The Wargame Shed

I managed to get down to the club on Thursday and was treated to a 15mm Spanish Civil War game using the TooFatLardies' Triumph of the Will rules.

The game was the Suicide Hill portion of the Battle of Jarama in February 1937.  I had command of the Nationalist left wing including Foreign Legion, Regulares and Carlist troops facing Franco-Belgian volunteers under John with Eric and Daniel taking the centre and right wings respectively.

As we advanced across the open ground we came under rifle, machine gun an artillery fire which took a serious toll.  Eric had the challenge of winkling out some Republican militia from some hard cover on the high ground in the centre which slowed him up somewhat.

My front units took something of a pounding but we continue to advance and eventually closed on the Franco-Belgian units.  They fought valiantly but my better trained and more aggressive troops bested them but not without taking some serious casualties.  Pushing ahead towards our objective, a cross roads well behind the Republican lines, I managed to punch a hole through their units but then came under more artillery fire.

The Republicans moved some of their reserves to plug the gap.  With Eric's troops having fallen behind I was worried that the Republicans would be able to wear me down and stall the advance.  The British Battalion were apparently putting up some fierce resistance to our advance.  Fortunately, our pressure in the centre and on the right was causing them some serious losses.

I deployed my artillery and began counter battery fire which quickly put the Republican guns out of actions.

I threw my Moroccan Regulares forward to assault the Republicans holding the crossroads but after some bloody fighting was thrown back with heavy casualties.  With most of my units spent, Eric changed my orders from attack to engage and I dug in and engaged them with my machine guns whilst I brought the remainder of my Carlists and the Legion up (after they had finished mopping up).

In the end the Republicans conceded victory as they couldn't hold the crossroad.  But we all agreed it could only be considered a minor one as all the Nationalist forces were spent.

All in all a fun game and a result very close to the historical one.

I managed to get along to the club on Thursday to play some Spanish Civil War in 15mm using the Triumph of the Will rules. Bronze produced his superbly painted Peter Pig figures, including some nice Falange conversions, and we set up the table for the first day of the Battle of Madrid.

Playing to type I elected to fight on the Nationalist side under the command of Eric the Spy. We were playing across the table with our objective being the capture of one of the three bridges over the River Manzanares, one bridge at each end of the table and the third in the centre. We were attacking across the Casa de Campo, an old royal hunting park, which was lightly wooded. Accordingly to our intelligence Republican resistance was expected to be light, something we took with a heavy pinch of salt!

Our plan was to advance two battalions through the Casa de Campo towards the central bridge with the main thrust with the main force of infantry, artillery and tanks aimed at the northern bridge. Our aim was for the central force to pin down any Republican forces defending the central bridge and delay any reinforcements that they could redeploy from either their or the southern bridge towards our main point of attack.

As it turned out the intelligence had somewhat underestimated the Republican forces and all three bridges were defended with troops heavily dug in at the central bridge.

The Santiago de Compostela Carlist Requete leading the central assault took heavy casualties from the Republicans but managed to keep their attention. The Juventud Cristiana Falange battalion reinforcing them also came under fire, both from the same source and from troops they tried to redeploy from the southern end once our plan became clear.

We began our assault on the northern bridge with the Avila and Sevilla Peninsular Army infantry battalions followed up by the 1st Foreign Legion bandera and an artillery battery. The third wave consisted of the 2nd and 3rd Tabors of Tetuan Moroccan regulares, the Condor Legion tanks and a second artillery battery. The Avila battalion ran into heavy fire from Crazy Dave and his anarchists, who were defending the bridge, and suffered some serious casualties. The Sevilla battalion was slightly behind having to advance through part of the Casa de Campo. But with the help of the Legion in the second wave we managed to inflict some serious damage to Dave and resistance on our side of the river in front of the bridge began to fade. We were still taking fire from the forces dug in defending the central bridge and from the other side of the river though. However, once the tanks got into action their machine gun fire was pretty devastating.

In the end we managed to clear the anarchist resistance and Peter advanced the Moroccans across the bridge for a Nationalist victory.

In the post battle analysis it became clear that the Republicans only had a poorly rated CinC which really hampered their ability to change orders from hold to a more aggressive posture and hence to redeploy them. Had they been able to we would have been in for an even stiffer fight. As it was we had sustained some serious casualties.

There was some debate as to the effectiveness of the PzIs which, with their twin MGs, were a potent fire platform especially as I was using all three together. The big weakness with armour is usually in close assault but with the Republicans being cut down before getting to that point they became a very effective tool.

Our plan had been influenced by my experience from having used the rules before for Russian Civil War where concentrating your forces and using wave attacks had been most effective. I was a little concerned as to whether this was entirely appropriate for SCW but Bronze outlined that, in the original battle, it was the tactics which had been used on the second day after the Nationalists had been defeated on the first because they had spread their forces too thinly.

All in all a fun game.

Another Triumph of the Will game this week - this time the Spanish rather than the Russian Civil War. We were the Nationalists attacking a Republican held town. Things started well, that is right up until we encountered the Republicans - largely by wandering across the open ground in front of their dug in machine guns! It might not have been quite so bad had we not been facing Eric the Spy whose dice rolling prowess has led many to speculate that he has in fact sold his soul to Satan! His probability smashing rolls cut my first battalion to pieces and gave the second a darned good thrashing until eventually our return fire actually had some effect.

In the end a victory for the Republicans but a good time had by all - but your time will come Eric!

Yet another Triumph of the Will game this week. This time a slightly less historic scenario from the Too Fat Lardies Christmas 2004 seasonal special. Quoting the Lardies:
Oh my Lord! Will evil Count Nikolai Vorskinski get the girl, or will she be saved in the nick of time by filthy oik Dimitri Urinovski. A bodice ripper for Triumph of the Will from the age of pulp.
We had a slight hiccup initially, largely due to my failure to proof read the email I sent to the chap providing the figures and hence the Reds were a little down on numbers but after a little reorganisation the game was rebalanced.
The Whites decided to dig in as close to the Red edge as possible to form a defensive line whilst the engineers fixed the damaged rails to enable the Count's armoured train to reach the ship. The Reds threw themselves at the line but took a substantial number of casualties; however, some of the cavalry managed a breakthrough on the left flank despite the intervention of the White's armour. Unfortunately the Reds didn't have enough fresh troops to exploit the move and whilst it held up that flank it didn't swing the game.
Meanwhile on the right flank the White defence crumbled before the Red onslaught with casualties minimised due to the cover reducing visibility for the MGs. More Red Cavalry broke through just in time to see the train steaming off towards Smershk. Comrade Urinovski led the advance crushing the Engineers which the Count had left behind but by now the breakthrough on the left flank had been crushed enabling the Whites to redeploy. The Reds didn't have enough troops to defeat the remaining Whites and were forced to withdraw. In his haste the Count nearly ruined it all by crashing the locomotive into the buffers and nearly into the sea! But he managed to unload his treasure and steam away with the girl thanks to his troops remaining loyal despite the fact he was abandoning them to their fate.

I have been running the Guards to Poltava Russian Civil War campaign for Triumph of the Will from the TooFatLardies featured in their 2006 Summer Special. The first two games went to the Whites but they took a bit of a beating to win the second game and it meant that they needed both a decent plan and good luck in order to win the third. Unfortunately they didn't fare too well with either and so the third game became the White high tide mark.

We all still like the Triumph of the Will rules, albeit they have a few rough edges which could do with smoothing, and they give a somewhat brutal but fast game. Given that we usually only have time for 2-2.5 hours gameplay we need rules that will work with multiple players on each side and allow us to reach a conclusion in the time available. TotW does both admirably.

We had a discussion after the game about the pros and cons of ladder campaigns and the difficulty of maintaining some sort of balance so they provide a challenge but don't end too rapidly. For a game to be fun it can't be dependent on one side making no mistakes whatsoever.

Whilst this campaign allowed the Whites to refight the scenario with the reinforcements they would have met up with at Poltava the conclusion was that they would still have had a tough time of it. It did provide an excellent example of the interesting aspects of the TotW rules with units being sized by their morale and determination rather than physical numbers. Also the need for control tests when a unit reaches five or less figures gave the Red Militia (starting with 6 figure units) plenty of worries. It did also show the need for proper consideration of counter battery fire too.

It looks like one of the chaps may try the rules for the Russo Finnish war next.

Triumph of the Will (TotW) is a set of miniature wargames rules for “revolutionary warfare” in the period 1914 to 1936 by Richard Clarke of the Too Fat Lardies. The rules are designed for brigade or divisional level actions with the smallest manoeuvre unit being the Company and with the basic command unit being a Battalion. Typically a Company will be represented by 6-10 figures; however, the rules utilise the number of figures in a unit to represent the motivation/resolve of the unit rather than the actual size and thus there is no figure ratio.

Presentation

TotW is available in both hard copy and Adobe .pdf download forms. The rules are clearly layed out in sections with a table of contents and some examples. There are no graphics and, other than the front cover, the rules are in black and white. This obviously has benefits if your are buying the .pdf option and printing it yourself. A few more examples would certainly be beneficial but overall the presentation is good.

Turn Sequence

The turn structure is as follows:

1. Spotting
2. Cavalry/infantry/MG fire
3. All movement
4. Artillery & AFV fire/Air attacks
5. Close combat
6. Command Actions

Two options are provided for turn sequence a traditional I go you go system (albeit with a reserved fire mechanism) or a card driven system (but with all cards being drawn each turn).

Spotting

A system of blinds is utilised to enable hidden unit movement. Spotting is effected by selecting the relevant blind and rolling on a table with modifications for range, terrain types and weather.

Firing

All firing in TotW is based on a rifle unit equivalency system with a unit of five infantry figures being the basic standard. A d6 is rolled for each unit of 5 figures or equivalent with modifiers for troop quality, situation, cover etc. and if the result is less than the firing group’s strength then a hit is achieved. Fire may be reserved to be used in the opponent’s turn.

Firing at extreme range does not cause casualties but rather reduces the unit’s movement in the following turn.

Movement

The deployment of the (rectangular) blinds indicates the unit formation (e.g. column, line) and this determines the distance the blind may move. Once spotted, infantry units move their unit strength in inches with vehicles moving on dAv rolls.

AFV Combat

Given the limited development of the AFV during this period the AFV combat rules are simple with weapons categorised into MG/light/medium/heavy and armour into heavy or light. AFVs have strength ratings which are lost as they suffer hits and this is also factored into their firing capability.

Close Combat

Close combat is a pretty brutal affair with units rolling a d6 per figure with the number of dice being modified for unit type, status and the like. This is then resolved on a “six and you’re dead” basis with the casualty levels inflicted being compared and the overall combat result being derived from a table.

The use of a six in this instance is a little inconsistent as elsewhere in the game a low roll is good – we have a house rule where we use a 1 rather than a 6 to avoid this.

Command Actions

Units are given one of 5 orders – Attack/Engage/Hold/Retire/Consolidate. The quality of the CinC determines the number of order changes which they can instruct in any turn (although units can attempt to change their own orders by rolling against their initiative rating which will depend on the period and unit type); however, the type of commander affects which orders he may issue. For example an aggressive commander will find it more difficult to issue Retire orders than Attack orders.

Period Specific Rules / Information

Period specific notes are provided for Revolutionary Germany, the Spanish Civil War and the Russian Civil War (RCW). These include supporting information for the relevant forces and additional rules for specific tactics and equipment. For example there is a whole section on armoured trains for the RCW.

TotW also provides appropriate guidance on the use of battlefield features such as trenches, wire and the like.

Summary

Having used these rules for both Russian Civil War and Spanish Civil War scenarios I have found they give a good quick game with plenty of period flavour. The period specific elements help greatly here and whilst the basic mechanisms remain unchanged they add a lot to the feel of the game.

These rules aren’t as well developed or supported as I Ain’t Been Shot, Mum the Lardies main offering, and consequently questions will arise during play. However, the Lardies’ Yahoo discussion group is a good source of information and the author is will usually respond to questions quickly.