Charlie Don't Surf: Bowman's Last Stand

In which Captain Bowman goes on one last mission, only to be transferred to a mobile latrine unit at the end of the night.  After various playthroughs of the Combat Engineer mission from Surf's Up (a scenario pack for Charlie Don't Surf), the time came for Captain Bowman to have a crack at this mission as part of his ongoing tour of duty last Friday (28th October).  As two of the four players had experience of this scenario from both sides, a couple of changes were made to keep things fresh.  More of which later.

The US deployed and prepared to advance but already the VC were on the move to their far right!  This was the first surprise for those who knew the scenario; namely the deployment and destination of the VC was 'flipped', and it was an apparent joy for the VC player to see the alarm the sudden appearance of several blinds caused the US players.  Particualrly when Captain Bowman muttered "I wasn't expecting VC there"...

Lieutenant Kallachek's platoon prepared to enter the jungle whilst the Rome Plow and mine detector squad began to check the road ahead for mines and booby traps.  To their rear in this picture are Captain Bowman and a medic.  

Now, I'm well aware that the above photo does not show a Rome Plow, but a WWII era British armoured bulldozer.  If anyone knows where I can source one of these in 1/100 scale or compatible with 15mm miniatures, please shout out, as my Google-fu has failed me!

It's also worth pointing out the second change made to the scenario here.  In previous runs, the US engineers had studiously examined the road and clear ground either side once they had  left their deployment zone.  This was a perfectly reasonable course of action given their briefing.  This time though, I offered the VC the option of having mines already lying in the road (thanks to the earlier efforts of their peers) in return for limiting some of their initial equipment and potential military victory points at the end of the game.  The VC happily leapt upon this option! 

To the left of the road, the platoon commanded by Lieutenant Monterey Jack also begin to file into the jungle, where Charlie has apparently begun some timber felling...

The VC CO has clearly been paying attention to the nuggets of Blinds-based wisdom I've been relaying from the Too Fat Lardies Yahoo group.  To the south of the road, Lieutenant Kallachek's platoon spent most of the game clambering though dense jungle in pursuit of a rather insouciant blind that eventually revealed itself to be a just a couple of VC chaps having a dekko, rather than a unit of any significant size.  At the same time, the VC rather boldly had two units out in the open mine-laying.  By now, my players are well aware that lingering in the open like this (a Great shot, in TFL parlance) will greatly increase the chances of being mashed!  However, the long range nature of US fire and careful use of VC Big Men to remove Shock saw the VC scurry into the jungle north of the road in surprisingly/relatively good order.

By this point, the US had finally requested- and received- mortar support, and an otherwise hesistant Captain Bowman began to walk the fall of shot in hot pursuit of the VC, who now seemed hell-bent on scarpering.  Having halted their advance to take pot-shots at the VC sappers, the US renewed their advance across the board; sadly, whilst they actually traveled the furthest that any US force has in this scenario (my players are highly cautious),  they still; had a third of the board to cover.

And they still weren't quite far enough to contact the numerous mines scattered in their way.

Is It A Bird?  Is It A 'Plane?  Yes!  It's Jetcam!

Post-game discussion hinged on the degree to which the US could achieve their objective of clearing the road.  The consensus reached by US and VC players alike was that perhaps the US are too easily distracted by the VC!  It was suggested that the Rome Plow and mine detector squad should methodically advance along the road with the remaining platoons covering their flanks, rather than trying to scalp VC, so to speak.  The mantra of "Keep It Simple, Stupid" was invoked when considering what would be an appropriate plan.  The wisdom of wiser heads than our's would be gratefully received!

As stated at the start, this sadly saw the end of Captain L. Bowman's combat career in Vietnam. Despite showing himself to be an increasingly astute political animal over the course of several scenarios, Ol' Cappy Bowman sadly was out of his depth militarily (mind you, Lieutenant McColl didn't help in one infamous previous encounter!), and was transferred away from his unit.

It appears that he was assigned to a mobile latrine unit for the remainder of his tour, whereupon he then returned to the United States. Bowman had difficulty finding work until someone invented "Health & Safety", at which point his experience of talking his "specialist subject" stood him in good stead. He is are now much in demand from corporations and government departments who really don't care but need to cover their backsides. It was either that or politics...!

As to our real-life Luke Bowman: well-played, Sir! You were clearly getting to grips with how to field your platoons, and definitely understood the importance of getting your Big Men to do their jobs properly. Bad luck too that you were up against the wiliest of wiley opponents, Mr. Smallridge- curse his inscrutable plans and dummy blinds!

Thanks must also go to Doc Neodynium; in the absence of a game on Friday, he kindly took on Dennis Hopper duties and took a few shots of this game and others running at the club.  Getting a visual record of games is something I'm terrible at, so it was extremely useful for the Doc to share his!

Slowly but surely...

Amidst prepping for work next week and making like Agent Orange to clear up the garden (fortified against the cold and rain by some rather nice cabbage and bacon), a little bit more work was done on the lead pile today, with continuing inspiration coming from IABSM.  

The Peter Pig Early WWII Brits have now been inked and blacked, ready for the detailing going on.  To be precise, twelve sections, four ATR teams, three 2" mortar teams, two 3" mortar teams and four ATGs (with some crew) are in line for the detailing.  By normal standards, it'll have been a productive week if 3 sections get completed!

Fuelled by a lava-like flow of tea, I even began to black some of the PP Late WWI Germans.  Slowly but surely indeed.

In other news,  Doc Neodynium has passed on some snapshots he took of Friday's Charlie Don't Surf game at our local club, Abingdon Wargames Club.  Sadly, the Combat Engineer mission marked the end of Captain Bowman's tour of duty...all will be revealed once the pictures have been cleared by the censor!

It's Aliiiiiiiive....

..clearly the weekend before Hallowe'en is an auspicious time for digital Necromancy.

Glossing over the extended hiatus in a few words in no particular order (domestic building project, China, technical gubbins and work), it might be asked why the Tao of Lard has revived now?

Here's the answer:

The tenth anniversary edition of I Ain't Been Shot Mum! I first bought IABSM about six years ago, even though there wasn't any WWII kit in the lead pile, and browbeat various club ne'er-do-wells into letting me use their kit to try out IABSM.  The rules were/are thoroughly enjoyable, and (to my limited mind) are positioned perfectly to marry historical simulation with entertaining games (even if there are some who treat those concepts as mutually exclusive; Yesthatphil and toofatlardies amongst others challenge the "It's only a game" mentality in this TMP discussion).

This was my introduction to the world of Lard, and since then Charlie Don't Surf, They Don't Like It Up 'Em, Algy (currently being revised) and Bag The Hun have been bought and- most importantly- played.  To be fair, other Lardy goodness has also been bought but only read.  So far. 

Too Fat Lardies have gone for broke with this release, providing all one could need to play IABSM (assuming you already own the necessary toy soldiers) in a variety of bundles.  Here's what was in the preorder bundle, alongside the softback rulebook and a PDF copy of said rules:

At the back of this poor quality photo you can see three examples of the IABSM card deck available (104 cards, enough to field two infantry companies, five armour platoons, eight Big Men, three off-table support units for the Allies and again for the Axis, as well as all the bonus characteristic cards).  In the foreground are the IABSM tokens also now available.  From left to right:

• Low ammo marker
• Artillery aiming point marker (which came in handy for the Free World in last night's game of Charlie Don't Surf)
• Pinned marker (likewise for these; two on a squad indicate that it is suppressed)
• Reduced Actions marker (you might be able to make out the wee 1 on it)
• Lieutenant Hugh Jarce! (Limited edition figure; not sure if he's still available from TFL.  He'll probably end up in my 7TV games as a "Mad Mitch" sort of chap)
• AFV Reduced Movement/Immobilised markers (the green and red spanners respectively)
• AFV Main Weapon Damaged/Out Of Action markers (the green and red targeting pieces respectively)

I've already begun hawking the rules around to try and persuade others that they really want to give IABSM a try, but without solely relying on their kit.  I'm sure they'll come round to my way of thinking after they play a few games, not just one.  By now, the Lead Pile contains some 15mm Early WWII British from Peter Pig, so I've begun to have a crack at them.

Of course, whether I continue to make progress is another thing, particularly when I've also got these chaps vying for attention at the other end of the desk...

A rather large quantity of Peter Pig's Late WWI Germans (luckily all the British are done).  Even before the arrival of IABSM, I'd been poring over my copy of Through The Mud & The Blood, also from TFL.   I'd been lucky enough to spend some time around Albert and Arras in France recently, helping my folks with their ongoing family history project, and spending a few days retracing my great grandfather's steps during the Battle of the Somme and ultimately his death in 1917 at the Battle of Arras rekindled my interest in WWI, and my thoughts turned to the various TFL WWI rules like Mud & Blood, If The Lord Spares Us, as well as others to be found in various Lard Winter ans Summer Specials.    

However, IABSM arrived and my train of thought was redirected...

It's like I've never been away.

Something, something, something Dark Side...

Game #7 of 2011- Hawk Squad Down, using the Flying Lead rules.  Doc Neodynium very sportingly has stepped up to bat as the VC in our games of CDS this year, so when he posted on our club Yahoo group he wanted to run out a Star Wars skirmish, it was only right to return the favour.  Time to cue the fanfare, screen crawl and that all-too familiar theme...

A squad of ten stormtroopers with a captured rebel R2 unit chock full of intelligence await a shuttle to pick them all up.  Looming out of the surrounding forest at regular intervals were rebel scum, including a certain cocksure smuggler and his walking carpet of a chum.  Can the Imperials hold out until rescue arrives?

Flying Lead is very much a beer and pretzels game (ale and  pork scratchings in my case).  Essentially a figure chooses how many dice to roll against his/her quality.  Each success allows an action, unless *horror!* there are no successes, in which case your side's entire turn ends!  We were certainly able to create a plausible narrative around the events that occurred in the game as a result, and both players under the Doc's tutelage picked up the game quickly.

Especially amusing was the manner in which the rebels were cut down like so many weeds by the Imperials initially, and then the typically Star Wars turn around once Chewbacca turned up.  Singlehandedly, the Carpet from Kashyyyk took out the Imperial characters with precise bowcaster fire, before loping into the crater in which they sheltered to finish 'em off!

End result?  All Imperials destroyed except for two prisoners.  To add insult to injury, Chewie even managed to bag the only Stormtrooper to make it to the long-overdue shuttle, potting the fellow as he raced up its ramp.  However, the Empire could take comfort in the fact that a considerably larger number of rebels had fallen, and that Chewie's exuberance to reclaim the captured droid meant the R2 unit was in fact totalled.

A nice little quick flowing game, with the only suggestion from both players being some means to differentiate between ranged and melee combat skill.  A single stat covered both of these.  As a result, the relatively-melee weak but trigger-happy Han actually failed to shoot anything, (whether firing first or not), whilst the wrestlin' wookie made out like snipers standing on grassy knolls and in book depositories, enagaging in only two bouts of fisticuffs.  An issue easily remedied, it was felt.

Apparently, the Empire is already about to hit back, or some such nonsense...

Dammit, Forbes, they found the Lemsip...

Game #6 of 2011- Land Ironclads

Charlie Don't Surf: The Worm Has Turned...

Game #5 of 2011- Charlie Don't Surf and the scenario that just won't die, The Great Rice Hunt from the Surf's Up scenario booklet.

"Not again?" you cry, but hold!  Tonight saw the US forces finally get to grips with their cunning foe, and deal him a mighty pair of blows, political and military! 

Given the number of times this scenario has come now been rolled out, it's best to cut to the chase and highlight what seemed to be the breakthrough(s) for the US.

Firstly, they approached the hamlet from the west, and in a considerably more measured and potentially mutually supportive manner.

Secondly, the three US players very quickly grasped the importance of the Big Men in motivating squads, and coordinating actions.  Incidentally, the players were two Lard newbies and Luke of "It's only a monkey" fame, who got hammered last time.  

Thirdly, the US players stuck to a simple but nonetheless clear plan, and from the ref's point of view, the US consequently spent very little reacting to events- instead, they forced the VC to react.

Finally, (and perhaps in light of the previous point) the VC either shot their bolt too early or were too confident after recent successes (post-game discussion didn't resolve this one!).  To be precise, the argument was whether the VC had crippled themselves by opening up too early and from a considerable distance, allowing the US to gradually bring their firepower to bear on the VC, or whether the locating of VC squads in the hamlet itself was a crucial mistake, reducing their ability to hit the US and fade away. 

The US fightback has begun...

"Martians? I feel a cold coming on..."

Game #4 of 2011- Wessex Games/Brigade Models' Land Ironclads and a general line 'em up and hit the heck out of the enemy sort of game to try out the rules.

As appears to be traditional whenever I play a new ruleset for the first time, I missed out a particularly important rule.  More of which later.  The set-up (such as it was) was a force of Olympian Martian War Machines (Doc Neodynium, who else?) looking to mete out punishment to the hairless monkeys of Earth, namely a combined scratch force of German, Russian and British Land Ironclads (potential new AWC member Jamie).  The points value differed by 50 points in the end, to the favour of the hairless monkeys, but curiously enough the breaking point for both sides turned out to be the loss of six units. 

With the Doc and myself having played Aeronef before, the system was very quick to pick up- essentially Land Ironclads act in order of their Command value, highest to lowest.  Once activated, it's basically a case of move and shoot.  Land Ironclads however are unreliable beasts, and cannot move if a D6 roll exceeds their Speed value.  A nice unpredictable touch, as was the fact that as certain damage levels are reached, players roll to see which Land Ironclad stat values change, unlike the more 'vanilla' reduction of all stats found in Aeronef. 

So laughing at their lumbering compatriots, the various contraptions (think WWI tanks) on both sides scuttled and (relatively speaking) whizzed forward.  Unfortunately, they were rapidly wiped out by the gun-heavy behemoths of both sides.  Chastened by this, the Martian and Terran commanders looked to their Land Ironclads.  The Martians managed to ramble forward for the most part, whilst the overall Terran commander was soon concerned by the national characteristics being displayed by the three nations under his command.  The Germans advanced in typical efficient teutonic style, the Russians barely coughed along on 1" and the British realsied they were so far the rear and right flank that they'd might not make the fight! 

Despite this, the Martians were clearly having a bad day, as all players agreed they'd never seen someone roll so many dice so often and yet consistently avoid 6s.  In desperation, the marauders from Mars resorted to stomping on the leading German Land Ironclads, and this proved to be a most effective tactic.  Unfortunately, the Martians engaged in this made it rather hard for their compatriots to fire at the other Terran Land Ironclads nearby.  This was not a problem for the Terrans who eventually got their guns in range and opened up, much to the chagrin of the Martians.

So what was the key rule that I missed?  I forgot that Martians didn't need to roll before attempting to move, and thus effectively hamstrung their ability to nip about the battlefield like things posessed.  Nonetheless, they held their own for much of the battle, only crumbling when the unreliable Brits and Russians *eventually* got into range.  In an effort to hide my shame, the Doc kindly pointed that perhaps these Martians had already come into contact with those pesky Earth germs that Wells mentioned...

In other news, the arrival of Jamie and the request of a certain junior member means next Friday will see *another* run at The Great Rice Hunt for Charlie Don't Surf.  That scenario's certainly doing its part to garner interest in gaming that particular conflict here at AWC...