Fist Full of WW3

Time to go back to some Cold War action with Michael. After our last encounter where I wrote off ever playing Cold War Commander again, he promised to find a better ruleset for the era, still using the same 6mm figures. In "Fist Full of TOWs" he may have found it.

It's a very simple system, which allows for a lot of variance of equipment and covers a huge historical period, and even sci-fi games like "Fist Full of Tripods." Most importantly, there's no rolling for activation. Everything just goes in classic I-go-you-go fashion. While the base rules are super simple and VERY fast playing, you can add more complexity very easily. I'm very excited to get further into this game and era.

We played a simple encounter scenario to start, with me as the West Germans defending against a low-quality Soviet force.

The German equipment was far inferior to the Soviets, but I like a plucky underdog.

Damn, the Soviets got to the village first!

Uh oh!

Well, that didn't last long.  The Soviets won but at least Germany is united again. And probably France and Spain too...

However, since that game was incredibly quick (maybe an hour or so?), we flipped sides and I gave the Soviets a spin. Michael approached the problem far more cautiously than I, but still I had high hopes of repeating his victory.
The Germans hid behind a hill with their main force.

Taking the town quickly with my Soviets, it was obvious that Michael didn't intend to contest it.

Deciding to eliminate the German tanks first, I moved my own armor up.

Fire from some antiquated German tanks harasses my armored transports, but such is to be expected.

My tank assault initially goes quite well...

And I mount the infantry again, hoping to cut off the enemy armor's retreat.

But that's where my luck turned...

Some abysmal rolls on my part resulted in my overwhelming force becoming 2:1 in favor of the Germans. With the destruction of the Soviet tanks, the rest turned tail and fled, leaving the infantry on their own. Wisely, they decided to flee back to the Motherland.

A fun, easy game, but two back to back losses for me. Well, it's clearly not the system!  Michael is a very strong player, especially in his favorite period. I'm looking to go back for more soon, and maybe see how artillery and air support plays out.

"Negative" vs. "Positive" Activation Rules (and Cold War Commander Review)

It appears I've played my last game of Cold War Commander. When my buddy Michael taught me the game, I was excited about it and wanted very much to like it. I'd been wanting to get into larger scale battles (battalions, regiments, etc), and this seemed like just the thing, with a professed combined arms focus as well.  However, after about 5 games of it, I'm pretty much completely done with it. I've had victories, defeats, and draws, but no matter the outcome, I walk away a bit frustrated. I thought it would pass, but it hasn't, and so, I'm sorry Cold War Commander, I'm breaking up with you.

Michael, who's a big fan of the game and even plays it solo sometimes, is an excellent host, and I feel bad saying goodbye to his favorite game, but fun must come first, and I'm just not having fun. In an effort to explain why to my friend, I isolated a couple of things, the main thing being the rules to activate units.  I haven't been wargaming for decades like many people I play with, but it seems to me that there are three broad ways to handle unit activation in a game:  "I go-you go", Negative Activation, and Positive Activation.

We're all familiar with "I go-you go" rules:  one side activates all of their units, sometimes in whatever order they want, and then the other player goes. Obviously, this is far from realistic in the way it reduces the battle to two large men taking turns punching each other as hard as they can until one falls over.  It can be plenty fun of course, (as in All Quiet on the Marian Front) but most tactically-minded folks seem to eventually prefer something more interesting when they can get it.  For convenience sake, I'll even include games like Wings of Glory (or Battletech), where both sides actually act at the same moment (and to a degree even X-Wing, where pilot skill determines the order of activation), as both sides essentially get the same chance to act, and all intact units can do whatever their abilities allow every turn.  I've actually seen CWC described as I go-You go, as one side takes as many activations as possible and then the other does, but as there is a limiting factor to the activations, I prefer to think of it differently.

The other two types I've lumped together are "negative" and "positive" limited activation rules. Both are an attempt to improve over the "I go-you go" type by limiting what you can do in a given turn. These rules recognize that you can't always coordinate everything on a battlefield perfectly, and limits the units activated on any given turn. This strikes some as less fair, but of course, there is often the same chance of activation on both sides, and if there is a disparity, most rule sets give some kind of benefit to level things a bit. I'm of the opinion that limitations like this are desirable in most cases, but there are two very different ways to achieve it.

"Negative Activation" -  So, say you want to move or shoot with a tank or something. In negative activation, you try to activate, usually with a roll, and sometimes you can do what you want with the unit, and sometimes the dice say "nope, your tank is going to sit right where it is and spin its treads." A good example of this is Cold War Commander, where you can activate a unit over and over on your turn, until you fail your roll. That failure can happen on the first, or on the sixth activation, you never know.  I've had games where a tank company's commander fails to activate for entire game, forcing the overall commander to activate the company and move it to the fight, all while the inactive command unit is literally sitting at the table edge as the rest of his unit reaches the other side of the board.  So much for "simulation". Lion Rampant (which seem to be quite popular lately) uses these rules as well, and I've seen some griping about it online which makes me suspect I should find a different rule set if I dive into a medieval setting.

Positive activation works differently, limiting you by using mechanisms like cards or dice that are drawn either for each unit, or determine the order of activations during a phase.  Examples of this type are Bolt Action, where both sides have a die per unit all in one bag, and one die is drawn to see who goes next (allowing the possibility of one side going several times in a row), but leaving the choice of which unit to activate with that die, and with the knowledge that all units will eventually activate.  Similarly, in IABSM, the units form a deck of cards, and you activate the unit which you draw, but may not get to activate every unit on a given turn (there's a "tea break" card that ends the turn somewhere in the deck). Or, as in my current favorite rule set, Chain of Command, you roll a set number of dice (typically 5) that you can then use to activate various units depending on the numbers rolled. You roll the five dice, and within certain limits, make the best of what you have. If you have lots of units, you may not be able to activate them every time, but once you roll the dice, you'll at least know for sure what you can do. Sometimes, if you roll lots of sixes and fives, you can't activate as many things, but you either get several turns in a row (6s) or advance towards a CoC die and the various tactical options that brings. You may not be able to do much, but you won't be stuck doing nothing either.

I also feel this is a huge improvement over Bolt Action, as once you roll you know you can, say, activate a squad, a junior leader, and a team, and thus you can have your units support each other in a way that is impossible (except by blind luck) in BA. For instance, given the above roll, I could activate a tank's driver as a team, telling it to advance on the road, while activating a squad's junior leader to follow the tank closely, using it as cover. Try that in Bolt Action, and if you draw one of your opponent's dice after moving the tank, they will find your squad still 20' back from the infantry in the open until you can pull another dice to move them. There's no way to do two things simultaneously.  Yet I still prefer Bolt Action's "positive" activation to CWC's "negative".

To me, what makes the positive activation superior is that the activation method limits your resources, and then allows you make your choice of how to work with limited options. I call the former negative because it allows you to make your choices and then limits you by sometimes saying "no".  I find the latter to be psychologically less fun, and leading to far more annoyance.  Perhaps others agree, perhaps not. But for me, this feeling of positive choice, of being able to make a plan to work with what you have (even if limited), is far more fun than trying to stretch your brain to explain why one of your tanks is still sitting on the table edge watching the rest of the battalion get torn apart. If that tank is sitting there, I want that to have either been a conscious decision, either because I wanted it there or because I chose to spend my resources elsewhere.

I guess what this comes down to is that I don't like being told "no" arbitrarily. Tell me what I can do, not what I can't, and I'll happily try my best to solve the tactical problem at hand, and enjoy myself win or lose.  I don't mind being denied, but I'd ultimately prefer it be my opponent, and not the rules, which do so.

Another issue I have with CWC is the way it handles reactive (opportunity) fire. I admit to limited experience with this mechanic in games outside CWC and perhaps CoC, but I've seen others gripe about this online so I know I'm not alone here.  Essentially, in CWC, any unit that is not "suppressed" by previous enemy fire, may interrupt an opponent's action and fire in reaction. Frankly, I'm not as clear about why this doesn't work well in this game as I am about the activations. I can only give you the result: paralysis on the game board. It may be because every unsuppressed unit can do this. Certainly in CoC you have to spend precious tactical resources to do it, whether by putting a unit on overwatch, or spending a CoC die on an interrupt or ambush. In CWC, it again feels more "negative".  Certainly some kind of mechanic like this makes sense - if I'm moving my tanks into a better position, you probably do have an opportunity to fire while I do so. Yet, you could do so if I remained passively right where I was - but not in CWC. I can just hang out where I am ("if I don't move they can't see me"), you can't shoot at me, at least not until your turn. And if you do fire on your turn, I can use reactive fire to fire back then.  In the end I find the way the mechanic plays out limits options too much and drags the game down.

What I DO like about CWC:

I do like the combined arms focus. Planes, choppers, artillery... these are well done and appropriately deadly and chaotic.  Admittedly, I bomb my own troops WAY more than is statistically likely, but I've laughed every time, because even that is kind of fun. If only the rest of the game was a bit more fluid on the table, and a little less arbitrary and frustrating.  I also like the rules for botches - double ones force a roll on a very fun "bad things happen" chart.

So Cold War Commander, adios.  Michael is accommodating me, and we'll be trying Fist Full of TOWs next for our 6mm Cold War games.  I'm hoping it work out better, and I have a feeling it will.

Pushing through Fulda Gap: 1984 (My Last Game of Cold War Commander)

Back to the 80s with some Cold War Commander. In the last game, the Soviets broke through at some cost, and now they are advancing up the main highway to Fulda. The highway runs through a narrow valley, and has two small towns strung along it. The Soviet objectives are to take the town and proceed to the far table edge.  A small US force is hidden in the area, force composition unknown. Onwards for the Motherland!

An infantry battalion in BMP carriers advances rapidly towards the first town while the two tank companies screen their right flank. Soviet artillery tries to shield their movements by covering the nearby hill with smoke.

However, due to the incredibly annoying CWC activating rules, the BMPs pretty much ended up as sitting ducks for an impressive array of American artillery and air power. Unable to get my main anti-air assets out of their friggin' trucks, there was not much to do except sit back and watch most of my infantry burn alive in their transports.

My opponent and host Michael had fewer points to build his force but chose them well, fielding a contingent of Abrams tanks as his main on-table force. In a risky move, he'd hidden them on the left (behind my smoke screen), and was able to activate them enough to get them around the smoke and onto another hill. He had a perfect shot of my tanks' side armor, but wasn't able to take the shot, due to those very annoying activation rules.

However, the way opportunity fire works in this game, the moment I try to turn my tanks to actually be able to shoot at the Abrams (Russian tanks have a more restricted avenue of fire - apparently all of their turrets are broken), Michael will be able to shoot his whole line, even though he wasn't able to on his turn.  I have three choices: shoot with maybe two tanks against one of his, try to wheel the line to face the Abrams, or try and push straight past them. All three options meant weathering a full round of fire.

The enemy also dropped some smoke to limit return fire on the Abrams.

Michael had selected my force in advance, and had given me a sizable airborne contingent mounted in two helicopters. A questionable choice in the face of American air superiority. I decided to send them in to try and distract my opponent from the main event.

Predictably, one of the choppers is shot down, losing half of the airborne force in the crash.

Meanwhile things on the right flank proceeded pretty much how I thought they would. Between artillery fire suppressing one of the two companies, and opportunity fire from the American tanks, I managed to get a single tank platoon clear of the trap, with one other platoon destroyed by fire and the other suppressed.

Knowing I needed some help, I had my HQ call in some air support. The chopper flew in to engage and, as seems to be de rigueur for me in CWC, it bombed my own tank platoon, destroying it.

The Abrams tanks moved out to finish the job.

But honestly, the game was already over, thanks to absolutely punishing artillery fire which wiped out my entire infantry battalion before they could manage to activate and dismount.

Calling it a night after a very short game, Michael revealed his devious strategy. Putting nearly everything into tanks, the only thing occupying the villages was a single HQ unit.  A very risky strategy, but it worked out in this case.

The only other unit he took was an infantry company poised behind the hill on the left to react to my moves.  It was a very savvy and admirable strategy, but as much as I admire it, I felt positively hamstrung by a combination of the uneven knowledge available to both of us, and the rules themselves.

Losing a game can be a very fun experience. I've played epic games that resulted in total defeat, had desperate last stands against overwhelming odds, and led massive offensives that were blunted and taken apart by a wily opponent. But this game felt very different. Part of it was, I think, the rules of CWC itself, which I think are overall rather bland and lacking.  Part of it, sadly, was the way this scenario was developed by my buddy Michael, although I don't want to blame him much for my experience or undercut the wonderful work he did to bring the scenario to life.

Essentially, thanks to him being an enthusiastic host and preparing everything in advance, he had unintentionally given himself an unbeatable edge. He knew his force (which was deployed hidden), my force (which, to save time, he selected), and created the scenario and table with several weeks to go over it in his head.  I knew only my force, which I didn't even choose, and nothing else. I was doomed before we started.  In future, if someone picks my force, I'll insist on having the same info on their force, just so things are more or less even.  

Something we should all keep in mind as we prepare games for our friends I guess.

I'm not one to rage-quit a game, and I played it out to the bitter end (although from the 2nd turn it was clear there was little point in doing so), but this was probably the most frustrating single session of wargaming I've ever had. After four or five games of Cold War Commander, I'm realizing that, scenario aside, I find the game mechanics frustrating, win, lose, or draw. I've given it a solid shot, but I don't think I'll be returning to this rule set anytime soon. It's largely personal preference I imagine, but it is what it is.  I'm learning what I like in a rule set, and just as important, what I don't like. In my next post, I'll post my thoughts about CWC rules, and make some observations about how other rule sets handle the same issues differently.

Spanish Civil War: Vehicles!

I finally finished my first batch of Spanish Civil War vehicles. I bought most of these back with my first Minairons order (from Scale Creep) and have been painting them in stages. I finished the paint on the T-26 a couple of weeks ago, but I only now got to finish it up with weathering powders and mud in the tracks.

All four are Minairons kits. The tanks are plastic (possibly Plastic Soldier Company, like the AT Guns?), and the armored cars are resin. The tanks went together easy, and the kits are very inexpensive, but the final product felt... less than?  Honestly, if this were All Quiet on the Martian Front, I'd be raving about the quality, but Minairons sets a higher standard, and those tanks just don't have the same level of detail as Minairons metal kits do.   The resin however... easily the best resin vehicles I've come across. Surprisingly little flash (for resin), little sanding needed, and no bubbles or cavities like in most of the resin kits I've seen. I'm very impressed.

UNL-35 Armored Car. I've read that some consider this the most successful armored car of the war. I don't know about that, but it has two machine guns so whatever...

The rivets and detailing on this resin model are really quite nice. Even my wife made a comment when she noticed it (still unpainted) about what a nice model it was.

"Bilbao" Armored Car.  I have a soft-spot for this one. A clunky "Tiznao" vehicle (so in CoC it's "unreliable" and "easily catches fire"), the Bilbao can also take 6 passengers. Who also can catch fire.

The Panzer I - while a less successful tank than the Russian made T-26, these were still in service for the invasion of Poland and made up about 1/5 of the German tank strength for the Invasion of France. What strikes me is how tiny they are. One might almost call them "cute". Except dual machine guns don't like being called cute.

And finally, the tank of the Spanish Civil War - the T-26b. Imported in droves by the Russians, so many of these were captured by the Nationalists that by the later stages of the war they were able to field an entire battalion of them. That's the way of fascism though - "hey, you have better stuff than me. I'm coming over. Hope you like bratwurst."

I used some Martha Stewart (clearance!) "pumice gel" mixed with burnt umber pigment as my base for the mud in the tracks, and played around a bit with other pigments on the hull and for detail. Those buggers are hard to control!  I overdid it in a few places, but thankfully it seems that my matte spray blew some off and blended the rest far more than expected. An accidental bonus, as the vehicles ended up better than they looked last night.

One thing I'm not too keen on with the T-26 is the plastic half-figure they included. It just doesn't stand next to the Minairons figures at all. I'd break it off, but I lost the tank hatch. That's ok, I'm working on a second T-26 and I just tossed the figure. 

SCW Additions: Schneider Field Gun & AT Guns

Some new additions for both sides. I picked up a pack of Republican AT-Guns and one of Nationalist Artillery from Minairons and as usual with this company, I'm quite pleased.  First, the Republicans:

The guns are plastic, in fact produced by the Plastic Soldier Company, and are way easier to assemble than similar metal kits.  Two gun sprues are included, each with three options for the gun size/caliber. The sprues also include ammo boxes, shells, and spent casings, as seen on the figure bases. As for the poses, they are up to the usual Minairons standard and look great with pretty much no clean up.

They don't appear to include an officer however, so I'll need to add a figure for Chain of Command games.

The Nationalist Artillery:  the Schneider Field Gun is from Irregular Miniatures (as is the rifleman in the rear), and is in metal, giving it a very different feel than the plastic AT guns. The Artillerymen pack is just that - five artillerymen (one of them infiltrated the AT gun team in these photos) without a gun, including an officer. I found these figures to be of a slightly lesser quality than the Republicans (or any other minairons set), with the figures feeling a bit wooden in their poses. The sculpts however, are awesome as usual, with no clean-up necessary. I particularly like the way one of the standing figures has his coat hanging open. I added some boxes of ammo from the AT kits to the bases, as the Republican set includes more than you really need for bases of this size.