The Batteries in my camera gave up before I could finish the game but here is what happened.
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| My first units arrive, an armoured truck containing my Command Element and a Boys Anti-tank rifle. |
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| A general shot of the table from my seat. |
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| The BUF start to arrive (Boo Hiss!) Also known as Tim and Dick |
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| Peter arrives with a squad and a machine gun in the second truck and I get another spuad and a mortar in the 3rd truck |
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| The Fasists start to arrive in force, 3 trucks of troops and some troops walking along the road. |
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| being card activated my command struck speeds of down the road but the other two trucks fail to activate. |
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| Clearly the BUF now are up to 5 vehicles including a tankette! |
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| Pete takes his socialists into the side road and de busses. The post box we find out at the very end is the Fascists objective! |
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| Petes Miners having de-bussed take the field and cross to the far side. |
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| Fascist Veteran Infantry arrive behind the tavern |
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| Fascist flying column take the hedge row in front of the tavern |
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| My socialists probably in a committee meeting remain stationary and fail to activate. |
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| View from the fascist table edge., They have a lot of stuff on the board now. |
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| The socialists (Pete and myself) do manage to get a few extra units on the table including and anti-tank gun. The bad news is that the antitank crew are inebriated and fail to move from this position for the rest of the game and are not even able to set the gun up, My troops in the lorry behind are stuck behind them in a traffic jam so I get the guys out and set about walking to the front. |
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| The Fascist get tank support on the table, Along with their veteran troops. Nothing we can do the boys antitank rifle is out of position and although does manage to fire 3 time in the game it hits nothing at all with any shot the entire game. |
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| Still stuck behind the anti tank gun the remaining troops trudge forward to a position on my right wing. We do get 2 tanks on the table at this stage, one is armed with a heavy MG and thanks to Pete goes on to do quite well. The one controlled by me only manages to activate twice more in the entire game. |
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| Fog comes down for 2 turns and several units scamper to better positions. Well if not better closer to the Fascists. My unit in the field hardly activate for the rest of the game and just become bullet magnets for all the fascists. Petes Miners do activate a lot manage to get into the middle of the field (in the open) and they have to face of against a tankette while they carry no anti tank capability! |
This was the last picture before the batteries in the camera died.
At this stage we could still win couldn't we.
Well actually NO. The game when it ended was 8 Victory points to the Fascist and ZERO victory points to the socialists. The Fascist did try to coddle me by claiming that we did score 2 victory points for knocking a MG out on an armoured truck. But as the VP table said we had to knock the veihicle out OR destroy it If is was a towed gun that kind of argument makes no sense to me.
So what went wrong? Honestly it was a combination of not knowing the rules which lead to some less than idea troop placement. (But that was the same for the Fascists as well). The fact that we could not activate anything that could knock out a fascist tank. And they just rolled over us.
Yes I did have a boys anti tank gun. In the game it fired a total of 3 times due to not getting activated, the first shot fired at a truck (No other targets) and missed, the second time did fire at a Fascist tank and Miss, The third time with no vehicle targets it fired at a Fascist machine gun and yep you guessed it.
I did have a tank with a cannon that could penetrate a Fascist tank. It activated twice in the entire game having come on late and spent those activations moving towards the front. The fascist tank it was facing activated MOST (but not all Turns) and was able to fire 3 times at my tank without me being able to fire back.
Overall I think I just have to say the cards were against us and while we could activate in the first 2 turns after that (and we played about 10 turns) me and Peter weer just sitting ducks and could not even shoot back. All in all very frustrating.
I am sure the fascists will point out that they had a unit that only activated twice (actually 3 turn as it did activate in the final turn) and you cannot blame them for our VERY bad luck.
Following te game there are several things I would change in the rules, Morale for a start units tend to get wiped out rather than retreat. The way units are activated. It could have been more balanced and the Fascists dd point out that before they hade anything on the table we did manage to get some units on and moving. And that is true, but in later turns we could do nothing to counter act the Fascist. We had no effective antitank at one stage they drove within 2 " of the Boys as they knew it would not activate and if it did the chance to hit was so small as to be worth the risk. Our anti tank gun was out of the game from the start and the only tank with a gun and not an MG was destroyed because it could not activate in the 3 turns that it was being shot at.
Still them's the breaks!
It sounds like your photos of the game are far better than the rules you used, Clint. But an enjoyable AAR nonetheless. I quite lick card activation for units but your luck does seem to have been especially bad with this game. I take it they won;t be the first choice of rules for your future VBCW games?
ReplyDeleteThanks mate. Most of the rules did work very well. And I like some aspects of card activation as well. And I am sure the Fascist players did like it. But the draw back is when I have games like this where your only role is to ge attacked and take figures from the table it gets boring very quickly, and after 2 hours well you get the idea I am sure.
DeleteUgh, Clint, it Slovene partisans fought the fascist like that, I'd parlano Italiano at questo punto!
ReplyDeleteStill, I envy you VBCW game, no matter the result. It is still awful how little you activated - was this just an extraordinary bad luck?
I for one like the lack of anti tank weapons, it makes you think really well how to position and what to do with the assets you got.
While I like the idea of occasional non-activation for a bit of a flavour, losing an anti-tank gun for good before it even sets up sounds like a harsh move.
So they just suppressed your units, that boys rifle could not activate?
Thanks Mathyoo.
DeleteWith regard to the Anti tank rifle, It activated 5 times in the whole game, moved twice and fired 3 times (and missed 3 times). When the enemy are willing to drive a light tank within 2" of it and even end a turn with their rear facing the anti tank rifle it is not even a threat to them. That is how bad it was!
The Anti tank gun could have activated and been a vital weapon. It turned up with drunk crew, the vehicle broke down and they could not sober up before the end of the game. So again that did nothing.
All in all a bit disappointing for the socialists. I will say we could have played better but given our victory conditions we were encouraged to race across the table, but in reality we did not even get 1/2 way.
Nice pics Clint :)
ReplyDeleteShame about the result :(
Thanks Tamsin, while you cannot WIN every time I can at least moan about it!
DeleteSounds less then perfect. Sorry about how things turned out for you. This was not a good advert for the rules being used.
ReplyDeleteThanks Bryan. The rules did work quite well (apart from Morale) and the activation via cards could just have easily worked against them. Sometimes you just have to say it was not the best luck.
DeleteResult aside it does look like a cracking game.
ReplyDeleteThank you Michael. Looks wise one just cannot fault the game.
DeleteClint, perhaps you should try these:
ReplyDeletehttp://panzerkaput.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/alternative-or-revised-initiative-and.html
It's what I'm intending to use
Thank you CM. It was Matts choice of rules so I will make sure he reads them and then decided. As you no-doubt know I tend to use "Chain of Command" by Too fat Lardies.
ReplyDeleteIn the TooFatLardies yahoo group 'Chain of Command' folder there is a VBCW sub-folder with a bunch of patrol markers for the factions
DeleteThanks CM what a great heads up.
DeleteGreat game report and pictures! Really nice collection of cars!
ReplyDeleteGreetings
Peter
Thank you Peter. There will be another in a few months, we all need to take stock and re-evaluate.
DeleteI've always found it very frustrating when unit's can't/aren't allowed to move for whatever reason other than occassionally.
ReplyDeleteWhilst the set-up looks great the game does sound like it needs a rethink on the rules, maybe as you suggest with paricular attention to morale
Thanks Joe, the morale rules do need sorting and activation as well, but other than that It did work, maybe not as good as it could have but good enough.
DeleteNice report mate it looks fabulous. I am sure once you get a few more games under your belt and become a bit more familiar with how it all works games will flow a lot more better for you and the errors made in deployment possibly won't occur as often. It tends to happen a lot in the batman game. Bad deployment or objective positions can cost you the game very easily.
ReplyDeleteThanks Simon, while some of it is clearly my fault the card driven activation was a BIGGER issue. For example the only tank with a gun capable of taking out the enemy tanks was only activated twice. And they were to move. After it moved the enemy was able to activate their main tank 3 times and fire 3 times (The first missed, the second |I did save on my armour But the third did destroy my tank. It is just bad luck and the laws of averages suggest I should have been able to get 1 or 2 shots back even if they did miss, but NOT a sausage of return fire and thus it was with all my anti tank capability. Which meant the enemy could do what they wanted and there was nothing we could do back to them.
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