CoC Airborne vs Fallschirmjäger around Carentan

Overview of the battlefield

Nick and myself first tried Chain of Command or CoC last year because Bolt Action wasn't giving us enough "crunch" in our WWII gaming and although BA is a good game it just wasn't enough anymore. We liked Chain of Command so much we decided it would now become our go to WWII rule set and fact we are so hooked we haven't played anything but CoC since trying it which has been months now with no end in sight. I've always been an avid Dark Ages/Horse and Musket player/painter with a interest in WWII, but this game has now really lit my hair on fire for WWII with all kinds of future plans for the period! Now will WWII overcome my love of North American conflicts then probably not, but it sure has moved up the ladder of significance.

If your looking for a game that makes you feel like your in the boots of a platoon or squad leader then Chain of Command does it better then anything I've played so far and I thoroughly recommend it if you haven't had a chance to play it yet.  Nick even commented it's the first game that makes him feel like wargamer and not just a figure painter who sometimes plays wargames.

The Rules!

Now that we have had some games under our belts we started looking at doing a campaign. We decided to use 28mm for most our games and 15mm for any scenario's with a lot of armor. I have US Airborne I want to use and Nick wanted to use his newly painted Fallschirmjäger so we started looking around for some pint sized action featuring theses adversaries and Nick found a nice campaign on the Too Fat Lardies forum called "Rendezvous with Destiny" by Will3T(sorry don't know his proper name) featuring the 101st Airborne and the 2nd Fallschirmjäger in and around Carentan which was just the ticket! I've added a page to the top of my blog to help me keep track of the campaign and add a little detail to it if your interested.

A coke bottle supervises the battlefield.

Our first game was "Charge at Ingouf farm" which went so fast I didn't take any pictures and all the pictures you see are from our second game. The scenario was a Probe scenario requiring the Airborne to get a unit off the enemies table edge while running over mostly open ground for over half the way(Gulp!). Nick's intent was to bring his FJ's on directly into close assault with my Airborne rather then shoot me as I came in, but the gamble didn't work as I rolled a double move and over ran his jump off point thus denying him a chance to deploy and covered the other FJ jumping points in smoke making it a pretty easy and quick escape for the Airborne.

Black is FJ's and Green is Airborne

The next game and the one featured in this entire post was "Fighting in the Hedges" and is a flank attack by the FJ's. Black is FJ's and Green is Airborne. I had 2 Squads of my own Airborne at 1 and 3 and support Airborne squads at 4 and 2 with Plt Sargeant Tellman and Bazooka at 2 and Lt. LaMarch  at 3. Nick had a squad of FJ's at 1 moving to assault my Airborne 1 and another FJ squad at  2 exchanging fire with my Airborne 2. In between these he had a senior leader. At 3 he had one of his own FJ squads, a support FJ squad, senior leader and support heavy MG all exchanging fire with my parartroopers at 4 and 3.

FJ's exchanging fire with my Airborne in the buildings.

In a nutshell the FJ's at the hedges exchanged fire with the Airborne in the buildings each trying to suppress the other through covering fire with the FJ heavy machine close to being removed. In the Orchard the FJ's again exchanged fire with the Airborne to little effect on each. The game decider came when the FJ's moving down the side of the orchard assaulted my Airborne behind a hedge which resulted in an almighty bloody melee with saw the entire FJ squad wiped out including it's junior leader and the Airborne only coming out a little better with the loss of 9 paratroopers and 1 junior leader leaving only the LMG crew of 2 left! This left one of the FJ's senior leader exposed who was promptly cut down by the LMG. At this point the FJ's morale dropped dangerously low and Nick decided a withdrawal was the prudent thing to do.

Another shot of the FJ's firing on my Airborne in the houses. Along with his FJ's you can also see Nick's marker which are both great!

It was a truly terrific game and I'm very curious to see if my Airborne can continue to push back the FJ's, but the next game is a night attack by the FJ's and I have no idea how that's going to turn out. While I can pump out a good amount of firepower the FJ's can really pour it on with 2 MG's per squad so I'm really curious how this will play out as all shooting will not happen except at close range (18in.) unless a flare is used, but that requires a chain of command dice so not often if at all.

My Airborne in the ruined farm house keeping the FJ at bay led by Sgt Hardwell and Lt. LaMarch 

Another shot of Airborne in the ruined farm. I really do need to work on my cobblestone roads!

I've of course started to see the short comings of my terrain and will need to paint up a lot more roads
and build a proper orchard, canal. Ah well that's wargaming always more to do!

Airborne engaging the FJ's trying to outflank the orchard

Front shot Airborne locking and loading and taking aim on seeing the FJ's moving in!

I've also noticed I need to paint up some more Airborne troops as I need more then I expected plus some armor here and there......

Assaulting FJ force

Quick overhead look.

This campaign will probably last us a couple months then on to the next one. Still plenty more to do in Normandy and we have most the troops we need for it, but always need more

FJ's moving through the orchard.

Nick moving to check the range for his assault.

Not sure where we will go after Normandy, but we may go into the vast expanse of Russia as we have some of the troops needed and are curious to see how the two match up.

Thanks for viewing!

FIW Pennsylvania Provincials in light equipment

Just completed my second unit of Pennsylvania Provincials for Sharp Practice, but this time in light equipment.

At this rate I'll have FIW forces ready for Sharp Practice in a year or so I figure so I'm crossing my fingers the pace will pick up at sometime.....but if not I'll have fun along the way as the figures from Galloping Major are a real pleasure to paint.

 I picked up an excellent copy of " The British defeat of the French in Pennsylvania, 1758" by Douglas R. Gubbison that looks like with some effort I could make a campaign of sorts from the information which is quite detailed.

The figures are from Galloping Major and the paints I used were Foundry with some Vallajo here and there. I highly recommend the figures if your looking for some painter friendly figures which I quite like.

I could be taking a break from FIW for a bit to paint up some AWI for Sharp Practice which would only require me painting a few skirmish figures and officers as I already have the core formed units completed. I also would like to add a few more Airborne to my WWII collection as we are really playing a lot of the fantastic Chain of command rules and I need more options added.

 Also last year Nick beat me in the SCW points race side challenge and to my shame took me a whole year almost to get him his figure, but he of course took it all in good natured patience. The figure is an Republican officer that I had double of and that he didn't have yet so worked out great.

 
Thanks for viewing!
Miniature Company-Galloping Major and Empress

FIW Pennsylvania Provincials 1

Provincial troops are best described as a troop class that is somewhere between regular troops and militia. Unlike regular soldiers who served for x number of years or militia who were raised only for local needs in times of emergency provincial troops were formed from a province and recruited for a period of time to complete a specific military campaign or duty like transportation, manning forts etc. that could be local and further abroad.

In the French and Indian war a colonial governor would raise the provincial formation under a field officer often of high political standing with experience in commanding militia and junior officers with good standings in their local community. Were militia tended to be every man doing his duty for home that was often filled with men of some import the soldiers of provincial formations on the other hand were of less import to society shall we say and recruiting would either be voluntary through offering money to men without property and uncertain futures to a draft if needed that typically targeted persons they wanted to get off the streets so to speak. You could also pay others to take your place in the draft if you had the means.

Pennsylvania Provincials served on the frontiers manning forts and guarding against raids from Indians and French. A notable task they did take part of was the expedition against the strategically important French held Fort Duquesne that resulted in the French retreating and burning the fort down on their way out.

I decided to do some Pennsylvania Provincials because of the simple reason I like the green and red colors of their uniform. I doubt they looked this well turned out, but we as painters tend to paint things in their best light. Using the most excellent Kronoskaf as a guide I opted for a dark green on these because later I will be doing some rangers who will be wearing green as well albeit a lighter shade to help distinguish the two from each other. What he have here is a corporal and 8 soldiers wearing full equipment for my first group which will total three units in the end plus a command to be used for Sharp Practice or Muskets and Tomahawks.

I really enjoyed painting these figures from Galloping Major as they are large figures with very well raised detail and are what I like to call painter friendly making me look forward to the next batch. That said even thou they are painter friendly they still are time consuming figures to paint simply due to all the hats, buckles, straps, clothing layer etc. however when finished I do really like the look they give making the work pay off. I suppose that is the reward for painting lace war and Nap figures in the end and is what keeps us coming back.

The colors I used were once again Foundry with some Vallejo and my ever trusty Mig pigments for some good dusting on the stones.

Thanks for viewing!
Miniature Company- Galloping Major

Hessian Jäger Amusettes

An  Amusette was a very high caliber rifle that could be anywhere from 90 to 200 caliber and weigh some 50 plus pounds! Due to it's weight it was often attached to fixed walls or gun carriages. However it wasn't so heavy that single infantry men couldn't carry it and in fact they often did, but if possible in teams to help with firing, loading and carrying.

Typical amusettes were huge at around 7ft in length to a standard 5ft Brown Bess musket although they could be shortened to make them more portable. They could fire up to 10x the distance a normal musket and with accuracy. A standard musket could fire up to 50 to 100 yards and an amusette could fire 500 to 1000 yards giving it not only greater punch but range as well.

When available these weapons proved popular in North America during the AWI because they could go places artillery had difficulty in traversing in the hilly, wooded terrain that commanders had to deal with.

A few Hessian Jaegar re-enactors showing Amusette's in action

Hessian Jaegers were elite light infantry that served in the German mercenary forces hired by the British Crown in the fighting in North America and gained a reputation for excellence. It's recorded that the Jeager's did have some Amusette's and were used in some actions, but as to how wide spread or often is difficult to say.

The figures are 28mm from Perry Miniatures painted using Foundry paints with some Vallejo and Mig pigments for some dusting.

Thanks for viewing!
Miniature Company- Perry miniatures

Angry Bear

Not a good time for a misfire!! Johnny decides a retreat is a wise idea and takes flight in the face of what is now a very angry bear!

I do need some more deployment points for Sharp Practice so this little funny idea popped into my head.

After digging around in my boxes of lead I came up with a Perry militia figure and a bear from Conquest(Warlord now I think) to do the little diorama. It was quite fun to do and I'm looking forward to doing more deployment pieces for Sharp Practice as they allow you to find use with all those extras that don't quite fit into units.

The figures were painted using mostly Foundry colors with some Vallejo here and there. The bases is natural wood, stones and mixed sand with various grasses and tufts plus my trusty MIG pigments and a bit of craft paint, Foundry and Vallejo to finish it.

Thanks for viewing!:-)
Miniature Company-Perry, Conquest(Warlord)