Club Night 25th June

Duncan and I played a 1/300th Cold War scenario using Modern Spearhead rules with Fire & Fury inspired command rules that used to be available on the Timecast website. Our scenario pitted some Canadians defending three river crossings to be re-enforced by whatever NATO could make available, against a Helo assault by the Russians to capture the bridges for the following up tank division.

It started well as the two bridges I chose to attack being defended by the poorest quality of Duncan's 3 companies, why the better quality company was defending the more isolated bridge, but I decided the supporting defences were worth the risk for my forces being able to support each other.

My Airborne troops landed and quickly engaged the defenders with the support of their helicopter gunships. Meanwhile a disorganised NATO response was beginning with a battalion of slow moving Chieftains arriving at the furthest road from the actual fighting! In contrast the Soviets were arriving in a nice organised formations, spread along all three of the possible roads.

While the troops on the third road, that had not been attacked by air landings ran into stiff opposition, with all the NATO reserves arriving on the same two roads at this end of the battle field and the Apache and Air strikes coming in there too, they made little headway. However at the opposite end the green company defending the bridge was defeated and the Soviets began to deploy themselves around the bridge in the town to defend it as the first elements of the follow up forces crossed the bridge.

In the centre the progress was slower but the assault force having linked up with the follow up armour, the were making good headway and pushing NATO back and eventually secured this crossing to.

Although casualties had been high, the WARPACT forces had taken two crossings, helped by organised reserves, while the NATO forces all arrived at the opposite end of the battlefield. If they had arrived at the end the main Soviet attack went in, it could have been very different.

Club Night 4th September

I have been a bit slack in keeping up to date. I will have to try to be better! Last club meeting Mike, Luke and I tried out Impetus again, this time using my 6mm Samurai. Inevitable both armies where fairly similar, but Mike and Luke went for a Charismatic commander, while I bought some defences to deploy my missile troops behind. However I ended up as the attacker, but Luke and Mike where decent enough to advance on me so my defences where not wasted!

After a general advance by my opponents I moved my Cavalry forward to break up their attack and try to maintain some of the initiative. Despite getting my Cavalry in a complete mess as their cavalry moved round the words and arrived behind them I had a very fortunate stroke of luck. One exposed unit of mounted Samurai where charged by the enemies foot Samurai, as this gave them the edge. Although lost the combat and retreated Mike rolled a 6 for his cohesion test, and the Samurai unit contained the Charismatic C-in-C, who I promptly captured as I withdrew causing chaos in the enemy ranks as the news of the loss shook every unit in the opposing army.

Despite this Luke's infantry had advanced rapidly and where moving round my flank while I was stationary behind my defences. I launched a small counter-attack, but it was eventually snuffed out, but not before I had shaken the enemies right. My Cavalry was broken, so I hurried my centre command towards Mike, where with the loss of the commander, they were not advancing quickly and I needed to take advantage of this. I inflicted some losses and pushed the command towards breaking, before they returned the earlier favour, and captured my C-in-C. But as they did this I pushed their army past break point, but the loses I took to do this broke my army too. A very bloody, close, and highly enjoyable draw. More Impetus beckons!

Club Night 18th August

Luke and I decided to try one of the other scenarios from Future War Commander. We decided Luke would take the Imperial Guard covering the evacuation of the civilians before the Eldar assault arrived. As I had twice the points Luke did I chose to take three Titans to put him under some serious pressure. Unfortunately that was only the plan! My command rolls where a bit poor and my force arrived in very disjointed groups.
And Luke's command rolls where not bad! With one of my infantry commands refusing to turn up, the other one came under orbital bombardment. The first salvo suppressed most of them, the second was perfectly on target and was a pin-point strike, destroying my entire command. In the centre my assault troops debussed and then I failed my command roll so they stayed in the open, while again Luke rolled fantastic command rolls and had about 5 successive turns of fire , destroying them.By the time he had bought down one of my titans, it was all over for the Eldar assault. Luke's luck and the effectiveness of Imperial Guard heavy weapon troops when they are already deployed had been my downfall.