Wargaming at the Teachers Club II

For our second outing at the Teachers Club we got two games in.  

This is the first game - one of the two Overlord scenarios included in the Sword of Stalingrad expansion.  This is "Rats in the Factory", which is based on the struggle for the Dzerzkinsky Tank factory during the early phases of the battle. It's a tough scenario, the German player has air surperioity and advantages in terms of troops and command and control, the Soviet player has the edge in terms of terrain and begins the game holding several valuable objectives. 

Note the Balkas in the foreground. 

These are deep ravines and are a major headache of the German player as they slow movement down to a crawl. I intend to play this particular scenario on my five inch mats some day and I am damned if I have any idea how I will model them. I was thinking of building drifts out of kitty litter, but I usually use litter to mark roads, so it would run the risk of turning the entire map into a sea of kitty litter. 

That said with my new sandbags and barbed wire, this is looking like more of a possibility. 

ccattlecry.net

There was a demand by popular acclamation for another American Civil War game, so I went scratching around for a scenario.  Now as it happened, I wasn't aware the boys behind ccnapoleonic.net had a website for Battlecry, but I was very happy to find out that they did.  This has the rules and all the scenarios up on it.  There are also fan made scenarios, including some for the Indian Wars and the Zulu War of 1879. 

Union troops move swiftly into the centre

Given that it was our second American Civil game - Gettyburg seemed like an obvious choice.  It was an interesting game, made all the more so by some trash talking from the internet. 

Old John, dyed in the wool rebel that he is, wasn't able to make this games day, but sent a message to the boys to let them know that he was with them in spirit. It concluded with. 

have some great games and kick General Creanor's Yankee ass for me :-))

I read this out just after General Creanor had been defeated at Stalingrad, because well - Wargamers are a cruel breed. Consequently General Creanor, playing Meade, was determined not to be defeated at Gettysburg. 

TK and General Creanor discuss tactics, while Boomer remains stoic. 

The game was played with 6mm figures on two standard boards.  I substituted cork tiles for hills and model buildings for built up areas.  Unfortunately, despite scouring the dungeon for them I have so far completely failed to find my 6mm trees - though they must be in there somewhere. 

Anyway, this led to an interesting battle as Boomer & General K fought a long range sniping engagement around the Peach Orchard. Neither was convinced that he had sufficient strength to cross the open ground and deal a decisive blow the other. 

However, the game took a drastically different turn when General Creanor led a sudden movement in the Federal centre against an uncharacteristically defensive General D.  This allowed him to dictate the pace of the engagement while TK and Fatz slugged it out on the Rebel left.  General D managed to put together a defensive line after being pushed off the hills, but it wasn't enough to salvage the situation. 

The victorious Federals 

A specially posed shot for Old John.