Saturday 16 July 2022

"Battle of the Bulge!" Inspired Friday Night Iron Cross Game

 With our genial host Julian back on home soil after a month galivanting in the US and Canada, an invitation was received for a game after work on Friday evening - well, after work for me at least! Many were called but few were taken - as it turned out, only Rick and I were able to accept the invitation. Julian  set up a small scratch scenario loosely based on the Battle of the Bulge ie it pitted US Paras and US Infantry against advancing Germans. As I had brought along my own 20mm WWII collection (it all fits in one large box, well, almost!) but this only consists of Brits, Russians and Germans, I volunteered to play the "baddies!"

I had three infantry squads of 8 - 6 riflemen and a 2 man LMG crew - a command element and four tanks - total command/activation points of 9. 

Rick had Paras, two infantry squads each with a 30 cal mg and a bazooka, command element and two AT guns (all concealed) - 6 command points. Julian had the infantry - two squads similar to the Paras, plus an M10 tank destroyer - 5 command points. We rolled for initiative at the start of each new turn ie when all command tokens had been expended and we rolled as three commands, not US v German.

Here is how things went!


Hoe the table was set up - the object of the game was to control the Y fork in the road



One of my three infantry squads - all figures are Valiant "20mm" (for those in the know, they are very large 20mm...but nice figures!)


The command elemnet - my Germans are mainly the late war Normandy Panzer Grenadiers but there are some more traditionally attired ones from the "Classic" German pack


All the US figures are Julians from the very nice AB Miniatures range


Above and below are Ricks US Paras



The Game!


The Panther and one PzKfw IV are mine, the King Tiger and second PzKfw IV were leant to me by Julian - what a sporting chap he is!


The Koenig leads the way!


I had one infantry squad on the road with the tanks, so Julian revealed a 30 cal on the edge of the woods and opened up on them, causing a casualty - the infantry bugged out to the adjacent woods, whilst the King Tiger used MG fire to remove that particular threat!


A bit later, after Rick expended all his activation tokens on unseen, unspecified hidden movement, Julian revealed the M10. I think it managed to get off one shot at the Kingy, then the 88mm gun did its thing (below)



A PzKfw IV lead the way, moving quickly up the road to seize control of the vital road intersection


While an infantry squad doubled across open ground to close with the woods where Julian's 30 cal had been destroyed


And FINALLY (this was about move three or four, after all) the US Paras revealed themselves - as a bazooka team fired at the thinner side armour of the Mk IV


A HIT - but it's not as bad as it seems - the D6 roll for damage was low and only caused the crew compartment to fill with smoke and the tank to take a morale hit - Julian added the dramatic white smoke for the benefit of my photo!


Of course the US Infantry were right on the edge of the wood!


The Mk IV continued its journey, but Rick now revealed both his AT guns, one right in front of the German tank, the other to its right flank


There was now A LOT of very poor die throwing not recorded here. Both AT guns firing took about three or four attempts to get a hit, my Mk IV, the King Tiger and the Panther all tried to roll to interrupt and get a first shot - mostly failing to roll 3 or better on a D6 - but on the odd occasion they did,  then failing to roll a 6 on a D10 to hit the target,,,,GGGRRRRR. EVENTUALLY, Rick managed to string a couple of good rolls together in the right sequence, and the Mk IV was brewed up!


One of my other infantry squads advanced into the rear of Ricks Para position but inexplicably failed to open fire - I assumed they could not see each other through the woods - but when Rick turned his men around to face in the next turn, Julian told him he could fire at me - curses!


This seems to be where I stopped taking images. The German infantry unit that found Julian's US Infantry in the edge of the wood initially prevailed, knocking that unit out of the game - but then Julian brought up his second infantry unit and they repaid the favour. Ricks Paras also prevailed over my infantry above and all of a sudden, the German forces only had one infantry squad left to support the three tanks. We agreed we would call the game, but I had a few command tokens left to knock out the US AT guns with my King Tiger and/or Panther....and of course, the bad dice rolling continued and again, despite several attempts, I was not even able to salvage this small compensatory revenge!

Despite the unusually bad dice rolling, it was a fun game and the rules worked pretty well. Rick caused Julian some early frustration by just tossing aside an activation token each time it was his turn to do something, but it was a sensible strategy that worked well for him in the end, as he lost no casualties at all, whereas Julian lost the M10, the 30 cal and an infantry squad, and I lost 2 infantry squads and the PzKfw IV. 

Good to get a game in again and to have a return to this rule set, as these are probably the rules I will use when I get my 20mm SCW collection on the table. Talking of which, time I got back to the painting desk - thanks for dropping by and double thanks if you leave a comment!

22 comments:

  1. Great looking game, we can't always enjoy the benefits of decent die rolls

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    1. Thanks Scotty - I choose to interpret it as the poor training and motivation of the Volksgrenadier units that participated in this action!

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  2. A nice looking game Keith… The Americans did well against all that beefy German armour…

    All the best. Aly

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    1. Yes, they did, Aly (he says, through gritted teeth!)

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  3. Interesting game, Keith. It's good that you found the descent rule set for your games.

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    1. Thank you Dmitry. It's a fun ruleset with a lot of decisions to make...some units barely take any part in the action eg my command unit never moved the entire game!

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  4. Fantastic looking game sir!
    Best regards

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    1. Thank you Michal, it was a good way to end the working week😀

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  5. Looks like fun Keith, nice to see a clash of infantry and armour.
    Cheers
    Stu

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    1. Cheers Stu, yes, an unusual balance....I should have been able to do better, but the dice Gods dictated otherwise!

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  6. That seemed like quite a balanced scenario as it turned out, probably due to the dice rolling as you say Keith. At least the Germans didn't just roll over the top of the paratroops.

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    1. No indeed Lawrence. The mechanics of this game kind of prevent that....you can activate any given unit as many times as you like (although it gets progressively harder) but you only have one more activation token than you do units, so if you take two or three actions with a tank, that's two other units that can't do anything this turn....hence the inactivity of all three players command stands throughout the game, for example.

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  7. Think I missed the name of the rules or maybe you didn’t mention. No matter. Looked like fun and bad rolls sometimes add to the hilarity.
    I’ve played many bulge games on summer terrain; bc who has winter themed armies? Nobody that’s who. 😀

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    1. Lol...funnily enough, the first thing Rick asked when Julian explained the scenario was "Where is all the snow!" The rules are called Iron Cross BTW.

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  8. Good to see the group turn to WWII. Doubly good that you enjoyed the rules despite the friction generated by the dice. What changes will ever needed to port Iron Cross to SCW?

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    1. Thanks Jon....Julian mentioned on Friday night that he also has WWI version of the rules, so I might see how the cavalry rules work in that. Apart from that, the rest should work fine...they have tank and gun stats for early war period ie PzKfw II and Pak 36 etc, which would work fine for the armour in Spain!

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  9. Looks as though you had an enjoyable evening despite the lack of availability amongst us!

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    1. We did indeed Mark - shame no one else was available! In truth, we probably followed Churchills advice, and did more jaw, jaw than war, war - but was still a good way to end the week!

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  10. Fun looking game, sounds like a good evening, I have got winter themed armies and terrain, someone's got to!
    Best Iain

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    1. Thanks Iain, indeed - I think Matt has them for his Norwegian campaign too, and I have seen a few others. Even I have some old FoW Soviet armour with grey/white winter camo - all the infantry are standard though!

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  11. Not a ruleset I'm familiar with, but it all looked fun and certainly was a great looking game:).

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    1. Thanks Steve, the rules provide an entertaining game, which is what we want at the end of the working week!

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