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Post by steven on May 20, 2014 8:17:10 GMT
A retrospective ....
Last night we fought a different type of game than usual, and we had some guests playing in the game!
Firstly, an alternative history!
The second world war in Europe did not end in May 1945. Our game is dated August 1945, and whilst Enola Gay delivers her deadly cargo to Japan, things are different in Europe.
The Germans in January 1945 managed to halt the Soviet armies at the River Vistula in Poland with large casualties. This delayed Stalin's plans for the assualt on Germany and his ultimate objective of Berlin. On the western front the western allies are making steady progress and there forces cross the Elbe and cut Germany in two. They drive on Berlin, meeting only sporadic resistance. Plans are afoot to implement an allied airbourne assualt on the Nazi capital.
Stalin is angry at the apparent ease of the progression of the western allies' assualt on Germany and, as his paranoia is fed bt Beria, he believes that the Germans are colluding with the western allies to cheat him of his prize. To the world his prize is Berlin - its political and cltural significance and his desire for triumph. What is not widely known is that in the suburbs of Berlin there is a secret reseach establishment that is investigating the potential of fission - nuclear material!
I shall return to this once i have done something at work!
More to follow for my hungry readers!
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Post by steven on May 20, 2014 10:30:11 GMT
Right, to the the Western Allies, in particualr Churchill Berlin and its post-war importance are of extreme importance!
That is why last night we saw a very interesting fight!
In the centre the rag-tag elements of the once proud German fights. Holding a small town at once side of a bridge the force is commanded by Karl, a seasoned vetran of both westerna dn eastern fronts. He commands a platoon of well armed volks grenadiers supported by 2 Jagdpanthers, an E100 super heavy tank, one tank hunter team with the "Red Riding" anti-tank guided weapon pus their very own experimental sdkfz 351 APC, a Pak 44 antitank gun - a 128mm super heavy antitank gun, a PanzerIV model P - with small turret - an experiment to equip the Panzer IV with a small turret intended for the next Panther and finally an sdkfz251/22 with Pak 40 anti-tank gun.
On the British side of the board we have Richard and Mike, equipped with British Comets. They also had armoured infantry and a Comet Flamethrower - sn attempt to equip a Comet with the Churchil Crocodile flamethrower. They also had a T28 - a superheavy American assualt tank.
On the Russian side we had Stephen Mawson and Peter, commanding a mixed company of T34/85 (6 of them) plus 3 IS3 heavy tanks, supported by 2 ISU-122 assualt guns.
This was a predicatble result. As Mike said at the beginning "the Germans will get crushed from both sides and we will then end up fighting over the corpse"
Well in a way, that is exactly what took place - verytime one of the different elements of the defending force fired, it was stamped upon. Still Karl managed to kill quite a few of the attackers, but everytime an element fired, it was stamped upon.
At the end of the game it was a draw. Yes the Germans still held the bridge but all of their tanks had been destroyed and both the British and the Russians had infultrated into the town, pushing back the german infantry. However, some of the British comets were dead, and the Russians had lost a couple of tanks. The British Comet Flamethrower had managed to burn a couplf of buildings, so this had temporarily blocked the approach to the bridge. The Russians were in better shape, maily because their IS3s with their heavy armour had soaked up much of the german anti-tank elements.
Still good game, good game and its always good to have other chaps from the role playing side enetr the fray!
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Post by mike on May 20, 2014 11:47:43 GMT
In hindsight, I think the German's main problem is that they were simply out-gunned - certainly on the British end of the table. I wasn't paying much attention to what was happening on the Russian end (until Stephen started shooting at me anyway), but on our end every time you revealed an ambush we had no trouble responding with three or four big guns. That pretty much put paid to anything the Germans were doing (definitely a case of 'peace through superior firepower'). In fact, our biggest problem wasn't the German defence, or the surprise attack by by our so-called Russian allies for that matter, but the traffic jam getting into the town -- those country roads are just too narrow to get the tank regiments down. Nonetheless, a great slice of alternate history and all good fun. A nice change of pace from lobbing fireballs at giant spiders too. Much thanks due to Steve for setting the game up - a good time time was had by all, I think. So Steve, the burning question now is -- When are you going to stop playing around with toy cars and come over to our side and play a real game?  |
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Post by steven on May 20, 2014 11:55:52 GMT
ha ha im gad you liked it Mike!
Throwing fireballs at Damon the Gnome - what a good idea.
I must admit i have been considering role playing, but perhaps not what you were thinking (now now, calm down).
i have recorded and half watched a documentary about the filming of Scarface - the 1983 Brian De Palma film starring Al Pacino. This is superb - very funny (not suppossed to be) and very violent. It would make an excellent role playing / wargame because Tony Montana and his thugs do usesome major firepower at times. Then again, if i wasto do that, i would also have to do RoboCop as role playing too!
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Post by mike on May 20, 2014 12:50:59 GMT
Well, role-playing doesn't have to be fantasy of course
Scarface - power struggles and gang wars amongst American Mafiosi - shouldn't be too difficult to set something like that up
RoboCop - near future sci-fi/cyberpunk, complete with cyborgs and armoured battle-suits - yep, all very do-able (in fact, I'm sure there a systems out there specifically geared to this)
Or how about
World War II, second half - Post 1945, with the Axis powers defeated, Britain and American are becoming increasingly concerned about the Communist threat. Meanwhile Joseph Stalin, never the most stable individual in the first place, is becoming increasing paranoid. With the two great armies facing each other all across central Europe, WW3 starting mere weeks after the conclusion of WW2 is almost a certainty. All it would take is one one act of gross stupidity, and there have already been several 'accidents' along the front ...
Alternately, you could just lob fireballs at Damon the Gnome
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Post by steven on May 20, 2014 13:07:11 GMT
We have done a few Soviet V British Army - sort of 1946 bash ups like you describe. Its good because you can arm the Brits with platoons of Fireflys, many Comets and even (if someone can be bothered to make them) a Tortoise or some Centurians. Russians - we use the IS3s we used last night, and perhaps it will move me to make a "Stalin Hammer"!!!
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