New Troops for a New Campaign

[bigjackmac]

All,

First, my apologies for the lack of blogging over the past six months or so.  I haven't had much time for wargaming, and what time I have had has been spent painting, but I'm ready to kick off (another overly) ambitious campaign.  2021 was supposed to be the year of the Western Desert, but... I couldn't leave well enough alone.  The forces I'd completed for the Western Desert weren't suitable for the early part of the war in North Africa, so I went and bought a bunch more stuff.  Work continues on getting it all table ready and, of course, my wargaming butterfly got out and convinced me to try and run about five more projects simultaneously.

I'm happy to report that I've actually finished one, and I'm ready to back into gaming with both foot.  Or, hopefully, six feet: mine plus those of my two boys.  And where are we going?  A massive campaign to play out the bulk of the "Battle of the Bulge," in 15mm.  It's not perfect, but here's a look at the forces and my plan.


The whole mess, with Yanks on the left and Germans on the right.  You can see a bunch of winter terrain above them.  And it's quite a mess; the vast majority is from Battlefront, with some Plastic Soldier Company vehicles and a couple Old Glory guns and crew thrown in.  The keen-eyed will notice that none of the vehicles are 'white-washed'/painted in winter colors; sorry, I want to be able to use these for Northwest Europe as well, and there's no way I'm doing all these vehicles twice.  I'm already way too far into 15mm WWII, just wait and see (for the posts about other 15mm WWII projects I've been working on)!  And here I'll admit, all of this is not my work.  I did my fair share of cleaning, building, painting, and basing, but I also bought quite a bit of this force online.  Some of it was bought off Ebay or the TMP Marketplace from fellow wargamers, about half the infantry came from Gajo Minis, and quite a few of the vehicles came from AJ Rice, a professional painter.  Both Gajo and AJ are fantastic to deal with; nice cost, very responsive, great looking minis, and packed well to make sure no damage.


Some Shermans.


Some M7 Priests.


Some US infantry.


Some Panzer IVs.


PanzerJaeger IVs.


And some German infantry.

Now, for my plan!  This might seem funny, but long before I ever got into miniature wargaming I played wargames on the computer, and my favorite computer wargame(s) was "Close Combat," particularly the 2nd one, "A Bridge Too Far," which is definitely on the docket for stuff to game.  In any case, I also had the 4th Close Combat module, "Battle of the Bulge."  It doesn't cover the entirety of Wacht Am Rhein, but a good portion of it, and it has an outstanding campaign map and details all the units, their composition, their locations, and the reinforcement schedule.


And here is the Day 1, Phase 1 positions for the Yanks and the Germans.  There are eight 'overlaps,' meaning there will be eight tabletop battles.  The campaign will be ten days, and each day has three 'phases.' 


And for the first battle we have chosen Losheim, a duel between the U.S. 14th Cavalry Group and the German 8th Regiment, 3rd Fallschirmjager Division.  My winter table, a humble stab at Losheim.  North is up, the Germans will attack from the east (right) and the Americans are defending in the west (left).  It's funny, I may have picked the only map in the whole campaign that is flat!  And the one thing this photo shows me is, you can never have enough trees...

To see a bunch more pictures of the troops and table, and for a detailed explanation of how I intend to carry out the campaign, please check the blog at:
https://blackhawkhet.blogspot.com/2020/12/15mm-forces-for-battle-of-bulge-and.html

Just a reminder, I post pics of my completed minis and the odd batrep here, but I have a dedicated blog for WWII in the European/Mediterranean theaters, so all the battles of this campaign will be posted to my "Little Lead Crusade in Europe" blog, located here:
Little Lead Crusade in Europe (hakunamatatawars.blogspot.com)

So, there it is, new forces and another campaign, let me know whatcha think.  The stage is set, everything is set and ready to go, the boys and I kick this off first thing in the morning!

V/R,
Jack

[paulr]

Welcome back Jack

Some good looking forces

I look forward to hearing how you and the boys get on in the new campaign

[Steve J]

Welcome back Jack and you certainly have a lot of good stuff planned .

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Beautiful figures Jack. Look forwards to this one. 

[fred.]

Hey Jack, good to see you back!

Great looking troops - and I can understand not white washing the tanks - as particularly for the US forces it really limits when they can be used - but the snowy infantry do look good.

I too was a huge fan of the Close Combat series of games, with A Bridge Too Far being my favourite. There were some good additions to the later ones like the Bulge and Normandy, but the AI never really improved and did some odd things. But in ABTF the allies always seemed short of numbers so battles were always tight.

[Techno II]

Lovely stuff, Jack ! 

It IS great to see you back.

Cheers - Phil 

[sunjester]

Brilliant!!!

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Impressive

[bigjackmac]

Wow, thanks everyone for the support and kind words, I greatly appreciate it, and it's good to be back in the gaming saddle!

Game 1 is in the books, the German were able to drive the imperialist running dog Yankees from Losheim.  We played using a mashup of Bolt Action and 5Core Company Command, still took us about 2 1/2 hours, so I need to figure out something a bit quicker in order to hold the boys' attention.  Game 2 coming up tomorrow.

Fred - Yes, I wasted countless hours of my life on Close Combat, particularly ABTF.  I sometimes wonder if life wouldn't be much simpler (and infinitely cheaper) if I'd have stuck to computer wargames rather than make the leap to these wretched miniatures!   And regarding ABTF, the funny thing is that it seemed like we all pined for larger maps in the game, but when they made larger maps for the Bulge, Normandy, and the Eastern Front, I realized part of the charm of ABTF was the smaller forces on smaller maps, trying to hold a building with three paras and a Bren gun

V/R,
Jack

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

1 hour Wargames?

[bigjackmac]

 All,

0600-1400 local time
16 December 1944
Losheim, Belgium
US 14th Cavalry Group vs 8th Regiment, 3rd Fallschirmjager Division

So, this is it, the first battle to kick off our extraordinarily ambitious campaign to play out the "Battle of the Bulge."  I will admit, before playing even the first game, that I may have bitten off more than I can chew.  This is a campaign that lasts ten days, with three phases per day, involving 27 different 'battlegroups' on each side.  There is no set number of battles per phase, but the first phase is set up and there are a total of eight tabletop fights scheduled.  If that holds to be the average, that puts us somewhere in the neighborhood of... 240 fights to finish this campaign.  Not sure I could actually pull that off, but let's get this going and see how it works out.

So this is it, the very opening of the German offensive in the Ardennes (historical note: I know that, chronologically, this fight occurred after numerous other fights beginning around 0530, but I'm playing the campaign in eight-hour phases, and from that standpoint it doesn't matter what order I play the ames in).  In this fight we shall see German paratroopers, backed up by some light armor, attacking a US Cavalry unit consisting of some light infantry with some light armor.  Somehow it has ended up that my older son is playing the Americans, while my younger son and I are playing the Germans.  We are playing this game using a mashup of Ivan's 5Core rules and Warlord's Bolt Action rules.  I'd intended on adding Battlegroup Wacht Am Rhein's "Battle Rating" and chit-pull morale system as well, but I did not as I wanted to keep the game moving as quickly as possible in an attempt to keep the boys' attention.


With armored cars burning on the road and under heavy fire, the Germans push forward to the outskirts of Losheim.


Braving German mortar fire, Colonel Denver wades into the mess and rallies the troops!


A Panzerschreck screams in at an American Stuart light tank.

To see how the fight turned out, please check the blog at:
https://hakunamatatawars.blogspot.com/2021/01/battle-of-bulge-campaign-fight-1.html

Next fight coming up soon!

V/R,
Jack

[paulr]

 

[fsn]

Great read Mac.

Lot of effort - and I wouldn't worry about the roads. They sort of break up an otherwise stark battleground.

[sunjester]

A great report and a nice looking game. Keep it up!

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Excellent report Jack