After Action Report: Second Squats

 I have noticed that a cat will turn up her nose at a piece of meat if I hand it to her, but she will devour it with gusto if she has "stolen" it. The meat is the same, but the difference lies in the predator's delight in recognizing itself.
   - Ernst Jünger, Eumeswil

Ruins of Saint-Mina-Outre-Eaux, Finistère

Scouting action, withdrawal, feint, cautious probe, flattening artillery barrage, feint. The bastards were dug in pretty well - a tacky and reductive thought, not worthy of the son of a pâtissier - and so far the Guard had been unwilling to commit fully. Nobody wants to try and dig out a 'dwarf.

Command was getting impatient with the slow pace. Finistère was as fringe a world as the name implied. Once at the outstretched fingertip of Imperial colonisation efforts, the rotting world had been left to ferment by the contraction of the empire from coreward space since the sack of Badab. This was the first Commissar the world had seen in three generations, most like.

And now here he was, crawling his delicate son-of-a-pastry-chef arse through some backwater grass analogue that reeked of petrichor and ozone and whatever the hell those abhumans used in their anti-plant munitions, Betsy hooked over one shoulder. The Saint-Saëns CXLIV had brought in their ratling auxiliaries, along with a platoon of hulking "Southers" from Đại Du'o'ng. Who knew if those pale barbarians even had a regimental number. It wasn't like they had uniforms -- wait. Was that a motortrike engine?

No whole-of deployment photo, oops.
I deploy on the left of this photo!

Friend of the blog Mangs has a new 6'x4' table and when I asked to help him break it in, he suggested a game of second edition! Neither of us have played a game of second in decades, but he still has all his templates and cards and such, while I've painstakingly reacquired the rulebooks (no templates, though) - so why the hell not?

I suggested some initial minor modifications to the Squats army list in Codex: Army Lists to bring them more in line with the Rogue Trader-era Brotherhood list, as that's what I've been using to organise my collection (as per my old tumblr post on the subject), to which he readily agreed. I then counted up more-or-less what I have painted and arrived at 1560. Mangs put together about the same in Imperial Guard (he didn't deduct points for stripping the Leman Russes of heavy bolters) and we were off.

We avoided psykers to keep it simpler, still got half the rules wrong (Leman Russes have targeters! and I probably had my bikes do hit and run attacks very wrong!), and used way too much terrain, as we usually play each other in skirmish games.

But we set up, deployed, and played all four turns with very infantry-heavy armies in around three hours flat and had a blast (sorry) the whole time. Hell yeah. Second edition is back, baby.

Repost: After Action Report: Skirmish on Qyzylqum XLII

+ + + TRANSMITTED: Ootheca
+ + + RECEIVED: Badab Primaris
+ + + DESTINATION: CLASSIFIED
+ + + DATE: ERROR. Ref. 00-00-0-CHRN/1
+ + + TELEPATHIC DUCT: Zechariah-n008808
+ + + REF: Inq/06048102||0891-40-42/MNRN
+ + + AUTHOR: CLASSIFIED
+ + + SUBJECT: Qyzylqum XLII, Skirmish, 880.41
+ + + METADATA: Mantis Warriors; engagements; Malachi; heretic astartes; renegade astartes...
    Cross-ref extended metadata file 0891-40-42/MNRN-α
+ + + ACCESS GRADE: Sangria

+ + + Thought for the Day: Non vi, sed verbo + + +

+ + + ACCESSING + + +

c.880.M41, the Maelstrom. Nomadic space pirates which had been using the Sinistral Gate to launch raids on Imperial shipping were growing bolder and more savage in their attacks. Intelligence from Ordo Hereticus quisling units among pirate factions report the growing spread of Chaotic influence. Several bands of human and sub-human renegades had fallen under the sway of demagogues spreading the worship of Malachi the Surly, a Daemon Prince of Khorne and Wielder of theBanesword (cf the Cruor Event; the Caedis Incident; Sanguis VII; the Neco City Massacre;
+ + + ERROR: REFERENCE FILE IN EXCESS OF MEMORY
+ + + TERMINATE SERVITOR AND RE-ACCESS + + +

+ + + ACCESSING + + +

After Day Report: Badab War: Battle for the Old City - Galen IV [Part 3/3]

 The last of our coverage of the Battle for the Old City, Galen IV.

Howling Griffons terminators appear in a swirl of octarine

We've been talking about the Badab War day, hosted by Combat Company and organised by the Badab War Reenactment Society. So far, I had one astonishing victory and one crippling loss, with the Secessionists fighting hard for victory - but it was all to play for in the final game of the day. Sweaty, lunch-filled, and tired, we looked over the board.

After Day Report: Badab War: Battle for the Old City - Galen IV [Part 2/3]

 Last time on unjust still...

Niijima and her scouts butcher a heavy weapon squad

Last time, I talked about the Badab War Day on 29 November, with photos from my first game. This was the high water mark for my player skill for the day - but I didn't expect to win any games, so I was having a great day.

At the start of the second round, the Secessionists controlled most of the territories of value, including the Governor's Palace -- but would they continue to hold? Alex's Howling Griffons moved into the Palace, trying to take it from... I forget, but I think it was the all-bike Executioners. In orbit, Mantis Warriors were defeated by Howling Griffons, putting the pressure on the ground war below.

After Day Report: Badab War: Battle for the Old City - Galen IV [Part 1/3]

 That's so many subheadings.

Theatre Map: Galen IV 'Old Town'
Modified by Andrew Legio for the Badab War Reenactment Society, 2025

On Saturday 29 November, a small part of Sydney was transformed into a bloody battlefield, re-enacting a gore-soaked conflict of the Badab War.

One of the more fleshed-out parts of the Warhammer 40,000 background, the Badab War was expanded from a two-page spread in Rogue Trader's Warhammer 40,000 Compendium supplement into a two-book series during Forge World's short-lived Imperial Armour series. These books were the precursors to what became the sprawling Horus Heresy series. They included detailed examinations of the factions involved, maps, art, supplements for then-current game (6th edition), and since have become a firm fan favourite.

a handful of Warriors, painted for a 1st-edition Kill Team

When I came crawling back into the hobby at the tail-end of 7th edition and decided to paint my very first Space Marine, this was the space I joined. I vacillated between a few choices, settled on a Mantis Warrior, and haven't looked back. (I've looked sideways a lot - I have so many projects - but not back.)

III Squad - I think he's one of the guys in the back.

That first Space Marine is still in the army, although he didn't make it to Saturday's game.

The Badab War Reenactment Society has been intending to run game days, campaigns, and other events for years. For once, this community is actually based in Australia and, while I do not live in Sydney, this means that I am more able to attend. (Well, depending on child care responsibilities!) So when an event was announced for November, I jumped at the chance.

1500 points of Mantis Warriors

The rules were simple enough, as mentioned last time. Either bring a Battlefleet Gothic fleet or 1500 points of 28-mm scale warriors. The rules are Heresy 2.0, using custom-built lists - which is great, as it meant that I didn't waste too much money on the Heresy 2.0 rules, given that I played very few games of it. While I do have a BFG fleet, it's not-yet-painted, so ground soldiers it was. I brought together a list of 'neat stuff that everyone in the Facebook group liked' rather than 'good' or 'strong', and away I went.

One of the first Battlefleet engagements; Howling Griffons engage Mantis Warriors 

We weren't told of the day's missions ahead of time, to help reflect the confused state of affairs on the ground, although we did know a) that the space conflict could affect the ground; b) that there would be some kind of map system; c) that it wasn't intended to be competitive, but narrative (although we could bring special characters).

As the final week approached, we were told that each map would have some special features and would start under the control of each faction. These were the Governor's Palace, Industrial Zone, Alpha & Beta Hab Zones, Space Port, Orbital Defense Battery, and Armoury. Controlling a given territory would give advantages - for instance, controlling the Industrial Zone could give one player (in the whole day, not just on that board) It Will Not Die 5+ to any non-AV-14 vehicle to represent improved repair facilities; that entire faction would also gain +1 to Reserves die. A faction had to control the Governor's Palace in order to win the campaign day, otherwise the best to hope for would be a (bloody) draw.

In the end, my Mantis Warriors didn't wind up using any of the map-based advantages, although I heard from the shouts and chaos of other tables that my allies certainly did.

After Action Report: Badab War - Preliminary Action

 The Badab War Reenactment Society is hosting a gaming day in Sydney next weekend. I managed to organise exactly one (1) test game...

typical Imperial settlement on the fringes, with a mix of architectures

Well, actually I organised two, but my car literally died (RIP Tilda) on the way to the first game. I think Musterkrux and I are cursed. We talk a lot of talk about fighting men, but have only ever had one game. Such is life.

The game that did manage to go off, thanks in part to a loaner car, was against regular visitor to this blog, Jimmy. He brought his horrible pre-Angel Blood Angels (so just the Blood) as counts-as Space Sharks. Their stripped-back pale grey, blood spattered wargear makes them very effective as the fan favourite mass murderers, as does their combat doctrine emphasising melee - so very little counts-as in his army, and a good test for the Badab game.

why yes, my keyboard is very dusty

My own 1500-point list is about bringing some of the cooler things I've painted, rather than being a 'good' or 'effective' list - further hampered by my army design focused on fluffiness rather than effectiveness. The Mantis Warriors are poorly supplied, after all, so they have antique gear and not a lot of it.

This is Ahazra Redth, a counts-as Casatferrum dread, 5 Tranquility snipers, 2 x tactical squads, a camo Rhino, Predator, scout bikers, devastators, and a Land Speeder Proteus. (Really, what is the point of a Land Speeder Proteus? - a single multi-melta is not a very effective use of 85 points. It looks sick though.)

Jimmy took Tyberos the Red Wake, 5 x Red Brethren, an apothecary, 10 Tac marines, 10 Siege assault marines (ie despoilers), 6 x siege assault marines, deredeo dread with aiolos launcher and tummy heavy flamer and a Land Raider.

The Badab War guys are using the Heresy 2.0 rules, with custom-build lists (with which I have some issues but it's mostly very good). This was a little weird for Jimmy and I, playing 40k using Heresy rules, but also the last edition of Heresy, which we barely were able to touch -- and our last game was the new Heresy. Real Oldhammer confusion, mostly just meaning that we almost entirely forgot about Reactions, except for a couple Overwatches and one movement from me.

Mantis Warriors Tactical squad #2

After Action Report: The Softness of Gold

..their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the Lord.

   - Ezekiel 7:19

ruins of some now-nameless place

Only a few months after being butchered by Camille's gold-clad enforcers of a soon-to-be-dead king, we have a new edition of Horus Heresy and a new opportunity for the sons of Mortarion to show their mettle. Of course, keeping up with the tradition of me not updating the fucking blog, this battle was back in late August and I have forgotten nearly all of it. Oops.

Death Guard tactical marines deploy

This was the first game of the new edition, hot on the heels of playing exactly two games of the old edition this year. Very excellent timing. That said, Camille and I are het* up about the new edition and both immediately bought a lot of new miniatures for it. I even started painting up a new Centurion, who didn't get finished in time for the game but was polished off that night. That's pretty good.

*ironically

After Action Report: Blade and Rifle

 I'm not sorry. We had it coming.
   - 'Tech Noir', GUNSHIP

look at this insane detail on one of Mangs's survivors

My regular opponent and now game designer Little Mangs of War has been working on a miniatures- and setting-agnostic ruleset, currently dubbed 'Blade and Rifle' while in development. Originally intended as survivors vs AI zombies, he's started playing around with matched play rules. I offered to help him playtest a match a few weeks ago (Sunday 3 August, for those of you tracking how long it takes me to write up after action reports). I only had to bring my own pudgy body; he provided miniatures, terrain, dice (although I did bring my dice and tape measure) and the ALPHA_1 set of the rules.

The rules themselves are a little more complex than, say, Mordheim, but less complex than, say, Infinity. They are incredibly lethal, though, which makes cover essential - Mangs completely coated the board in bushes, abandoned cars, trees, and fences and I think the game would utterly fail to work with any less terrain.

Models roll to climb or shoot/fight, with number of successes counted. Certain actions need certain numbers of successes to work, but failures don't cancel them out. Sometimes fail means increased fatigue or other resources on the sheet are spent; sometimes they mean that the action is 'wasted'. Running or sprinting has other costs as well, such as limiting turning; overwatching holds your action but if nothing then crosses your line of fire, the effect is wasted.

I enjoyed the rules once we got into them, with a few suggestions added (if you run, you should be able to attempt to leap fences or cross small gaps, but with a test - parkour! - or additional penalties ensue). Once we got into it, the rules became smooth and easy to understand.

Each model got a little sheet. Feedback from me and a few others in our small group has suggested further improvements there - A5 is easier to manage than A4, for instance. Each model is assigned a card from a deck, which is drawn for initiative. This is fun and easy, but meaning that you can't control who necessarily acts in a given moment (like in Bolt Action or Infinity). This gives a feeling of random folks thrown together rather than militaristic discipline, which I like for this game.

Some of my survivors enter the suburbs here. On a 6x4' board, there will be a lot of walking (4") to get to where we're going, but we need to hug cover - weapons have no range limits, just bonuses at closer ranges.

After Action Report: Sheepherding in Cist

12 Маиуса 7533 года от сотворения мира

Любимая моя,

Пишу тебе после битвы...

the would-be shepherds meet

Reduced to squeezing slugs for nourishment, our two forces pushed into this slime-green valley, filled with towering pustules, gleaming with noisome sludge, and hungry, open-mawed pools, shifting in trackless swamps. Триста Тридцать Третий Репки Родины, the mighty 333rd Turnips of the Motherland, clashed against the snivelling dirt-eaters of Jimmy's Earl of Slough Feegle's Regiment of Foot.

After literal years of having turnip on the mind, Jim and I coincidentally finished big piles of terrain in the same month and managed to organise a game! Of course, that was two fucking months ago, because my brain then immediately froze on writing the after action report. I gotta work on this.

After Action Report: Reconnaissance in Steel

 A weak sun flitters through the grey dust. Shadows obscure the degraded hills around the township, itself little more than a scattering of concrete blocks hurled against the stone of the settlement like dice cast by a dissolute gambler. An empty god of chance. 

A wasteland planet named for horror fiction is the perfect place for the Canopians to hide a shame that beats in the heart of every liberal empire. Slaves, cast aside for their crimes, labouring to bring minerals to fuel her decadent wealth. Minerals that Lord Ethan would enjoy - but more than that, the labourers sharpen against their bleak stones an urge to revenge that is worth far more than gold or yttrium...

Freetown, Hastur
1100 Lockdown Time 4 May, 30[79]

A couple of weeks ago, Lord Ethan and I decided to throw down again. Actually, we were supposed to play Kill Team, but it's been a while for me and the new rules are different enough that I realised the night before that I wasn't confident in my understanding to play a game. So Mangs was kind enough to pivot twelve hours before deployment to Alpha Strike. A very nice guy.

'Hellhound' in his Archer ARC-2R back-to-back with a Canopian Commando COM-2D

"Remember those scenarios in Mechwarrior 2 where you had to scan enemy buildings?" I said. "Let's do that one with your beautiful city terrain. As you won the last scenario and I have a Recon lance, your pirates can be Defending and my mercenaries employed by the Magistcracy are trying to identify your caches or sympathisers or something and Attacking."

I think the Canopians and Goblin's Paladins are attempting to identify buildings containing partisans loyal to Lord Ethan's Exiles, or possibly access and download caches of information from these buildings - while being careful not to flatten the city. It's a bit much for two entire companies to be going head to head, but I wanted something that felt a bit more tactical than 'can we shoot each other to death'.

Two Exiles assault 'Mechs straddle an administrative building

The scenario is Reconnaissance. This is on p.193 of Alpha Strike but the short version is this: Defender picks 1-6 buildings that secretly are targets. Attacker has to spend a combat round in base contact with a building scanning, or otherwise use an active probe ability (which I forgot). Destroying buildings messes with this, but we avoided shooting them so that's fine. 

If the attacker scans any buildings and finds a target, they get 100 VP. If they find all objectives and get off the board with a lance worth of units, they get a bonus 500VP. If the defenders prevent this, they get 1,000VP.

This is actually incredibly hard for the attacker, as I have to spend half the game not shooting my opponent's 'Mechs. I mean, that's probably fine if I win initiative enough, right? (I win initiative like once all game.)

Exiles assault 'Mechs

Working on this after action report several weeks after the fact, I have once again forgotten most of the details. While reviewing the photos for the blogpost, I further realise that nearly all of the photos taken are of deployment and the literal first turn. I'll do my best with what my 'my child just turned one' brain can manage to sift out.

Exiles Battlemechs take up positions in the mining colony's administrative centre

Mangs set up the board before I arrived at our local game store, as per our tradition of 'first arrives set up' and 'he owns all the 6mm scale terrain'. As he picked a grey landscape, I've since decided that the fight is set on Hastur, a penal colony within the Canopus district of the Magistcracy and therefore deployment distance for the First Canopian Cuirassiers. The terrain is a scruffy village, including a power plant and a sequence of skyscrapers, set against grey hills and open pit mines that look a lot like craters in a different scale.

Today the Cuirassiers deploy their Recon Lance while Goblin's Paladins mercenaries deploy their Command and Fire Lances. 

Lord Ethan's vermin deploy a company worth of ramshackle old spitbuckets that definitely don't beat the tar out of me.

Mining Settlement 37 'Freedom', Hastur

After Action Report: Resistance Training

 I'm working on a project that's taking longer than expected -- partly because I ran out of mud after procrastinating for four days and then hit the weekend, partly because Arthur has been sick, and then my partner and I were sick, and then Arthur was sick and look parenthood is fun but it never ends.

Bakunin Sectorial (c) Corvus Belli

I have a handful of Infinity models because I've been toying with getting into it for a few years now. My friend Musterkrux is a big Infinity-head, one of Goonhammer's subject matter experts on the game, and he offered to give me an intro game back in early April...

After Action Report: Perish in the Pit

 The ruins still gleam in the falselight cast by the engines of the gods, the spacecraft blasting the worldlet's atmosphere with artificial light. It gleams on the ancient temples built above the death-water-from-below, shadows obscuring the ancient, pre-Imperial glyphs and ritualised warnings. Pale-armoured warriors cluster in the dead temple, their plate clicking with the sacred signs that the death-water-from-below always whispers around their gods' wargear. The semi-man hisses a ritual of thanks, his bristling fur colouring with the proximity to the old, old water. The gods war, and death comes. His will be a place of honour once again.

the battlefield. some Death Guard are deployed

Another skirmish last Sunday, a 1000-point game of Horus Heresy against my old friend Camille, last seen in Vicchièneche, one of the chief cities of Saint-Saëns, where their Sisters of Battle were slaughtered by (but defeated!) by the Death Guard. This fight was ten thousand years earlier, with their Adeptus Custodes against my (less mutated) Death Guard.

Death Guard

Siege-Breaker, power axe, combi-flamer, phosphex bombs.
Contemptor with assault cannon, fist, twin-linked bolter
14 Tactical Marines with attached Apothecary
14 Tactical Marines with attached Apothecary
7 Marines with missile launchers

Adeptus Custodes

Helena
Several Squads of Guard
Contemptor with Spear Thingy

We set up the terrain, sort of accidentally creating a ruined temple with several crumbling fortifications and the War creeping in on the grounds. We were joking around that the temple seemed to have once been a nuclear reactor, and the lake and river had formed from the pool - so that's the setting now. Some pre-Dark Age nuclear site that had fallen into ruin and become a place of worship and that civilisation had itself collapsed, and then Compliance and now civil war. 

It's fun making maps and then accidentally creating layers and layers of history to a place.

look at this huge battlefield we don't use (spoiler)

After Action Report: Revenge!

 Reylissa brushed away the still-blistering scrap of pseudofabric. It was warm, wanting to glue itself to the back of her glove, but she shook it away, scowling as it disintegrated into ash. Danika hadn't really needed to torch the thing - it was no face-hugger - but the thick-armed heavy liked burning things. The juve squinted across the ruined stonework they were crossing at their ward. This von Cage, dressed in robes and carrying a very fine staff. There was something Danika should burn. The old man stank of blood, even to Reylissa's inexperienced nose for these things. But he also stank of money, so here she was, escorting the old fool through the rotting domes of Rustwater Gulch...

deployment - a long-abandoned dome

This Sunday just gone, I had my second game of 2025 against long-time usual opponent Mangs, half of over half the battle reports here. I should make some more friends.

Mangs is always a good opponent, generously letting me take lots of photos and notes on our games. This was Necromunda, an opportunity for me to finally bring out the ex-Slave Ogryns which I painted -- in 2022, sweet lord. These are a really fun gang to use, being incredibly daft (as we'll see) but also very hard to stop (as we'll see). Plus, Necromunda is always a great game, especially if you play it like Mangs and I do - starting gangs only, no fucking Tactics cards, relatively WYSIWYG. I'm sure we'd both like to do a campaign one day, but this style avoids a lot of the Modernhammer problems with the game (scale creep, Tactics cards, etc).

Mangs brought Valeria Sly and the Nightshade Crew, who we've met before over in Ghast Grove:

Nightshade Crew

The mission? Escort Guilder agent von Cage. Should be easy money, unless there are ex-slaves in the area who are looking for revenge...

Kanathion von Cage (from Mangs's collection)

After Action Report: Asphalt and Blood

 A bleak and meaningless skirmish on the edges of a galaxy-spanning civil war...

an abandoned bunker amid the ruins of a worthless city

Early 006.M30. Nomirhast Minor. Nomirhüüs-Б. A crumbling suburb leeching off a nowhere township on a minor worldlet, in a meaningless sector of a self-defeating war. The dust of orbital bombardment and the curling after-effects of rad-phages drift over the sludge-grey ruins. Sergeant Caliel Gloss waves a pale gauntlet through the murk, leading his patrol through the silent rockrete guardians. The traitors are here, red-mouthed revenants in their old colours, loyal to the masters who betrayed their oaths. He will find them.

Across the square, past the empty eyes of an abandoned redoubt, Classya-Lablas licks blood from his athame, witchlights burning in his pale brow.

2024 in Review: Miniature Wargaming

I picked up Midgard: Heroic Battles today, after doing some shopping at CanCon. I now have ideas for about a dozen more projects...

stay focused: this is the current work-in-progress

Every hobbyist struggles with distraction, but the past year has seen the pressure ramp up even more than usual. Two sets of temporary promotions, personal issues - oh, right and my beautiful son, whose eyes glow in the daylight.

bad selfie from last week

Still, let's try to get more thoroughly back into the hobby that I, y'know, love. Let's review 2024.

After Action Report: Confrontation at Crescent City

 2024 was neither a good year for gaming, nor for updating this blog. Lord Ethan sent his pirates at me in August and I never got around to writing this up...

Crescent City's power facilities

Borgan's Rift remains a backwater, or at the very least a marginal planet in the Magistcracy, but the fires of the FedCom civil war continue to smoulder. Pirate activity burns along such marginal worlds, and the forces of both the liberal Canopians and their more structured allies in the Confederation are stretched.

Following his defeats earlier at Old Port Town and on the mining demi-planet of Kallix-7, "Lord Ethan" has re-armed and re-equipped - shockingly fast for an old pirate king - and made a bold strike at Crescent City. One of the few metropolises on Borgan's Rift worth calling a 'city', Crescent City is home to a new Drop Port. Capturing or at least sacking the city will be quite profitable for the pirate - or his backers...

CanCon with the Too Fat Lardies

 Last weekend was CanCon, one of Australia's larger hobby conventions. Despite living in the capital for years now, I usually only attend to do some shopping and a bit of gawking. This year, I was invited as a spare to the Too Fat Lardies Chain of Command campaign weekend. There was a real chance a few players' schedules might be shaky, the Australia CoC scene is always recruiting, and I'm local: a great combination.

The campaign day was run by a chap named Steve, who is probably now in my top-five Friendly Wargaming Lads. We'd never met, but you'd never know it for how welcoming and chill he was, happy to explain rules, point out fun details, and just generally be a chill bloke. He also ran a fun weekend, with an interesting scenario - on some very fine terrain by John Bond.

The scenario is as follows: Some time following the Normandy invasion, the British are pushing into this French town. Day One (Saturday AM) involves crossing the fields and entering the town proper. Day Two (Saturday PM) is attempting to make the bridge. Day Three (Sunday AM), the Germans have to hold the bridge itself or blow it. Day Four (Sunday PM) was flexible, depending on the previous days, but there was a chance for German armour to arrive and retake the British side.

In the end, the games fought to a standstill over the bridge - the Brits were held in place and didn't cross, but the bridge stayed open. I only fought a few rounds, rolling some dice during Sunday AM, but it was great fun and really sealed the deal on me digging out those Early War Poles...

After Action Report: Terror in the Peaks

    Réfractaires, it is not your duty to die uselessly.
        - Resistance pamphlet

somewhere in the mountains of Occupied France

An old friend of mine and wargaming/role-playing buddy has finally made the pilgrimage down from to visit me, mostly to play in the Too Fat Lardies event at CanCon in a game of Chain of Command. He's even convinced me to be a backup player in case one of the others has to leave early and cannot finish the campaign. Of course, I've never played a game of Chain of Command, although I am interested in the increased historical verisimilitude of it over its main competitors. 

So we decided to head to the local store and bodge together some terrain and play an intro game. Jolt has an incredible selection of terrain, but it's mostly intended for far-future or vaguely fantasy settings, and it also turned out that every single local gamer wanted to test their armies before this weekend's tournament scene at CanCon. But we made do with the above layout. A forked road, a burning farm, some rough cliffs and pine forests, an ancient church. Could be somewhere in Europe, sure.

Al brought me an infantry platoon of horrible fascists, reinforced with an additional Senior Leader (Keptain Köwærd); he brought an adhoc platoon-sized contingents of French rebels, communists, and jumped-up peasants, reinforced with some stolen submachine guns and a backwoodsman calling himself a sniper. Both sides had low morale; it was freezing, there is little food, and nobody wants to die for their fatherland in the arse-end of nowhere.

fascists cower in the gutted church

My favourite thing about Chain of Command is the initial patrol phase. It makes the act of deployment a game of tug-of-war with your opponent and really livens up the otherwise straightforward bit of 'you're on that side, I'm on this side'. Having units come on from the jump-off points that are then scattered (and can be moved!) about the field is the only wargame I've found so far that does a good show of mimicking the fog of war.

In these snowy hills, the fascist regulars didn't know from where the cursed marquis would come...

who dares impede us

I did get lucky in my first few turns, managing to bring on two squads at opposite ends of the field. By getting enough initiative to put the churchgoers on overwatch meant that Al, who had intended to come through the forest opposite, was immediately on the defensive.

"i see zem! i see ze kowartly frenchmen"

Al is a generous opponent. I had initially thought of the open, flat-topped hill next to my roadblock jump-off as a death trap. It was open and flat, with absolutely no cover. Of course, it also provided a huge view of the entire field. Once he pointed that out, I scurried a squad up it and sat them in overwatch up there, much to his frustration.

"okay ve vill leafe ze khurch but only slowly"

He also reminded me that squads come in two elements, and that I could move the manoeuvre element while keeping the machine gun in overwatch. Naturally, he immediately deployed his submachine gun-heavy squad into the forest, preventing me from safely assaulting that jump-off point. Git.

line them up...

..BLAM

First blood to the French resistance with a good old-fashioned duck hunt. Hill's risky.

if you go down in the woods today, you'd better go in disguise...

'if we line up in a row, they will be caught by surprise!'

As I moved one of the riflemen squads down past the hedgerows, another group of partisans emerged, ready to initiate a firefight. Al and I got several rules wrong here - he should have gone tactical and hit the dirt (after being reminded, my hill-squad did that, but he never remembered to). Additionally, I added far too many dice for the squad's machine gun - although my dice consistently rolled below-or-only average, so I don't think it mattered too much.

'merde.'

Nevertheless, the end result for this squad of rebels was most of them being killed and sufficient shock to break them. I also concussed their sergent, reducing the partisan morale. This group broke and ran, freeing my outflanking squad to move towards their jump-off point.

'right, that's it. forward!'

Losing a jump-off point in Chain of Command causes significant morale damage to the hosting force. Seeing the easy route my squad had toward his right-hand point, Al decided that his only hope lay in cracking open my little church fortress.

bullets fly!

Unfortunately, his dice failed him. I shot down several partisans and caused some shock, with almost no losses of my own. My succeeding phases didn't do a lot, but his numbers significantly dwindled.

the keptain comes out but continues to kower

I'd kept my second Senior Leader in reserve, waiting until I needed his shock-removing talents - so right when Al had caused several casualties and enough shock to reduce the church squad's effectiveness, Keptain Köwærd pulled himself out of his foxhole and shouted for the men to hold; reducing the shock in both sections to nothing.

At this point, the store was closing and so we decided to end it there. The Germans had a clear line to take a partisan jump-off point and had caused about thrice the casualties. Al still had a real chance to swing it, if he made a big assault and got a bit lucky - the loss of a squad, NCO, officer and jump-point would probably have shattered my platoon - but that would have been a significant shift from how the game looked on the table.

At any rate, a cracking game against a real gentleman of an opponent. I think I have to dust off that old Polish project now. Let me see, a 1939 Polish infantry platoon has three squads of fourteen men, and I already have...