Adventures on the Wargames Table

The coronavirus crisis isn't stopping us from enjoying some gaming fun here at The Wargames Table! To enable us (me and chum Paul, who lives 160 miles away) to play Chain of Command I first set up a table in my lounge.  Then I moved a bookcase so that my laptop (using Zoom) could get a good view of the table.  To give a more detailed, roving view we also used Facebook Messenger video chat on our iPads. Anyway, enough of the tech stuff ... here's the table. As I was introducing Paul to the game, plus the fact that he was playing remotely, I got him to play the German defender holding the chateau in the "Attack on an Objective" scenario.  I would be using a regular British platoon.  Rolling for supports, Paul got an static MG42 and an Adjutant, I got an additional section, another 2" mortar and a Sherman. On a practical note, we agreed that a certain amount of extra leeway in terms of lines of sight, distances, etc would be needed.  Also allowing your '...

Wargaming plans are just like real military plans in that they usually don't survive contact with the enemy, or in this case, real life!  Anyway, despite setbacks we muddled on as best we could.  But rather than play the full-on campaign the decision was made to make this a "practice game", i.e. not worry about the campaign aspects - we'll do it 'properly' at a later date. The Paras have to roll as their drop was a bit of a muddle, they got two Senior Leaders and a Sniper for the HQ section ( Look Hans, no pesky 2" mortar! ), No1 section was fine, but both 2 and 3 were missing a Bren.  So they'd have just three Brens against my six LMG's plus I'd taken an MG42 team and an adjutant as supports.  The Paras get no supports ... I was feeling quietly confident. Here's the table ... now, I do have a heap of wheatfields (golden grass door mats!) but they're in the garage somewhere, so just imagine the open spaces covered in rolling fields...

Following the show in Penarth, Colin and I returned to Wargames Table Manor and, after a fine curry, set to with a game of Bolt Action. I'd designed both sides in this 750pt game so the core of each force was an almost full strength platoon consisting of the HQ plus 3 or 4 sections/squads along with a few little extras like a mortar or an HMG or even a sniper. Definitely no armour for this game either. The scenario was simple - wipe out the opposing force. The winner would be decided by how many order dice had been lost (a win required a clear margin of two dice). There are only a few photos as the game was quite intense (in a very enjoyable way) so I forgot to take more. The pic below shows the battlefield after turn one. My plan was to focus my attack on my right flank using the stout walls of the churchyard to give my troops plenty of good cover. Interestingly, Colin's main attack was also on his right flank as he sought to make the best use of the cover offered by t...