More Dominion of the Blitzkrieg

 A couple of weekends ago I played a few more games of DOTB.  Partly to get more experience of the game in different theatres of war and partly as an excuse to get out some 6mm toys which haven't been seen for a while.  I'm happy to report that the following dozen or so games all produced credible results. Total playing time including setting up and packing away was a little over two hours.

I hope you enjoy the reports and photos.

More Dominion of the Blitzkrieg. Khalkhin Gol, 1939.  Played on the big board with (generally) three stands to a unit.

Some of the Sov infantry is dug in

Tank brigades with light and medium tanks and armoured cars.

A Japanese victory!

Japanese artillery - all GHQ models.  These are quite 'new', having been painted c10 years ago!

Japanese tanks - Type a 95 and 97.

Game two. A very similar result.
Game 3. And another Jap victory!  Makes you wonder why they didn’t build more tanks!

At last, a Soviet victory! And a much longer game. The jap artillery was silent, the infantry line crumbled and then the (elite) Sov tanks overran the remnants.

A change of climate now, and back to the small board for Soumussalmi. Late war Germans standing in for the Finnish infantry (try to ignore the Panzerfausts!). The debut flight of the Finns' borrowed bomber.

A hard fought Finnish victory. The Sov artillery never fired and their tanks all broke down. Mind you, the bombers were pretty useless.

That was closer!  Again the tanks didn’t show but artillery shelled the Finnish airfield.

Bialystok—Minsk!  A very busy battlefield.

An appallingly bloody battle, ending when panzers overran the Sov airfields.

A less good result for the Fuhrer’s lads.  More were SB2 enjoying their combat debut. By contrast, most of the German kit has been in service since the mid-eighties. Some of it is even older.

In the third battle of Bialystock the Sov bombers don’t show up but the Heer is soon seen off by the workers, peasants and T-28s. The Luftwaffe is heard to complain of being ‘stabbed in the back’ by the army.

Jitra, Malaya 1941.  Two Japanese victories but the Brits finally triumphed third time round.

I say British - actually these chaps are Indians, built for the wars of 1965 and 1971.

Dominion of...The Blitzkreig

 

Yet another Dominion of... variant now!  I confess that I approached this one with a degree of scepticism, but happily that turned out to be misplaced.  As with it's predecessors this book contains the rules, a detailed example game and a number of scenarios.  To give it a proper try out I decided on two very different battles using my 6mm toys.

First up is the battle of Mokra. The wicked Germans have panzers and dive bombers but the plucky Poles have an armoured train!  We’ve previously fought this with both Megablitz and NBC.

The Stukas didn’t show up and like our NBC game, it ends with panzers shooting up the train.

Second go. The Stukas were (very slightly) less rubbish. Panzer’s considerably more so. Clearly, the armoured train remains the weapon of the future.

A few days later the Poles launched a major counterattack on the Bzura. Again, I’ve done this with Megablitz many years ago - using these same toys!

This time the instruments of Blitzkrieg triumph in game one….

…with an almost identical story in game two!

Sidi Barrani.

Game one. Something of a walkover for the Brits.

Game two. The Italians make more of a fight of it but those bloody Matildas are nearly impossible to kill!

Great fun and nice to get some toys on the table.

Dominion of...Patriots and Redcoats

 

Yet another Dominion of... variant!  Again, for such a simple system this has a nice 'feel' to it.

Lexington & Concord, 1775. 2mm toys.

British victory!

Second game. The wicked colonials even the score.

Third attempt: another triumph for the Brits.

Trenton. Pretty much the only battle of the war I know anything about!

A very hard fought battle but the King was let down by his Hessian mercenaries

Trenton 2. A victory for the Hessians. Er, I mean Brits!

Look carefully and you can see the Hessians grinning.

The decider. I hope the King gets his money back from the Prince of Hesse.

The toys are 2mm Irregular. Originally painted and used in Franco-Prussian War games, they've also been used for ACW and the AWI version of Command & Colours.  Very versatile, these chaps!

Dominion of...Marlborough and Peter the Great

 

We've tried out several versions of the 'Dominion of...' rules.  A few months ago I built a 'travel' version on a 9x12cm board and painted wooden blocks.  Despite the title, the games I have played so far involved neither Marlborough nor Peter...

A few days ago I tried out the above book starting with the Boyne.

Williamites in grey.  The yellow blocks denote 'unreliable' units, the green matches 'defended' units.

A Williamite victory!  Each game takes only a few minutes.

Second attempt.  All the unreliable units legged it!

A terrible day to be a Jacobite!

Fleurus 1690.  Marshal Luxembourg's French in white vs the Dutch/Spanish alliance. I forget who won as I forgot to take a photo!  It's a very elegant little game and ideal for resolving campaign battles and the like.  Recommended.