Friend or Foe

Things continue to go swimmingly for the Canadians and other Commonwealth forces at Gold, Juno and Sword beaches. 6th Airborne  afternoon glider landings had no losses and most were spot on the Pathfinder  signals. The 6th's para engineer who, as it turned out luckily, scattered to the West "wrong" side of river was able to ferry the  O & B  across the Orrne river / canal. Seeing all these Red Devils swarming about and having completed their bad deeds (blowing Pegasus bridge) the Hun hath hastily retreated. [I had been trying to finagle German player into believing the three FoW counters stuck between river and canal could sneak up the spit of land and cross Orne Canal bridge to reach new LZ on west side (we had been thinking bridge demo only affected the river bridge, until we tried to figure out if/how he could demo the canal bridge along same hexside).  With help of US player we eventually ruled that since the Minor R. + canal combo is treated as Major Ri...

Juno Beach Raw, unedited video of  Sword Subphase 1 Beach Landing  and Sword Subphase 2&3 Landings .  Google Drive link to all the  videos & pictures of Atlantic Wall Campaign Playthrough . Subphase 1 AM June 6th Commonwealth Beach Landings Decided to swim all the DD tanks ashore. Reducing german fire power (by having units in front of WNs) is worth the risk. They drifted all over Juno including off map and thus eliminated. But barely at all on Gold. DD drifted into ASL tournament and caught fire Juno suffered getting through beach obstacles. Gold did not fair much better. Few step losses, other than DD, though. End of Step 1, Landing Allies took a beating, bunch more pins. Germans fire took out a couple steps in return. Including one from the 88 not shown below because I forgot until later. The 88 on Gold also took out a step. Hey ho! Juno DD gunners did a smashing good job! Taking out three steps of WNs on the flanks. Juno German and Allied fire (End of Ste...

Men of the 6th Airborne Division Weather forecasts be damned, the Order of the Day has been given and the men of the 6th, 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions shuffled onto their transports. Guided by their Pathfinders  they have jumped into the night sky over Normandy France. CW 6th AB Sector The Red Devils  had a relatively safe and wildly disorganized landing. Couple units on Extended Scatter track. Only three Coys worth of FoW units in dead pile (GOSS AW paratroops are broken down into companies and a few dummies mixed in. No player knows what those FoW counters contain until regrouped). Pegasus Bridges were of course captured and the Merville Battery mission failed. Only got three FoWs regrouped. One via blowing that bridge over the Dives. My attempt to establish communication with Pegasus Bridge was rebuffed. During 2nd movement, Fritz was able to get stronger units and an Eng blocking my path. Given that the rules say no regrouping for the next three turns (all of Ju...

Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hope and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you. In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts, you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world. Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely. But this is the year 1944! Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and...

A few hundred counters into magnetic clips and The Italian Campaign can begin! But right now, I'm playing VASSAL game of Campaign for North Africa with bunch of great peoples. Clay who got made searchable PDFs of rules with all errata incorporated and notated. Mitch who made a stunning and faithfully rendition of the map (assuming you rightly think SPI maps are objects of sublime delight). Also contains extremely nice and sharp SVG based counters.  Tim who put together a set of spreadsheets which make running this beautiful beast a possibility. Along with several other "mere" players. Great times. It's literally been a 37 year long journey  to get CfNA played. Well, I'm playing it. And, and! Got my physical copy on the table, well on the magnetico wall. Let's Go! I am so fucking stoked right now. 

Someone brought Warriors of God to Tucson Boardgame Meetup this Sunday past.  Which is a bit odd as the meetup is generally a Euro style affair. This guy, let's call him Dave, sports a Tiger T-shirt more often than not. So, I had high hopes and good vibes. And we played 100 Years War Scenario. Well, got 5 out of 12 turns done. Neither one of us really knew the rules. I played Warriors of Japan, once, maybe, long ago... I was The English, which is proper. Dave, unfortunately was stuck with The French. It was great. The rules are really simple (relative to the other wargames I play ASL/OCS/BCS/SPI monsters). But, they are really slick in application. Often doing double duty. Like there are no logistics/supply train rules. But the way control markers are placed and units deployed "implements" being cut off, "out of supply", extending yourself too far (I speak from experience), etc. At a high level. But it works as this is a high level game. Each turn a decade, e...

Playing OCS Sicily with couple local buddies.  When your Supermarine Spitfire , one of best fighters of WWII, sorties to sweep the not horrible, but not that great Macchi C.202 Folgore  and dice... At least the "1" on third die means the Spitfire was not shot down. I like to imagine the British squadron had mechanical difficulties, was unable to locate the Italian CAP before bingo fuel, or the like. The next squadron rumbling down the airstrip and roaring off , also aborted with no effect. But the third guy shot down the 202 and German 109g (5-1) under it. Then aborted the final Italian, a 205. Skies clear for lumbering bombers to give the defenders what for! Three aggressors to clear three defenders, fair?