Marines Marines Marines: Modern Spearhead AAR

Ziggy and I put on a game of Modern Spearhead after a long hiatus Saturday evening. Because my Naval Assault regiment hadn't gotten any playtime yet, it was a perfect excuse for a USMC versus Soviet Naval Infantry bash. We we back at the southern shore of the Baltic in the mid-1980s.

The battlefield. Loads of woods, two towns. The stars indicate objective locations. Ruskies enter from the left, Yanks from the right.

Turn 1. Two battalions roll up the roads. The mechanized infantry in BTR50s on the southern road (to the left) and a T-72 battalion with a couple of attached BMP-2 platoons on the right.

I was expecting the fighting around the large central town to be intense and sent the "heavier" battalion that direction. The Marines on the left were one side of a developing sandwich on that side of the battlefield.

Turn 2. The tank battalion reaches the town and begins setting up shop having gotten to the end of their arrow. A recon and AA platoon get lodged in at the turnip farm. On the other side, the infantry has nearly made it to the intersection - the end of their arrow.

Here comes trouble.  M60s with some Amtracks in support. They were exactly on the wrong side - I needed these guys to be on the coastal road!

Turn three. Some badly needed help shows up in the form of two Mi-24s! Say hello to my little friends, nasty Yankee tankers! I was surprised by the arrival of ground-pounders marching in on my left through the woods. My mechanized battalion was in deep.

M60s, with nothing better to do smash the front end of my formation. The Hinds kills one and Suppress another. In retrospect, we goofed this up - the helos should have fired before the tanks, reducing my casualties by two.

The Marines make their way through the woods, while mine dive into the woods for cover from those damn tanks.

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The Harrier shows up and takes a run at a ZSU and a Recon platoon. The Shilka forces it to abort!

Tracers and rockets fly back and forth across the clearing for the rest of the battle!

My aerial assault battalion arrives to capture the bridge! MANPADS streak out from some Marine positions but none connect.

Feeling good about myself.

The T-72 battalion receives a change of orders and advances to the next town on the coastal road.

I forgot to take pictures of their arrival, but I had some T-55s arrive via flank back on turn 5. They bagged the bridge and proceeded to cause havoc among the Marine tanks. In retrospect, I wish I'd have had them camp on the bridge, holding it.

The Marine Battalion Commander in the town gets the attention of the Harriers again which swoop down and take out a BMP platoon. If you had not noticed - I did manage to knock out the TOW teams in the outskirts and was daring Ziggy to roll a couple of M60s out to duel with me.

After nine turns. This was the intersection of DOOM.

We were both tired and Ziggy was especially tired of rolling ones. I had two bridges and the small town, while Ziggy only firmly held the large town. The intersection was contested (to say the least).

We were a bit rusty on some things - particularly timing of firing, but by midgame it was all coming back. Ziggy's dice really were atrocious and had a lot to do any success I had. My flanking arrival and airborne insertion were a lot of fun and went a long way towards keeping Zig off his game. More MSH before the end of the year for sure!

2017 Memorial Day Bash - Part 1

Sunday May 30th I hosted the third annual Memorial Day Bash at my house. This year's games were Modern Spearhead, StarDust and the late addition of Epic X-Wing.

We kicked this off with MSH - a little 1973 Arab-Israeli War action. The scenario was a slightly expanded Hunting the Hunters from the MRB. The Egyptians gained one T-62 battalion and the Israelis padded out their second battalion to full strength + the three TOW stands. Both forces also got air support because, let's face it, everyone loves watching planes bombs tanks.

Our players! Ziggy and Mark took the Israelis while the Waycross contingent of Mike and Jason led the Egyptians.

Ziggy was the only player with MSH experience, and it'd been a looooong time since he and I had played. I GM'ed and was designated fighter/bomber pilot for both sides.

The Israelis, somewhat predictably, spread their forces evenly to cover the table. The sneaky Arabs however pile two battalions in far to the east with their other two in reserve.

This was the fighting debut of my Pico Armor forces!

Mark's battalion takes up defensive positions on the hill on the east. The Arabs pull up about a thousand yards away. The two sides have spotted one another.

The first of the reserve battalions arrives, again hugging the eastern edge. There is a lot of face-palming in the Israeli planning room.

An A-4 steaks in and in no time thrashes two platoons of T-62s! In the distance you can see the Egyptian mortar has gotten to work planting smoke in front of a platoon of M48s.

Zig's central battalion turns to face the threat and picks off a couple stragglers. The Israelis are holding tough so far!

A turn later and things go sideways for the Israelis! The Arabs have plotted a two-turn pause in their advance to take some stationary shots at what they'd presumed would be a held position. Boy did they guess right. All of those green tokens are "stationary" markers. Both sides' aircraft show up. The Super Mystere takes out another T-62 platoon but the Su-7 from hell takes out an M48 stand AND the Israeli AGC! That's going to leave a mark. Good shooting from the Egyptian tanks takes out another two M48 stands (even being Hull Down, the volume of fire was withering).

A successful change order gets Zig's battalion moving to provide some badly needed help!

Evil Mike brings in the last Egyptian battalion, much further west. Ziggy now is given the "Sophie's Choice" between helping Mark's beleaguered battalion or smashing this new threat.

The Egyptian's two-turn pause ends and they hit the gas pedal hard! Exploit the gap! Imshi! Zig's battalion pauses and platoons turn to face spotted enemy stands.

The battalion on the west flank gets pasted by the M48s in the center, losing three platoons. Mark's last fighting platoon on the hill takes out the sixth stand of the centermost Egyptian battalion. The stand that was killed was the battalion commander! Their morale failed and of course, this was the result....

Mark's BC calls in the last airstrikes of the day. The conveniently positioned ZSU-23-4 battery runs off the Super Mystere and distracts the A-4 pilot enough to make his attacks miss.

Ziggy a l m o s t finishes the job against the western tank battalion. One stand escapes with its life and passes a morale test! Akmed and friends continue north - ON TO JERUSALEM!

Mark gazes despondently at the waves of Arab armor roaring north. His battalion is in ruins on the hill.

Pharaoh Jason gives this battle a thumbs up! This of course is what winning looks like.

It's been way too long since MSH was played in my house. Even as a GM, that was damn entertaining. Mike and Jason were very quick studies. Plotting a halt in front of what they assumed would be a defended hill worked out unbelievably well as did the tried and true tactic of putting everything on one flank and overwhelming it. They also latched onto the reserve battalions right away and exploited their usefulness to the fullest.

Zig and Mark did well, but a couple of crushing shooting phases took all the starch out of Mark's battalion and Z's was just enough out of position to offer substantial help.

A fine game and a welcome return to Modern Spearhead.

Next up... StarDust 'til you puke!

Israeli Pico Armor

The M48s and M113s w/ TOW stands are done. At this point, the forces required for the base scenario I want to run for Memorial Day are done. I need some brigade command odds and ends for the Egyptian forces - I'll get them in the next couple of weeks. I'll probably pick up a few extra baggies of stuff to begin expanding the forces.

Arab / Israeli - Basing

With the goods in the mail, I figured I could get started on the bases since I'll need a bunch and let's face it - with Pico Armor, the minis will just be elements of a diorama on each base. I don't want to have simple flats with tanks - it's a bit lazy.

So Sunday, I cranked out 21 textured bases, then drybrushed them up.

With a ZSU-23-4 "just hanging out" for reference. Two or three vehicles per base will look mighty fine.

A couple of finished bases with unit ID strips on them. I'll mark the units later. The heavy coat of gloss coat will hopefully help it resist nicks and chips as the spackle isn't what you'd call "rock hard." I'm going to add a bit of foliage after the tanks and infantry are attached. The second batch of 21 just got spackled....

I think I'm going to need about 35 bases of Egyptians and 14 or so bases of Israelis for an intro game. More pics as they happen. I'm out of town this weekend - no gaming for me 😡

Modern Spearhead : Saturday Game 1

Mike Baker came by yesterday for a couple small games of Modern Spearhead. "A couple games" you ask? Yes, they were much smaller affairs than is typical for MSH. I based the scenarios off the first two scenarios from this treasure...

I converted the squads to battalions (or companies in the case of very small units) and set the Soviets up as attackers in 1981 Europe, attacking some West German positions. In retrospect, the force balance was a bit off - the Soviets could have used at least one additional battalion in both scenarios, but that's neither here nor there. This was Mike's first time playing any flavor of Spearhead, although he's been a miniature game his whole life so he's no novice. On with the show!

Here's the basic set up of match 1. Oh, and yes, we're playing on a 3 foot by 4 foot area, per the published scenario. The big brown area is a depression. I have two BTR battalions (left and center) and a beat up small battalion of BMPs and T-72s (right). Their order paths are shown in red. My mission was to capture the town, and if possible, exit 10 stands off the far board edge. The Germans have a reduced battalion of mechanized infantry in the town and a company of Leopards in the woods off to my right.

Some fine paint jobs...

I start to hit the wire. Mike placed it after we'd written up our orders, but before minis were on the table. He placed it in such a way that all of my battalions were affected. I did wiggle some platoons around the edges - just seemed to make sense. I had trouble getting a change order to stick.

Ambush fire from the Leopards causes some early casualties to my already weak BMP/T-72 battalion. Yup their BC was too far ahead and was the "only eligible target."

Turn 3. My old nemesis, The Terror of  the Fulda Gap, a PAH-1 arrives. I miraculously run it off for a turn with some ad-hoc AA fire from a couple of BTR stands struggling with the barbed wire. Huzzah!

I did manage to succeed at an order-change for turn 3 and re-routed 2nd battalion around the wire an up the right flank, right into the Leopards. Surely I could drive those Krauts off.

I'm back on the move again. The T72s and BMPs have departed. My battalions are starting to thin out, but some clever change-orders could salvage this!

While Mike amuses himself with pictures of dead Heroes of the Motherland, I get another change order to stick. The plan is to come in on the flanks, eliminating all defensive fire!

Unbelievably, the Leopards were also issued a change of orders and headed out to intercept the battalion I'd just re-routed! Obviously there's a traitor in the Soviet ranks. On the other hand, 2nd battalion licks its chops seeing the vulnerable flank armor of the tanks!

OK, so BTRs aren't exactly BMPs, but I did manage a suppression and some well-placed smoke kept my casualties to a minimum. 1st battalion on my left lost a couple more stands but their morale held.

I managed to engage the Germans (finally!) although things didn't go so well. The BC was suppressed on the way in and my other stand lost its combat. The battalion routed. Oh well. On the other side, I did manage to bag the Leopard but it was too little, too late. The Germans got a solid win.

Afterthoughts... yup an extra battalion of Soviets would have made things very tense for Mike, but I don't think it would have been un-manageable. It is worth noting that we had random additional units and Mike got the best thing he could have hoped for - the Leopards. He also could have gotten some artillery or a second helo. Maybe in the updated OOB, the Soviets will get a T-62 Battalion to ride with the BTRs. It was an entertaining scenario and I'd certainly like to revisit it.

The AAR for our second  game will be posted soon!