The Blitzkrieg Legend

 

Unfortunately, I was very busy last times and I could not report on this game. Almost I only could play every two sessions.

In summary, German rapidly destroyed the initial front line and deeply penetrate in France with their mobile units. French and British did not defend properly in depth and gaps were used to attack the supply allied lines. Most of the Belgium units were lost out of supply. Overall a bad play of Allied commanders and good play by Germans.

A few pics:

 

Operational Combat Series

 

Operational Combat Series games are usually big monsters where you must deal with hundreds of counters while carefully planning your supply network in order to perform movement, barrages, attacks, …

They are not for the beginner wargamer who may get overwhelmed just during the setup. Fortunately, this year it has appeared the last game in the series, Reluctant Enemies. This is not a monster game, just one map, low counter density and it should be an introductory game for the whole series. So, I have decided to give it a try and, introduced by my colleague Alberto, to learn rules, and get a feeling of how to deal with operational problems.

Reluctant Enemies depicts the fight between British and Free French troops against Vichy France for the control of Syria en the summer of 1941. There is a really nice Starter Guide  here that you should read before playing this game. This is how our game was with me playing the Commonwealth side.

 

Initial setup: At the beginning CW player must secretly note where his Commando units will disembark. These units will be in supply for the first turn. My goal was to sacrifice the units to mainly disturb the supply line that goes along the road in the coast. So my landing was close to Damour.

Then I will try to advance towards Damascus from Amman in one side and from Lake Tiberias in the other side. Unfortunately, I was out of Naval Barrage for the first three or four days, so my commandos died slowly. And I missed the attacks against the unit at

Rest of Commando surviving against Vichy French

Missing the attacks at Fiq I could not connect the whole railroad until 14th June

In the open side of the map (right side), I was advancing without opposition as Vichy French troops were retreating slowly just to prepare a counterattack in time…

During this time, there was a few skirmished at the open terrain south of Mt Hermon with both sides trying to put units out of supply.

On June 19th, CW troops achieved to establish a position close to Kuneitra where they were stopped by  Vichy France. In Syria two battalions were destroyed after being surprised by French Armored Units. This nasty maneuver will be repeated three more times during the fight: releasing armor units, rolling for surprise, getting a +6 columns in the attack and destroying CW units. A tough lesson to be learned for a beginner.

Twilight Struggle and OCS

 

No more Combat Commnader play this week. Unfotunately, our working schedules were incompatible and Ramon and I will not meet today to play. But I was playing against Jordi a game of Twilight Struggle as he was released from his OCS- Guderian’s Blitzkrieg II match.

I was playing as American and Jordi leaded the Russians.

He had a very bad time from the very beginning as his card hands did not allowed him to stablish a heavy world wide domination. American got scoring cards in Asia and Middle East and managed to get an early advantage of 4-5 points. In Europe there was heavy fight for France when Russians played De Gaulle in secound turn. Early war ended with Americans leading the scoring track and Russians racing in the space.

At the beginning of Middle War, Soviets began an attempt to dominate Africa but again Americans got the scoring card and, by playing succesful coups they managed to minimize the effect on VPs.

 

More fight has been seen in France where we even need to down the markers to 1 when we got 9 influence points there (and we raised again to 8 ). In Asia after an initial push of Americans, Russian turned the continent with several coups in the Southeast and the play of Indo-Pakistani war. Centroamerica was following Fidel and Che doctrines whereas in SouthAmerica, US had strong followers in Brasil, Venezuela and Argentina.

So we have entered late war with soviest leading space race and a neat American advantage in VPs. Then, I played wargames to give russian 6 Vps and end with a US victory by 2 VP.

Some pics also of the GBII game with Germans already at Bryansk:

A year playing ... (and III)

The other monster game played at the club was not a game but a series of games: Operational Combat Series (OCS) by The Gamers. The idea came as a few buddies in the club decided to play Case Blue, the monster game about the fights in the steppe of Army Group South from 1941 to 1943.

Not only is a monster (2800 counters) but it is also a hardcore wargame (combat, movement, supply, air support, and all this stuff...). So, first thing before to be involved in one of this overwhelming campaigns is to get the feeling of the game and learn the rules. Possibly everybody agrees that Tunisia is one of the best for this introduction into the series. And this was the campaign played by Mateo and Jordi as Allied against Alberto who lead the Germans.

And some pics:
While these guys were playing their monster wargames we have fun playing some sessions of "lighter" games
Manifest Destiny by GMT

of course, one of our favorites, Dominant Species by GMT games


and, for Ramon's pleasure (thanks for the pics), Puerto Rico

Finally, just to mention that i have continued my task on introducing games to my 9-year-old kid and besides the usual sunday gaming sessions at home we had a funny afternoon at dad's club where everybody was ready to play Formula D with us.

Now, he wants that dad builds a tower dice for him. But that is the task for another year...

OCS: Guderian's Blitskrieg II

 

This game is part of the excellent Operational Combat Series by The Gamers and it covers the actions of Army Group Center from October 1941 until Spring of 1943. You can see more details at the boardgamegeek page of the game http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/13532/guderians-blitzkrieg-ii or at the page for the OCS series: http://www.gamersarchive.net/thegamers/archive/ocs.htm.

We have been preparing the game for playing Scenario 7.1 that represents the Battle of Moscow (Operation Typhoon).

Here are some pictures after setup was completed.

An overall view of the map.

A perspective view of the German stacks, ready for the attack.

And some details of different areas: