Off to the Desert: Cold War Commander in the Sand

Cold War Commander made its was back onto the table yesterday, in the form of a Yom-Kippur War clash in the Sinai. Since we've both had precious little time playing CWC, I kept it simple and set up a simple Encounter scenario, with both forces entering onto the table. Both sides did have FACs and air support because who doesn't like ground attack aircraft in a game of toy soldiers?

Models are all 3mm Pico Armor / Oddzial Osmy.

Our battlefield was composed of mostly hilly terrain with a couple small villages and a pond to mix things up. The dark brown areas are rocky bad terrain - bad for vehicles, fine for infantry. I started with two units entering the table from the western edge - T-62s and Infantry. I held the other T-62 unit in reserve, to enter from a flank later on. 

My initial moves. The tankers we're terribly well motivated and petered out quickly, whereas the infantry stormed forward and took the big hill in record time!

A turn later and my lads were in better positions.

On turn three, I decided to bring in the flankers. The Israelis had a unit of M48s behind the hill right next to the central town. I needed to pressure them so they wouldn't just roll up the roll up and start blasting my tanks in the town.

They arrived and had a decent volley of shooting, taking out some M48s and suppressing others. I then got really cautious and re-deployed the T-62s, fearing that they'd be flanked in turn. They ended up in the position shown above, just next to the rocky ground.

Of course I'd made a major mistake and had forgotten a big part of the flanker rule... once you arrive on a flank, the enemy can only enter on that flank from their home edge corner. There was no way Ziggy would have been able to flank them back.

Some A-4s make their first of many unwelcome appearances. My flanking tank unit gets hammered. Critically, their command group, the overall commander, was suppressed. That unit was going to be pinned in place next turn!

Fortunately they took very few casualties from the Pattons firing at them moments later.

The Israeli flankers arrived on cue. I was fortunate that they ground to a halt right after their arrival. They were right in front of my FAC who called in a pair of Su-7s. They only succeeded in suppressing a single stand.

The combat cameraman was stunned by a nearby explosion and footage from the next 30 minutes was lost. What happened though was that the T-62s in the center turned to meet the flankers and then failed a command roll. The infantry immediately failed their command roll. Turn over. The Israeli M48 flankers begin a massive volley firing at the T-62s. Five of my seven stands were destroyed.

Then there was this mess on my left flank... the FAC got the entire IAF to respond and my flankers were hit by two airstrikes going from this (shown above) to this...

Gah!

While that was going on, My infantry on the hill had managed to eke out a command roll of "2" giving them two actions. They sprung into action, moving towards the flanking M48s. The new Russian 9M14 missiles streaked out smashed into some of the American tanks. Impressive! Mortar fire was accurate, resulting a handful of suppressed Israeli units.

That gets us to here. My flankers have evaporated. The central tank unit is smoke and rubble. My infantry is still in excellent shape, but the noose tightens for them.

The Sagger team in a great spot. Wish I had about six more of these!

With little else he could spot, the Zionist FAC called in an airstrike on the hill opposite. It deviates a bit, practically right on top of my AAA. The AA fire makes it exciting for the Israeli pilot but my infantry still take a pounding from the bombs.

With next to nothing left in the tank, my remaining Egyptians concede.

Although it was a blow-out, I enjoyed the game thoroughly. There's only so much you can do against the dice and you just have to put on a brave face and have a good time. I could really kick myself for screwing up the flank situation and not pressing harder. Oh well, it made things play out a bit more historically for my guys - capable troops, poor command and control. If I had to do it differently, I'd shit-can the T-62s and replace them with three units of cheaper T-55s giving the Israelis more targets and the Egyptians more maneuver groups. Next time!

CWC turned in a solid battle and perhaps it'll make its way on the table again soon with my 1980's European Theater toys. They've been in lock up long enough.

Sinai '73 - Cold War Commander AAR

David and I finally put the 3mm lovelies on the table last Monday (Labor day here in the US and a day off for many folks). The game was Cold War Commander - Mike has played a bit of Blitzkrieg Commander in the last 12 months and we've gotten roped into playing a few times.

Being a first time, there were one or two mistakes and we switched the order of play to an alternating-unit activation instead of the very GW IGOUGO. We also left unit damage on the units between turns.

The forces were quite tank-heavy. David's Israelis had two units of M48s and some halftrack infantry. I had two units of T-62s and one of BMP infantry.

To keep it simple, we played a straightforward "encounter" scenario - just a shoot 'em up to learn the mechanics.

David, channeling Garfield the cat.

Early into the proceedings, David pushes his infantry into the village (and its cover). We treated the village as area terrain.

My first activation is a blunder, causing the unit to advance in the wrong dadgum direction. :/  David blundered twice during his first turn. It was really pretty awesome.

The tank battalion that didn't dork it up moved forward then opened up on the M113 TOW team covering the road. The fire was accurate enough to kill off the dangerous ATGM.

A turn in, the BMPs have swung out right on a flanking mission while tanks in the center take up positions overlooking the center of battlefield.

My tanks in the center started taking fire from the Pattons opposite. They wouldn't last long left in that spot!

Further complicating things, the other group of Israeli tanks popped up around the rise creating a nasty killing zone. I was quite fortunate that after they moved, they failed their subsequent command test to order fire!

The BMPs get into firing positions and log a few shells downrange. One stand of Zionist mechanized infantry is eliminated.

Fortune continued to rain down upon the brave sons of the Pharaohs, I won the initiative on the next turn and activated the tanks in the crossfire, successfully moving them twice and out of harm's way.

My tanks on the hill really got to kick it up a notch and began picking off exposed Israeli tanks. We also got to learn how nasty ATGMs are, although I'd like to have had more than one Sagger stand to work with!

The Israelis began falling back, out of the range of the 115mm guns that were causing such misery for David. He realized too late that his tanks had a huge 40mm range advantage on me.

Seizing the momentum, I rolled out towards the tanks on my left in a effort to cause enough damage to rout the Israelis. BOOM BOOM! In minutes, there was only black smoke and orange flame left. The Israelis had enough and quit the field. A stunning Egyptian victory.

A fun way to spend a day off work. CWC is a fine beer-and-pretzels wargame but there's a bit too much of the GW gaminess for my taste, particularly the absence of simultaneous firing. The base mechanics are OK, so I'd like to try it with MSH's turn sequence (losing the command rolls as well) to see how it works. I expect I'll like it a lot better.

Recent Painting

I've made some good progress on the 1/600 scale Arab-Israeli War collection in recent weeks. I want to give them a go using Cold War Commander. Getting a game put together hasn't really been at the top of the agenda, but buying shinies and adding to the collection is always in fashion.

The most recent additions. M3 halftrack stands, dismounted infantry and artillery.

The infantry is on oddball bases - they're not really necessary for MSH and CWC isn't terribly sensitive about base sizing. They're still 1.25" deep like everything else.

Arab (Egyptian or Syrian, you pick 'em) D-30s. Or course, they can stand in for darn near anything.

I've got Arab infantry in the queue and may put together a group of BTR152s since the BMPs are pretty high-end equipment for 1973.

A Quick Update

Not a whole lot of gaming going on here lately, but it's ramping up a bit. I got in two games of X-Wing with Zig today, trying out some new ships and generally having a good time. He used Imperials for both games - centered around the new Alpha-class Starwing. It's powerful and a real pain to fight. In the first game I used Scum - a pair of Starvipers, a Quadjumper and a Z-95. It was a fun group but the QJ just seemed "lacking," but for under 20 points, I guess that's to be expected.

I won by a hair. Flew the blasted QJ off the map accidentally.

After dinner I put together a new list entirely and Ziggy modified his a bit. I went with Rebels, wanting to fly the bomber once again and excited to try out Sabine's TIE. They were joined by a very basic B-Wing and a souped-up A-Wing.

Again, the game was very tight. I got a couple of very fortunate double-damage crits on him early. My bomber and TIE went down, though I was quite happy with the performance of both.

The Starwing about to end Sabine's day.

Another tight game but I did end up victorious!

I painted up some Arab Israeli pico armor during the week and based them up as command stands for CWC.

Four for the Israelis and three for the Egyptians. It's a good use for the "leftovers." Maybe they'll get on the table top for a game one of these days. I have some more incoming - I've been in a painting funk recently and these are good models to break the jinx with.

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!