The Scheldt Campaign from Hollandspiele on Vassal.

It was back in February last year that I last posted about the pleasures of playing boardgames with my pal Steve M. on Vassal when I was 'waxing lyrical ' about the Hollandspiele game Campaign of Nations by John Theissen, link below.

JJ's Wargames: Campaign of Nations from Hollandspiele on Vassal.

Since then our regular weekly gatherings on a Monday night, laptops to hand, have continued with adventures fighting the Burma Campaign of 1944-45 with Nemesis Burma 1944 from Legion Games, and various AWI battles and campaigns from GMT that included Saratoga and Germantown, and the series of block/campaign games from Worthington Games, Trenton, New York and Saratoga.

Time on other projects has not permitted my usual posting about these activities, as I have sought to maintain a weekly post here on the blog whilst focussing on my AWI collection, and frankly much has been written about these games and there pros and cons for me to add not much more other than to say that Steve and I enjoyed all of them with perhaps for me the standout choices being Worthington's New York game and Legion's Burma one, which produced some great drama during our play and seemed to model the themes really well.

However I felt prompted to compose this post, because every now and then a game comes along that really captures the imagination, very often by taking a completely different approach to presenting an era, battle or campaign by challenging players to play a familiar type of game in a completely new and enjoyable way, and recreating a key factor that is reflected in the historical record that makes it stand out from other games.

Which leads me to typing a few comments about 'The Scheldt Campaign', another game from Hollandspiele, of which I have a few from this company, and who seem to excel in producing games that are rather unique, with this one, ‘The Scheldt Campaign’, by Brian Train, and map art by Ilya Kudriashov, a good example.

I have quite a few WWII games covering the land-war in NW Europe in 1944-45, but I had not played a game covering this particular campaign in the autumn and early winter of 1944, as the Allied breakout from Normandy started to coalesce along the approaches to the German border, the weather worsened, and a realisation that things would not be over by Christmas sunk in, but with the need to shorten the Allied supply lines from the Normandy ports and beaches becoming an imperative, as thoughts turned to an invasion of the German homeland in the following year.

Although Antwerp, a major deep-water port, was liberated on September 3rd, 1944, German forces, with heavy emplaced coastal guns, backed up with mines in the coastal waters controlled the Scheldt estuary, preventing Allied ships from reaching the port, and securing Antwerp was recognised to be essential to maintain logistical support for the Allied armies advancing toward Germany, as other ports were too distant to efficiently supply the front lines

The battle to clear the Scheldt approaches took place from 2nd October to 8th November 1944, with initial attacks beginning in mid-September but meeting limited success due to well-fortified German positions, flooded terrain, and muddy conditions. The Germans employed effective delaying tactics, including flooding the Scheldt estuary, which slowed the Allied advance, that saw the Canadians conducting amphibious assaults, crossing obstacles, and fighting over open ground under heavy fire.

A view of the German defences on the Walcheren Causeway, as brilliantly portrayed in The Forgotten Battle, a 2020 Dutch war drama film directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr., that depicted the Battle of the Scheldt in 1944.

The operation was led by the First Canadian Army, under the acting command of Lieutenant-General Guy Simonds, with the army including the 2nd and 3rd Canadian Infantry Divisions, the 4th Canadian Armoured Division, the 1st British Corps, and the 1st Polish Armoured Division, along with smaller contingents of American, Belgian, and Dutch troops.

The Battle of the Scheldt is considered one of the most gruelling campaigns of World War II due to the difficult terrain, strong German defences, and high casualty rates, that saw Allied forces suffer approximately 20,873 casualties, including 6,367 Canadians; whilst the First Canadian Army captured over 41,000 German prisoners, and despite the heavy losses, the Allies successfully cleared the Scheldt, allowing the port of Antwerp to be used for supply operations. 

The first convoy would unload on the 28th November 1944, and between November 1944 and April 1945, 2.5 million tons of supplies were delivered through Antwerp.

Historically, the battle was divided into three operations: Operation SWITCHBACK to eliminate the forces in the Breskens Pocket, Operation VITALITY to move north from Antwerp and advance up the narrow isthmus of South Beveland; and Operation INFATUATE to eliminate the remaining German forces on Walcheren Island.

The map below shows the setup for the historical scenario, with Steve playing the Germans and 'Yours Truly' the Allies, and we have just completed the first move, as the Canadian 3rd Infantry and 4th Armoured Divisions, start to move against the Breskens Pocket, bottom left of the map

A snapshot of our game at the end of Turn one using Vassal.

The Breskens pocket was held by the 64th Division commanded by General Knut Eberding, an infantryman with extensive experience on the Eastern Front who was regarded as an expert in defensive warfare.

Map of the Breskens Pocket.
As a kid, I spent several family holidays in Knocke-sur-Mer, a lovely seaside resort, and well remember the many German gun emplacements positioned along the beach front that were the remains of the vaunted Atlantic Wall.

When the 15th Army had retreated from the Pas-de-Calais region of France across the Low Countries in September 1944, an enormous number of guns and ammunition ended up in the Breskens Pocket, including one hundred 20 mm anti-aircraft guns, which were used as a sort of "super-heavy machine gun", 23 heavy 88 mm flak guns, 455 light machine guns and 97 mortars.

'Bulge 20' by Joseph Miranda

As Steve and I got stuck into mastering the mechanics of this game, it became quite obvious to the both of us that this was not just another WWII regimental/battalion level hex game that we were very familiar with, using as it does the Staff Card system (Staff Markers in this game), adapted from the game 'Bulge 20' by Joseph Miranda, a system designed to not allow players to move and fight every unit every turn, as is often the case in other wargames, forcing them to choose what they want to do, and where, and how to support it.

The Staff Markers are named according to typical modern military staff sections (slightly modified for the game):

• G-1 Administration (assignment and organization of forces)
• G-2 Intelligence (about enemy strengths and intentions)
• G-3 Operations (tactical moves and combat)
• G-4 Logistics (strategic moves, combat support, etc.)

Each player has a C2 Level which represents the maximum number of Staff markers he may have in his hand at any one time: the Allied Player – 7; the German Player – 4; the difference reflecting organisational challenges faced by a German army forced to retreat rapidly from Normandy; they then select their hand of Staff Markers from those in the Available Pile during the Planning Phase at the end of their Player Turn.

Starting with the Allied player, the Staff Markers are played one at a time during a player’s Preparation or Operations Phase in any order desired, with its action performed, before the next Staff Marker is played, and so on. Sometimes (e.g. during a battle) Staff Markers may be played simultaneously, and when a marker has been played, it is usually returned to the Available Pile.

The halfway stage, Turn 16, of our game, with the Breskens Pocket cleared and the British 49th Division poised to press the offensive towards the Walcheren causeway (centre right), as the Canadian 2nd Division alongside the US 104th Infantry Division, and 1st Polish Armoured Division threaten the city of Tilburg, (top right).

The key concept behind this unique way of playing is, since the Germans select Staff Markers during their Planning Phase, the enemy (Allies, who move first in each turn of play) has an entire turn to perform Actions with their markers, thereby possibly rendering German choices redundant, reflecting very real staff planning issues at this level; whilst also, as we soon discovered seriously limiting what both forces could do from one turn to another, despite often needing to do a lot at any given time, and being forced to prioritise the staff work on a given attack, to move forces rapidly to an important area, or to bring in replacements instead of doing that big attack.

Additionally, as the German player moves second, it soon became obvious to me that committing all my staff markers to my play left me with nothing in hand to respond to Steve's play, and so an additional issue is presented to the Allied player, whether to hold back the occasional G2, ensuring a defender fires first or a G4 to provide artillery or air support to an Allied defence responding to a sudden German counterattack. Decision options, don't you just love them!

Along with the Germans occupying well fortified defensive terrain, this prioritising of activity offsets the advantage the Allied player has in force strength, activation priority and his multiple Staff choices, in that the game is limited to 32 turns, with each game turn representing an indefinite period of time, from one to two days, and with that clock ticking away, forcing some very careful considerations on what is a 'must do' over the 'nice to do' activities, or the weighing up of several 'must do's' and settling on what you think is going to progress the Allied cause the best.

I think the concept of friction in war, translated to our hobby of historical wargaming, be that on the tabletop or in a boardgame setting, is perhaps one of the great divides in the hobby that groups one set of players versus another, similar to competitive gaming and those enjoying the intellectual stimulation, win or lose.

There is no wrong or right way of enjoying the hobby, but the preference, in my experience, can readily determine if you will enjoy a particular game or not, and cards on the table, in case you hadn't guessed, I'm certainly a lover of friction, forcing me to deal with the situation presented, potentially not how I would have liked it, and with absolutely no interest in competitive gaming whatsoever.

Map of troops at Walcheren Island

Intellectually, I want my game to simulate 'historical reality' as closely as possible with the decision points presented, and as we know real-life commanders don't get to choose how things are, they only get to influence a given situation to their best ability, but then 'Fortuna' takes over from there, and then they get to influence the situation she presents.

Thus the terrible terrain, Polder, Flooded Fields, German Heavy Fortifications, turn this game into a real slog for the Allied player, just as it was historically, except no one got killed in our game; whilst the Germans have to soak up the casualties, whilst dishing out as much hurt as they can, attempt the odd counterattack here and there when the opportunity presents, then build road-blocks with speed-bump battalions to help tick the clock down, as the Allies are forced to clear them out the way, whilst also trying to figure out a way to unhinge their defence.

At the half way stage, I think I was doing quite well, and I hadn't turned to bringing in unhistorical forces, which is an option, and the combat dice were definitely favouring the Allies as the 'Dead Pool' on the illustrations would indicate.

That was when thing's started to go sideways, as a key attack on Woensdrecht, at the neck of the peninsula leading to the Walcheren causeway, didn't go to plan, allowing a German withdrawal, rather than wiping them out as planned with copious artillery and air support thrown in; followed by Steve managing to 'go firm' on Walcheren Island despite Allied bombing that caused massive flooding but only took out one of the four coastal batteries, and a Special Service landing force that took out another but could not press matters without other Allied troops coming to their aid.

In the end I threw the towel in on Turn 30 with no prospect of clearing Walcheren, which had the German's sitting on a marginal victory as my Canadian 4th Infantry Brigade managed to capture Rosendaal that turn, but with the key rule that if  just one of the two German gun batteries on Walcheren Island was still intact by turn 32, then the result awards the German player with an Impressive Victory - well played Steve.

This game is not perfect, but then not many are, and we thought the supply and LOC might be modelled better, but that really is a small quibble for a game we both enjoyed, and I felt really captured the nature of this hard fought campaign at the end of 1944.

The Scheldt Campaign – Hollandspiele
The Scheldt Campaign - Hollandspiele | Wargame Vault

It is still available as a printed game from Hollandspiele, and also in a print and play version via Wargame Vault, links above, and of course, the module in the Vassal library can readily facilitate play.

Oh and if you've never used Vassal to play boardgames, then I can highly recommend the platform. Steve and I have been using the system on our personal laptops for a number of years now without a hitch, and it is regularly updated and the modules for games are of an excellent standard, so I've added a link where you can download the system and access the games library.

Vassal

A final note, was this very fitting tribute in the rules;

Designer's Dedication: to the Canadian Scottish Regiment,

which earned three battle honours in this campaign: "The

Scheldt", "LEOPOLD CANAL", and "Breskens Pocket".

Lest we forget.

JJ

Campaign of Nations from Hollandspiele on Vassal.

Ok, so it's been a while since Steve M and I have got together over our laptops for a Vassal set-to, but with the start of a new year we picked up where we left off in September 2021, when Steve and I indulged ourselves with a massive game of Napoleon at Leipzig from OSG and Kevin Zucker, during which I got my 'derrière' handed to me, link below to the post covering our game and other Vassal games we played in that series.

JJ's Wargames - Vassal

So the decision for our game choice for our next Vassal adventure naturally turned back to Napoleon's 1813 Campaign in Germany, with Campaign of Nations by John Theissen and published by Hollandspiele, which moves the play to the operational level as Napoleon faces off against his Russian, Prussian, Austrian and Swedish adversaries looking to take full advantage of his weakness in the wake of his miserable failure in Russia in 1812.

https://www.littlewarstv.com/members-only/1813-campaign-guide

This level of game is one that can appeal to the Napoleonic tabletop gamer looking to add context to the figure games we love to play and it would be remiss of me not to highlight the efforts of the Little Wars TV chaps who put together such an adventure using this game and producing a useful 1813 Campaign Guide, link above, with their ideas on doing this with extensions to the map to include a wider sphere of operation, to include the spring campaigns as focussed on here, and if you are so inclined I would encourage you to take a look at the free PDF and their video covering their games for the whole campaign from the spring, summer and autumn.

 

We however were keen to see what the boardgame had to offer, focussing as it does specifically on the period following the summer Armistice of Pläswitz which was signed on the 4th June 1813, following the Battle of Bautzen in May and lasted until the 20th July, later extended to the 10th of August.

Both Napoleon and the Allies used this time, quite naturally, to reorganise and recruit for the inevitable resumption of hostilities, which enabled the Austrians to be persuaded to join the allied camp and for which Napoleon later (on Saint Helena) said that his agreement to that truce had been a bad mistake with the break being of much more use to the allies than to him.

This is the scenario presenting the start positions for the game seen in the map above, which as Thiessen explains in the introductory comments;

'The Allies threatened Napoleon from the north, east, and south. But then again, Napoleon's central position threatened to destroy the separated allied armies in detail...'

Game Setup - Napoleon and his army units, in blue of course, representing individual corps, occupies the central area around Leipzig and Dresden with all the benefits of internal lines, with Allied threats from the north around Berlin, the west around Breslau on the River Oder and the south around Prague beyond the Elbe Sandstone Mountains.

For our game, I took on the role once again as the Emperor of the French, whilst Steve led the Allies, moving our various corps with the strength points shown on the counters equating to about 10,000 men per point, and with each hex equating to some 11.25 miles of terrain and with each turn representing three days.

There are no stacking limits to the game although movement into a hex with ten or more strength-points cost an extra movement point, and a level of 'fog-of-war' is achieved by disallowing any inspection of enemy stacks. 

Game Turn Three

Some of the aspects to this game that particularly caught my eye were the ideas around the combat setup, with the usual attacks against opposing stacks in accessible neighbouring hexes, added to, with the ability to attempt to retreat before combat, with Napoleon and cavalry versus just infantry forgoing the need for a test to complete such a manoeuvre and just as importantly for a defender, to concentrate forces before combat, with Napoleon getting a +1, needing a score of 3 or more on a d6 roll, with these concepts encouraging the historical use of mutually supporting corps, less than a days march from each other. 

Game Turn Three - Berlin

As you will see from the maps of our game the initial moves saw our respective forces grouping as both sides moved to occupy key terrain and achieve a force advantage at the expense of the enemy, with French forces combining and closing on the River Havel before Berlin, Marshal Ney similarly grouping his forces and containing Blucher around Breslau, whilst Napoleon and the Austrian Prince of Schwarzenberg shifted their approaches around opposite sides of the Elbe Sandstone Mountains, reflected at the end of our first session of play for Game Turn Three.

Game Turn Three - Dresden

The next week of manoeuvres, represented by the two turns of play in our second session saw all the manoeuvring reach a climax as opposing stacks sought to take advantage in particular areas of the map, with Steve particularly successful in forcing a passage across the southern mountains in force and threatening both Dresden and Leipzig that forced Napoleon to spread his forces to cover both, eventually blocking what appeared to be the main thrust to Leipzig.

Game Turn Five - Napoleon is blocking the Austrians advance on Leipzig whilst Ney marches to the succour of Dresden with Blucher in pursuit, as the Allies have a setback before Berlin.

The one major success for French arms came before Berlin as the Allies attempted to force a passage over the Havel only to be badly beaten back and left disrupted as they retreated back to the fortification around the city, allowing the French to subsequently overcome the Prussian garrison in Brandenburg and turn the Havel with the occupation of Potsdam in the offing and netting 2 VP for Napoleon.

Game Turn Five - Berlin

Meanwhile, appreciating the threat posed by the Austrians, Ney was hastily recalled from his position on the Odor to get himself and his army in Dresden, whilst delaying the following Blucher as best he could.

Game Turn Five - Dresden

The campaign was nicely poised when we gathered for our third session of play, with the French commanding the approaches to Berlin, but lacking the strength to force the capitulation of the Allies within the city walls; whilst Napoleon and Schwarzenberg were looking to get the drop on each other before Ney could make his presence felt with additional French troops in Dresden with Blucher beyond the River Elbe and likely unable to intervene in time.

Game Turn Ten - End Game Positions

As expected the Berlin front became a bit of a stalemate situation unlikely to change until either side received reinforcements from the north around Hamburg, principally more Russians for the Allies and Marshal Davout for the French.

 Game Turn Ten - Berlin 

The campaign resolved itself over the next two weeks around Dresden as Napoleon and Schwarzenberg feinted to move in one direction then the other as they in turn concentrated around Dresden as both Ney and Blucher closed in and Napoleon opted to force a decision battle around this key city before the Allied strength became even more formidable.

Game Turn Ten - Dresden and Napoleon is done as the Allies occupy both Dresden and Leipzig

As was the historical outcome, the Allies were victorious before Dresden, battering the French army and occupying the city, whilst taking full advantage of the French concentration of their army for battle by sending 20,000 Russian cavalry to occupy Leipzig to pass the French VPs for Berlin and netting themselves six VP for their occupation of these two nodal cities and the losses inflicted on the main French army as well as winning a major battle - oh dear how sad.

With little prospect of salvaging much from this campaign Napoleon was already booking his ferry to Elba and I conceded the game to Steve.

We both enjoyed this game, although based on the experience of it, would most likely change our approach to playing it the way we did, as we were keen to test the mechanics to the full. We are both keen Napoleonic gamers and at first the 'vanilla' rating for the various corps represented seemed a bit strange and more representative of the ACW stable of games that preceded this one. 

That said I don't know if the strength points have been increased slightly for better corps such as Old and Young Guard to represent the implied qualitative difference they represented or perhaps the modelling suggests that this was not the French army of old, composed in the wake of Russia of mainly 'Marie Louise' conscripts and Peninsular veterans filling the ranks of the so-called Guard; either way the operational level of the game would suggest that those differences would be minimal at this level of play, and Napoleon's abilities to manoeuvre are perhaps a more important factor against a large Allied army if it is able to concentrate, which at its heart is what this game is about.

There are event cards for each side that can be used once only to influence play, and we both agreed that they were a nice added flavour but not major game changers, so are nicely weighted; and there are other campaign specific rules around defections, Austrian reorganisations and Army Rest periods.

All in all the 7.2 rating on BGG would be a good assessment and overall Campaign of Nations seems to model this particular campaign quite nicely.

Oh well, Steve has picked up from where he left off and I will definitely have to try harder. So our next adventure will be Nemesis; Burma 1944 by Legion Games.

More anon

JJ

Vassal Gaming To Date - Napoleon at Leipzig, 1805 Sea of Glory, Operation Battleaxe 1941, Pacific Fury Guadalcanal, 1942 & Sovereign of the Seas together with an upcoming Table-top Campaign.

So its been a while since I updated everyone on my Vassal gaming, with my last post optimistically entitled 'Part One' looking at Steve M's and my game of Napoleon at Leipzig game from OSG, which were just getting into back in September last year, see link below.

JJ's Wargames - Napoleon at Leipzig, Battle of Nations

Well lots of other stuff imposed itself on the blog content between then and now and it's only now that I've found time to sit down and review that particular game and a few others that have been played since and thought I might just do a round up of those games to get things back up to date.

So the Leipzig game proved great fun, but I'm afraid I failed to live up to the performance of the Emperor of the French, managing in my machinations of the card play to promote the Russian and Prussian Guard into the front rank of the Allied attacks south of the city after I had delayed the arrival of less able Allied troops tabled to arrive before them - doh!

The card play in the Napoleonic Battles Library Series can be a two edged sword and a cunning plan can sometimes come back to bite you!

Our Leipzig game at the close of play on the 16th October.

This proved a costly error as my Marie Louise's struggled to hold these elite troops in place as I was forced to rush Young Guard and eventually the 'Grumbler's' themselves to try and stem things.

Marshal Ney, managed a fine job imposing himself on Blucher, but all to no avail as things fell apart in the south.

In the end I was forced to capitulate at the end of the 16th October, as Steve not only forced my position in and around Connewitz with a well executed attack by Kleist and the the Prussian Guard, but also made sure the French were not going to get out of town any time soon as he bottled up my escape route by closing the causeway through Lindenau.

The key area around the south of Leipzig that cooked Napoleon's goose! This despite a masterful defence in the north by Ney giving the old warhorse Blucher a bit of a bloody nose

My centre in the south was well and truly busted with two corps demoralised after the heavy fighting in the previous two days, and the final attack on Connewitz capitalised on the hard fighting put in by the Allies during a day and a half of persistent rain that negated their superiority in artillery and forced them to take ground at the point of the bayonet. 

Well played Steve and an enjoyable game that we played through the best part of September and October and were joined in our 'game room' on a couple of our nights play by the design team that created the latest version of this classic game, which was fun sharing comments over the Vassal platform during play and having a few of our errors corrected, thanks chaps.

JJ's Wargames - Sovereign of the Seas, Compass Games

At about the same time as I was enjoying Leipzig on a Tuesday night, I was playing Sovereign of the Seas (SOTS) with Jason on a Thursday afternoon which we concluded at about the same time and I reviewed my thoughts about the game in my post looking at its wider potential for use as a table-top campaign engine, see the link above to that post.

One of our climactic battles in 1799 was the Battle of Aden, here showing the result at the end of the affair with the British triumphant. Note 'sunk' is just a game mechanic to indicate captured, taken or sometimes destroyed, with most defeated vessels being returned to the draw pot to return in future turns.

During our final rounds of play we did find a slight problem with the game and its spotting rules when fleets go looking for each other, in that part of the spotting calculations adds the number of ships in each opposing fleet to the Admiral's value, any friendly frigates nearby and either three or one die scores depending on if you are wanting to spot (1 x d6) or avoiding a contact (3 x d6). This works ok until the European player, often trying to avoid a contact, builds very large fleets that appear to negate most British attempts to find them even with Nelson on a rating of 4, especially when sitting on a lead in VPs and trying to see the campaign out.

We think we may have a fix for that problem, which I'll address at the end of the post, but decided to turn our attention to another naval war offering for the Age of Sail, namely 1805 Sea of Glory designed by Phil Fry and published by GMT.

I bought this game soon after it was published and it is a work of passion by Phil Fry and one I have been keen to play using the full campaign set up for the dramatic year of 1805, which Jason and I started just before Xmas.

Yet to be resolved, but it's June 1805 and the Channel Squadron have intercepted a lone French 74, that escaped from Rochefort into the Bay of Biscay, with the ships deployed on the battle-board (centre right). The Mediterranean is full of British ships (frigates and squadron markers above the Balearic Islands, with another patrolling the Gibraltar Straits, that followed in the wake the French Brest squadron, after it successfully raided Alexandria and escaped into Cartagena.

The cat and mouse game that is produces is a classic war at sea campaign with Jason, playing the allies

looking for the opportunity to move his squadrons to sea at the best opportunity when British blockaders have been blown off station, and with his admiralty orders predefining the destination and objectives of his squadrons.

For myself, running the British, the first months of this game have been all about manning and repairing as many ships as I can each month, finding out what Nelson meant about not having enough frigates, and trying to get into the head of the enemy and accurately assess where certain enemy units may be heading amid a flurry of dummy blocks designed to draw my hunting squadrons of the scent. Great Stuff! 

The state of the British fleet at the end of May I 1805 with storm damaged ships, Bellerophon and Atlas, awaiting repair in Plymouth and the damaged Repulse still at sea with the Atlantic Squadron. To the far top right, quite a few ships still sit in ordinary in Plymouth and Portsmouth, awaiting fitting out and new crews brought in by the Press.

We are now into June 1805 and the first six months of play have generated French raids on Antigua and Alexandria and have seen three interceptions by the British with the Brest fleet escaping battle in the first but seeing two smaller squadrons intercepted, the first thoroughly beaten and the next, consising of just one French 74 about to be taken by the Channel squadron on patrol in the Bay of Biscay.

This is a great game and the administration side of running the fleets, dealing with damaged ships, appointing commanders to various squadrons, rotating in new ships brought out of ordinary, as well as trying to deal with the enemy is all here in this game and we are having a lot of fun with it.

With Leipzig concluded Steve and I decided to have a complete change of theme and returned to the Western Desert, this time in 1941 to play Operation Battleaxe, Wavell v Rommel, from Revolution Games, using the area system of WWII games started  by Avalon Hill with Breakout Normandy (BKN), a game we know well and love playing.

The game set up with the Empire forces yet to deploy onto the frontier, and with the Axis around and forward of Tobruk

This game has lots of similarities to BKN, but some key differences that sees a battle solution much more decisive and punishing than the often attritional battles modelled for the Normandy campaign, with the fighting often taking place in close dense terrain rather than the wide open vistas on the Western Desert.

June 16th Impulse Four: The Empire forces have pushed forward and grabbed key terrain on the frontier releasing Axis armour to come forward to deal with them.

This interesting game is one of two halves, seeing the Empire force launch its surprise offensive as the Axis focus on strangling the Tobruk defenders, only to see the taking of key victory point (VP) areas releasing the Axis armour to counterattack.

Thus the Empire commander has to decide when the point is reached to defend that terrain they hold and go firm in the face of Axis attacks to retake them, with both sides cautiously watching that their combats do not result in dangerous gaps that could allow a rapid penetration to yet more victory point areas lost.

The VP areas keep on giving once taken and thus the Axis must stop the bleed of VPs to the Empire from territory grabbed in previous turns.

The end of our first game and the Axis are defeated and forced to pull back from Tobruk losing key armoured assets in battles around Fort Capuzzo and Sidi Omar.

The game proved very entertaining and in two play throughs reached a climax by the second day of the offensive as the Axis were stung into a response as the Italians on the frontier recoiled or were destroyed in the face of British tank assaults.

However we both felt that the German panzer forces together with their anti-tank capability did not seem to be adequately reflected in the game, with poor British tank tactics, displayed by Churchill's Tiger Cubs charging massed lines of dug in 88mm and Pak 38 At guns, seemingly not captured in the combat resolution which we both struggled to match with our reading and understanding of this battle from the history books.

That said this is a nice rendition of this interesting early war desert campaign, with great graphics and other nice touches modelling this theme and made a nice change from Crusader and later offensives.

With Operation Battleaxe concluded in January, Steve and I turned to another interesting offering from Revolution Games, Pacific Fury, Guadalcanal 1942, another area based game but with an entirely different theme, focussed on the naval and land struggle between Japanese and American forces to take and hold the strategically important island of Guadalcanal in the Solomon's campaign of 1942.

The map set up for the start of Pacific Fury Guadalcanal, with both fleets ready to be deployed onto their respective operations tracks, seven boxes to be played through each of four months August to November. Henderson Field is in American hands on the Initiative Track, and the Japanese player builds task forces first, then the American player, who then deploys (sorties) onto the map first.

This game along with 1805 Sea of Glory are perhaps my favourite choices played so far since my last Vassal update and very cleverly recreates some of the issues the respective naval commanders of both sides faced in the decisions around force deployments in and around Guadalcanal in support of land units struggling to gain ascendancy and control of its vital airfield.

This game is all about anticipating what your opponent is likely to do and to try and outwit his deployments, called sorties, with those forces of your own, hence task force construction using the aircraft carriers, battleships and cruisers of the respective fleets, placed in the right order on the Operations Boxes that decides the order task forces can 'sortie onto the map is vital.

Game one, turn three, October, with the Japanese controlling Henderson, which has suffered a bombardment or air strike (indicated by a red X) and seeing the Americans needing to land troops with two transports to shift the marker two spots in their favour at the close. Oh and should a transport get sunk in the effort that shifts the marker back one in favour of the Japanese - Great Fun!  Note TFA US transports escorted by heaps of battleships and cruisers on the Operation Boxes, coming on next, set to come on last, hopefully once the Enterprise Task Force Carrier in the South Pacific Ocean has dealt with the opposition to allow an unopposed landing. Note also a Japanese TFC coming on last foreboding a carrier battle at the close. Normally during game play these opposing deployments are hidden from the opposition but shown here for illustrating game play.

Task Forces come in three flavours, Task Force Carrier (TFC must include a carrier either Fleet or Light), Task Force Bombardment (can only be composed of battleships and cruisers), Task Force Assault (TFA must include one or two transports and potentially battleships and cruisers). In addition the Japanese player has a special TFA, the Tokyo Express representing their fast destroyers able to move into Ironbottom Sound and land troops at night and departing before daylight.

TFC's can only operate in the open seas of the South Pacific Ocean and Eastern Solomon's, conducting carrier battles with enemy TFC's in their sea area and launching airstrikes against opposing groups in adjacent areas including Henderson and TFB's and TFA's they can catch in and around Ironbottom Sound. The slot is immune to such attacks and allows the Japanese a secure deployment zone from them.

Only TFB's and TFA's can enter Ironbottom Sound and The Slot, either fighting opposition task forces, bombarding Henderson and or landing troops. If at the end of a two tur combat resolution one side or the other occupies Ironbottom Sound and the force has transports, they immediately land before the force withdraws to its respective base at either Truk or Espiritu Santo.

End of November, Game One and an American Victory having fought back in October to take Henderson and hold it with two TFB's in Ironbottom Sound supported by the Hornet TFC a Japanese TFB and TFA held a bay in the slot. 

The latter operation is key to winning the game as troop landings enable the initiative marker and control of Henderson to be moved in either direction according to who landed the troops, which will always be the player who does not have control at the time and with that aspect of the game likely to change should control shift, say from the Americans to the Japanese.

Thus the other naval deployments are all about keeping or taking control of the Henderson marker, with ship losses nothing to do with victory, if the marker should lie in the control of either player at the conclusion of the November turn.

Some folks seem to struggle with that concept, but I rather think it reflects very well the position of both sides, to come out on top in this defining campaign, pretty well no matter what the cost in ships and men, with the result of this campaign shaping the direction of the Pacific War, with large numbers of major ships lost by both in the actual fighting, which would see fleet and light carriers, battleships and numerous cruisers written off the orders of battle for both sides.

Finally Jason and I are going to start another Sovereign of the Seas game this time trying out the idea I presented in my post back in August last year to use the game as a table-top campaign battle engine, using the 1:700th collection of model ships to resolve the combats we generate in our game and translating the results back into it.

Having played the game as a straight board game we have a pretty good idea as to what it will generate in terms of engagements and the addition of bringing in players from club to fight out those engagements and then translate them back into the SOTS will, I think, make for an interesting campaign system.

In that vain I have composed some simple tweaks to facilitate such play that also sees the use of the 1805 spotting rules adapted to our SOTS game as well as the use of Kiss Me Hardy to resolve the action.

We now have a date in the diary at the end of this month to start things off in 1793 with the commencement of the French Revolutionary War and we will play the board game on Vassal with a Zoom link and an invitation to players in the club interested in playing the table-top actions to join us if they would like to follow the play, which will generate our first battles of the war.

Needless to say I will update the blog here and on the Devon Wargames Group as to our progress.

More anon 

JJ