Deep Dish Lard Day!

The chaps from Chitown Wargames are running a Deep Dish Lard day at Noble Knight Games on Saturday 12th October.

"Wanted to give everyone a heads up that Lard America Midwest will be hosting the first ever "Deep Dish Lard" at Noble Knight Games in Fitchburg, Wisconsin on Saturday, October 12th. Gaming will be from 10 AM to 6 PM, current plan is for two blocks of games beginning at 10 AM and 2 PM.

We hope local Lardies will be able to join us, we are still working on a game schedule but there will be CoC, CoC: DMZ, WaT and SP from early musings. As soon as we have a concrete game schedule it will be shared here or on the Lard America Facebook Page

If you are interested in possibly running a game let me know via email at wharding91@gmail.com."

I hope to be running a WWII game using my Burma campaign collection that has not been out of the boxes since we moved here.

Battle of Guadalajara 1937

I attended Little Wars this past weekend and was fortunate to be able to play in Liam Hardings Battle of Guadalajara 1937 Spanish Civil War scenario using the Big Chain of Command rules alongside the Espana supplement.

The scenario we played was a Nationalist attack on a Republican held walled manor house.

Three of us would play the Nationalists attacking with a force of CTV infantry and tanks and a Falange while the defenders had militia and International Brigade, I commanded the CTV tanks, thre CV-33 and a CV-33 flame-thrower. The scenario was the Hasty Defence from the new 1940 supplement.

All units rolled very low for Force Morale and it looked like it would be quite the challenge for us all.

During the Patrol Phase we pushed hard on the left flank and did very little on the right, two of our jump-off paints for the Falange were well over the half way mark on the right hand edge of the table and our CTV would deploy in the dried river bed. The CTV tanks I would command came on a road that marked the left of our deployment zone but was in actuality about the center of the table.

The Nationalists would go first, as a part of our supports we had purchased a pre-game bombardment, meaning that we had a least one phase of disruption on the Republic before they either spent the Chain of Command dice that they started with or they allowed it to continue.

As suspected the Republic did spend their Chain of Command Dice to end the barrage, but the first turns effect was good enough. We had set up a good fire base opposite the manor and were pushing a patrol through the woods towards a vulnerable jump-off point on their left flank.

The Republican militia deployed into the manor and some effective overwatch firing from both the CTV and Falange saw five dead and a whole load of shock on them. Also the threat to their second jump-off from the Falange patrol meant that the Republicans had to commit the remainder of their militia column there rather than in the manor.

The Italian tanks moved onto the board and started to cross the stream and advance on the manor under the cover of some woods, a well deployed Republican anti-tank gun made them act with caution and a T-26 was on the prowl.

The T-26 took some inaccurate shots at my CV-33 tanks but was driven off by a shot from our 65mm howitzer leaving the Italian tanks free to advance on the manor. Effective fire from our infantry, tanks and support weapons had sorely reduced the defenders and a couple of blasts from our CV-33 flame tank saw them break.

With the International Brigades still rushing from their positions on the Republican right to reinforce the militia the Falange crossed into the compound and took the manor house expending a Chain of Command dice to end the turn and therefore win us the game.

Liam had organised a great scenario for the game and as you can see in the few images I captured his terrain and figures look brilliant. We had been very fortunate in the Patrol Phase, then the terrible dice that Allan had rolled for the hits on those militia in hard cover had really weakened their defences.

Maqueda 36 at Historicon

Ed, the team from Chitown Wargamers and myself ran a Spanish Civil War game at the recent Historicon event.

The action was loosely based around the Republican rear-guard actions around important road junction in the the town of Maqeda in September 1936 following the unsuccessful Republican attacks on Talavera.

Liam and Chris sort out the platoons ready for action

The Nationalist forces would comprise of five platoons, two of Falange, one of La Legion and one of Regulares - all from my collection, and one of Carlists from Phils collection. 

The Republican forces were a platoon of Steel Legion from Eds collection, a platoon of Militia from Marks collection, then a platoon each of Guardia Civil and Steel Legion from my collection.

Ed adds some flock to the table.

I somewhat assisted Ed with the setting up of the table, the terrain was all from his and my own collections. The outskirts of the town were surrounded by woodlands and orchards, with a small stream.

I would corral the Republican team while Phil would assist the Nationalists while Mark and Ed kept things moving along. 

The town quietly awaits the combatants.

The players arrive

La Legion deploy in the orchards

Guardia Civil man the barricades in the face of La Legion advancing through the orchards.

Regulares deploy on the opposite flank

A Steel Legion section provides fire support from the flanks

Phil's rather lovely Carlists deploy in support

Regulares and Carlists approach from the other edge of the town where the Steel Legion are dug in.

Things are going rather well for the Republic at this stage.

La Legion attempt to press on through the orchard in the face of stiff resistance from the Guardia and flanking fire from the Steel Legion Maxim machine-gun

La Legion and Carlists force the Steel Legion back at bayonet point. 

Richard Clark stops by for a chat, great to see a friendly face from back home.

The action hots up

Moving through the demoralised Regulares the Carlists take the outskirts recently held by the Steel Legion

Another section of Steel Legion are deployed, but it's too late, their morale is shattered and the Republican defences are abandoned.

Poilu Reinforcements I

This year I'm planning to attend Historicon and speaking to the chaps in Palatine we initially planned a Big Chain of Command game using our WWI collection. That's not likely the case now and we shall be doing Spanish Civil War!

I'm a bit light on French Infantry so sent off to Brigade Games for a couple more packs of riflemen and a pack of Chauchats.

This weeks output is fifteen of the twenty four figures that I bought, using my standard palette for Poilu in horizon bleu.

When I made the order I had it in my head that I'd have a use for more Chauchat teams, although on reflection I really don't think I needed another four, although they do add some variety to the Woodbine Designs ones that I painted previously.

I do rather like the prone Chauchat team that comes in the pack, I added a section of barbed wire for them to take cover behind.

The basing is done with a mix of pumice gel, grit and static grass mixed up with Flat Earth paint and slathered on the bases, later dry-brushed, in this case with Iraqi Sand, although looking at other figures in the collection I probably should have used Dark Sand!

The few muddy puddles that you see are just PVA glue that is given a coat of gloss varnish after the dull-cote has been applied.

You'll see from the above base that the two figures are quite distinct from each other and I reckon that Brigade Games used different sculptors for each. While they are both well sculpted models, I'll avoid mixing them on the same bases.

It's over a year since I last painted any Poilu and even longer since I last played - must try harder!

Chain of Command: Espana at Rockcon 2017

Saturday I travelled down to northern Illinois to 'Spread the Lard' at the Rockcon event. Originally a few of us had booked a table for the day so that we could play a large WWII Ostfront game, but our numbers dwindled so much that by Friday there was only myself left in the team!

So, as I only have a small amount of WWII Eastern Front stuff, I let the organisers know that I'd still be running Chain of Command, but would be coming on my own with the Spanish Civil War collection instead.

Arriving just after eight I soon had the table set up and the forces laid out ready, I had four sign-ups, but in the end only two players Mike and Scott showed up, but then another chap Doug asked if he could join in too so I was soon up to four players with myself. Doug and Scott played the Nationalists while Mike and I the Republicans.

I kept the forces pretty simple, each player had a Regular rated platoon comprising a Tenente (Snr Ldr), Sergento Pimero (Snr Ldr), then two sections each of Sergento (Jnr Ldr) one LMG team of 5 men and two rifle teams of six men. Everybody started on Force Morale 9.

The mission was a simple patrol action and we played out the Patrol Phase to give the players an idea of what happens. We were soon in action and on our right Mike with International Brigade was taking on Scott with La Legion while myself with another platoon of International Brigade was taking on Doug with the Regulares.

The main action between Scott and Mike came down to a brisk firefight with La Legion deployed along a wood edge, supported by a 70mm mountain gun pitted against the Internationales in the walled garden of the taberna. Despite the hard cover and a T-26 being rushed up into support the fire of the Foreign Legion was telling and soon both the Internationales Tenente and Sergento were down and the shock was piling up.

On my flank the Nationalists supported their attack with a Bilbao armoured car and several rounds from my own 75mm gun ricocheted off it with little effect, either our ammunition was sabotaged, or that Bilbao was more armoured than they could have imagined!

Eventually, after some desultory shooting, the Regulares and Internationales came to blows in a brisk bayonet fight in the orchard on our left flank, both sides were sorely beaten up, but the Nationalists carried the day.

I sorted out the table for the next game and grabbed a quick beer and a burger ready for the afternoons game.

This time I had seven sign-ups - for only six spaces - with drop-outs and replacements I'd got six players, this was good as it meant that I did not have to play and could concentrate on running the game.

Following the mornings game I reorganised the forces a little, now each force would comprise a Tenente (Snr Ldr) and three sections each of a Sergento (Jnr Ldr) and two teams of five or six riflemen, one rifle team in the platoon would be armed with an LMG.

My nationalist players would be Terry with the Regulares, Rick with the Falange and Ron with La Legion while Tim, Mike and Joe were my Republicans each fielding a platoon of International Brigade. Although this time I had preset  two jump-off points per player I did have my players roll for Force Morale and we had a spread of between eight and ten. For for support each side was allocated one armoured car, one heavy machine-gun and one eight inch section of heavy cover barricades allocated on a roll of a die.

None of my players had played Chain of Command before, but after a few initial turns of coaching were soon picking up some of the nuances of the game and we were able to get a good three hours of play out of the game. As seems to be usual the casualties among the Republican leaders seemed to be key to the game and their Force Morale was taking quite a hit!.

In one memorable event, a section of International Brigade who were moving to outflank the Nationalist machine-gun were caught in the open by some crushing fire from the Regulares, with a load of shock on them and leaderless they were struggling to extricate themselves. This was compounded when a section of Regulares launched a bayonet charge against them. The result was devastating, with about twenty dice the Regulares had not thrown a single five or six and were repulsed with heavy casualties by the stunned Brigadiers - that was certainly against all the odds!

This was a small victory for the Republicans though and eventually their Force Morale collapsed and the field was left to the Nationalists for the second time that day.

Conflict in Spain August 1936

We had a splendid game of Chain of Command: Espana on Saturday. I had booked the community room and it had allowed us to set up a 12ft x 5ft table for the scenario I had in mind. Phil, Ed and Liam would be driving up from Illinois while Drew and Bruce would be joining up on the Madison team.

We started with a rather splendid lunch at Sprechers, before retiring to the community room to rearrange the furniture and set up the table. 

I had in mind a scenario for very early in the war, three Republican militia columns would be defending the town while two column of Falange and one of Requetes would attempt to drive them out, it was nominally 5th August 1936, 81 years ago to the day.

The night before I had decided that I really must add some walls to the terrain collection so knocked out 6ft of wall sections that you'll see in some of the shots.

As we had three distinct columns of Republican militia, one of UGT trade unionists, one of Marxist P.O.U.M and one of CNT-FAI militia I modified the Random Event table slightly, on a 1-3 use the normal table, on a 4-6 a random militia section fires on a section from a rival faction.

Liam and Ed played the Falangists, Phil the Carlists, I played the UGT, Drew the POUM and Bruce the CNT-FAI.

We would be playing the Attack and Defend scenario. Playing out the Patrol Phase the Republican jump-offs were placed in and around the town, with a couple of supporting positions on the flanks, while the Nationalists were in a broad arc around the town. The end 4ft of the table was practically unused.

The Nationalists started their advance and for two or three phases no Republicans showed their heads above the parapet. The Nationalists placed some sections ready to react to any Republican moves while others cautiously advanced on our lines.

A double phase from the Carlists faction saw a suspicious Tiznao (Armoured Truck) decorated in UGT slogans and motifs approach the Republican lines stopping at the road block just outside the town.

Before the Republicans could react the truck stopped at the roadblock and disgorged a section of the terrible Moroccan Regulares who took up firing positions along the walls.

A large section of CNT-FAI militia emerged from their hiding places in the taberna and a sharp firefight ensued with light casualties on each side until a 70mm howitzer shell set the taberana afire - this building seems to catch light in a lot of our games!

 Eventually, the flames became too much and the Anarchists poured out of the building to be cut down by deadly fire from the Moroccans and their supporting troops.

On our left the UGT Trades Unionist militia had set up a stout position in the church, while their machine-gun was deployed in the bell tower the rest of the troops took to desecrating the place and pissing in the font. This incensed the Nationalists who poured some devastating fire into the church - in one instance six hits resulted in five kills!. The Jefe was also mortally wounded so it was only a matter of time before the vengeful Requetes and Falangista stormed the place, killing all they found and hurling down the Anarchist banner that had been flying from the bell tower!

It was pretty much all over for the Republicans now, an end of turn saw two jump-off points captured and the CNT-FAI morale collapsed taking the remaining factions to untenable levels.

Another great game and we are planning more again soon.

More shots from the game below.