chile uses modern German equipment and has kept the Prussian military traditions.   Units in historical Prussian uniforms take part in the parade and Prussian military music is played by the bands.

The game matched the first divisions of both nations in a meeting engagement and lasted a full day of six turns.   Each turn is two hours long.   The FUBV was starting to gain an advantage by the end of the day.   The table was six feet by six feet or 18km by 18km at the game scale of 1cm - 100m.

Below are some photos of the game.  Most are from the north side of the table with the PDRC on the left and the FUBV on the right.   Mike O'Brien took the first two pictures.

South Bay Game Club August Meeting

 Once again I commanded a reconnaissance company from Rommel's Panzer division in 1940 playing Fireball Forward.  This time it was an armored car company with a motorcycle infantry platoon.   My objective was to either capture the bridge intact, dispute control of the bridge, or prevent the French from escaping across the river.

I was able to enter from any and all of the roads on my side of the river.   The river was only crossable at the bridge.   The French started in a village on the right end of the table on my side of the river.   Upon assessing the situation, I realized that capturing or disputing control of the bridge would be suicidal so I determined to keep the French from escaping.

On my first move I sent my motorcycle platoon down the center road with the objective of capturing the building closest to the road junction on the other side of the railroad track.  I had an extra initiative chit that I was going to use to accomplish this.   My first two squads came under fire from the Belgian anti-tank guns and had to dismount and fall back, the LMG and the third squad were not affected,   I then used my extra initiative chit and immediately moved the platoon again, getting everyone in the platoon into the building with the lmg and on squad on the second floor and the other two squads on the second floor.  

The French had two armored car platoons, a truck borne infantry platoon, and a motorcycle infantry platoon.  The truck infantry ran into the nearest building and the motorcycle infantry moved to the far side of that building.   I then brought my light armored cars in from the two roads on the right losing one from Belgian anti-tank fire.   The others caught the light armored cars from their rear and shot them up.   During the game both sides could score a chance to earn an extra one use initiative chit if they eliminated an armored car or infantry squad.   I was able to get two of them.   The allies did not score any.

I brought my heavy armored cars, mortar and platoon commander on the same road as the motorcycles had arrived on, keeping them out of line of fire from the Belgian AT guns.  Fighting for the town was intense.  I lost two of the light armored cars and a squad of infantry while eliminating the five French armored cars and one of the infantry platoons.   The mortar was very effective causing about 1/3 of the French casualties.  The French were trapped in the town and were not able to escape.

The Belgians had placed explosives on the bridge, but could not detonate it until at least one French unit made it across the bridge.

Other games at the club that day were the Second Punic War battle of Illipa and a a Napoleonics game.

View of the river with the bridge and a bunker on the left.

The town the French started in

The arrival of my motorcycle infantry.

South Bay Game Club July Meeting

 I participated in a WW2 game at the July SGBC meeting.   It was set in 1940 with a recon company from Rommel's Panzer division running into some opposition from Belgian troops.   The German objective was to capture the town on the other side of a stream.   Intervening terrain was very dense  with hills, woods, a stream, and a couple of buildings.  

The Belgians blocked the road with some anti-tank obstacles and I had to dismount the motorcyclists and advance on foot.   I had four infantry platoons and an LMG team.   Rules were Fireball Forward.

While I managed to make good progress during the early part of the game, I made a couple of mistakes as I got too involved in the fighting on the right flank.   I should have set the LMF up on the hill in the middle of the table so I could fire on the town and kept two of my four infantry platoons on the left half of the table instead of concentrating three of them on the right.

I managed to clear all the opposition on the right, but ran out of turns before I could assault the town.   The Belgians had two infantry platoons, two MG teams, and two mortar teams.  By the end of the game they only had one infantry platoon left and the two MG;s   I had lost a couple of infantry squads out of the twelve I started with.  The result was a marginal victory for the Belgians.

The view from my end of the table

There were several other games that day.  Pictures of them are below

Planes on sticks game