Thursday 14 February 2013

Red Recce Report

This game, run by Martin, was our first of the year.  The delay in posting this report must be laid at the door of the Third Reich's censor.  The game used John's Platoon Commander's War rules and Martin's 15mm toys.  As usual I was typecast as the Germans while John led the vast hordes of Russians.
My force - an understrength platoon - was to defend this sector of the front (seen above looking towards the Soviet lines) and to prevent the capture of a signals detachment with a radio.  I places one section at each end of the centre trench line, with the radio at the left of the rear line.
John pointing at stuff with his special sectional pointy stick.  He had bought this at Triples last year and was so delighted with it that Martin and I had a secret pact to not run any games for the remainder of 2012 which would allow it's use.  We are his friends.  Really.
Soon it was evident that vast hordes of Russians were skulking in the woods.  They even had mortars.  What a rotten trick.
The Soviets threw wave after wave of infantry forward in an effort to overcome the brave defenders.
Eventually numbers and firepower overwhelmed one of my sections.
In one of the game's high points, some Russians went blundering into a building which my chaps had booby trapped.  Most of the casualties were due to hamster bedding inhalation...
Having dealt with my front line troops the Sovs pressed on and discovered the signals team.  After disabling the radio the heroic operator perished, Luger in hand, in a hail of bullets.

16 comments:

Milgeek said...

Ha ha ha...Love the booby trap!

Once again this is one of those entertaining game reports that piques my interest in the gaming side of things.

I'm afraid I would be a Soviet fan-boy though...Forward to Victory Comrades! ;)

Tim Gow said...

Stephen Beat
It was an entertaining game - even if I was vastly outnumbered. And the dice were against me.

Martin Rapier said...

It wasn't quite as one-sided as the photos imply. For a while most of the Russians were pinned down under a hail of MG42 fire, and it looked like game over.

They eventually sorted themselves out and did the fire & movement thing and once they finally broke into the trench system, they rolled it up quite quickly.

The booby trapped building was indeed quite funny, especially as the Russians laid on a very deliberate assault against it with preparatory fire and everything.

Nick Grant said...

Nice report - 'specially the hamster bedding!

Tim Gow said...

Martin Rapier
I was simply quoting from the official German report of the action!

Tim Gow said...

Nick Grant
It's dangerous stuff. Probably why you never see hamsters playing Wargames....

Mad Padre said...

Hamster bedding inhalation is always a good reason to carry your gas mask.
This AAR was great fun, thanks.

Archduke Piccolo said...

Even games in which you are set up for a defeat can be fun and entertaining. One feels, though, that the Soviet commander exceeded his orders a bit. Unless they came in the form of:

'Go reconnoitre that bunch of trenches over there and report back that they are unoccupied!'

'Da, Tovarishch Major...'

Milgeek said...

Yet another one of Hitler's damnable secret weapons - hamster bedding. The by-product of genetically altered super-hamsters perhaps? Are there rules for them?

Martin Rapier said...

"Yet another one of Hitler's damnable secret weapons - hamster bedding."

The black hamster bedding is fairly innocuous. I also have bilious green bedding which I use to represent chemical weapons attacks. I think some features in a couple of Tims reports about our WW1 games.

As for empty trenches... the fortified combat outpost represented is roughly 150m x 150m in area, plenty big enough for a platoon position.

The scenario is from the Skirmish Campaigns book 'Red Guards at Kursk', the first of a campaign sequence covering actions on the northern flank of the Orel salient.

Tim Gow said...

Michael Peterson
Glad you enjoyed it.

Tim Gow said...

Archduke Piccolo
I think I may have exceeded my own orders - by fighting to the last bullet!

Tim Gow said...

Stephen Beat
I'm afraid I have copyright on the term 'Super Hamster'. The special rules for them are available in the form of a £29.95 supplement....

Tim Gow said...

Martin Rapier
"...the first in a series..." You mean we have to do this again?

The Dancing Cake Tin said...

Rampaging Reds wreck radio in really ripping recce report.

Tim Gow said...

Dancing Cake Tin
feeble fascists fantastically foiled and f**k off back to Fatherland...