Game 2 of the Nasty Cough campaign

The Gaming Season seems to have arrived. No less than four of the Monday Night gamers got together; we had a very pleasant evening of rolling dice and pushing the toys around the table.

This was game 2 of the intermittent - I hope, ongoing - Nasty Cough campaign,set in Russia 1941 so far. The Grey Hoards were commanded by Ian and Adrian, while the Heroes of the Motherland were commanded by me and, when Larry turned up, he gave a helping hand.

looking east

In campaign terms, it was a case of the Russians desperately throwing units into the fray to try and slow the Germans down. It was a good fun game.

Germans on their start line

Some general milling about and then they were off.

A few Russian units awaiting the enslaught

A Stug 3 passes a KO'd armoured car. "I think we found them".

We were playing the defenders having mostly hidden deployment. In theory, the Germans would have to use their recky units to go and find them. Adrian had a very Pattonesk use of reconnaisance units (ie straight up the road until something shoots at them). This had mixed results.



The rest of the German armour went straight up the middle. Not particularly quickly, but in a steady advance; finding an MG bunker, anti-tank rifle and infantry platoon in the corn fields, which they soon saw off.

Russian infantry legging it backwards 

 

through the cornfields again

Bottom left, German infantry and armour over-running MG bunker

It wasn't completely one-sided; Gerry tanks taking damage

"We got one, we got one!"

... but, for every one of the Germans KO'd, it seemed like there were two or three Russians KO'd.

Eventually, we had to call time; it was clear that the German players were about to outflank and overrun the Russians (ie me). Russian morale was clearly in the red but was still clinging on.

Above are a few general pictures of the battlefield.

Until next time .....

I think we are at Adrian's next Monday. Have no idea what we are playing.

Thank you for all your kind comments ..... cheers!

A Game - the first one in the shed this year!

This last Bank Holiday Monday, two of the Monday Night Gamers, ie me and Adrian, actually got our act together and had a game.

The beginning of my Russian front campaign, the advance to the river Nasty Cough. This campaign I hope will be on-going and a regular thing. Monday night's game, Adrian was commanding the invading Grey Hoard and yours truly was commanding the heroes of the Soviet Union.

The game kicked off at approximately 2 o'clock in the afternoon. It took a while for us to get our heads round the rules as we had not played for months. But, as the afternoon wore on, the speed of the game picked up.

Adrian decided to mass his mighty Panzers Mk2 and 38Ts on one flank and a Stug 3D together with an armoured car on the other, with some infantry. Off they went. First couple of turns they were flying up the table, cautiously.

As it was a campaign, Adrian seemed reluctant to do the right thing and "charge". Instead he got all tactical.

Tactical? It looks like hiding to me.

Pretty quickly, as can be seen here on the left, the heroes of the Soviet Union got thoroughly hammered; they were suppressed and forced back from their forward line of defence. The anti-tank gun - to the bottom right of the picture - spent the whole game either suppressed or legging it, as fast as it could go.

On the other flank, things didn't get much better, as the Russian armour again was suppressed, forced back and eventually ended up in smoke. Things were not looking good.

Adrian looking confident as things were going well at this stage.

... and then things slowly started to change. The heroes of the Soviet Union pulled off a masterful retreat. They fell back to their second line of defence, where they got themselves reorganised.

Russian infantry displacing to the rear in an orderly manner.

The Bosh attempting to catch up with the heroes of the Soviet Union, but they had clearly eaten too much bradwurst and were somewhat sluggish.

Unfortunately, at this point, the heroes of the Soviet Union were let down by the supply corp and proceed to run out of amunition. Luckily enough though, the Grey Hoard seemed to forget how to shoot straight. Eventually, Adrian diverted some of his uber panzers into the cornfield to help out the infantry.

The only defence left for the heroes of the Soviet Union was a little infantry gun which happened to be pointing the wrong way. When it eventually got re-orientated, it turned out to be completely useless as it seemed to be firing blanks, having no appreciable effect. Not long after this, the heroes of the Soviet Union decided to live to fight another day and withdrew from the battlefield.

A good fun game, using the Panzer Grenadier Deluxe rules by David Brown.



Finally, managed to base up two of the houses from my last post.