Virtual Lard 2

I spent Saturday 'at' (virtually) VL2: in the morning I ran an IABSM Lite game, with a couple of twists that were only possible on Zoom, and I played SP2 in the afternoon. For a much better report than I can provide for the latter,. do check out Richard Crawley's blog on the subject - great fun and outrageous French accents abound.  Many thanks to Richard for umpiring - excellent game.

I ran a small IABSM scenario set in my favourite corner of WW2 - northern Italy. I nicked an idea from Bloody Omaha in that the Germans were a very small, well dug in force (a section., two '34s, a Stug, a PAK40 and a sniper) run by me as the umpire, and the four  (reduced to three, sadly) players took a cut down British company - 2 sections, a carrier section. 4 Sherman IIIs.

The other twist was that they got a briefing and some recce photos, and from then on (as they were all connected via Zoom) they were restricted to a units-eye view (using an iPhone on a custom stand).

The British reccee photos: an overhead pass and, to quote, "One of the PRU Spitfires made a low pass over the valley this morning. Took MG fire from the church doing it, so the pilot really hopes you appreciate the effort."

They are attacking from the left (south). 

8 Platoon make it across the river, and flush out some Germans in front of the church, as well as an MG34 in the nearer farm,

7 Platoon meanwhile are being very wary of the main farmhouse, in which they keep spotting movement but aren't sure what. CSM Moxon is kept busy yelling for more smoke from the 2".

"Gunner - Jerry tank, right of the pine tree... traverse... no, further right of the wall... fire... GOT HIM!"

We didn't finish, in part because I had three relatively new to IABSM players and was wrestling a bit with the tech. I'd love to run it again: definitely a fascinating game,. and the players seemed to think the viewpoint idea worked.

Mat by TinyWargames, buildings by Empires at War, Battlefront and I think SHQ, figures by Battlefront, Shermans by PSC.

Battle Report - 24 Jun 2019 - "Villa Santa Anna"

View from above the farm, looking S.

Another IABSM Lite scenario, set in Italy '44 again. The British (Carl, Rod) are tasked with taking the farm of Santa Anna, a German (Colin) strongpoint. They have a troop of Churchill NA75s, a carrier section and two infantry platoon, as well as a Vickers - ranged against them are two understrength German platoons, a couple of MG42s, a StuG, and their CO's new pride and joy, an SdKfz 251/10. Probably a hand-me-down from elsewhere :D

The valley becomes rather a killing ground....

The Germans went for a fairly agressively forward deployment, with an infantry section on the E/W road, the StuG in the vineyard and the half-track by the avenue of trees leading up to the farm.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it got a bit bloody when the first British platoon deployed off blinds in the field, and then waded in to close assault one of the German sections. Result, 1-0 to the boys in khaki, as the survivors hightailed it to the farm.

Reconnaissance in force....

About that point, the two MG42s (one in the farm, one in the villa by the vineyard) as well as the Vickers which had deployed in the church tower, all opened up on the area of the field, and turned into something of a killing ground. It's fair to say none of the units involved in that scrap around the field did much useful for the rest of the game, not helped by the StuG popping up and dishing out HE and the inevitable pins. Meanwhile, over on the German right, the other platoon was dug in by the avenue, and the British sent the carriers and the other platoon that way, behind a heavy screen of 2" mortar smoke (I'll say this for Carl, he never fails to follow that bit of the British manual!)

After taking some fire from the carriers, that platoon fell back to the farm, and took up some carefully loopholed positions along the south wall.

The carriers and the blind carrying the other platoon carried on with their sweep around the German right, while the Churchills deployed off blinds, offloaded on the StuG twice each and to a man, missed. Wisely, Colin took this as a cue to be somewhere else, pulling it back onto the hill, and the British elected to deepen the smoke around that area anyway, causing the next few runs through the deck to result in quite a bit of 'no, can't see that for the smoke'. Bit of a two edged sword.

The halftrack deployed, missed the Churchill it could see once and had a second bounce off the armour. The Churchill inexplicably chose not to return fire but advanced into the smoke with its troop-mates. After a couple more rounds of jockeying for position one Churchill pulled back and nailed the 251/10, causing the CO to have to bail and then dodge a fusillade of small arms fire from the remains of the platoon in the field.

About then we called it for time: pretty clear that one StuG was unlikely to take out all the Churchills (although in campaign history it's not been unknown!). At which point, the armour support can pound the farm till the occupants are pinned, and the flanking force can go in. Almost certainly a British victory.

Thanks as ever to my players Colin, Carl and Rod, and to Rich and Nick for an excellent set of rules. 

Back from OML7

Where, needless to say, an excellent time was had by all :D

Many stunning tables, a lot of CoC and Sharp Practice, some complete insanity (yes, that is Trumpton... and it's partly my fault).

I ran an Italy '44 IABSM Lite scenario - essentially two platoons and a recce section each - in which the two sides were hunting a downed Fiesler Storch and the two German officers who'd escaped the forced landing with plans for some of the Gothic Line defences... Fascinating games both - definitely interesting demonstrations of the effect of some cards (e.g. Reconnaissance Bonus vs Rapid Deployment), and easily done in the time available.

Battle Report - 3 July 2017 - IABSM Lite "Les Feuilles Vertes"

Had a request at the club for an IABSM practice/teaching game. From experience, while the first couple of scenarios in the book are good for this,

1. they don't include everything straight off - I know this is deliberate, but sometimes you also want to teach why combined arms works.
2. they can take a long time with inexperienced players

I think I'm now a grizzled enough veteran of the game that I can deal with this, so... Time for something a little different: IABSM Lite. 

No rule changes, but the scenario was designed to fit on a 4'x4' with sub-company strength forces and a more tactical approach. 

The British had two platoons, three big men including the company CO and three Sherman V's with a big man, as well as a FOO with two fire missions from a rather busy 25pdr battery (reflected by being 1 pip harder to contact). The Germans, holding the farm, had 1 infantry Zug with 2 big men, an MG42 with another big man, a FOO with a couple of 80mms, and a StuG III. Extra cards were Allied Rally, Allied Heroic Leader, Axis MG Bonus and Axis Dynamic Commander.

Simple mission - take/hold the farm.

Colin (running the Brits with advice from me) rapidly twigged that there was no cover to be had approaching the farm, so sent a couple of blinds by circuitous routes to see what he could spoke while radioing for a nice big smoke barrage to advance behind.

There was quite a bit of 'no, I won't bring any more blinds on yet' going on, which was slightly more cat-and-mouse than some IABSM games I've seen. In the end, he brought two infantry platoons on behind the smoke, and managed to get a good way up the road and across the fields before a flurry of Tea Break cards blew the smoke away.  At which point (having been pre-briefed by both Carl (watching while playing something else) and I, he brought the 2" mortars into play - the German section in the red-roofed farmhouse took a fair bit of tap, but things never quite panned out to get them pinned preparatory to a close assault.

With hindsight, I should have reminded him a bit more than I did that HE pins, and he should probably have brought the Shermans on before the second platoon, to plaster the farmhouse and guarantee some pins behind which to close assault. As it was, when they came on, the StuG (up on the road across the back of the table) picked off first one, then another, in consecutive activations.

The Brits also lost a couple of sections to enfilade fire from the farmhouse, which I think wouldn't have happened had the Shermans been around to do their job. In the end, the infantry in the farmhouse were down to 5 figures and 4 shock, and two platoons went in and basically forced them out in a tied close assault due to excess shock.

We pretty much left it there, not least so we could talk about it: essentially taking the farmhouse had cost the British two Shermans and half their force, but the Germans were down to one section, an MG and a StuGIII which had a pretty commanding view of the battlefield. It would have been interesting.

Thoughts on "IABSM Lite"?

I think it works: the tricks are:

• Scenario design
• have a clear tactical objective, and set it around the middle of the table.
• make it a bit 'narrative' in nature so the players don't forget what it is
• rationalise some smaller forces - 2/3 company or so.
• make sure there's a bit of cover around deployment areas :D
• more big men 

I think this last is pretty key - to keep things moving and make them interesting (and also to show off the 'magic' of the big man concept), you need to have slightly more big men than the normal org chart suggests - I'd even go as far as to suggest that some platoons should have their 2inC on table as a big man as well as the Lt.. Colin was, I think, pretty impressed with the flow of the game, and the way the big men worked - there was a moment were he had a big man hare back down the road to activate the 2" mortar which just felt right.

You might possibly consider, if you go with platoon 2inCs as big men, leaving the actual platoon cards out - I dunno? Thoughts?

I'm toying with a few more smaller tactical teasers like this - I think it could be fun and it can finish in a club night.