Sparker's Wargaming Blog: 1:144

Showing posts with label 1:144. Show all posts

Friday, 16 January 2026

Friendly Enemies

Its a nice problem to have, but when a game is so engrossing, so exciting, I get distracted from taking enough pictures to blog the game properly. Which is a shame, cos Daniel's Fate of a Nation scenario was a doozy!

Peter and Daniel were playing the Jordanians:

I was playing the Israelis. We rolled for the scenario - the Israeli's would be the attacker. That suited me fine, because this scenario is a real challenge for the defender!

The attacker gets to lay the objectives down, then defender has to deploy first, and leave 40% of their force in reserve, so the attacker has it easy - put the bulk of your forces in the pocket closest to where you laid the objectives! These started the game thinly defended...

Plus the Israeli Air Force put in an early and devastating appearance, knocking out one of the dread Centurions on Turn 1!

Given this action pitted Centurions against Sho'ts - which let's face it is simply a Centurion with a proper engine - lethality was going to be high!

Short story short, my Centurions were nice and close to the deep objective which was initially lightly held, and under early and continuous bombardment by the Israeli 155s. Once the Jordanian reserves turned up that firefight started getting bloody for the Sho'ts, but a second, even more devastating airstrike evened things up a little....

By which time my venerable old Shermans had dragged their sorry asses sufficiently into the action to take the Centurions in the flank.

A hasty infantry assault cleared away the surviving Jordanian riflemen to seize the objective and end the game!

A short game but riveting - interesting to pit Jordanian Cents against Israeli Sho'ts. The only difference of course being the training, motivation, and skill of the crews:

Does this Israeli victory mean that the man matters more than the machine? Only further games will tell...

Friday, 5 December 2025

Team Yankee: RED DWARF

On the left Peter and Theo are both hard core 15mm Team Yankee aficionados, but Peter is beginning to see the advantages of 12mm. Stuart and Daniel on the right have long been convinced about smaller scales, however...

The NATO force was built around a squadron of STILLBREW Chieftains - two troops.

The Warsaw Pact force was a Soviet T-72 Tank Battalion of two tank companies and a Motor Rifle company, plus lots of Frontal Aviation.

The toys all laid out prior to the game:

The NATO team concentrated their infantry in the village and farms, linked by the Chieftains. Their longer range SWINGFIRES were held back in the depth village, and their Milan Compact Turrets were held in ambush:

The Soviets, sensing a strong defence, dismounted their Motor Rifles to lead the way, covered by a blizzard of SPANDREL ATGW from their BMP2s. But the artillery and frontal aviation was in the fight from the start!

So was the NATO Fast Air!

T-72s were being picked off before they had crossed the start line!

The Chieftains were also happy to reveal their positions from the outset...

With the first Soviet HIND attacks obliterating the NATO forward air defences, NATO air controllers resorted to overkill to write down Soviet air power!

However the British infantry Milan teams in the village, supported by the Chieftains and the Swingfires from the rear were steadily whittling away at the Soviet AFVs...

But the British infantry in the farm, under prolonged artillery bombardment from the start...

and now strafed by the surviving HINDS, suffered grevious casualties and withdrew to their fall back positions off table.

The RAF belatedly extracted some revenge!

However despite clearing the farm and the route to the objectives now relatively clear, nearby Soviet forces had also suffered heavy losses, and the intact Soviet tank company had a village full of fresh British infantry blocking the way...

Both sides were fought to a standstill, but NATO still held the ground, so we called it a minor NATO victory! A large small-scale game fought with nary a tank car park in sight. A couple more converts to 12mm Team Yankee!

Friday, 10 October 2025

Golan Clash!

Daniel suggested experimenting with using Clash of Steel rules in a Fate of a Nation setting. The only models we have for FOAN are 12mm 1:144 so somewhat heretical in two planes! The table was set to represent a plateau with road junction on the Golan Heights, circa 1973:

The randomly generated mission was Flanking Move.

Normally in 15mm this can lead to somewhat cluttered deployment but in this scale all was well and we still had the feel of the wide open spaces of the Levant.

The random mission rules dictated Scattered Immediate reserves.

Daniel rolled to be the Israeli player, and Attacker, with a company each of Sho'ts and M51s with 105mm guns. He placed a platoon of each into reserve.

As the Syrians I had two companies of 10 x T-62s, leaving one in reserve...

And a company of 10 x T-54s:

Looking at the table from Daniel's deployment area, you can see he deployed aggressively, moving forward towards all three objectives, whereas, in the distance, you can see I was more circumspect:

Threatening the centre objective but keeping my T-54s in cover in the crop fields:

However Daniel soon started racking up the victory points (VPs) so I diverted my T-62s from the centre to Objective 3 by the oasis:

Initially I felt I had little to fear from the M51s, gaining 3 VPs for wiping out an entire platoon, but Daniel directed his reserve platoons, which arrived at the right spot for him, here and then things started to get tough!

But now it was my turn for my reserve company of T-62s to arrive - I couldn't decide between the Centre and left objective in the wadi:

Because, frankly, 10 T-54s couldn't seem to deal promptly with a mere 3 Sho'ts!

Shooting them in from long range with the reserve T-62s eventually did the trick...

But by this time, only now gaining my first undisputed objective, Daniel was way ahead of me on VPs! (I won't go into the actual numbers...)

Despite this, I really enjoyed the game and I have no doubt Daniel relished handing out a drubbing. Clash of Steel always gives a fast, fun game and the 'armour only' aspect seems to suit 20th Century Arab-Israeli Wars, which this smaller scale also suits. I think we shall be revisiting!

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