Ponty Pandy in happier times
The Welsh Wizard and I have been chatting about a Welsh based Very British Civil War game for a while. We'd messed about with a couple of ideas, but settled on doing something set around Wales because I'd been on holiday there recently and he's from there.
The main spur the project was the discovery that I had a platoons worth of Spanish nationalists in bare lead. I had no desire to wargame the Spanish Civil War and passed them onto the Welsh Wizard. He suggested that he could paint them up as Spanish Nationalists, but that he could use them as a Welsh Communist militia for a Very British Civil War game.
If you're not familiar with A Very British Civil War - The conceit is that Edward VIII does not abdicate and manages to get his chum Oswald Mosley into government. This radicalises the populace and before you know it, fascist jackboots are kicking in doors and there are militias sprouting up all over the country. The Reds are turning on the government, Liverpool has declared independence, the Scots are looking distinctly shifty and Mosley is attempting to restore order by shooting anyone who disagrees with him.
We decided that our games would pit WW's Welsh separatists against my British Union of Fascists.
Xenos Rampant - proving to be quite a solid ruleset
The other advantage of trying AVBCW would be that we could give Xenos Rampant a go. I've had tremendous fun with Dan Mersey's games, mostly The Men who would be Kings, but also Lion Rampant and Rebels & Patriots.
Xenos Rampant is a generic ruleset, but one that can be easily adapted for different science fiction settings. But something that stuck out to me was that there was a Weird War Two setting with some army lists. These were quickly used as the basis of our Very British Civil War forces.
Aneurin Bevan with the Newport Worker Militia
Newport Workers Militia are the WW's force made up a three sections of well armed militia each with additional light machine gun. An additional command section by firebrand union organiser Aneurin Bevan and a chap with a large flag (WW loves a flag) gives them a moral boost. We were discussing how to reflect the poor training and ill discipline of the militia and eventually settled on using the Mercenary special rule from the rulebook. This makes each unit slightly cheaper, but also means that they can be a bit unreliable.
The Newport Workers Militia are supported by a small unit of Anarchist cavalry and an imported Dutch Pantser light tank. WW played a lot of early war Rapid Fire games when we were teenagers and he still had his Dutch, so they lent the NWW some armour.
The dastardly JFC Fuller
I was contemplating what to include in my British Union of Fascists force. In the end I assembled what I had and released that I just about had a 24 point force.
I went with two units of BUF militia, these were aggressive, but poorly trained and likely charge in regardless of casualties. These I leavened with a section of Regular Infantry and Forward Observer for some three inch mortars. The force was rounded out by the additional of two
Vickers Six Ton Tanks. These were the A variant which had twin machine gun turrets.
These seemed like the perfect weapons for the leader of the BUF column. JFC Fuller was Great War era army officer and exponent of tank warfare. He was also involved with Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists and Alistair Crowley. A fascist who dabbles in Satanism, the perfect baddie for a 1930s game, like something out of a Dennis Wheatley novel.
Force Leader Fuller could look forward to putting his ideas on armoured warfare to the test.
We selected our forces and then diced for a scenario. I'd set up the board as the main street of the tiny welsh town of Pontypandy, famous for Fireman Sam. After talking it over, we reckoned the BUF assault column was advancing into Wales, with Bevin's Boys trying to stem the tide. The Workers & Anarchists being somewhat lax on organisation arrived late to the scene and therefore the battle was a meeting engagement rather than a defensive battle. This retrospectively made sense of the scenario that we'd rolled up - which was a straight up fight.
The Workers Militia seize the Pontypandy Police station presumably after subduing the previous incumbents.
WW deploys his armour on the road, while keeping his cavalry as a mobile reserve.
BUF Vickers tanks nudging around the corner
"FORWARD" screams JFC Fuller
The roads here are from an old Games Workshop game called Dark Future. I really must run up something more suitable, but they did for this game. With the wealth of free and cheap model railway material available, it shouldn't prove too tricky.
It was at this point that I remembered that I had forgotten to put out the special War Memorial figure that I had unpacked specially. This was quickly put right.
As Militia men conduct a tactical recce of the pub, the Dutch Pantser (I think I'm identifying this correctly) trundles past. We rated this as a Fighting Vehicle with Light Armour and an Anti-Personnel Specialty.
One of the little joys of setting up a board like this is adding flourishes like this Celtic Cross at the junction of the lane and road. I'm hoping to pick up some red phone boxes and post boxes which would really create a sense of place.
My Vickers Tanks were rated as Fighting Vehicles with Light Armour and Green Crews. This reduced their firepower somewhat and made them less reliable.
The Anarchists cavalry start to move off on left, hoping to outflank the BUF with their superior mobility. Meanwhile the Pantser trades MG fire with the Vickers. The interesting about this was the while the tanks were quite dangerous to infantry, they had a fairly limited ability to damage each other.
Welsh militia take to the roof of the local police station.
The militia are actually relatively well supplied with modern rifles and a mix of LMGs - mostly Lewis guns and imported Fiats.
Sheltering in the loo
After a sharp exchange of fire between the Pantzer and the two Vickers tanks which left the Pantser slightly damaged, the militia crew retreated behind the safety of the gentlemen's convenience behind the pub.
"He's got us out numbered four turrets to one, that's deadly on a 1930s battlefield" declared WW.
Force Commander Fuller was jubilant and ordered his driver forward. "We have them!" he cried.
Meanwhile the BUF militia probed the workers cottages on the outskirts of town, trying to find the edge of the Welsh position.
Both units advanced, skirmishing through the kitchen gardens. I had classified these as Berserk infantry - infantry whose excelled in close combat, but were difficult to control. This became important later.
Something I hadn't quite grasped (we are still finding our way with these rules) was that Berserk infantry are not only quite good in close assault, but also have to roll for Wild Charges. Essentially if a unit can charge, they must pass a morale roll not to charge. This meant that the ill trained, but zealous BUF men ended up charging a Welsh unit that had just taken up positions in one of the Workers cottages. The result was a brutal close quarters battle, but the Welsh, despite casualties were able to hold their own and sent the Blackshirts fleeing from the field.
With a view to keeping on the pressure, I sent my Regular Infantry section who were my best troops forward to support the BUF by fire. My plan was to suppress the defenders and then send in the Blackshirts. In the end, I messed up the timing, not realising that Wild Charges were rolled for first, and the BUF men charged in regardless, got shot up and then retired.
Meanwhile Force Commander Fuller learned an object lesson in pushing unsupported armour into an urban area. As Vickers trundled forward to engage the Pantser more closely, a fusillade of well aimed rifle and Lewis gun fire rang out shredding the lightly armoured engine deck.
This was the result of an hugely unlikely series of 6s from WW's lads on the roof. I was actually strangely pleased by the whole thing as it felt right within the fiction of the game.
It also helped that the lads in the Police Station were immediately stonked to bejesus by my off board my mortar teams directed by the Forward Observer.
"There's something wrong with our bloody tanks today" opined Force Commander JFC Fuller
"You're not singing, you're not singing...you're not singing ANYMORE" came the chorus of a male voice from the pub led by Aneurin Bevin.
Force Commander Fuller decided to flank the police station, considering discretion the better part of valour, and sent his armoured steed crashing through the kitchen gardens at the rear of the Workers cottages.
Meanwhile on the left of the picture you can see the Welsh envelopment starting to develop. The militia infantry have seized the pub and the filling station, while the Anarchist cavalry move down to dislocate the entire BUF position.
The third Welsh section which was flanking the BUF advance by seizing the Filling Station, brought the Regular Infantry under fire. This caused a casualty, but provoked a storm of well aimed fire from the regulars. The Fire-fight rule which allows unsuppressed units which have been fired upon to immediately return fire is interesting and it means you have to be careful about how you structure your attacks. I don't think we've quite worked out how to do this yet, as we're still learning the rules, but in a way that's quite appropriate as our forces were pretty much doing the same thing.
This hail of fire of fire decimated the ill trained Welshmen and sent them scurrying to the rear trying to keep their heads down. They hadn't routed, but they wouldn't be a threat for a little while. In the mean time, assisted by suppressing fire from Force Leader Fuller's tank, the BUF stormed the last remaining Workers cottage held by the militia. They took heavy casualties doing so, but they wiped out their opposition.
A stonk from the mortars caused casualties amongst the lads in the Police station and Comrade Bevin pulled his men back to straighten his line.
At this point, it was getting late in the day. We were dicing each turn to see if the game would end and the Anarchist cavalry were prepared to launch a full throated charge, jumping the hedges to wipe out the Forward Observers who had been punishing the Welsh line all game.
The Anarchist cavalry - more Aled Jones than Isaac Babel
This unit was made up of some German or possibly Russian Second World War cavalry figures from Irregular Miniatures. Irregulars cavalry have a habit of being rather small and these didn't fit with the plastics and Britannia figures that I already had, so I passed them on to WW. He immediately drafted them in the Welsh forces.
This was a tight moment in the game. Realising that this was likely going to be the last turn, we totted up the victory points and I realised that despite suppressing and causing casualties on a lot of WWs, I had only wiped out one. Given the fairly basic scenario, victory points were only going for units that had been routed. WW had done a cracking job knocking out one of my tanks, while he'd also knocked out one of my BUF units, though to be fair that had helped that process along by their own recklessness. This put him 2-1 ahead and poised to make it 3-1, if he managed to pull of the charge.
BOOM
Now Dan Mersey's games have a mechanic, which some people love and others hate, which requires the player to make a command activation roll for units to make to take certain actions. If they fail, the turn passes to the other player.
With the cavalry very close, I had no option but to risk a rather chancy plan. I couldn't get any other my other units into position to tackle the cavalry in time, mainly because I had miscalculated how fast they were. The Forward Observers got on the wireless and told the Mortar Platoon to drop a stonk directly on the cavalry. This was a high risk strategy because if I failed to get an 8+ on 2d6 to call in the barrage, my turn would be over and I'd be wide open. Also if I fluffed the roll there was every chance that the barrage would hit the next nearest unit, which was the Forward Observers themselves.
I managed to roll....exactly 8 and then followed up that up with a rain of sixes, which broke the cavalry completely. Bombs crashed in to the cavalry and the air was rent with shrapnel and the screams of dying men and horses. The survivors broke and galloped for the rear.
Yells of "Stitch that you leek eatin' mine monkey!" echoed through the hedgerows.
This earned me the one victory point needed to manage a draw. With the cavalry retreating and the rest of his infantry either suppressed or going firm, there wasn't much WW could do to claw things back and the game ended.
Refugees fleeing Pontypandy
Reflecting on our first proper game of Xenos Rampant - I enjoyed it. The gameplay is simple, but thoughtful, and the order mechanic forces you to think carefully about what you're going to do. Choosing poorly can cost you your turn. The plus one for leaders to your activation number means that you need to think carefully about where you're going to place your leader to get the most from that bonus. The fire combat varied from the attritional, inflicting suppression, to the occasionally deadly and that felt right. The vehicles weren't overpowering.
I think if I was going to be playing a lot of Second World War games I would probably learn Chain of Command or dig out my old copy of Crossfire. But Xenos Rampant gave an engaging game that played in ninety minutes. It also allowed us to use a lot of different troop types, which felt different on the battlefield, from unpredictable militia to hardened professionals, rickety interwar armour and flamboyant cavalry. Might have to fine tune some of the troops classifications a bit, but ultimately it played well and felt right.
And so as night falls and the din of battle fades in Pontypandy and both sides withdraw after what was a bloody, but inclusive engagement, a few shell shocked refugees flee the bullet pocked town. Clutching their few possessions they made for the nearest place of safety - but where would the cruel hand of war strike next in this once peaceful valley?
