""Wyvern's In The Wheat" Chain of Command Complete AAR " Topic

This is the second part of an AAR I posted a little while ago.. Very enjoyable game to play; hadn't used these rules in a while; had forgotten how good they are

Complete AAR Here

Part II Only

Awesome Sauce! …

Awesome, great stuff, Panda!

When I read "both grenades hit on target," I was thinking, "oh, so you did get some Magic Dice." I didn't realize until later you were playing CoC, not SCoaFF.

"I'm afraid Wild Jack didn't make it."
You did that on purpose, didn't you, you @#$%er! Well, turnabout it fair play, so I believe I'll be playing a game in my "Hell on Wheels" campaing. Yes, I believe one the rifle company commanders will be court-martialed and busted to E-1 after being caught in the throes of passion with a French goat!

Now, it looked like you only had a squad per side on the board; is that what you played? Kind of a small CoC game. How did it play?

V/R,
Jack

Thank you Blue! Glad you liked it…sorry no carpets on display but I hear Jack has something in the pipeline ;)

Mr Canuck…I bow respectfully…glad you enjoyed the sauciness :)

Speaking of which…Jack thanks for sharing the storyline of the first instalment your new campaign of whatever conflict that is …

While I'm glad that you're finally beginning to see the need for a little more background to the participants, to be quite honest Jack, I'm really not sure the rest of TMP share your undoubted fascination with French Goats. Don't get me wrong the basis of the narrative sounds great and I think its fantastic that you feel like you can share this with the entire community of TMP but perhaps you could start with a more conventional relationship (you know between humans…and male-female definitely works best here too.) I know, I know you're a Marine and everything but just take it slowly solider…

I'll address your war-game questions a little later…I'm running out the door

Nicely done!

LoL…only friends Blue only friends…;)

Got to Canada, apparently there's a guy there with a rather unique relationship!

I saw no goats in the battle report. Am I missing something? Were there supposed to be goats? Maybe the scarecrow works on goats and not birds. There used to be cows (in the last report) but I guess they were in another field this time.

As I said in my comment, I am hesitant to try my hand at a comic report now – I have neither your time, patience or terrain or figures. I actually think you don't have time either, judging by the timestamp on the blog post!

OK Shaun firstly the goat mystery can only be addressed by our resident "goat specialist" Jack! I'll leave it for him to explain :)

I actually have very little time to game. My job means I'm away from my family a lot so I find it hard to justify going down to the basement and playing with my toys. Putting it together is normally done while my wife watches a movie or late at night. I'm technically on a working holiday this week, myself and my wife were going to Toronto for the week, I had week conference and she was going to shop. She got really sick on Friday and couldn't travel so I decided to stay at home too (What we lost on flights was made up by my wife not shopping). So I've more time to do 'me' things than I thought I had…but I just had to finish that AAR…
I work super late so I'm used to late nights…I sleep very little…
You should try it out Shaun (I mean the comic life not sleeping very little). You have great tables and minis. It would be great…Just don't name any characters Jack and then kill them off…you'll have instant goat problems!

"Just don't name any characters Jack and then kill them off…you'll have instant goat problems!"
Yes, well, that should go without saying.

In any case, both of you get to gaming, ASAP!

I hope the wife gets to feeling better, Panda. But you still owe me an explanation regarding your game (using Chain of Command for squad vs squad). While I've been working on Crossfire, I've also been working on company and battalion-level CoC.

V/R,
Jack

"Now, it looked like you only had a squad per side on the board; is that what you played? Kind of a small CoC game. How did it play?"

Jack you are correct Sir. One squad each…I had planned more but time constraints :(

The rules worked really well over all…compared to SCFF it felt the sections actions as a whole were much more coordinated…and took a fraction of the time to work out…when pairs spilt off from the section I was very tempted to revert to SCFF rules momentarily…in the end I just didn't bother.

In the last fight I actually used the close combat rules of SCFF which was the only time I deviated from the CoC rules….

The final assault was actually the product of pure chance…I was actually seriously considering getting the Brits out of that field because they were been considerably outgunned (i was trying to figure out how to get them off the battle field without it turning into a retreating massacre…) Then the brits got 2 sixes and a five that gave them a CoC dice and two turns in a row. It gave them the chance to at least be beaten with a good ending of the game…

I loved some of those elements in the game that allowed them that opportunity…

I've been giving crossfire a lot of consideration since you mentioned it. I love the concept of hidden movement without enemy reply. The enemy shouldn't have complete knowledge of the battlefield. I still loved the games of Crossfire that allowed that. Often though they would turn into dull statement firefights with no one gaining an upper hand. One side waiting for that successive suppressions that would allow a charge. I thought John's hidden fire results would prohibit that.

I'd like to try it with maybe some other form of firing mechanic…any thoughts?

"While I've been working on Crossfire, I've also been working on company and battalion-level CoC."

Who's been busy….I'd love to somehow implement Crossfire's movement potential for infiltrating or outflanking enemies. I need to know more of your crazy experiments.

Tell me all you've got

Rob is a lot better now thanks :)

OK its late and I have time to type.

As crazy as this may sound I was wondering was the CoC's Patrol Marker Deployment to create Jump Off Points less strategic a mechanic than the crossfire mechanic.

I was tempted to allow the attacker to use a Crossfire type movement with its initiative mechanism too. But only when out of the LoS of enemy

I think if the enemy can actually see it then the moving unit should then be limited to a CoC type movement mechanism (limited by the amount of dice decided upon by the moving player) If he passes out of enemy view then Crossfire movement again. I haven't played tested this at all so it might be complete crap but I want to check it out

Now Jack I mentioned earlier that I found a lot of Crossfire games slowing down to firefight stalemates which I didn't enjoy. All of our games were Normandy so lots of hard cover and maybe that had a large influence on this but it did effect the way I viewed the game.

The games turned into a lot of back and forth firefights with one side gaining a suppression on one unit only to lose the initiative and the opposition rallying the suppression and so back to square one.

I would like to try out a CoC like Shock system where the morale could be degenerating as the fight went on.

BTW I did change another thing in the game…targets in hard cover that are normally killed on a roll of 6…well if a 6 effect dice was rolled it still needed a 5 or a 6 rolled to kill. Otherwise it caused 3 shock instead.

That was another problem I had was killing doesn't give shock to the unit…I didn't like this lack of effect on the units functionality. Didn't seem quite right to me.

I just wanted to show with these diagrams how the starting position using the patrol markers could be so tactically influential in a game with crossfire type movement and initiative:

Picture 1 The Blue side using Crossfire as the attacker can exploit yellows bad defence position (in an orchard so limited LoS) so Blue can sneak right up.

Picture 2 Yellow spits its force to cover blues advance. Blue cannot sneak up on its force. Any approach will activate op fire from the defender.

In my proposed rule the battle would revert to a CoC type activation. I don't see why there should be huge movement available to anyone at that point.

In Picture 3

Sorry I had to leave and couldn't edit when I got back…

What I meant to say at the beginning of my post was that I was thinking of using the CoC patrol phase in conduction with the Crossfire movement.

Picture 3 shows the strategic importance of the initial positioning of the attacker and defender if your trying to simulate a static defence and a mobile attacker with neither side knowing exactly where the other is.

I feel Crossfire allows the attacker to punish a bad defence position and CoC mechanism is great for simulating fire and maneuver tactics

Very nice modeling !

Thanks Legion 4 Glad you liked it :)

BTW I've been asked a few times (different sites) about where I got the rusted car…it was a $2 USD metal toy I bought getting a birthday present for my 4 year old…painted up and weathered. It looked a little big for my 20mm I think

Holy Crap, John! Sorry I was unable to get to this tonight, and I don't have time now, but I will respond later, I promise!

V/R,
Jack

No probs mate…I've had way too much time on my hands this week (I thought it would be the opposite0

BTW the other change wa when someone got "killed" by the CoC rules; that character was out of the fight but I did the whole SCFF effect die roll with my body location die for their participation in the rest of the campaign…

Hope all is good with you…and take your time I'm just bumming around this week…still not getting a lot of war games though

War Panda,

Great stuff!

Joe

Cheers Joe ;)

What program do you use for the comic book style? (Not that my figures ever would look that good!)

Joe

Joe it's Comic Life 3. Easy to use. A little time consuming and perhaps not everyone's cup of tea but if you're looking to expand on the characters a little I think it serves the purpose well.

Lol …Blue all we need is a15mm marine. Or maybe 10mm so as to be to scale with the goat ;)