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 Gaming Club meeting March 14

There were four games at the club meeting today.   Form on the Admiral's wake (age of sale0 rung by Bob,  American War of Independence in 54mm run by nick,  WW2 air run by Chuck, and a fictional modern armor game run by me.

This was the battle of Salon de Companerismo had the Union Federal de Buena Vista first division fighting the first division of the Republica  Democratica Popular de la Cucaracha.   The UFBC first division had three combat brigades and one divisional artillery brigade.   The combat brigades had one brigade with two tank battalions, two puma battalions, an engineer battalion and one artillery battalion, one brigade with one tank battalion, three puma battalions, one engineer battalion, and an artillery battalion, and one brigade with three boxer battalions and an engineer battalion.   The divisional artillery brigade had three MRL battalions and one AA battalion.

The RDOC had a brigade with three tank battalions, one BMP battalion, and an raillery battalion.  The second brigade had two tank battalions, two BMP battalions and one artillery battalion. The third and fourth brigades had one tank battalion, one BMP battalion, two BTR80a battalions and one artillery battalion. The divisional artillery brigade had three artillery battalions, one MRL battalion, and one AA battalion.

The rules used were Lightning War - Red Storm, which are available for free from  LWRS group.io   We did use some house rules for the game as we kept the ground scale to one kilometer per 10cm (four inches) instead of the recommended doubling for the modern period and  changed the quality ratings by increasing them by 5 and using a roll of two dice instead of a single die roll for activating formations.  The table was 24km square.

View of the battlefield from the northwest

At the start of each turn two six side dice were rolled for each brigade and any modifiers are added.   For this scenario there were none.   Both sides were rated as good with a rating of 8 for all units except the RDPC artillery brigade. which was fair with a rating of 7  The die roll is used to determine the order of activation for each combat formation (brigades for this game). The score for each of the formations on both sides determines the order of movement for the turn.   The highest score can move first or choose to move later in the turn.  This gives the higher scores an advantage over lower scores as they can choose to move when it is to their best advantage.  The next higher score now has a choice of moving or deferring their move to later also.   The same applies to each formation in turn and can force the formation with the lowest score to move first.  This process is repeated until all formations have moved.

Indirect fire is then resolved followed by  direct fire.   It is possible for artillery fire to disorganize a formation which would then cause it to only fire with half its combat factors.   Artillery fire is not guaranteed as the unit calling the fire has to roll equal to or less than the artillery formations quality rating and calling divisional artillery has an additional negative modifier applied to its rating.  Artillery fire is very good at disorganizing units, but causing casualties on armored units is difficult due to the save modifiers.   Infantry in built up areas can also be very difficult to cause casualties on.

The UFBV used march and road movement to move quickly forward and gain a positional advantage over the RDPC.   At first casualties were very light.   The RDPC was advancing from the east and managed to occupy the town on the south center edge of the battle field.   The UFCV advanced towards that town and prepared to storm it with a pair of infantry battalions.  Artillery and direct fire had disorganized the DRPC defenders. If the UFBC could roll high enough for initiative on the next turn the two battalions would be able to move first and assault the defenders before they were able to recover from disorganization.  They were able to do so and their assault drove the defenders from the town.

View of the town on the turn prior to the assault on it.

Center of the battlefield on the same turn viewed from the southeast

Attacks by the RDPC to the south of that town were halted and driven back  In the center part of the table UFBV artillery and direct fire badly damaged another couple of RDPC battalions.

On the northern flank neither side was making much progress.   Artillery and direct fire from a Leopard 2 tank battalion damaged another BTR battalion.

Combat had taken a full rules day of six turns.  Both sides paused for the night and combat resumed in the early morning of the next day.  At this point UFBV artillery and direct fire took a toll on RDPC units. By the end of turn eight the two RDPC brigades on the southern half of the table had two exhausted battalions with possibly more by the end of the next turn.  It was judged a UFBV victory. We had played for about four hours with a short lunch break included.      

End of turn five.   RDPC tanks would occupy the hill in the left center and their infantry would occupy the town to the left of it.  UFBV infantry would advance up the road towards the town and the tank battalion on the road in the right center would advance through the town in the bottom center then deploy above it.

                                                                                                             
We have tried several different rule sets including Fistful of Tows, Spearhead, Cold War//Blitzkrieg Commander and others.   These played the fastest of all of them and were easy to comprehend and use.  The rules are available for free from https://groups.io/g/LWRS

More Leopard 2 Revolutions for the Federal Union of Buena Vista

Spent part of today painting the latest batch of Leopard 2 Revolutions.   Sprayed them with green primer, then added black, followed by red/brown.  These are available on shapeways at https://www.shapeways.com/product/F2QMAGMJ6/6mm-leopard-2-revolution-x3?optionId=65587045&li=ostatus

 all twelve

 Right side

 Top

Left side

CEase Fire Declared

A cease fire has been declared in the conflict between the Federal Union of Buena Vista and The Peoples\ Democratic Republic of La Cucaracha.  Both nations have been at war with each other for decades.   The current fighting began with an Invasion of Buena Vista at the Battle of Montana Libre

After La Cucaracha managed a narrow victory, Buena Vista counter-attacked at the Battle of Princepe de La Paz  where Buena Vista was able to accomplish a significant victory

Buena Vista followed up its victory by advancing further into PDRLC territory and was met by opposing forces at the Battle of Carmichael   Once again Buena Vista was victorious and continued its advance.  

The forces of both sides met again at the Battle of Santa Clara  Neither side was able to claim victory for this engagement.
   

The next engagement was the Battle of Marconi   The PDRLC was again defeated and Buena Vista continued to press the advantage it had gained.   

At the Battle of Ciudad Tiempo Pasado the PDRLC army put up a better defense and though it had lost the battle it was by the narrowest of margins., Enough damage had been caused to slow the Buena Vista advance.

The final battle was fought near the city of Saratoga.  Here La Cucaracha was able to defeat the Buena Vista forces and force them to fall back.   Unfortunately this records for this battle were lost during the Buena Vista retreat.   At this point both sides were exhausted and agreed to a cease fire with Buena Vista having made some territorial gains.

While both countries have naval forces these consist of surplus frigates and submarines and are separated by the Panama Canal.   The Republic of Dalmatia had sent a task force to aid Buena Vista, but was not able to engage the PDRLC navy before hostilities ceased.

Return to Cold War Commander/Blitzkrrieg Commander

Tor the past few months we have been playtesting Fistful of Tows 3 to see how it played.   We had been looking for a faster playing replacement for CWC/BKC.  While FFT3 has some good ideas and a lot of additional data the indirect and direct fire mechanisms do not provide faster play than CWC?BKC.  

The procedure for indirect fire in FF3 is to dice for the number of rounds available, determine if on target. roll for deviation if not, roll on snafu table if called for on deviation table, compare number of fire missions to gun caliber to determine attack number, roll on attack number table to determine effect for each target in burst area, targets roll for morale if called for..  

For CWC/BKC the procedure is to roll for command to get the fire or not, determine if on target or not, roll deviation if off target.  roll for damage to all targets in burst area, targets roll for morale if needed.

For direct fire FFT3 has the following procedure:  roll number of dice for rate of fire, may engage more than one target if desired,  make any terrain saving throws for hits,  compare penetration to target armor to determine number of penetration dice per hit (if penetration rating is 3 less than target armor there is no effect),  roll number of dice indicated, killing on any die with a 6 or making a morale check if no kill and any die is a 4 or 5.  At effective range a 4 or higher is needed, at longer range it is 5+ and at close range it is 3+

The procedure for CWC/BKC is to roll the number of dice indicated hitting on a 4 or better in the open, 5+ for light cover, 6+ for heavy cover.   The target rolls for saving throws for any hits based on their save number,  if enough hits are scored the target is knocked out otherwise it tests to see if it is suppressed or may have to take a morale test if it is already suppressed based on the number of hits it received.

As can be seen that while the processes for both the indirect and direct fire are similar and tend to obtain similar results, those for CWC/BKC are less complicated than those for FFT3.  The main difference is that vehicles with weapons that might not penetrate the armor of heavier vehicles might be able to cause a kill if enough of them score hits on a target in CWC/BKC.   The usual result is most likely to be suppression.

BKC is currently being updated at Pendraken Models and CWC will be updated later.   Since CWC was published there have been quite a few changes.   A lot more information is available and known about both Warsaw Pact and other armored vehicles.   Ammunition, armor, targeting and other systems have improved.   New vehicles have been put into service and older ones have been updated.   A while back I compared the armor values for tanks in CWC to more recent data that was used for the modern version of Command Decision on my post at Cold War Commander Hits and Saves  The same source was also used to determine the armor ratings in FFT3 and the numbers are comparable.

I have begun a more thorough process of updating vehicle hit/save numbers for CWC.   Due to the limitation of the hit save matrix used for CWC some values have to be adjusted to the closest value in the hit/save table.   Wherever possible at least three hits will be the minimum for armored vehicles and five hits will be the maximum.   The latest tanks with a high enough armor rating like the Challenger2, Leopard 2A5/6, and M1A2 will be 6 hits and a save of 3  instead of 3 hits with a save of 2.  I do not expect any future vehicles to obtain a high enough armor rating at this time to warrant a better hit/save value.  Though if they did it would be 4 hits with a save of 2.

The Russian tanks tend to have the most variants and changes.   In the previous post I noted that Command Decision had twelve different variants of the T72.  FFT3 has eleven primary variants designated by letter and number suffixes and multiple versions of those variants depending on type of missiles carried and date of service (improvements in anti-tank round penetration and/or armor).  Other Russian tanks also have multiple variants and versions of those variants.

Battle of Ciudad Tiempo Pasado

The war between the Federal Union of Buena Vista and the Peoples Democratic Republic of  La Cucaracha continues.   This time the Buena Vista Presidential Guard Brigade and third Mountain Brigade were attacking two motorized brigades of the La Cucaracha army.   The Presidential Guard Brigade had two tank battalions and two mechanized infantry battalions in Puma IFVs.  The mountain brigade had three battalions in Boxer APCs.   The Cucaracha brigades had a tank battalion a BMP battalion and two BTR battalions.   Both sides had a divisional artillery brigade in support along with the brigade artillery battalions.  Rules used were Fistful of Tows 3.   The Buena vista brigades were rated as good and the La Cucaracha brigades were average.  Commanders on the La Cucaracha side were Jeff (Jefe) the overall commander, David on the left flank, and Brent on the right flank.    Greg was the overall Buena Vista commander and had the Presidential Guard brigade and Jesse commanded the mountain brigade.   Rick joined later and helped with the mountain brigade.  Objectives were for the Buena Vista army to punch a hole in the La Cucaracha defenses in order to get to the east edge of the table, while La Cucaracha had to prevent this.

Terrain is two foot rubber matts painted light tan with blue grey streams and model railroad ground foam.   Trees from ebay dealer on 50mm Litko hexes, foam core board hills, buildings by Paperterrain.   Vehicles are mostly GHQ with Heroics and Ros infantry.

 View of the battlefield from the south.   La Cucaracha forces are defending and have deployed in depth.   One motorized battalion is defending the city of Tiempo Padado  in the center of the battlefield another is deployed on the ridge and woods south of it and another is occupying the woods north of it.   Part of another infantry battalion is in the woods and hill further south with a bmp battalion near the woods east of the center ridge.   A tank battalion is just out of picture on the south edge.   The other BMP battalion is off of the north edge of the picture and the last tank battalion is in reserve near the top right of the picture. The Buena Vista mountain brigade advanced on a wide front with its three battalion in line.  One advanced towards the city and the other two were further north.  The Presidential Guard brigade swapped a tank company from each battalion with an infantry company from each of the Puma battalions. attacked in depth on the south side of the field.  The Buena Vista brigades both had three recon platoons, but only one was used on the first turn of the game on the south flank.  It was destroyed almost immediately when it advanced up the road on the south edge.   Recon units get an additional five hundred meters of spotting distance.   Due to cover provided by the towns, woods, and hills most units were not visible unless they were firing or moving and even then vehicles are only spotted at 2000 meters or less if they are in cover.

 Full view showing the tank battalion on the south end. and the north edge.

 View from behind the south flank of the Buena Vista army 

 View from behind the north flank of the Buena vista army.   The mountain brigade advanced cautiously initially.   About the fifth turn the left battalion made a dash for the town near the north center of the field taking heavy casualties.   

 The southern end of the battlefield.   Buena Vista Leopard 3A6 tanks have decimated the La Cucaracha T90 battalion

 The remaining T90s have been eliminated exposing the left flank of the La Cucaracha defenses.  The Buena Vista divisional artillery brigade and helped damage the defenders with its MRL barrages.   La Cucaracha artillery support had been intermittent throughout the battle due to poor communications (artillery request die rolls)

One of the Buena Vista mountain brigade battalions begins to assault the city.   Though taking some casualties from defensive fire, by standing off in the woods and concentrating fire from its infantry and APCs it was able to cause twice as many casualties as it took.

At this point we called the game.  We had started about 11:30 and ended at 4:30 with a 45 minute lunch break.   It was the seventh turn of ten.   We averaged about 30 minutes for each 12 minute game turn.  The game was declared a winning draw for the Buena Vista army.   While one of the mountain brigades battalions was in trouble the La Cucaracha left flank was in danger of being turned.   As long as the Buena Vista army could continue to engage the La Cucaracha infantry frontally and avoid being flanked they were likely to achieve their objective.   They had a four to three advantage in battalions, better quality (good vs average), and their armored vehicles were almost invulnerable to the infantry\s anti-tank missiles from the front.  The right flank motorized brigade would not be able to shift any support in time to the south and by doing so may have left an opening for the Buena Vista mountain brigade to create an opening in the La Cucaracha line.

New additions.

Since my last post I have not been able to do anything with wargaming except some internet browsing.   Things are back to normal now and yesterday I received some GHQ items I ordered.   Fortunately they arrived a day earlier than scheduled and I spent last evening gluing turrets onto the hulls.   Today I primed them with green spray primer and added the other two NATO camo colors.   I am also working on the Lace Wars figures that I have.  Getting them painted and based and determining what additional figures may be needed.   So far the only infantry that I am going to need are a couple of packs of grenadiers.    I may have enough cavalry.  The only uncertainty is the number of Hussars that I may need.

There are 10 Leopard 2 Revolutions, 10 Pumas, and 30 Boxers.  I was able to find painting diagrams for the Boxer and Puma by searching the internet and some help from people on The Miniatures Page.

T

New additions

I received my order of GHQ vehicles on Monday and got them primed that evening.    After spending some time, between taking care of other things, yesterday and today I finished painting them this morning.

 Buena Vista additions - recon, artillery command vehicles and Puma IFVs.

 La Cucaracha additions - recon, anti-tank, self propelled mortars, and MRLs.

 Artillery command and a Puma

 Fennek recon vehicles

 2S9 self propelled mortars.

More Pumas

Modern Russian Green

Often people obsess over the proper color to paint their vehicles.   Sunlight and weather will affect paint colors.   When painting smaller scales it is best to use lighter shades of the desired color due to the smaller figures not reflecting as much light as larger ones.   I came across this photo of Russian BTRs showing the wide range of colors that could be used when painting modern Russian green.

NATO Three Color Camouflage

In the mid 1980's the United States and Germany agreed to adopt a new camouflage pattern using a combination of green, grey-black, and red-brown.   They also devised specific patterns to be used on each type of vehicle.    There is a US army field manual  tb43-209   with almost all the patterns for each vehicle in it.   The Team Yankee website also has PDFs of some of the German paint diagrams  A website with paint diagrams for German, US, French and other nations is Panzerbaer  Be advised though that the diagrams for the French vehicles have green and black reversed.   Where it shows green it should be black and green where it is black.

Vehicles primed with green spray primer from Amazon (local OSH store used to carry it, but not anymore), then black, and finally red-brown spots using a 10/0 brush.   Black and Red-Brown paint from Stone Mountain Miniatures this time and on the Terminator and Cimmerian in a previous POST  I have used GHQ paints on some previous  batches and for some scifi vehicles

 TPZ vehicles for Union Federal de Buena Vista

Leopard 2A6M for Union Federal de Buena Vista

For those who are doing the earlier US army MERDC scheme this manual will be helpful

Tank Drifting

Drifting cars has become a completion sport.   Drifting tanks in the snow and ice is part of training in Norway and the US has taken part in that training.   Some tank crews have also done it for fun and to demonstrate the abilities of their tanks.   The following link is to YouTube videos documenting these and also some failures.   The one with the Chinese driver is quite impressive.  drifting tanks

The battle of marconi

The war between La Union Federal de Buena Vista and La Republica Democratica de los Pueblos de La Cucaracha continues.   A recent engagement occurred at the border town of Carmichael between two brigades of UFBV and two brigades of RDPLC.  Reports from the battlefield are contradictory with both sides claiming victory. 

Forces involved were the 2nd and 9th brigades of the UFBV and the 6th, 9th, and 10th brigades of the RDPLC.  UFBV uses German equipment while RDPLC uses Russian.  The UFBV brigades had only one company each from the engineer and recon regiments.   For organization information and links to both sides forces see  Buena Vista army

This was a meeting engagement between the two modern imaginations and came to a halt when two participants had to leave about four in the afternoon.  It looked like the UFBV was gaining the upper hand, but the RDPLC still controlled more of the towns when we halted.

This was a learning game for us.  We had decided to try Fist Full of Tows 3 to see how it compared to other rule sets we have tried.   The rule book is rather large and somewhat expensive, but it covers everything from post WWI to almost the present day.   With a discount coupon from LULU it costs the same as purchasing both Blitzkrieg Commander and Cold War Commander and a lot less than flames of war..  Much of the book is devoted to equipment data, instructions for how to determine statistics and point values and some organization examples along with ratings for World War II nations and most of the modern day nations.  The rules are well laid out with a basic outline of each rule at the beginning of a section and a more detailed explanation with examples following.   The mechanics of the rules are easily understood and after a turn or two do not require checking the rule book for clarification.   We did not include aircraft for the first game and will be adding additional items as we play further games.

 Start of game. Brian moves his brigade onto the table

 UFBV commanders Hal and Mike move  their brigade on while Chris watches.

 Gary moving his brigade onto the table

  Brian's mechanized battalion takes up a position on the ridge after his advance is halted by UFBV forces.

 DRPLC forces defend positions as UFBV advances.  Chris was able to cause more losses than he received.

 both sides were able to get troops into the town at the center 

DRPLC tank battalion in center of picture is destroyed by UFBV tanks on hill in the background.

Restructuring of the Federal Union of Buena Vista Army

A while back I had posted the organization of two fictional modern era countries:  The Federal Union of Buena Vista  and The People's Democratic Republic of La Cucaracha   The new organization of the Federal Union of Buena Vista's army will consist of ten brigades.  These will be as follows:

1st Presidential Guard Brigade: 8th Lifeguard Tank Regiment, 14th tank regiment (Dragoon Guards), 11th,12th mechanized regiments, 18th reconnaissance regiment (Hussars), 4th engineer regiment, 34th artillery regiment, 40th logistics regiment,

2nd Mechanized Brigade: 20th Tank regiment (Dragoons), 24th mechanized regiment , 1st motorized regiment (Rifles), 7th reconnaissance regiment (Light Dragoons), 48th engineer regiment, 25th artillery regiment, 47th logistics regiment

3rd Light Infantry Brigade:  21st, 22nd, 23rd motorized infantry regiments, 16th reconnaissance regiment, 3rd engineer regiment, 45th artillery regiment, 28th logistics regiment

4th Mechanized Brigade: 44th, 46th mechanized regiments, 43rd motorized regiment, 6th reconnaissance regiment (Light Dragoons), 38th engineer regiment, 32nd artillery regiment, 42nd logistics regiment

5th Artillery Brigade:  52nd, 53rd MLRS regiments, 56th air defense regiment, 41st logistic regiment

6th Airmobile Brigade : 36th attack helicopter regiment, 26th, 31st airmobile regiments, 10th, 30th transport helicopter regiments, 15th reconnaissance regiment (Hussars), 27th engineer regiment, 60th ground support regiment.

7th Mechanized Brigade:  5th tank regiment (Cuirassiers), 2nd, 37th mechanized regiments, 13th reconnaissance regiment (Hussars), 17th engineer regiment, 35th artillery regiment, 58th logistic regiment

8th Artillery Brigade:   51st, 54th MLRS regiments, 57th air defense regiment,70th logistic regiment

9th Training Brigade: 39th tank regiment (Carabiniers) (training), 33rd mechanized regiment, 29th mechanized regiment (training), 19 motorized regiment (training), 9th reconnaissance regiment (Uhlans) (training), 49th engineer regiment (training), 59th artillery regiment (training), 69th logistics regiment (training).

10th Territorial Reserves Brigade:  63rd reconnaissance regiment (cadre only), 61st, 62nd motorized regiments, 64th motorized regiment (cadre only), 50th artillery regiment, 55th engineer regiment (cadre only), 65th logistics regiment

All regiments are single battalions with three combat companies except for airmobile regiments, artillery regiments, and MLRS regiments.  Air mobile regiments have three combat companies, a weapons company, two commando companies, a medical company, a training company, a reserve company, and a logistics company.  MLRS regiments have two batteries.  Artillery has four batteries of four guns.  Tank regiments have Leopard 2A6.  Mechanized Regiments have Puma IFV.  Motorized Regiments have Boxer IFV except for the 3rd Light Infantry Brigade, which has Boxer APC's in the 22nd and 23 regiments..  Brigade Artillery Regiments have PZH2000.  Attack Helicopter Regiment has Tigre. Transport Helicopter Regiment has NH90.  Air defense regiments have two Gepard companies and two Roland companies.  There has been some discussion regarding separating the infantry formations from the helicopters of the airmobile brigade, creating two separate brigades, and placing them with the 10th territorial brigade under a third division command.

The army has two division headquarters that serve as administrative commands.   The first division has the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th brigades.  The second division has the 2nd, 4th, 8th, and 9th brigades.

Projects for 2018

Time to set some goals for the coming year.  In no particular order I hope to accomplish the following items for the coming year:

Finish painting and basing 18th century armies (Duchy of Clove-Hamhock and Principality of Turanschlag).  I will need to purchase some additional Hussars and maybe some grenadiers and heavy cavalry from Heroics and Ros.   Got some new figures from a friend.

Expand Franco-Prussian War armies.  Need quite a few additional figures from Heroics and Ros.  Fortunately they are easy to paint.

Finish painting and basing additions to American Civil War armies.   Also print flags for them.  Almost finished painting them.  One of six unfinished items from last year.

Finish painting and basing the Carthaginian figures I was given.

Finish painting and basing the barbarian infantry additions.

Finish painting and basing the early Byzantine cavalry,

Finish painting and basing the Sassanian cavalry.

Finish painting space ships.  About a dozen to paint.

Flock bases for Napoleonic armies along with any repairs that need to be done.  Most boring project.

Place a special order with GHQ for a couple of replacement tank gun barrels, a 5cm AT gun and crew, and a 7.5cm AT gun and crew for WW2 Germans.  WW2 done except for those items.

Add helicopters to the two fictitious modern countries (The Peoples Democratic Republic of La Cucaracha and the Federal Union of Buena Vista). Already ordered and on their way.

Choose a set of ancient naval rules for large fleet actions along with printing and basing ancient fleets.   Might be the most time consuming project when cutting and gluing them.

Blitzkriegcommander III

I received the newest version of the Blitzkrieg Commander series a couple days ago.   After Pendraken purchased the commander series I have been waiting for this to be completed so that they could then proceed to update Cold War Commander and Future War Commander to the format used for BKC II.

Shortly before receiving BKCIII I started noticing posts on The Miniatures Page, the Commander Series forums and the Pendraken forums about problems with the army lists and rules.  The arrival of the rules confirmed these problems.

The army lists are vital as they provide the vehicle stats for playing.  Some army lists are missing a number of vehicles that were included in the second edition.  While in some cases there are years of service listed for vehicles they do not include the month they entered service.  Armor values for PZIV drop off in army lists for later years.  There are other items that have been noted.

The rules for recon units are contradictory and prevent them from being used in some cases.   Forward Artillery Observers and Forward Air Controllers are now just listed as a Forward Observer.  FAC's were not equipped or trained to direct artillery nor were FAO's trained or equipped to direct air attacks.   By combing them as one item, all those army lists that did not have FAC's now do, even if they do not have the planes to direct.  The scenarios do not have force ratios,  the tactical doctrine rules that gave a bonus to CV for rigid doctrine units in the same formation are gone, field defenses are free?!?!?!, etc.

In BKC second edition Rigid Tactical Doctrine required formations be created at the start of the game and maintained throughout it.   If the same order was given to all units in the formation then they received a bonus to their command role encouraging group action.   Now any group of units in the same formation can be grouped together each turn and given an order with no bonus. 

While there were some changes that might be good, there are a lot of unnecessary changes that have been made.  The updating of the rules was entrusted by Leon of Pendraken to someone he felt was an experienced rules author.  Instead of doing that the author made wholesale changes that were not needed.  While there have been a number of rules questions raised on the Pendraken forums the author has not responded to any of them as of this time.  Others on the forum have noticed that he has logged in, but has not responded.

There have been posts by experienced BKC players who have tried to play the new rules, given up after a turn or two, and reverted to using BKC II to finish the games.

I feel sorry for Leon that this has happened.   While still listed on his site and at Wargames Vault the third edition is no longer available for purchase.  Leon has also established a pole on the Forum requesting input on a way forward.  I also regret that I did not have the time to volunteer and participate as a play tester.   If I had I would have raised strenuous objections to what was happening.
There is a post on the Pendraken forum from one who participated from the beginning of BKC I through BKC II who also regrets not being able to participate in the update of the rules.

A bit of an update.  I visited the Pendraken forums and noted that Leon has posted that they plan to do a reprint within the next two to three months.  I hope that they are able to do a proper fix and not rush it.  Leon's post

OPFOR The Battle of Carmichael

I ran a game of OPFOR at the Sacramento Miniature Wargaming Society meeting on Sunday.  OPFOR is the modern addendum to PanzerKorps.  The forces involved were the 1st Brigade of the La Cucaracha army and the German Brigade of the Buena Vista army.  This was a playtest of the scenario that I would be running at Pacificon on the first weekend of September.

The La Cucaracha 1st brigade had two T-90 battalions, one BMP battalion, three BTR battalions, and one SP 122mm artillery battalion.   The Buena Vistans had two Leopard 2A6 battalions, one Puma IFV battalion, and one SP 155mm artillery battalion.  The Buena Vistans cross attached one infantry company with one tank company from each of the Leopard battalions leaving the Leopard battalions with three tank companies and one infantry company.   The Puma battalion ended up with two infantry companies and two tank companies.  Both sides used a Red decision die and had career commanders.   La Cucaracha troops were reservists, while the Buena Vistans were regulars.

Both sides had some attachments that they parceled out between the battalions.   The La Cucarachans had an AA battery, a recon company, an engineer company, an ATGM company, and a 120mm mortar battery.   The Buena Vistans had a recon company, an engineer company, an ATGM company, and a 120 mortar battery.



Ground Scale was 1cm = 100 meters.  The six foot by six foot table gave a battlefield of 18km by 18km.   Except for the movement distances everything else was at the 1cm = 100 meters scale.   Movement rates were kept as per the rules.  The scenario was a meeting engagement with both sides entering from their table edge.  Aaron and Gary commanded the La Cucaracha army and Chris commanded the Buena Vista army.  



Aaron on the left, Gary on the right

Chris



Chris chose to enter all three of his brigades in deployed formations on the left half of his table edge, while Gary and Aaron split the six La Cucaracha battalions between them for each half of their table edge.   Gary entered his battalions in a deployed state while Aaron came on in road column.  The battle started at 6AM with the first day segment having three turns.   The next three day segments had one turn and the last one had two.



Chris advanced and engaged Aaron's battalions, while Gary moved his battalions forward as quickly as he could to engage Chris from the flank.   Chris had initially advanced with the Puma battalion in the center of his formation.   After he started engaging Aaron's command he shifted the Leopard battalion on the right all the way over to his left.  Aaron had pulled his two BTR battalions back into a couple of woods where he dismounted the infantry.  His tank battalion was in the center of his command.



Chris's artillery was fairly accurate and hit one of the BTR battalions and the tank battalion.   The La Cucaracha artillery targeted the Leopard battalion that had started on Chris's left flank.   Aaron later attempted to retarget the artillery on the Puma battalion, but it went long and fell on the far side of the town.   We used a scatter die from Games workshop to determine deviation direction.   This is a die with arrows on all faces (there is a hit marker on one of the faces with a small arrow).  The next attempt to hit the Puma battalion fell short.



Gary's battalions finally arrived on the right flank of Chris's Puma Battalion, but they had arrived too late as Aaron's BTR battalions panicked taking the tank battalion with them.  At this point Gary and Aaron conceded the game to Chris.   Both Aaron and Gary tended to have poor die rolls throughout the game, while Chris tended to have better than average die rolls.



After assessing the game the La Cucarach forces will upgrade with brigades that have BTR's.   The BTR's were armed with a heavy machine gun and had to dismount the infantry in order to be able to engage their opponents with any hope of damaging them.  I will be replacing them with the improved version that has the 30mm Auto-cannon and also mounts an ATGM from GHQ, but they will not arrive before the convention.  The game started at 11 and finished by 1:30