Rangers of Shadow Deep - Mission 1, Scenario 1

Rangers of Shadow Deep - Mission 1, Scenario 1 - Deserted Village

My first game of RoSD. The setup is on a 3x3ft area, the group starts in the centre of a deserted village with 5 abandoned buildings. There are 6 clue markers, 4 in line with each intermediate compass point (NE,SE,SW,NW) and about 14 inches away from the centre. The final two are in two random buildings.

The scenario starts with 2 Giant rats on the table and 2 zombies. As companions I selected the following: Templar, Rogue, Man-at-arms, Conjuror, Arcanist. I passed the task roll for perception and was able to move 1 clue marker closer to the group starting position.

In the first turn my Ranger attempted to shoot a rat. Missed. Arcanist, Rogue and conjuror moved north, the rogue towards a building with a clue. To note here I probably shouldn't have allowed myself to know which buildings had clues, it would be easy to simply roll once the door had been breached, it would have made the mission more complicated at least!

The Man-at-arms and Templar moved south to another clue marker in a building and closer to the southern zombie. I then moved the zombies and rats, which was wrong, they should have activated before the companions moved. No harm on this round and a good lesson to remember the proper sequence!

The Templar was getting good rolls and she twatted the zombie in one hit. The Arcanist was fortunate that the zombie closing in on her required both actions to move to get to her. The conjuror was well placed to send a bolt of magic into the zombie allowing the Arcanist to move away, in some panic! The Rogue set to work on picking the door lock and succeeded. However the clue marker inside resulted in a zombie being in the house and surprising her.

I got this bit wrong, I allowed the Rogue to move away which when having an enemy in base contact, I don't believe is allowed.

At turn end more zombies started deploying as a result of the event deck. The basic strategy involved utilising the Templar, Man-at-arms and Ranger to use their combat skills to kill off the enemies while the others tried to sweep up the clues. It largely worked. The ranger had to move north and support the squishy types at one point but withdrawing and consolidating towards the fighters allowed them to survive and continue uncovering the clues.

The conjuror even managed to pick up some treasure, which turned out to be an explosive flask. The zombies and rats came on thick and fast but the waves were defeated without too much hassle luckily although the Arcanist took a big hit but limped through on 2 hit points!

It was a fun game and moves quickly when you get a grip on the basics. There is a good amount of uncertainty so works as a solo game nicely. And as mentioned earlier I can ramp this up by "hiding" the clues in random buildings, or more accurately, rolling for them once the door has been opened.

All in all a great wee game, plays well and easily and not much of a burden in order to get on the table. 

I'm on the Hedge of Glory

Sadly I haven't kept any pictures from our first game in the 29 Let's Go campaign. If I had you would have seen some improvised and rather jarring hedges. As I laid out the terrain for the game I quickly realised that I had no where near enough hedging to closely approximate what was shown in the PDF. Cue frantic terrain building.

What I had to work with was some coconut fibre plant basket liners and some ePVC sheets. I had intended to make more hedges and vegetation which was why I had them, I just hadn't got round to starting.

So to the improvised hedges. I cut strips of the fibre and hot glued them onto some ePVC. And that was it. Ugly white bases and brown fibre hedges, but it would do the job for the game ahead.

I've now roughly calculated that I will need some more hedging for some of the other scenarios, and a few extra for the first scenario wouldn't hurt. So I'll use the same idea and make up some more.

Coconut fibre is cut up into strips and they get hot glued onto the ePVC bases. Next PVA onto the base and sand added. These will get a spray of PVA/water mix once dry to seal and strengthen the adherence of the sand to the base. Once the sealing spray has dried they get primed with black emulsion, not worrying too much about getting the fibre covered. Some simple dry brushing of various browns finishes off the dirt bases.

The hedges doused in PVA and a dark green flock added to give them a contrasting shade to my grassy playing mat. I noticed when setting up the last game that in certain light some of the hedges I've made previously blend into the grass. Not necessarily a problem but I want more contrast going forward so went with a darker tone in this case. I'm half tempted to look at getting some darker tones onto the old hedges but that is a decision for another day.

After coating them once I felt I wanted a more complete coverage so went about applying more PVA and more flock. I've realised (or from helpful comments on the TFL forum) that using sawdust type flock means you can't get a good final seal and keep the stuff on, so I have started using foam flock from LukesAPS range at Geek Gaming. It is rather nice stuff actually and so far seems to stay on with the PVA treatment. Success!

And finally some flock on the bases to finish them off. Now all I need to do is remember to take the bloomin' things next time!

Probe at La Cambe (pt2) - An annoying error

I had spent a good whack of time preparing terrain as evidenced by previous blog posts, made up some new supports and re-based some old ones, printed out force morale trackers and two unit boards. I even laid out the terrain the night before to make sure I had everything I needed. And then what did I do? I left a box behind, filled with roads, hedges and ploughed fields.

These pictures were snapped the night before when I had set it all up, and I was rather pleased with the result. The "new" second hand mat is lovely, even my cobbled together buildings look alright. I was and still am rather annoyed with myself for such a slip up!

Moving on. On discovering I had made this egregious error we had to improvise, and we ended up with bin bag roads, polystyrene chip hedges and a cloth as the ploughed area. I was initially thinking it was rather annoying that I hadn't managed to get some flock onto the new orchards I had been working on, but that pales in comparison to polystyrene hedges, let me tell you.

As a result I really didn't take many photos and I sort of forgot to take notes on the game to be better able to write it up. So perhaps just an overview to track what happened and I can try and do a proper first AAR on the next game!

For my 12 points of support I went with a FOO, a tripod mounted MG42, three entrenchments and an adjutant. I also had an extra entrenchment from strengthening my position after the last victory.

Force morale rolls favoured the Germans, starting on 11, while the US started on 8.

The US rolled high for patrol moves and got an extra four, and used these to push on down the road. He ended up with JOPs in La grande maison du  pays, behind the trees to the north side of the road and behind a "hedge" on the southern side looking out over the ploughed fields. I placed one in the orchard, one behind and to the side of  the east facing building and a final one on the far side of the same building.

The US started with a four consecutive phases and finally a turn end. In that time he brought on a sniper in la grande maison du pays, a sherman which went onto overwatch, a senior leader south of the road and a squad nearby.

Then I finally got a phase! not actually too damaging as I would have been unlikely to bring anything on in that time aside perhaps from a FOO. And for my first phase I did nothing but accumulate some CoC points.

The US then brought on a 50 cal machine gun again to the south of the road and a squad to the north by la grande maison du pays. The sherman trundled down the road a little more. At this point he threw a double six (again) and after much swithering decided to start moving one squad across the ploughed field towards the seemingly empty German end. The 50 Cal was on overwatch but the sherman had used both of the JL command pips to move so was not able to cover this advance.

Being broken ground the squad couldn'd double time it over the area and had to take a more measured approach which failed. His second roll turned up nothing that could get his squad to move for a second time. And the sneaky hun player pounced!

I got a rather fortunate roll and was able to deploy two squads and a senior leader, getting both squads to fire into the squad in the open (albeit on a tactical stance). It was brutally effective in terms of shock, not many killed but about 7 points of shock. The 50 Cal opened up in retaliation but deploying in an entrenchment meant all he managed was to wound and knock out one squad JL, the communist Kurt Zimmerman. My force morale dropped to 9.

The US fired into the same German section in their phase with the sherman, but only managed some shock. He also rallied some shock off the now paralysed squad sitting out in the field. He was however accumulating a fair number of CoC points but it was not helping his current situation.

When the Germans got a phase again they had more dirty tricks up their sleeve. The panzershreck team deployed by the road side and lined up the sherman. I need an 8+ to hit it after taking range bands into account, and rolled an 8. With the 13 dice I rolled 6 hits, which is not a bad conversion given the Shermans matching armour value of 6. He managed two saves, and the Sherman was brewed up. His force morale dropped to 6.

In the same move the FOO arrived on the table and called for mortars. The US player managed to roll yet another double phase and seeing this I felt he was going to be able to rally the squad and get them out of harms way, I took the chance and burned both CoC dice, that the Germans start the scenario with, on activating my two squads and pouring more fire into the precarious US squad. It worked, enough shock to pin them.

Now the US player was facing dice woes and pulled on his remaining senior leader to try give him more activation options, and deployed him near the sniper in the hopes of getting him to finally use his rifle. His 50 Cal was battering away at my 2 Section with the downed leader and I was losing a few men.

He was managing to roll a fair number of fives and sixes but little in the way of getting a co-coordinated attack going, so he tried to move a squad forward on the German left flank and attempt to save the game and get off the table. This was met by the final section from the German side who unleashed all their fire power into the rather bold US squad. This had to be blunted so I took the opportunity to deploy my final support, the MG42 team, and batter into the Americans.

It wasn't decisive and we spent a few phases trading fire, primarily from his 50 Cal which was well positioned to my squad, and I started to lose a good number of men and enough to have a team wiped out which dropped my morale to 7. In this time my FOO had got a ranging shot on target and put two shock onto the 50 Cal.

On the other flank I had managed to put enough shock and kills on the isolated squad to break them and the subsequent force morale roll dropped the Americans onto 4 command dice, and my FOO managed to call in a barrage which pinned the 50 cal and obscured my sight of it and the broken squad.

Between my MG42 and the now battered 3 section they manage to break the second US squad on the German left flank, forcing another morale roll but with no effect. At this point I realised if I ended the turn both US squad leaders would rout and force his morale down lower. He was unlucky with his rolls and his morale tumbled to 0.

I was lucky in that my opponent assumed I would defend in a similar manner to the last encounter with mines, wires and road block and used a fair bit of his support on engineer teams. He also didn't bother bringing on his second sherman which would have caused me more problems. He had no mortars or smoke which meant I was able to pop up and hit him when it suited me.

It was, nonetheless, a brutal encounter and I lost 8 men of which, luckily, 7 are immediately returned to duty due to the force morale difference, and one will make his way back in a future battle. This means I am 4 men down going into the next battle but having won this one I can strengthen my defences again which helps. The US player will be on a monstrous 31 support points. Gulp.

Next time we are playing at my house so there will be no AWOL terrain! Apologies for the comical terrain in the pictures and the rather limited and poor photography. It is a learning curve!

29 Let's Go - A preamble to Game 2

Unterfeldwebel Otto Wienstein wiped the back of his hands across his dry lips. He was desperate for a drink, the last water he had had was three hours ago before the battle.

The large lumbering form of Obergefreiter Ralf Eichmann appeared at the top of the stairs.

"How many?" asked Otto.

"Braun, Werner and Schwartz dead. Meyer and Beck off to get patched up"

"Take two from Kurt, One from Naldo. And do it quickly, the americans will be back soon"

Ralf thumped heavily back down the stairs, at 24 he was the second oldest of the Obergefreiters. Naldo Schroeder was 23, like Otto, and Kurt Zimmermann was the old man of the platoon at 28. They made for a strange bunch. Ralf had been a farmer hand before the war, which suited his large frame perfectly. Kurt had been a dockworker and, as the rumours went, a bit too close with the communist party. When there had been a communist party. Naldo had been finishing up school in Munich, although whether it had been on his terms or not was unclear. Regardless of his performance at school he had certainly found his feet in the Wehrmacht.

Otto himself had been part of the Hitlerjugend, at first more due to his father's insistence than any motivation of his own. But it did not take long before he understood so clearly what the Fuhrer talked of. It became a burning fire inside of him that drove him onward, especially at times like this.

The americans had tried to push them back and they had resisted. Three dead was a price worth paying for such a victory. He turned away from the clouds of dust, settling in the distance, and eased his way downstairs to find a drink.

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"Two from your's, one from Naldo's" replied Ralf. Bugger. Three men dead may not seem like much to the little fuhrer upstairs, but to Kurt it did. It didn't matter that it was Ralf's gruppe that had taken the brunt of the punishment, the deaths would not sit well with the men.

He sighed. "Ok, Klaus, Helmuth, get your kit. You're with Obergefreiter Eichmann's squad for now"

Klaus rose slowly, leaning heavily on his rifle to push himself vertical. Helmuth screwed the cap back onto his canteen and followed suit. They both seemed reluctant to leave. Or were exhausted. Probably both.

The americans had advanced rapidly and given Ralf's gruppe a thumping. It had looked like the whole platoon would be overrun and forced to retreat, but Kurt and his men had push up in support and thrown down such a weight of fire into the yanks that it was the americans who had turned tail and run.

The fight had been on a knife edge and it was only the accurate shooting from Kurt's gruppe that had been the difference. One of his men had hit the yank sergeant, it looked like he may have gotten back up but it had certainly knocked the fight out of them.

For now.

They could already hear the rumbling to the north east that spoke of more tanks and trucks crawling towards them.

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Game one ended in a German victory as the US force morale collapsed after some focused fire on Squad 2 (Blue spot 2) forced a senior leader to be killed and a junior leader to be wounded. My opponent had two shermans on the table but with the focus being on managing his squads, he made limited use of them. The second one sat behind first all game and did nothing other than deploy. The first managed to cause some shock and casualties to the MMG (Red spot MG). In addition the US had a mortar and sniper in the vicinity of blue spot M, Germans had no real counter to this.

For my actions I had a Section at red spot 1 which became became depleted and in danger of becoming pinned, under fire from squads 1 &2 of the US. I brought on a new section (red 2) and pushed ahead to cover 1 Section. They fired into US and ended up routing the troops after injuring JL and SL leader as above. 3 Section and the support MMG largely kept their opposites pinned back and forced the US player to use 3's on squads rather than tanks.

I placed a road block to prevent a rapid advance by the sherman, and minefields in the north to restrict the US routes of advance. While this was effective I need to change up this approach as I suspect my opponent will be looking to counter this in the next outing.

29 Let's Go - US Supports

Game one ended with a win to the Germans, and while I was able to cobble together the required numbers of figures for the game, the support options were lacking somewhat. Not one for original thought I "borrowed" the idea from Rich Clarke's own 29 Let's Go supports. I utilised my first paycheck from the new job on picking up a box of Warlord Games US Rangers from the ever wonderful, and very reasonable Caliver Books.

I don't have the same aversion that many online seem to have over plastics. They can be time consuming but I rather enjoy the construction bit. When I was a child I would occasionally get an Airfix or similar kit for a birthday or Christmas, like many others I'm sure, and I could never wait to put it all together. Sadly I was always too keen and ended up gluing bits on before they really should have been stuck on. Usually resulting in some surgery or just a bit of judicious force. Without the judicious bit.

Apologies I'm rambling again. Anyway, plastics I don't mind. I did however find that sticking bits of metal onto plastic is rather frustrating and involved the use of superglue which I am in no way neat and tidy with. The particular culprit was the flamethrower pack with arms attached. I could not get it to sit correctly. Ultimately I just forced it into place and declared myself satisfied.

In hindsight I should have cut the bit where the arm joins the pack and it would have freed up the movement a bit more I suspect. Anyway, it is done. The other two in the team are simple riflemen with goggles. Because in my mind you need goggles if you're in the Flame Team!

I attempted some "creativity" here by trying to make the other engineering options. The bangalores were as per Big Rich and his wire team. For the third chap I tried to make some wire cutters out of paperclip wire and some metal sprue. Looks dubious and more like blacksmith tongs than a wire cutter but this chap just picked up what he was told.

I believe it is John Bond from whom I stole the metal detector idea. Sorry "borrowed". All I can say is that man is talented and I, Sir, am not. Bodge complete and with a bit of paint and smoke he will do. He is joined by two more simple attempts (also borrowed ideas)

Rather than be sensible and have the wire team double as a demo team I decided to make them. A quick google showed explosives in two forms so I chopped up some sprue and thrust it into their grateful hands. I'm hoping some paint will transform the bundle of chopped up paperclip into something resembling a bundle of dynamite sticks. The blocks of explosive also got a crate to lie in for number three to kneel and fish them out of.

The radio screamed FOO to me so not one to burden myself with deep thought I ran with it.

And an additional crew member for the 30 cal.

Finally I re-based the SLs and JLs, onto hexagon MDF bases from Warbases. My Platoon commander is a bit of a bodge. I had a figure which I suspect was a para, standing in a strange pose, so I thought he would be rather identifiable.

I found the Rangers box contains a metal head with a captain or lieutenant helmet, can't quite make out if it is two bars or one. I may put this on him instead, it would look better I think. But then I have to contend with how to remove the head he has and painting up a new one and gluing it on. All new experiences for me, but probably worth the effort for the gleaming Captain bands on the new helmet!

So it begins.......

So it begins.......

I started a blog over a year ago to try and document what I was doing hobby wise. I lasted about two weeks and then haven’t touched it since. A year later and what has changed? Well lots really. New job, new house, lots of new animals. Those are the reasons I am using to justify why I so quickly gave up on the blog. I also lacked the motivation and discipline to sit down and type up what I was doing. I’ve been plodding on with various projects, flitting between them, finishing some and starting far too many at one time. I’m going to make more of a concerted effort to finish off some of the things I have lying around before I start new things. But before I stop starting new things, I’m starting this new blog. Probably not just a wargames blog but we shall see how it goes.

Getting back to what has happened as it does inform the “why I am back on this blogging thing” picture. I moved house, well actually we (The Girlfriend and I) moved house and bought a house together. I was squatting in her flat after finishing up my time in the army, and in that first year out my list of wargames projects extended rapidly as I started playing with Ebay (a bit dangerous at times). I filled up too much space in the flat and ended up mainly sorting and repacking it all to fit into the small space rather than doing much hobby type stuff. This isn’t the reason we moved, but I have benefitted massively by the move. I have my own space (for now) to work in. We moved into a small cottage with a bit of land and some outbuildings. I am currently using the garage as my crafting area although I will be getting kicked out of that soon to allow some upgrading to happen. So I am now spread between the garage and a stable. TGF has a horse and a pony which was one of the driving factors for the move, this “delightful” cottage has a stable block which was ideal. As was the price because everything else was way out of our budget. I have also been promised my own shed/garage/workshop space which will be for both my crafty/wargamesy hobby and my Heath Robinson woodworking hobby. I enjoy woodworking, I mean I am no good at it but give me a piece of wood and some nails and by god I will thump the nails into the wood with glee.

Back to the narrative then, I had just finished a temporary contract as we moved house so I spent the first months fixing up some of the problems with the property (it had been unoccupied for over two years) and getting it ready for her horses and such. Well unemployment lasted a lot longer than I wanted, and while I was unemployed I didn’t really feel like I could spend time on a hobby, so it very much sat on the back burner (rightfully so). After Christmas 2017 I managed to get some temporary work as a labourer to keep some cash coming in, needless to say even if I had time to craft I didn’t always have the energy. Thankfully I managed to get myself employed in Spring and with the job secured I had a wee treat (which I had lined up earlier just in case), I went to Deep Fried Lard 2018.

This was a fantastic event; I’ve never been to anything like it before so it was a whole new experience. Now this is more due to me being an absolute wargames newbie, I’ve popped along to Carronade twice and that’s about it. I got to meet loads of folks who loved wargames and Lardie ones at that. Now I’m already a self-confessed newbie with coming up three years in the hobby and I came to Lard, or Chain of Command really, about a year into that so it is still all rather new to me. Anyway I met some great folk, managed to get a game of What a Tanker, hosted by Richard Clarke, and a SCW game of CoC, where I was thoroughly dismal but loved it anyway! I watched the end of another CoC game, an early war one which was great fun, and generally just sort of bumbled about occasionally chatting but mostly watching quietly from the side-lines. I loved it. I want to go back next year and I’d love to host a game in the future but I am a bit far away from that just now!

So that is why I am back on here, I got inspired by that Lardy day. I’m not a member of any wargames club, I don’t know of any wargamers nearby or within my circle of friends, I’ve got a mate who I have coerced into playing Chain of Command with me (and Bolt Action before, he is a thoroughly good bloke!), and luckily he has enjoyed it and is willing to have a go at a campaign. The games will not be regular, between his calendar and mine we have to fight to get a slot to game, and his preference is usually computer games (as was mine once) so it won’t always be a wargame session when we do get to meet up. That is probably the most difficult part, not having a regular or semi-regular game means I spend most of my hobby time preparing terrain, models, reading rules etc but largely in a vacuum. I mean it probably doesn’t help that I am somewhat anti-social, I don’t mean I hate people but the thought of walking into a wargames club where I know absolutely no-one and hoping someone has similar interests in terms of rules is rather daunting. It was why Deep Fried Lard was so great, it was Lardy rulesets and Lardy fans, it was still quite nerve wracking walking into the venue, thankfully Derek is a fantastic host and friendly bloke.

I suppose I hope that this blog is an outlet for what I do with my hobby time, although realistically it is a bit like talking to yourself, I doubt there will be a trickle of traffic let alone streams! But at least it will be out there, and perhaps someone will stumble across it and enjoy it.

In addition, with a few months of being in employment, I’m more comfortable spending time crafting, although having said that I have also expanded my responsibilities at home with some cats, chickens and just over two weeks ago, pigs. Yes, I fancy myself a bit of the River Cottage life too!

So with all this going on I should be able to have some content to put up each week, and I think being a bit more disciplined about it may help me focus my hobby work much better than I have so far. I’ll have some dip-checks at various points (New year, Deep Fried Lard 2019 perhaps!) to see what my output and direction is going like.