Charge! Polish cavalry tackles tanks in AAM

When I was in elementary school back in the 1960s I had several of the How and Why Wonder books. One in particular that I still remember vividly was the one on World War II. It had, as I recall, a dramatic illustration of Polish cavalry being attacked by German aircraft.

So when a new player of AAM suggested he’s like to try a few DYO scenarios I thought I’d make it interesting by picking one of the minor Allied powers to face his Germans. I happened to have a bunch of Polish cavalry that had never seen the table, so I designed a build that used them – and almost every other 1939 Pole I owned. Actually a few more, as I bought a few more to fill it out from 12-7 games.

Although not intentional, our mutual OBs ended up being reasonably historical, representing a good facsimile of an encounter between the German 3^rd Light Division and a Polish Cavalry brigade. About the only departure was the inclusion of a stray Polish 7TP tank.  The German build was 151 points and the Poles were 174, given the 15% bonus for being an all-Polish build.

So, the Polish force comprised the following elements:

10 x Polish Cavalry

9 x Polish Mauser

5 x TKS Tankette

4 x 37mm ATG

4 Minefields

3 x Polish officer

1 ea 7TP tank, Ammo Dump, HQ, and Pillbox

This approximated a Polish cavalry squadron, an infantry company, an anti-tank battery, a tankette platoon and supports

The German opponents were:

Two infantry platoons, each with 1 SS Leader, 3 Mausers, 1 MG34 and a Lt Mtr.

Two tank platoons, each with a Pz IVA and two Pz 38(t)

Air support with a Disciplined Spotter, one Stuka and one Bf 109E

The Poles had to set up first. We used Map Configuration 1 “Villages” Alternate Map layout from Page 7 of the Expanded Rules. The Poles selected the “Left” edge (the side with the numbers) which placed them closer to the objective and gave them some woods, hills and hedgerows for cover.

The cavalry set up in the left woods, ready to advance through the woods and hills in that sector. The HQ and pillbox were to their rear.

On the ridge and central woods were the Polish armor and two infantry platoons.

In the hedgerow field on the right was the ammo dump, the ATG battery and the remaining infantry platoon.

The minefields were set up to block the gaps between the woods on the German side of the map.

The Germans set up with one infantry platoon on the far right in some woods and the other in the central woods behind the small pond. Each platoon had a Pz. IV in support.

The Pz 38(t) all set up on the German left flank, with the Disciplined Spotter.

The Germans won the initiative, which they generally did through the battle. The Poles advanced all along the front, occupying the central village and taking firing positions. The German armor advanced, while the infantry held back for now.

During the first Air Phase the German fighter targeted a cavalry squad while the Stuka took aim at an ATG. Here the Poles caught a vital break, as excellent shooting by two Mausers attached to the ATG actually shot down the Stuka! The Stuka’s destruction of the ATG didn’t make up for this.  In fact, the Poles continued to have good luck with their rifle fire, twice managing to disrupt the fight later in the battle. As a consequence, out of a theoretical total of 14 air strikes the German player only got to implement six! It’s quite likely that this represented the winning difference in the game.

The Polish cavalry in the town was quite chewed up by the nearby German infantry, tanks and fighter aircraft, prompting the Polish commander to pull back the surviving platoon for the time being.

Near the end

On the right the German Pz. 38s tested their luck against the 37s and came out on the short end of the stick, losing three tanks. A big help in the effort was the ammo dump. Eventually the German player took out the dump with the fighter plane, but by then the damage had been done.

The Polish tank didn’t last long, dying in the first exchange of fire, but the tankettes proved surprisingly robust. While the Germans destroyed four and damaged the last, the TKS managed to swarm and destroy one Pz. IV.

Once the Germans numbers were reduced the surviving Polish horse was able to re-enter the fray and do some damage. Among their highlights was sobering one of the German leaders in the woods and shooting up the rear of the last Pz 38(t) after it was damaged.

The game ended with the Poles in secure command of the objective with most of their surviving infantry and leaders. Also surviving were two cavalry squads and two ATG. The Germans had one infantry platoon and the fighter remaining.

Some good luck against the planes was responsible for a surprising Polish victory.

A few thoughts on the Polish units based on this fight:

The Polish Cavalry’s forte was mobility, but they are very fragile. An overly aggressive opening move cost the Poles half their cavalry on Turn 1. More circumspect usage thereafter resulted in them doing good work. A key tactic was to disrupt the target hex and move in during the following turn’s movement phase when there wouldn’t be defensive fire.

The Polish Mausers are your regular AAM standard infantry platoon.  This worked to their advantage because the more colorful units such as the cavalry, tankettes and officers drew fire. At the end of the day, however,  the Mausers were the key to victory, shooting down the Stuka, disrupting the fighter and capturing the objective

The Polish Officers were a disappointment. While only 1 less initiative than the Germans, they only won initiative a couple of times, and once was on a HQ re-roll. Their Coordinated Fire Ability was only used once all game because the officer only has a range of 1.

The 37mm ATG were killers. Every bit as good as similar weapons in other Early War armies, they were devastating against the light German armor. They really had no drawbacks outside the mobility restrictions of the type.  They achieved a 5-1 kill ratio against the German tanks.

The TKS tankettes were also useful. They proved distracting to the Germans and managed to hold their own against the German armor, destroying on Pz IV and contributing to the death of the other.

The ammo dump was very useful and the Germans made  a mistake by not trying to take it out earlier. The Poles seemed to roll an awful lot of “1s”

The 7TP, in contrast, didn’t accomplish much before it died. It was taken out in the first volley and only managed to disrupt a Pz IV.  A single light tank isn’t very useful.

The HQ also didn’t accomplish a lot. One initiative loss was turned into a win, but the other rerolls failed. The pillbox wasn’t tested, largely because the HQ wasn’t deemed worth killing by the Germans. The minefields created a minor headache for the Germans, but nothing notable.

Overall it was fun to finally get to use my Poles, but they aren’t really a competitive build, even with the 15% bonus. Against a more experienced German -- or one with better luck -- they could be expected to lose more often than they win. It’s a very one-dimensional force and one that is especially vulnerable against an armor/air build.

Axis & Allies miniatures session -- Armored Carjacking

Dutch armored car gets disrupted by defensive fire as it tries to slip by Japanese forces. In the ensuing Assault phase it will be destroyed.

Knocked off a quick game of Axis &Allies Miniatures official scenario DI-2, "Armored Carjacking" at the game shop recently, facing the redoubtable Game Store Tony.

Tony has a soft spot for the Dutch after kicking some Nazi ass in a Memoir '44 scenario last year so he took the Dutch force in this quick, 5-turn scenario based on a Feb. 14, 1942 fight at Palambang, Sumatra.

Her a Dutch force, all represented by British troops, tries to bull its way through a Japanese roadblock.

The Dutch force is comprised of three SMLE rifle squads and a Vickers MG team, all riding in jeeps, which I presume represent light trucks or cars, supported by a Humber Scout Car -- which I presume is also a stand-in for some local Dutch colonial armored car of some sort.

The Japanese are represented by an Imperial Sergent leading three squads of SNLF paratroopers and a Type 92 MG team.

Scenario special rules specify that all the clear terrain on the map is woods, so essentially the significant terrain feature is a single road -- surrounded by woods except where it is surrounded by swamp. The Japanese lie in wait using hidden placement and the Dutch really have little recourse bu to try to fight heir way up the road.

And so the Dutch made their way up the road, leading with a jeep-mounted squad, followed by the MG-team, the AC and the the other two squads.

The first squad was gunned down as it drove by the hidden Japanese but the MG team was able successfully dismount. The Japanese pulled back a little to hide deeper in the trees.

Tony tried a wide outflanking move with one squad mounted on its jeep but they found the going very slow in the trees and by game's end they were deep in the jungle with no chance of getting off the map. The armored car tried a shorter flanking move but was slowed by disrupting fire from the Japanese MG team and then dispatched in close combat. The Dutch MG team was able to infiltrate off the map, but the last foot-slogging rifle squad found itself disrupted far shot of being able to get off the map and the game was called on Turn 4 as it was impossible for the Dutch to win at that point.

Casualties were on the low side for an AAM fight, with just a squad dead on each side, although the Dutch also lost one jeep and the armored car destroyed.

All-in-all a tough-looking scenario for the Dutch. The terrain restrictions really rule out any outflanking moves and the Dutch have to find a way to fight their way up the road.

Palambang or Palam "dud"? AAM session

Things were already pretty grim for the Japanese by this point on Turn 3.

Every so often you just have an off day and turn in an especially awful performance. You're not really an idiot -- or so you tell yourself.

Played the offciial Axis & Allies Miniatures scenario DI-1, Hell Furnaces of Sumatra, set in Palambang, Sumatra on Feb. 14, 1942. My redoubtable opponent was Game Store Tony.

Can't say I had a good plan, the dice were not in the mood to save me from having a bad plan and Tony's not the sort of player who's going to blunder and have a really bad plan himself to salvage your bad plan.

Unlike many of the AAM sceanrios, there's no need to revise the OB in any way to account for the later sets. AAM never got around to the Dutch, so the British proxies will have to remain and the Japanese troops are all basic units.

The scenario opens with a Dutch force of two machine gun teams and three rifle squads defending a 5-hex refinery with an engineer squad busy trying to set demo charges.

The Japanese start with one machine gun team, a mortar team, two Imperial Sergeant leaders and seven squads of SNLF paratroopers. One leader and two squads can start on the same map as the refinery defenders while the rest of the force starts on an adjacent map.

On the fourth turn a couple of squads of jeep-mounted reinforcements arrive for the Dutch from the North.

Well, my thoughts were to rush the defenders with about half the SNLF force, supported by the mortar and machine gun teams while a few squads tried to bushwack the reinforcements. Did I mention I had a bad plan?

Well, the plan started to unravel right from the first as I proceeded to lose the initiative and and Dutch began mowing down nearby paratroopers, including the ill-deployed mortar squad. before long the Japanese were on the ropes and were unable to even successfully ambush the reinforcements. Japanese fire was largely ineffective and the only Dutch casualties were one squad that unwisely didn't dismount from its Jeep and were killed when their trasnpoort was destroyed by the Japanese machine gun. That MG team was also the sole survivor of the Japanese force when the game ended on Turn 7 (of 8 possible). The industrious engineers were able to set demo charges for the entire refinery, although they porbably could have saved themeslves the trouble because the refinery was in little danger.

All-in-all a miserable little bit of generalship by your truly. Hopefully I'll recover and make the next fight a bit more competitive!

Very bad news for Axis & Allies and D&D fans

Lead D&D and A&A miniatures designer Rich Baker just posted that he's been let go from Wizards of the Coast!

This is, of course, awful personal news for him. Being laid off a week before Christmas sucks. Actually, speaking from experience, being laid off at any time sucks pretty bad, but the holidays is even worse.

It also throws the entire future of D&D and Axis & Allies miniatures products into doubt. WOTC has already indicated it was backing out of the painted miniature category. It appears that Pathfinder may have eaten in to D&D's market share a bit, but I'm inclined to think it's bigger than just one line's market share issues. I've suspected that the "Golden Era" of boxes full of plastic and painted collectible miniatures we have enjoyed over the last decade or so was an artifact of some temporary economic conditions (specifically the price differential between China and USA) and was coming to a close.

I'm not sure what WOTC's plans are for the D&D stuff. They were working on a new set of skirmish rules, but I don't know if that's going to see daylight now.

As far as the Axis & Allies miniatures line go, Baker said that his layoff did not mean any miniatures lines were being canceled and he seemed to offer some hope that he'd be able to work on some projects on a freelance basis. Realistically, I've thjought that the land miniatures line was all but certainly dead already and that the hoped-for Late War set was never happening. There was just too long a break since the last set and it would basically mean restarting the line. I also think Angels 20 (the new air game) is a dead duck. Whatever is already paid for in the pipeline will come out, but I doubt very much there's bee anything new started. I suppose there's a small bit of hope for a Set VII for War at Sea, but it's a slender one.

I think we can also lay to rest any thoughts of a reborn Heroscape. Among the other layoffs was the brand manager for the Avalon Hill and Axis & Allies lines, so even the future of the board games may now be in doubt. I know there was some talk about an exapnsion for Battle Cry and Larry Harris was working on a final set of rules for 1940 Global Axis & Allies. Without someone to guide these along I have my doubts. The sort of intensive attention wargames/RPGs need was never a good fit for Hasbro/WOTC anyway -- they're certainly no GMT!

Overall, a very sad day for fans of a number of popular games.

Not a good showing by me

Played a double of Axis & Allies Miniatures today at the local game shop and got schooled a bit.

We were playing the "Ridge Too Far" scenario from the Axis & Allies Extended rules.

As has been my custom, I modified the printed scenario slightly in order to account for units that have become available since the scenario was printed. In this case the changes were quite minor. I substituted the now-available MG 34 for the scenario's MG-42 because the scenario is set in July 1941, before the service date for the MG-42. In order to balance off the 2-point reduction in the German force's point total I substituted two Soviet Conscript infantry for two of the Moison-Nagants in the printed scenario.

The only other change was purely cosmetic, I proxied a regular Panzer IVD model for the Elite Pz IVD in the scenario while using the older version's stat card.

The map was No. 7 of the larger 3-inch sized series. The main features were five hexes of hills running from north to south just West of the middle of the map. A village was just east of that and a 4-hex patch of woods was northeast of the village. A small pond and some other trees rounded out the terrain. The five hill hexes were the objectives to be held by Turn 6. The Soviet force could set up on the hills, but any units that did so were disrupted. The rest of the Soviets set up within five hexes of the east edge, which meant they could just reach the village. The Germans could start with two infiltrators in the 4-hex patch of wood to the northeast of the town, while the rest of the German task force entered from the west ion Turn 1.

The Soviet force comprised one T-34/76 (real nasty in 1941!) a BT-7, a Commissar, a sniper, an ATR, an SMG squad, a grenadier squad, three Moison-Nagant squads and two conscript squads.

The attacking German force was one SS leader, an SS stormtrooper squad, three Kar 98 squads, one light mortar, one MG-43 team, one elite Pz IV tank and two Pz IIID tanks.

I took the Germans first. I put the MG-34 and the light mortar in the woods where they didn't accomplish much. The MG team was able to disprupt the BT-7 a couple of times but the light mortar died right off. I tired a frontal attack on the 3-hex ridge, whcih the Soviets had kinldy filed with troops (to be disrupted) with a supporting effort through some woods on the north side with the rest of the German foot troops. The Soviets took heavy losses, but the darn ATR got a lucky shot and damaged the elite Pz IV! I compounded the error by pushing one of the Pz III too aggressively onto the ridge where it was close assaulted to death by Soviet infantry.

By Turn 5 the Gernan attack was wrecked, with all three tanks and the majority of the foot troops gone. While the Soviets had taken some serious losses among their infantry, they still had both tanks undamaged and we called the game on account of hopelessness.

On the flip side I did better. I used the "Overwatch" rule for the first time extensively and the threat from the T-34, in particular, really constricted German movement over the first half of the game. The Germans were, however, able to pincer the two Soviet units holding the northern two hillocks (grenadier and SMG) between the MG 34 team and the SS stormtrooper from the woods and the German main body from the west.

My dice were cold in both games, but in the first game I made enough mistakes that I couldn't fairly blame the dice. In the second game, however, the Soviet shooting was abysmal, with multiple fusillades of fire unable to gun down exposed German infantry in the open and missing a Pz III in the open as well. Only the overwhelming firepower of the T-34 was able to score a kill on one Pz III. Gemran return fire was able to disrupt and damage both Soviet tanks eventually, despite being in cover and the Germans edged to a win, with control of two hills compared to control of one for the Soviets.

Overall a disappointing outing because I didn't feel like I put forth my best efforts, especially in the first game. It does appear to be a well-balanced and fair scenario.

AAM Heraklion session report

As official support for the Axis & Allies Miniatures game fades away one thing that's become less common is new official scenarios, although the online fan community has kept up its output. While there were quite a few official scenarios published before the scale change, the only new scenarios have appeared in the Expanded Rule Book and the Eastern Front and Desert Map Packs. There haven't been any published since Early War and Counter Offensive came out.

One consequence of this is that a lot of early scenarios used various proxies for units that later became available in the system, so as I've revisited those old scenarios I've adjusted the orders of battles to reflect the availability of new units.

This week marks the 70th anniversary of the Invasion of Crete, and it just so happens there's an official scenario from the Expanded Rules that covers a portion of the fighting -- Heraklion on page 44. So we played the first game of a match set, with me taking the Allies.


The scenario uses Maps 5 and 7 from the Expanded Rules. The battlefield features a small, 3-hex village near the center of the 2-map arrangement, with a 1-hex pond next to it and surrounded by several patches of woods and some hills.

The Axis forces are from the German 1st Battalion, 1st Fallschirmjaeger (Parachute) Regiment. The published order of battle includes an MG 42 machine gun team, but that weapon wasn't actually fielded until 1942. The new Counteroffensive set, however, now gives the Germans the MG 34 that they started the war with, so I substituted that. Being slightly less powerful than the MG 42 this MG team is only valued at 8 points, so I boosted one of the FJ units in the original OB to a Veteran FJ to keep the Germans even in points. As the Invasion of Crete was probably the high point for the German parachutists this seemed appropriate. That gave the German player three regular Fallschirmjaegers and the one Veteran FJ unit. Rounding out the German force was a light mortar, a Wehrmacht Expert Sniper and a Grizzled Veteran German hero.

The German units were set up at start instead of using the Paratrooper special ability.

The Allies, however, set up first. The Allied force, representing elements of the 14th Infantry Brigade, comprised the following: Four SMLE No. 4 Rifle units, one Vickers Machine-Gun Team, one Veteran (Australian) SMLE Rifleman, one Bren Machine Gunner, one 40mm Bofors L60 and three Greek Soldiers. The Greek soldiers, which became available with the North Africa set, replaced the three Communist Partisans in the original OB, which the scenario notes "represent the Greek soldiers who fought heroically with substandard equipment." In this case the point values were the same, so no further adjustment was required.

The German victory conditions were to either control all three hexes of the village OR have a unit in cover on the east edge of Map 7, which essentially meant in the hill or woods hex on that edge.

My biggest concern during the set up was to keep the Germans from getting an early shot at the Bofors, which was very vulnerable to the sniper and the MG 34. By scenario special rule the Bofors was also "Dug In," so I'd be unable to move it after the initial placement. I decided to place it on the small knoll east of the town where it could fire on all three town hexes and also cover the approaches to the East Edge victory hexes, while being out of sight from any German set-up hex. In the village itself I placed the four SMLE rifles and the Bren gunner while the Vickers went into the patch of woods south of the pond where it could cover the front of the town with grazing fire. The Veteran Aussie garrisoned the East edge victory hexes and formed my reserve while I set up the Greeks divided between the two patches of woods north and south of the Bofors knoll., ready to either reinforce the town or block any German dash for the East edge. The Greek Fury 2 special ability would give then 2 extra attack dice for the rest of the game once a German unit bit the dust, so it seemed best to keep them out of the initial firefight if possible.

Here we made a mistake, although I think it helped my opponent. By scenario rules the German units were to deploy second within five hexes of the West edge of map 5 -- but not adjacent to each other. I overlooked that, however, so the Germans set up in a tight group just West of the patch of woods west of the village -- except for the Sniper, who started in the woods in the southwest corner of the map. This part of the German deployment was a bit flawed because the sniper didn't start with a line of sight to the Vickers team.

My German opponent's apparent plan was to rely on the defensive strength of his FJ and Hero infantry (five units with defense of 5!) to carry though a frontal attack on the village via the West woods.

The first turn was spent moving the strike force into position while the sniper took a shot that managed to disrupt one SMLE rifle in town. The three regular FJ occupied the northernmost woods hex facing the ton while the hero, veteran FJ and MG 34 team took the south hex. The mortar stayed back for now due to stacking limits. The British reaction was to move the Bren gunner to the ridge north of town, joined by one Greek soldier while the SMLE and other Greek units stayed in the village.

The next four turns were basically a slugging match between the two forces across the narrow gap between the woods and the village. The Bren gunner gave the Allies an early break by suppressing the MG34 long enough for Vickers and riflemen to take it out. Frustratingly for the Germans the Vickers team proved to be especially adept at making its cover rolls and despite several potential kill shots, the Germans never could do more than disrupt it.

Meanwhile, it turned out that the knoll where the Bofors set up had a line of fire to the woods hex with the FJ squads and the withering fire (9 dice) from that weapon started to pay off and soon a FJ was down, giving the Greek soldiers their bonus. By turn 5 the Germans had lost two FJ and the MG 34 while the Allies were down two SMLE and the Bren. As it was becoming apparent that the Germans weren't going to try for the East edge victory hexes the Aussie SMLE moved forward.

With time running out the Germans made a dash into the town on Turn 6, losing the hero. The Germans conceded at that point as it was clear there were simply too many surviving Allied soldiers for the Germans to kill in the time remaining -- four perfect kill shots with 100% failed cover rolls would still leave at least one Allied unit alive in town.

Next session we will switch sides. I think the Allied set up was pretty effective and I expect to see my opponent adopt something similar, although perhaps a little more forward deployed because he tends to play aggressively and my set up may have left some units underemployed.

Even though the German force is rated at 65 points to the Allied 48 points, this does look like a challenge for the Germans -- especially because on my turn playing I'll have to follow the actual rules and set up with the Germans spread out!

Based on this session, I think that I'll have to try a more maneuver-oriented strategy when it's my turn as the Germans. Stay tuned.

Dead collectible games -- what are they good for? Part I

With the possible exception of Magic: The Gathering, which seems immortal, there comes a time in the life cycle of every collectible game when it "dies." That is, it's discontinued by its maker, official company support comes to an end, tournaments and sponsored or "sanctioned" events are no more and the would-be collector/player is faced with the question of "now what?"

It's in the nature of collectible games that they're much more dependent on the continued support of the game maker, a steady flow of new material and some sort of tournament style venue for play. This is much less true for other types of games. Indeed, an ordinary boardgame can "live on" almost indefinitely once published. A good example are the old Avalon Hill games Dune or Up Front which, due to licensing and rights issues, seem highly unlikely to ever see print again despite proven long-term popularity. It's hard for new players to break in, sadly, but both games have a devoted fan base and the existing copies of the game (undoubtedly carefully treated) will see many more years of play despite the demise of official support.

On the other hand, collectible games that, even though popular, fail to meet market goals and are discontinued by their game maker leave the collectors and players who sank their treasure into the game in a quandary. While it's possible that demand for their collection will increase eventually (because, after all, no new ones are being made) over the short term so far the usual pattern has been for the bottom to more or less fall out of the market for most games.

The lack of official support means the end of tournament play, which is problematical for games that are highly competitive. The lack of official sponsorship means that playing opportunities will quickly dry up and opponents will be hard to find.

Finally, the end of the line usually means that the game is still incomplete in important ways unless it's had a long run. There may be pieces, powers, factions and aspects of the game that are left high and dry because the planned follow-ons will never materialize.

So what now?

The answer will vary depending on the game and the collector, but here's how I see what's in MY collection and how I answer that question.

Axis & Allies Miniatures:

This game system hasn't been declared officially "dead" yet, but there's been no announcement of when the next set (Late War) is scheduled to appear and in my opinion there's a good chance it will never come -- or if it does, it will be the last expansion. This game has had a good long runs, however, and there aren't too many critical holes in the lineup. This game is much less dependent on the tournament scene than most collectibles because a large part of its market is made up of purchasers who are buying it purely for collection or to use the miniatures in other games. Wisely, the miniatures are easily usable in other games and with the scale change in the second half of the run are mostly compatible with other military miniatures. I expect to keep these and find them useful while playing other games and for the occasional game of AAM, itself.

Axis & Allies War at Sea Naval Miniatures:

This is not dead yet and it looks to have several more sets of life in it, BUT as a history-based line there are natural limits on how long it can go on, as opposed to a fictional setting. There's already been some trouble filling out the Axis fleets because they simply weren't very big. As an expedient some what-if ships have already appeared and some ships that appeared earlier in the series are being reissued but at some point the well will run dry. Like its AAM, however, A&A War at Sea miniatures can easily be used with other wargames and while it's a unique scale, the line has gotten large enough that it includes nearly every important ship from th war and if it goes on for 2-3 more sets there's not going to be naught but odds and ends left out. This is a real keeper. The War at Sea game is a good lite wargame (rather better than the land game, in my view) and is always be useful for more traditional gaming as well.

Dreamblade:

Dreamblade is both quite dead and yet still pretty popular. While the plug was pulled a little early (after just four expansions after the base set) the existing universe of product is just big enough to make it a workable game for the long haul. This game has been hurt by the collapse of the tournament scene, so opponents with their own sets are scarce, but if you own a big enough collection (I have a few hundred figures) so that you can provide a drafting pool then you can get some reasonable gaming in. I've had some success getting people to play. It's really a pretty good game, fundamentally, so I expect to keep it for occasional play. The game pieces aren't really usable for any other purposes, though, which is limiting.

Heroclix:

This game was 'dead" and then resurrected in a new incarnation. From what I can see, there's less vitality in the new version, but there's still some life. It's no thanks to me, however. I bought and played the game when it was WizKids. largely because it was the most gaming action I could find locally for a while, but when that sanctioned game scene evaporated I cut way back on my collection. I now have about 200 or so, left, mostly DC and I can't see re-entering the tournament scene by buying new product. For me what I have will have to last me as fodder for casual play. The game isn't bad, but it's also not one of my top interests. It's another game where the pieces aren't really usable for other purposes and I haven't been ale to generate much interest in scenario-based play in my local area. Nearly everybody who plays this seems only interested in playing it competitively -- and I'm not getting back into that scene. So this game's future on my shelf is very much up in the air. I've been chipping away at the edges of the collection through eBay sales for a while and if I ever have to move this is probably the first or second collection to go en masse.

More to come .... .

Oh Oh. End of the line for A&A minis?

This announcement that WOTC will "depart pre-painted plastic miniatures, " while not directly addressing the Axis & Allies miniatures lines, is quite worrisome for the future of those offerings.

I had strongly suspected that Counter-Offensive was likely the last set we'd see for the Land Miniatures. It would be unfortunate if the Late War set never came out as there are a few gaps in the line that could use filling, but it wouldn't be a disaster.

On the other hand, it seemed like we had a firm commitment for at least a couple of more sets of the naval game and the gaps left in that lkine are more serious as Rich Baker seemed to be deliberatley holding onto some units for later sets. An abrupt cessation of the line would be very bad in that case.

It may be too early to "panic" but Hasbro has been strongly trending away from pre-painted plastic minis over the past year or so (Heroscape, DDM, etc.) so this is not entirely a surprise.

Second try at BK-1 (modified) and even worse

Well, Young General helped me out by taking the French side for my modified version of the Axis & Allies Miniatures Scenario BK-1
.

To recap, this is an updated version of the official Blitzkrieg Campaign A Defiant Gesture, BK-1 scenario, modified to be more authentic because a number of units that were not available when the scenario was first published in 2006 are now available.

The starting French force defending the town of Stonne and the heights didn't change. It is comprised of one Bold Captain, six MAS riflemen and 3 Level grenadiers. (As noted before, there's a typo in the scenario and it shows Lebel icons but says SMLE Rifles underneath. As the SMLE makes no sense I went with the icon,.

The French reinforcement group from the 45th BCC has been changed to H-39s instead of the original R-35s because the actual battle featured H-39s. The R-35s were apparently merely the closest sub available back then.

The French group from the 49th BCC still includes a pair of CHar B1 bis heavy tanks but the 6 pdr ATG has been replaced with a 75mm Gun and a half track transport to better match actual French equipment in 1940, although the actual battle for Stonne didn't include any heavy French anti-tank gun.

Much bigger changes were in store for the German side. The changes to the French OB added more points so the Germans were also boosted in total point value to match.

First off, the anachronistic JU-87G was replaced with a JU-87A Stuka.

The Grossdeutschland Regiment kept its Wehrmacht Oberleutnant, despite his anachronistic nature because I felt like he might represent fanatical anti-tank teams and the Germans really needed the AT capability. I replaced the two Panzergrenadiers with three Motorized Schutzen because it was more accurate to the period and the Germans needed the bodies. The MG 42 was replaced with the sand-bagged machine gun team and its MG 34. With the revised card they sand-bagged MG tean can move so it ends up being much the same.Finally the SiG 33 was replaced with a STG III. This is a better unit anyway, and it';s much more authentic. The STG III's baptism of fire was with GD during this campaign.

The 8th Panzer Division contingent was also modified. I added a second Panzer III and added a Panzer IB to make up for a deficiency in points. The SdKfz 222s and the Panzer IICs remained (although I proxied a couple of Pz IIFs to make it look better.

Even with the beefed up German force I suspected the French armor would simply prove too tough to handle and it did. The first turn the Stuka performed its duty by successfully bombing the French Bold Captain off the board, which meant the Germans would win the initiative in every subsequent turn save one. Unfortunately it appears that the Stuka pilot was spending too much time celebrating back at the airfield because he didn't reappear again until the issue was well decided and when he did come back his bombs missed. Worse, he was not available to interdict the French tanks, so the Char Bs arrived on turn 2 and the H-39s on Turn 3.

Even the 67th Reserve Division troops proved tough to handle because they had an uncanny ability to find cover.

In the brutal affair that followed the German force was again wiped out while causing rather light losses to the French. Only the Bold Captain, two grenadiers, one rifleman and on Char B were destroyed. One H-39 was damaged. That was it.

To salvage this scenario I think the arrival of the French tanks has to be delayed further or maybe their numbers reduced. So far the Germans have not come close to being competitive in the scenario. I think the French cannon and transport can be dropped, as they're not even historical and it may be worthwhile to cut the number of French tanks in half. Even one Char B is pretty tough to handle with Pz. I, II & III tanks.

In any case, it was not a total waste, as Young General always loves a chance to kick the Old Warrior's butt and he's not overly concerned about whether it was a fair fight.

Updating Stonne

While schedule conflicts prevented me from playing on the precise anniversary, I did get in a near anniversary game of the Axis & Allies historical miniatures historical scenario BK-1, published on the official A&A minis site. This depicts some of the fighting for Stonne, France, on May 15, 1940.

Since that scenario was first published in 2006 a lot of new figures have become available, so I decided that there was little sense in playing the scenario as published when there were many more accurate figures in the mix now.

The French side actually required relatively few changes. The Bold Captain, MAS 7.5mm Inf and Lebel Grenadiers that set up are unchanged. (Note that the scenario lists SMLE rifles in stead of the Lebels, but this must be a typo as it would make no sense for SMLE rifles to be present and the picture shows the Lebels.

For the Reinforcements from the 45 BCC (a battalion, not the brigade listed by the scenario card) the R-35s are replaced by H-39s because that was the type of tank present. The R-35 was obviously used originally because it was a similar tank that was already in the game.

For the Reinforcement group from the 49th BCC (also a battalion) the Char Bis are unchanged, but accompanying ATG is replaced. I'm not sure why the 6 PDR was used in the scenario, as it's not really close to anything actually fielded by the French during the battle. What ATGs they had tended to be 25mm guns. There's nothing really suitable yet in AAM, but the French di also have some of their famous 75s in the area, so I subbed one of those. In 2006 there weren't any gun transports available but now there are, so the 75 gets a P107 half-track prime mover.

All-in-all, few changes are needed for the French OB and the subs add a few points to the French total.

In contrast the German order of battle should undergo a drastic overhaul.

First, we replace the JU-87G tank buster with the more accurate JU-87B from the Early War set.


The Wehrmacht Oberleutnant remains, depsite his 1942 date, because the Germans need the anti-tank capability and I assume that he ismeant to represent some tank-killer teams, similar to the "panzerfauist" tank killers teams given to the Finns in another scenario. The Panzergreandiers are replaced by Motorized Shuetzen, which is more appropriate to 1940. True True Panzergrenadiers came a little later. The MG-42 is likewise replaced by the Sandbagged Machine-Gun Team which is armed with the MG-34. In game terms it's the same with the revised card. The sIG 33 is replaced with the StuG III D, which is what the GrossDeutchland actaully used. As a matter of fact, this was the combat debut of the STG III.

The Panzer III F, Panzer IIC and SdKfz 222 are all unchanged, although I proxied the Pz IIF models for the Pz IIC for appearances because most of the models are V2. Only the 222s were the older scale because that vehicile hasn't been updated yet. While the French changes tended to add a few points, all the German changes subtracted some, so in order to keep the point values similar but without changing the character of the scenario I added a SdKfz 231 and a Panzer IB, both of which were also present on the battlefield that day. The Germans were still a couple of points shy of the French, but they did start with all troops present while the French had variable reinforcement so I thought I'd see how it played out before making more changes.

The actual session against an opponent was inconclusive due to his inexperience with the game, but it seemed to suggest that the French tanks were too tough for this order of battle to handle. I solitaired it afterward and while the Germans did a tad better , it still wasn't really close. The Germans simply didn't have enough anti-tank capability to deal with those tough French tanks, especially if they showed up early, which they did both times.

So I modified the German OB a little more. The SdkFz 231 went away, as it added nothing to the German side. In its place I added another Panzer III F and another Schuetzen. This brought both armies to exactly 132 points. This gave the Germans a little more capability to handle French tanks and one more soldier to try to capture the objective with while not changing the scenario in any fundamental way.

So we will see how that works out later this week.

Axis & Allies miniatures -- M18 Hellcat GMC

I'll be posting, on an occasional basis, musing about the pieces of Axis & Allies miniatures.

It seemed like every set of Axis & Allies miniatures had one really awful sculpt. The hobbyists' introduction to this unfortunate AAM "tradition" was the Base Set's M18 Hellcat tank destroyer (collector No. 19/48). This model was grossly out-of-scale compared to the other vehicular models and alerted gamers to the fact that there were scaling problems with the vehicles. As it turned out, gamers quickly determined that it was the majority of other vehicles that were not in a true 15mm scale, being about 15% too small in relation to the troops. Unfortunately, collectors were not comforted by the fact that at least one model (the M18 Hellcat) was the proper size because it also turned out that the proportions of that vehicle model were wrong. Interestingly, when reissued as part of the new 1939-1945 Set, the piece (No. 29/60) underwent a name change, to the M18 GMC (gun motor carriage).

A size comparison from BoardGame Geek between the 1939-1945 set M18 GMC (top) and the Base Set M18 Hellcat (bottom)

Stats:

* Officially revised stats

Rarity: Rare

Speed: 5

Defense: 3/2

Cost: 24*

Attacks vs. troops at close-medium-long ranges: 6-6-4

Attacks vs. vehicles at close-medium-long ranges: 14-12-10

Base Set

Special Abilities:

High Gear 2 -- If this unit makes its entire move along a road, it gets +2 speed.

Strike and Fade 1 -- In your assault phase, this unit can move at speed 1 after attacking* (Originally appeared only on 1939-1945 Set card, revision adds it to the Base Set)

Flanking Attack -- This unit rolls one extra attack die when attacking a Vehicle's rear.* (Originally appeared only on the Base Set card, revision adds it to the 1939-45 card)

1939-1945 Set

Historical text:

Base Set -- With a top speed of 55 mph, the Hellcat was the fastest armored fighting vehicle of the war.

1939-45 Set -- The M18 had a 400hp engine on a relatively light body. It was perhaps the fastest and most maneuverable tank of the war.

The unit in history: Of the four self-propelled tank destroyers fielded by the U.S. Army in World War II, the M18 was the only one that wasn't adapted from another vehicle. As the Army's only purpose-built TD the Hellcat was the epitome of tank destroyer doctrine, combining a powerful gun with an extremely maneuverable chassis with the aim of using hit-and-run tactics and ambush against enemy tanks. When tactical circumstances forced it to stand and fight, however, the M18s very light armor was inadequate. The 76mm gun was also too weak to penetrate the frontal armor of the Panther and Tiger tanks. Still, there were several instances of M18-equipped TD units achieving high kill ratios against Panther and Tiger tank units by using their high speed to achieve flanking shots and avoiding fire from the slowly traversing German tank turrets. About 2,500 M18s were built, with most serving in Europe.

The unit in the game: The M18 is the prototypical tank destroyer, with a powerful enough punch to take out most Axis AFVs and extreme speed that means it will have many opportunities to use that Flanking Attack SA. With High Speed 2 it can speed around as fast as a jeep! It can't take being shot at, however, but judicious positioning will let it use Strike and Fade to avoid return fire.

Axis and Allies miniatures -- M1 Garand

I'll be posting on an occasional basis musings about pieces in the Axis & Allies miniatures game.

As with the other basic infantrymen in Axis & Allies miniatures, the American GI is introduced to the game via his most common personal weapon, in this case the M-1 Garand semi-automatic rifle. The figure is No. 18 of 48 in the Base Set and No. 28 of 60 in the 1939-1945 set.

Base Set figure

Stats:

Rarity: Common

Speed: 1
Defense: 4/4
Cost: 4

Attacks vs troops at short-medium-long ranges: 8-7-0
Attacks vs. vehicles at short-medium-long ranges: 2-0-0

1939-1945 set figure

Special abilities:

Close Assault 7: This unit has an attack value of 7 against Vehicles in its hex. This attack ignores cover.

Stars & Stripes: This unit rolls one extra attack die while adjacent to a friendly Commander.


Historical text: The US M1 .30 caliber rifle was a semiautomatic weapon and outclassed the bolt-action rifles used by the Axis forces.

The unit in history: The M-1 Garand was the first successful general-issue semi-automatic rifle, which gave American soldiers an edge in firepower over their bolt-action rifle armed opponents. Unfortunately, close infantry combat was becoming dominated by fully automatic weapons such as submachine guns, light machine guns and assault rifles, making even a good long rifle obsolescent.

The unit in the game: The basic American rifleman is 33% more expensive than the usual for all other nationalities, but he is rewarded with generally higher stats and useful special abilities.

Axis & Allies -- Bazooka

I'll be posting, on an occasional basis, musings about particular pieces in the Axis & Allies series of miniatures.

Base Set

The Bazooka, collector No. 16/48 from the Base Set and No. 27/60 from the 1939-45 set, is the game depiction of one of the most distinctive American weapons of World War II, formally known as the Rocket Launcher, M1 (and later M1A1, M9 and other models).

Stats:
Rarity: Common
Speed: 1
Defense: 4/4
Cost: 4
Attacks vs troops at short-medium-long ranges: 4 - 0 - 0
Attacks vs vehicles at short-medium-long ranges: 9 - 4 - 0

Special abilities:

Close Assault 10 — This unit has an attack value of 10 against Vehicles in its hex. This attack
ignores cover.

Historical text: The M1 rocket launcher, or bazooka, fired a 60mm rocket. It was rushed into production for the North African campaign in 1942.


A bazooka team destroys a German tank in street fighting in 1944.

The unit in history: Ever since tank started terrifying infantrymen in the Great War there's been a search for a man-portable anti-tank weapon to hold the beasts at bay. Close-in weapons such as Molotov cocktails, satchel charges and grenades were risky to use and of limited effectiveness. The usual solution at the beginning of World War II was the same one from a generation before, the anti-tank rifle. Unfortunately ATR's were already reaching the limits of their effectiveness against the lightly armored tanks of 1939 and would soon be hopelessly inadequate against the up-armored later tanks.

1939-45 set

The bazooka was a happy marriage of two technologies, recoilless rockets and shaped charge warheads, and was tested by the U.S. Army's Ordnance Corps on the very eve of World War II. The initial tests were so successful that the weapon was rushed into production for fielding with the troops invading North Africa in November, 1942. It was such a rush job that the troops weren't even trained in how to use it, so its combat debut was unimpressive. In fact, it backfired on the Allies. The Germans captured some bazookas and, recognizing a good idea when they saw one, reverse-engineered and improved it to create their own Panzerschreck.

Unsurprisingly for a hastily fielded weapon the bazooka had a lot of flaws in field service, but it was still a very popular, versatile and useful weapon. Among its tactical drawbacks was the large back blast, which created a friendly fire danger and gave away the firer's position while making the weapon hard to use in confined spaces such as buildings.

The unit in the game: The bazooka is an economical way to make American infantry units dangerous to approach. The 10-dice close combat attack is enough to threaten the heaviest armor with damage. The back blast drawbacks are not reflected in the game, but neither is the bazooka's ability to stealthily stalk tanks. The Axis player will be very aware of where the bazookas are. Still, it's well worth tossing a few bazookas into any mix of U.S. infantry that might face any armor.

Axis & Allies Miniatures -- Making do with what you got, the KMT

One of the irritating things about most published strategy advice and army/warband/deck builds in collectible games is that they assume the players have access to the full line of available figures/cards. I suppose there may be a few players with unlimited budgets and time out there, but most of us have to play with what we got -- either putting up with the luck of the draw from randomized boosters or making a few strategic purchases of singles.

Most articles also seem to assume a minimum of external constraints so the army creator has the most flexibility to make use of clever combos. This may be OK with fantasy game, but I think the history-based AAM game loses a bit when you let it drift into fantastic anything-goes army builds that mix Germans and Japanese or 1940 French with 1945 Soviets.

So here's an exploration of an army build that shows more than a passing nod to history and tries to make the most out of what one player has in the box while obeying the standard army construction rules from the Expanded Rules.

The basic parameters in force will be for a 100-point army using historical army limits and year restrictions. The 100-point army is being picked because I intend to field a KMT Nationalist Chinese army and I am certain I can't field a larger force. I will only use models I own, with no proxies. The army will be tried out later against a contemporary Japanese build.

The Historical Army limit in this case is that the Nationalist Chinese can't be in an army with any other nationality. This is a pretty strict condition, in that the Chinese don't have many units to choose from. Some "historical" builds get around this by giving the Chinese access to some weapons they did actually field such a P-40 fighters and Sherman tanks, but going by the rule book these aren't available yet. (I'd like to see the Chinese eventually get a little help here. A Flying Tiger reprint of the P-40 would be good and giving the Chinese a few support weapons would be appropriate -- maybe some captured Japanese mortars and anti-tank guns).

On the other hand, being a pure Chinese army gives them more points to use -- their "100-
point" army will actually have 110 points to spend. Their biggest challenge will be spending that many points while remaining within the 15-piece army maximum size rule.

The year restriction will be 1939. This actually helps the Chinese, because they have no post-1939 units yet, but it limits the Japanese considerably.

The process of building our KMT force starts with taking advantage of the Formation Rules to field the Chinese Infantry Company for 26 points. While somewhat cheaper in build points as a formation than its components would cost individually (26 instead of 31) the biggest advantage of the formation is that it gives the Chinese 12 pieces while only counting as 5 against the army maximum size. I'd have considered fielding TWO of these units, but I don't have enough KMT Riflemen to form a second company.

In any case this gives us the following units to start with



1 KMT Officer (Key Special Ability is +1 initiative)

10 KMT Riflemen (Special Ability is actually a big disability, disruptions kill the unit)

1 KMT Machine-gun team (Double-shot SA, but subject to "Overheat")


I have just one T-26, so we'll toss that in for the limited antitank ability it brings. It costs 11 points, so the total build is now 37 and six units.

I happened to draw a lot of machine-gun teams out of my boosters, so I can add seven more of these units to the order of battle for 42 points. They will obviously form the real core of my force.

The build is now 79 points and 13 units. I'll toss in one more KMT officer to add a little redundancy in that department, which brings the force up to 14 units and 84 points.

I still have 26 build points left but one more slots for units, so the balance will have to be spent on support units and obstacles.

There's little point in buying a fuel dump for one tank and I have no confidence in the Chinese being able to protect an ammo dump, but a Headquarters seems like a useful support, giving the Chinese a second bite at the initiative apple each turn. Adding one of these costs 7 points, bringing the total to 91.





I'll add a couple of pillboxes for four points, bringing the total to 95. One pillbox will probably hold the HQ, hopefully protecting it from a marauding Zero and the other one will likely hold an MG team.


I think minefields are likely to be useful, so I'll add in all five of those I own for 10 points, bringing the force total to 105 points.





I'll spend three points to buy six barbed wire, which may be helpful if the Japanese field a lot of infantry. I'd buy more, but I don't have any. This brings the total to 108, so I finish off the buy with two tank obstacles. The Japanese will probably field some tanks and this may help keep them out of a key hex or two. I debated whether another pillbox might not be a better purchase, but the pillbox benefit isn't very strong, and I'd rather have the variety of options having another type of piece may provide. This brings the total to 110 points.

This Chinese army has some obvious deficiencies, but most of them can't be helped. First off, it doesn't have any dedicated AA guns, for the good reason the Chinese have none. There are lot of machine guns, though, so any Zero that shows up will have to be wary. More seriously the Chinese force has minimal anti-tank ability. There's only one proper AT gun, on the T-26, and the Chinese infantry and officers have no Close Assault ability.

Mitigating this, however, is the fact that none of the available 1939 Japanese armor (Type 89A Chi-Ro, Type 87 armored car, Type 95 Ha-Go or Type 97 Te-Ke) has any armor greater than 2, so even the Chinese machine-gun teams have a 25% chance of disrupting them out to 8 hexes away! Add in the double-shot SA and there's about a 6% chance of a single MG team damaging any Japanese armored vehicle. With a total of 9 MG teams in the Chinese force the cumulative chances are not negligible.

In the future I'll post a session report on how this force fares in combat, but comments are welcome.

EDIT: A ForuMini commenter pointed out that the rules were modified on Nov. 12 and the 15-unit army maximum has been dropped, but a new restriction has been placed on obstacles -- only 10% of an army's maximum allowable cost can be spent on Obstacles, so my proposed build runs afoul of that limit. So we will eliminate one pillbox, the two tank obstacles and two of the minefields to bring the Obstacle total back within limits and add in one more machine gun team and two more riflemen to replace them. This gives the Chinese a little more offensive ability.

I expect that my plan will be to use the massed machine guns to lay down a base of fire and then rush the objective with my mass of riflemen on the theory that "they can't kill us all."